b.rox

As I said back in February:

I suppose that being an extra in a big film or television production is always kind of weird. But it’s a truly bizarre thing to reenact events that one has experienced firsthand.

I haven’t written anything more about my experiences as an extra for HBO’s Treme because I thought it might be bad form to disclose anything from a production so far in advance. But as Ray points out, we’re almost there now. I expect this episode may air either tomorrow night or next Sunday.

I don’t have any plot points to reveal, no spoilers, nothing like that. By now, those watching the show may have noticed Dinerral Shavers in the last couple episodes. Anyone who’s read this blog, anyone familiar with recent New Orleans history, will know where that’s headed: a senseless act of violence, and the March for Survival.

As for me, despite my extra work, I don’t really know much more than that.

Being an extra is weird because you’re participating in a simulation of reality, and typically you don’t really know much about the bigger picture. You don’t know how the final production will look. In that, it’s kind of like real life. We act our little part, and we don’t know how history will judge us. I suppose I knew more than most of the extras about the reality we were simulating, but I’m still in the dark with regard to the finished program. Yes, I spent a day riding buses all over New Orleans for various re-enactments of the 2007 march. But these scenes will probably amount to only a few minutes of screen time at most. I wasn’t privy to much of anything beyond that.

I felt like I was a bit player in scenes from my own life.

When HBO first contacted me, I’d hoped that I would end up talking to some of the writers, but that never happened. I thought I could provide some insight into the march and the surrounding events, the precipitating events and the aftermath. But with something of this magnitude, they could certainly get good information elsewhere. I hope they did.

My initial contact was with a woman named Kaia. I did share some details, which she dutifully noted, like the fact that we marched with a snare drum in honor of Dinerral, or the fact that we wore white. But that information was available through other sources, so I suspect it was redundant. Kaia worked in casting, I think, and seemed primarily interested in connecting with the neighborhood to recruit extras. She invited me to participate too.

So, instead of informing the story on background, I got a street-level view of the production of some big scenes. I spent the day rubbing elbows with people who were doing it for the paycheck, or for a lark. Some of the people on my bus had participated in the 2007 march but most had not. There were also volunteers who showed up for a few scenes; I don’t think they were paid at all.

I left the house around 6:30 AM and was back by 5:30 PM. They fed us twice, and the food was neither awful nor good. The coffee was excellent, which was a surprise. A few weeks later I got a check for just under a hundred bucks, after taxes.

One of the first things I saw that morning was a wardrobe item, a jacket memorializing Helen Hill. There was a printout of a video frame pinned to it, showing the original jacket that a friend of Helen’s had made and worn to the 2007 March for Survival. I remember seeing that jacket. (Or at least I think I do. Maybe my mind is starting to play tricks on me. I believe this is called creeping surrealism, and it must be an occupational hazard for those in the biz.) I found this attention to detail impressive. But strangely enough I didn’t feel anything when I saw this. I didn’t feel a chill run down my spine. I didn’t feel a renewed sense of loss. I didn’t feel anything. I just felt numb.

First we recreated the Mid-City march. In reality, the Mid-City marchers rallied in front of Helen and Paul’s old flooded house on Cleveland Avenue. In the recreation, we convened at a table set up behind Fisk Howard Elementary School, a few blocks away. Later, the “Hasty Ray” scene was shot on Banks Street. In reality, we marched on Canal Street, and we did not chant anything. The first is a minor detail. As for the latter, I’m not sure. I think the solemnity of our wordless march with a snare drum (in tribute to Dinerral Shavers) was more indicative of the mood of marchers on that day than jaunty protest chants. But we’ll see how it come out in the edit.

Next we were in the CBD re-enacting the convergence of marchers from the Bywater, Central City and Mid-City. The street geography was a little off, but the spirit of unity that this was clearly intended to represent was very true to my experience of the day. If anything, the directors had to caution the extras not to act too jubilant. “This isn’t about winning the Superbowl!” We’re used to second lines and parades around here; I think it’s hard for a bunch of New Orleanians to walk in the street together and not get happy.

Later I found myself uptown, and then down in the Tremé under the “bridge.” I wondered about the wisdom of using extras in multiple neighborhood scenes like that. Doesn’t it hurt continuity? How about my face in multiple scenes around town? I really was in Mid-City and the CBD on that day in 2007, and I wasn’t anywhere else, and I’d like to think that detail matters. Hey, I may not be Meryl Streep, but a few people might recognize me. Then again, I may not even appear on screen, so we’ll just have to see.

I’m hipster-positive, as a rule, but nevertheless there was this one guy, a fellow extra, who really annoyed me. We were on St. Charles Avenue, and the directors were orchestrating the convergence of a white marching contingent and a black marching contingent. This hipster dude didn’t like how they were segregating the extras racially, and I have to admit he had a point. Crowds of any size here are usually mixed in my experience; making the crowd all-white was overkill. But the hipster dude started sounding off about how race is not an issue in New Orleans. He seemed to have a mental image of a city with no racial tension, no harsh disparities, no animosities, no ugliness. It was a wonderfully naïve vision. Maybe I saw things that way myself once. I tired explaining how anxiety over race relations played a major role in the politics of the moment that we were reenacting, but he didn’t want to hear it. Of course he only moved here a year ago. What a mook.

It’s my sense that the march will be depicted as a moment of unity for the city of New Orleans. But a moment of unity implies an underlying division.

I kept wondering when we would finish with the marching and get around to the rally. We never did. Finally I got word that the rally would be recreated from archival footage. I believe Dinerral’s sister, Nikita Shavers, will be the only speaker featured. But who knows? I’ll have to tune in to watch just like everybody else. Maybe I’ll see myself. Maybe I won’t. That doesn’t matter to me. I wasn’t in this for glory.

Until then, you can check out this set of photos I took throughout the course of the day. Be sure to read the captions as they expand upon the matters I’ve touched on here.

In the end, I’m glad I did it. I’m a fan of Treme. It’s the only TV show I follow, actually. Yesterday I gave a tour of the Lafitte Corridor to people from all over the country, who are here in town for the Fit Nation New Orleans conference. As I talked to my group, I found we touched on Treme repeatedly. At the very least, it’s a mechanism for accessing the city’s complex culture, which is a powerful thing. And, perhaps, it’s much more. History will be the judge.

This morning was the Lafitte (Corridor) Greenway Strategic Kickoff Meeting. It ran from 7:30 to 9:00 AM, which was a tad problematic for me. I’m usually getting my girl to daycare around 9 AM, and I really hate to rush our morning routine. Yesterday morning, she got into a mood and hid under the dining room table. “I don’t want to go to school!” So I was apprehensive. But she was understanding. She knows I go to meetings all the time, and when I explained I had a very important one this morning, and that they were starting without me, she was fascinated and very cooperative. Bottom line: I got her to daycare at 7:50 and made it to the kickoff meeting at Basin Street Station around 8:15. I was late and I was sweaty but at least I was there.

After the kickoff the planners started a tour of the corridor. I had hoped to take the day off and stick with them for the whole thing, but we’re doing our big annual seminar here at work this week, and so duty called me away.

Nevertheless I’m excited. Things are happening. Work has actually begun already. Surveyors were sighted on the corridor a couple weeks ago. I expect the first public planning meeting will take place some time in August.

I don’t believe I’ve mentioned it, but the house next door to ours was finally purchased. I believe it went for around $40K after sitting on the market for a year. The initial price was twice that. It needs a lot of work, which is underway. The new owner’s intention is to renovate and sell. The house is comparable in size to ours. If it sells for around the same price ($250K) it should be a good return on investment.

So once again we are living next to a construction site, which kind of sucks — but it sure beats the alternative. That house has not been occupied since the floods of 2005, at least.

Here are some pix.

The work crew consists mainly of three guys of Honduran origin. They like to listen to classic rock on the radio. They patronize the ice cream truck. They seem to know what they’re doing.

Today I saw they were putting up Tyvek. That brought back memories. Three years ago, at our old location, work on the house next door stalled out for months. (Same as our house, actually, just later.) Some of the house wrap came undone and would flap in the breeze. Because our houses were so close together it was like the flapping was right in our bedroom. It was driving Xy crazy, and finally I had to run out with a ladder and a staple gun and secure the errant wrap.

It’s been terribly dry here in Southeast Louisiana for a long time. In the midst of this drought, it’s hard to believe that the Mississippi River is riding at historically high levels. All that water is barreling down toward New Orleans. The US Army Corps of Engineers is opening the Bonnet Carré Spillway right now to divert some water into Lake Pontchartrain. More ominously, the Corps is considering opening the Morganza Spillway for the first time in 35 years. That would divert a huge amount of the Mississippi’s flow into the Atchafalaya River basin.

I’ve been wondering about the consequences of this. I understand it would put a lot of farmland under water. It would destroy crops and perhaps even livelihoods. These and other sacrifices are being considered in order to protect Baton Rouge and Louisiana. It must be an awesome responsibility to make a decision like that. I can only hope that all the people in my fair city consider the sacrifice others may have to make on our behalf. How will we conduct ourselves to show that this sacrifice was warranted? Oh wait, this is probably about capital more than human beings. Nevertheless I feel for those people who may be flooded for our benefit.

The ironic part is that the Mississippi actually wants to flow into the Atchafalaya. It would probably have made the switch a couple decades ago if humans hadn’t intervened. The American Rivers conservation organization posted an article yesterday, The Consequences of Controlling a River Course:

If the Mississippi River were to shift course, the effects would be devastating. Several cities would be inundated and might require relocation. Oil and gas pipelines throughout southern LA would rupture and commerce on the river and in New Orleans would be severely disrupted.

However, in ecological terms, the Louisiana coast would be revitalized. The western part of the Mississippi delta would receive the sediment and freshwater it has been deprived of for decades. Increased sediment distribution would reduce coastal erosion, and provide nutrient-rich sediments for terrestrial and aquatic habitat. Additionally, this would reduce Louisiana coastal wetland loss, which currently occurs at a rate of 1 acre every 38 minutes. The combined effects of these ecological benefits would ultimately increase the sustainability of Gulf Coast fisheries.

Something to think about.

And, while the Corps fiddles with control structures, I suppose there’s always the possibility that control could be lost, and the water will have its way. Who knows what will happen?

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there — including my mom, my mother-in-law, my baby-mama, and of course the Great Mother: Mama Earth.

I love you all.

Forgive us, mothers, for we know not what we do.

News from around the world certainly has been interesting of late. Unfortunately it shows no sign of letting up. I call that unfortunate because “interesting” usually means “bad” so far as news is concerned. Even when bad news doesn’t affect me directly, it’s troubling and problematic for me in two different ways.

Of course it makes me sad to read of people suffering anywhere, but it’s more than that. Like many people, I often don’t know what to do or how to react. For example, I started following the story about the conflict in Ivory Coast months ago. This was before the revolutions and unrest started sweeping through other parts of Africa and the Middle East. I guess it caught my attention because I’m a fan of the reggae singer Alpha Blondy, who’s from that country. The conflict, revolving around a contested election, dragged on and turned bloody and eventually a lot of people were killed. I think the final death toll was tallied in the thousands. I’m not sure of the factual details. I could look them up, but why bother? In fact, I wonder more and more what is the point of being an informed citizen of the world?

Americans are notoriously uninformed about world events, and I find that aspect of our national character rather depressing; but on the other hand I personally am surrounded by plenty of intelligent people who are quite well informed, and I still have to wonder: Where does it get us? So we know about stuff going on all over the globe. Do we use that information in any kind of meaningful way? For many of us, our participation in civic life begins and ends in the voting booth, with a choice between two highly unsatisfactory candidates. Being aware of a bloody crisis in Ivory Coast doesn’t really factor into that decision at all. I often say voting is the least of our civic duties. Being an informed voter takes time and energy, as does keeping abreast of world events. I’d much rather see people actively engaged in their local community. It’s great if people can do all these things, but in my experience a lot of people are running around busy, busy, busy, overwhelmed by the stresses and demands of modern life. I’m certainly no fan of ignorance, but I’m just saying if you need to tamp down your vociferous news consumption to make time for active engagement, you certainly have my approval.

I was talking about this to MaPó a couple days ago and she turned me on to Kiva Microfunds. I’ve heard about microfinance, and Kiva’s been around for years, but I’ve never investigated this before. So I invested $25 in a loan to a shopkeeper in Uganda. It would have been more “poetic,” or something, to invest in Ivory Coast, but Kiva doesn’t currently have any partners in Ivory Coast. Faith needed that last $25 to complete her loan of $650, so it seemed like a good first-time investment for me. It’s not much but at least it’s some sort of way to be involved globally.

(I hope it’s self-evident that I’m not offering the above as an example of “active engagement” in the “local community.” It’s not. In fact, it’s the opposite. My friend Heather Duke shared a quote from Mother Teresa via Facebook: “Start by helping the person closest to you.” I’m down with Mama T on that one. My local involvements are well-known to anyone who knows me, and those efforts represent an investment of far more than $25, though I primarily give of my time and energy, rather than my money. Localism has to come first, in my view. I wouldn’t want to give the impression that I’m advocating we all invest in Kiva while ignoring our neighbors because I that would be a terrible idea.)

The other reason I find world events problematic is more personal and trivial: I constantly feel I should be writing about them here, even though I don’t have anything interesting to say. This is a journal of what’s going on in my life. When I read about a conflict elsewhere in the world, it’s not a part of my direct experience. But it can become an emotional force that impinges upon my consciousness such that I feel I have to account for it. If I leave it out I’m missing a major chunk of my day-to-day thoughts and feelings. Yet I really have nothing of substance to add beyond what’s reported in the media. For me to pontificate on the ramifications of the conflict in Ivory Coast would be the height of foolishness. So I’m left in a quandary, damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

It’s been a while, but I’m still aiming to catalog all the two-letter words in the English language. That brings us to am, which is a simple and common word. I’m sure you can use it in a sentence. But can you define it? According to the Wiktionary, it’s the “first-person singular simple present indicative form of be.” (I’ll deal with be later.) It’s a state-of-being verb, famously deployed in statements such as “I am that I am” and “I think therefore I am.” But both of those are translations from other languages: אהיה אשר אהיה (Ehyeh asher ehyeh) and Je pense, donc je suis or Cogito ergo sum. I’m trying to think of a famous am in original English but I’m drawing a blank. “I am a jelly donut,” perhaps? No, that’s Ich bin ein Berliner. Oh well.

Four words can be formed by adding a letter in front of am:

1. An ama is a female nurse (possibly a wet nurse) who looks after children, a variant of amah, borrowed from India or China. It could also be goat-hair fabric or an outrigger float.
2. An ami is a friend. I thought this was a French word, but apparently some sources consider it to have entered the English language.
3. Amp is short for ampere, a unit of electrical measurement.
4. An amu is an atomic mass unit, which is one of those acronyms that has evolved into a word, like scuba or radar. It must be tricky to figure out exactly when that happens.

Twelve words can be formed by adding a letter at the end of am:

1. As Emiril likes to say when he kicks it up a notch: “Bam!”
2. A cam is a little lopsided thing that turns around in various types of machinery.
3. A dam is a thing that beavers and humans build.
4. Gam is a slangy term for a leg, but also a collective noun for a group of whales, and apparently also a nautical verb for making a social visit at sea.
5. I think ham is too common to need definition.
6. Ditto jam.
7. For some reason we’re all familiar with the phrase “on the lam,” but no one can seem to explain what a lam is, exactly.
8. What, nam is a word? It’s listed in Webster’s 1913 as an obsolete term meaning “am not.” I think we should bring this one back. “I nam a crook!”
9. Apparently there’s a card game called pam. The jack of clubs is the highest trump in the game, so you can also call that jack a pam.
10. A ram is a mature male sheep.
11. A tam is a Scottish cap, short for Tam o’ Shanter
12. A yam is similar to a sweet potato. Some people use the terms interchangeably, but they are actually two separate and distinct tubers.

By the by, the two photos featured above are of a single church in New Orleans. The pictures were taken a year apart by two different photographers, and I guess the building was renovated in the interim. Neither of the photographers appears to live in New Orleans, and I doubt they’ve seen each others’ photos. Credits below.

The Church of I Am That I Am / Ari Frede / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
The Church of I AM THAT I AM / Mills Baker / CC BY 2.0

This used to be a mellow time of year for me. Mostly I work with faculty, and faculty tend to get very busy toward the end of the academic year. That means they have less time to work with me. But since 2009 that’s changed. There are two new factors that have made this a crazy time. We’ve started doing a week-long seminar that begins as soon as school ends. And then there are the honoree videos.

(The hike would be a third factor but we did it earlier than ever this year.)

The video project stems from when our new Vice-President of Academic Affairs instituted an teaching award. Each year, awards are given in three categories to junior and senior faculty, for a total of six awards. I was taken by surprise when I was asked to produce a video of each winner, to be shown at commencement. But when your boss’s boss’s boss asks you to do something, it’s generally a good idea to make him happy. So I’ve done my best at this task for three years now, though it’s just about the only video production I do at this job anymore.

This was an odd assignment, because the videos are extremely short — just 25 seconds each — and they have no audio. It’s just a little something to throw up on the screen while they announce each award.

I got my co-worker Jim, in Media Services, to help out. He did all the shooting. I set up the shoots, provided some direction, carried the tripod, and did all the editing.

We had to hustle to get them done because there’s a very narrow window of opportunity between when the winners are initially revealed and the commencement ceremony. It’s a lot of work and not much glory, but it’s mostly pleasant, and the short deadline means there’s a limit to the madness.

I just got the sixth video done yesterday, and then in the afternoon, I got a call: The script for this portion of commencement has been changed, shortened, and it no longer makes sense to show the videos. Instead, they decided to go with stills, which I exported from the videos.

No skin off my nose. Still, I’m a little bummed no one will see the results of our labor, so here with I present six short silent videos. I think they’re kind of cool, and in some small way they capture something of why I love working here.

You’ll note I didn’t shoot the video for that last one. We got that from Michael’s private archive. The University did not fly Jim and me out to the Middle East.

If they decide to stick with the still image format next year, I imagine they might ask the University photographer to take pictures of the honorees. If so, this may be the last time I’m involved. Which is fine with me. Our work in faculty development is inherently non-evaluative. We’ve worked for years to create a space on campus where faculty can explore issues around teaching without feeling judged. Being associated with these awards in any way has been slightly awkward. Perhaps this means next May will be less crazy for me.

Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It took me a good long while, but I finally finished a book by William Faulkner. I’d read a few pages from The Sound and the Fury a few decades ago, gave up, and avoided him like pellagra ever since. It took me almost half a year to finish Absalom, Absalom! but mainly that’s because I was reading with a support group that only met once a month.

Consider this description of language buried in the middle of Chapter VII:

that meager and fragile thread… by which the little surface corners and edges of men’s secret and solitary lives may be joined for an instant now and then before sinking back into the darkness where the spirit cried for the first time and was not heard and will cry for the last time and not be heard then either

Grim, eh? Now imagine a cast of characters pacing back and forth inside of this thing called language like animals in their cages. That’s how this narrative struck me.

It’s a dark and difficult book to be sure. In fact I read this for a group called “The Difficult Book Club.” One has to figure out how to read it. I recommend a slow but steady pace. This prose can’t be rushed; but if left too long, one loses the thread. When in doubt, try reading a passage aloud. It’s like poetry. It should not be a chore, though it can easily become one. Find the pleasure. Insist upon it.

Ultimately the book gives up its secrets in a most rewarding fashion. Upon finishing I turned back to Chapter I and it read like a completely different book. The words had not changed, only I had. What had previously seemed incomprehensible now made perfect sense. Moreover, I felt some of the mysteries of the Deep South had been illuminated, and that I now have a better and deeper understanding of this place where I live but was neither born nor bred.

Highly recommended, but not for everyone.

See what you missed?

Not to mention the maypole.

This was our second May Day party. I enjoyed last year’s so much that I wrote, “I’m already imagining what it might be like to do it again next year.” So, boom, now it’s a tradition.

In fact our celebration last year represented our first observance of a cross-quarter day, and so we might be said to have completed the Wheel of the Year, except the of course the Wheel never ends, and also I don’t recall what we did for Midsummer last year. I can’t call it a complete revolution until Lammas.

Twenty-five years ago tonight, I was at a bonfire in northern Sweden. I was astounded by the size of the thing — like a house burning.

It may not look like night in these photos, but remember that we were very near the arctic circle. By late June it hardly got dark at all.

Note the snow still on the ground.

The occasion was the last night of April, the beginning of May. I noted it in my journal as Walpurgis Afton, though now I read the proper term would be Valborgsmassoafton. In English it’s called Walpurgis Night, but the German name Walpurgisnacht is perhaps more famous. Beltane and May Day are also at this time. People call these spring festivals but I think they represent the beginning of summer. I wish we had a fire pit for a little bonfire tonight. Ah well. We are filling up the pool and having a party tomorrow. I’ll be serving cucumber-mint gimlets. We may even have a maypole. Stop by Sunday afternoon (roughly 2-6 p.m.) and join us.

This was going down on our deck last night.

Michael said we should play some Barry White for them — or the soundtrack from Godzilla vs. Mothra. Now there’s a mashup I’d like to hear.

This morning Persephone smacked me on the chest as I was carrying her into her bedroom to get dressed. I don’t remember why. She is so tiny I don’t think she could hurt me even if she hit me with all her strength. So in some ways it was no big deal, but I decided to make it into a big deal. Not at first, actually. First, I asked her for an apology. I asked her repeatedly. But she refused. I told her she’d have a time out if she didn’t apologize. Still she wouldn’t say it. So then we proceeded to have the longest damn time out we’ve ever had. It was not easy for either of us. I told her that she’d have to sit there until she apologized, and for her part she fussed and cried but mostly just sat there in silence. It seemed to me that our conflict had become an absurd contest of wills, a mere power struggle divorced from any notions of right and wrong. I kept explaining and re-explaining that if you hit someone you should apologize. And despite my misgivings I’m pretty sure Persephone understood exactly what this was all about. At one point, when I’d reiterated for the thousandth time that she could end this absurd standoff by saying sorry, she whined, “But that’s not truuuue.” She knew what I wanted but she did not want to give in. She stuck to her guns. I admire that. And of course I was feeling the pressure to get ready for school and work, and she was not, but I stuck to my guns too. I was seriously considering the expediency of spanking, but I stuck to my guns. And finally I won. Er, um, wait, no, this wasn’t about winning and losing. I mean finally my daughter saw the error of her ways and embraced right behavior. “I’m sorry.” Was that so hard? Apparently so. It sure took a while to get there. I’m not sure how long it was. Twenty, twenty-five minutes, I guess.Afterward I was wondering if this was a sick and pointless exercise in dominance and submission. But a subsequent incident makes me think it may have been worthwhile. She took an old doll down to the breakfast table. She noticed it had a hole in its chest. I almost dropped the granola when I heard her say “I’m sorry” to the doll. “I’m sorry I made the hole in your chest.” So maybe she did learn something after all.

Discipline sleeps on La Rambla / Chris Beckett / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Kalix, April 28, 1986 (twenty-five years ago today)

All of a sudden Sweden melted and I found myself in the Garden of Eden. No kidding. Today it got up to +10ºC. There’s still snow on the ground in lots of places, but much of it has melted now. Parched-dry streets streaked with rivulets of flowing water! Mirror-like pools in people’s front yards, reflecting a brilliant sky and an unclouded sun. The wind could be chilly, but you only felt the wind on certain streets or on a certain side of the building. And out of the wind it was warm. I lay down on a park bench and slept. Outside! Unbelievable.

Footnote: 10ºC = 50ºF. I had to look it up, because I’ve forgotten my Celsius just like most of my Swedish. Anders Celsius was a Swede, by the way. He died 267 years ago this Monday.

Yesterday was a strange one. I busted my butt to get on campus in a timely fashion. (Persephone had a bad case of back-to-school blues — not a fun morning.) But when I got here I found the lights were flickering. We had partial power — half voltage or something like that. My boss said her printer was making weird noises of its own volition. I was able to boot up my computer and get online briefly, but I soon lost the connection and then we lost all power. The phone system was also having problems. I was supposed to shoot some video of a faculty member who’s won an award; I tried calling him but couldn’t get through. Of course the elevators were not working, so Jim and I went down four flights of stairs and over to the next building and back up three flights. I’d figured we’d have to postpone the shoot but it turns out the faculty member’s research area has emergency backup power. So we headed back down the stairs and over to a third building, and up four flights. Fortunately that elevator was working. We had to wear biohazard gear: masks and coveralls and gloves and footies and hairnets. The gear was uncomfortable and the whole experience was unsettling. It was an animal research facility. I’d vaguely known it existed, but I’d never been there before. I found myself ethically disturbed. I guess that’s the best way of putting it. But we shot the video. I spent the rest of the day waiting for the power to come back on. But when it did the net was still not available. There’s not much I can do offline. It was “Quiet Day,” the day between classes and finals, and for once Quiet Day was really quiet. I talked to one faculty member who came to campus just for a meeting, which had to be canceled because the convener couldn’t access her e-mail to retrieve the agenda. Finally I headed home, and I had to agree with a co-worker who said the day was “mostly wasted.” I was patting myself on the back for being one of the few people who actually got something done. But then today Jim pointed out that the video we shot is probably not viable because our subject is wearing a facemask. You can’t see who he is. The Administration may also have concerns about the location and subject matter; animal research is a touchy subject. We’ll have to shoot it again. So the day was pretty much a bust after all.

So we’ve had Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Hellacious Saturday, Resurrection Sunday. Now what about today? “Easter Monday” certainly doesn’t cut it.

How about Wet Monday — also known as Dyngus Day? Sounds like Central and Eastern Europe is the place to be:

Dyngus Day or Wet Monday (Polish Śmigus-Dyngus or lany poniedziałek) is the name for Easter Monday in Poland. In the Czech Republic it is called velikonoční pondělí or pomlázka. In Slovakia veľkonočný pondelok (Easter Monday) is called Šibačka/Polievačka or Oblievačka too. All countries practice a unique custom on this day.

In Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic traditionally, early in the morning boys awake girls by pouring a bucket of water on their head and striking them about the legs with long thin twigs or switches made from willow, birch or decorated tree branches…

That sounds like a hoot. I wish I’d known about this earlier. I could have started my girls’ day off with a bang.

…Dyngus and Śmigus were twin pagan gods; the former representing water and the moist earth (Dyngus from din gus – thin soup or dingen – nature); and the latter representing thunder and lightning (Śmigus from śmigać or to make a whooshing sound)…. The custom of pouring water was an ancient spring rite of cleansing, purification, and fertility. It is alleged that the pagan Poles bickered with nature/Dyngus by means of pouring water and switching with willows to make themselves pure and worthy of the coming year…

Most recently, the tradition has changed to become fully water-focused, and the śmigus part is almost forgotten. It is quite common for girls to attack boys just as fiercely. With much of Poland’s population residing in tall apartment buildings, high balconies are favorite hiding places for young people who gleefully empty buckets of water or more recently throw plastic bags or water balloons onto random passers-by.

Of course here in the U.S. we have our own version. Most notably, folks in Buffalo, New York, apparently have the world’s largest Dyngus Day celebration. But, as a recovering Hoosier with some Czech heritage, I was most intrigued to note it’s also a big deal in parts of Indiana, particularly South Bend and (gulp) Terre Haute.

In scouring the net for more info, I came across a reference to slivovitz. A search on slivovitz dyngus led me straight to my old stomping grounds of Bloomington, Indiana, and Yogi’s Grill and Bar (where we used to screen episodes of ROX. At first I thought Google was maybe privileging Indiana-related links because of my history of interest in the area, but even logged out this story from the IDS comes as the top result. What are the chances?

“Dyngus Day is like St. Patrick’s Day on acid,” manager Chris Karl said.

“Slivovitz is disgusting, it’s gross,” Bloomington resident Mitch Taylor said.

Most party-goers agree with Taylor, but say it’s essential to do a shot of the Serbian liquor on Dyngus Day.

The reason slivovitz got my attention is because it figures in a book I finished — on Easter Sunday. So now that we’ve come full circle, you’ll excuse me. I’ve got work to do and then I’m off to pick up some Cipro and hopefully knock this crud out of my lungs for good.

Thanks to Deke Hager for jogging my dyngus, I mean memory.

Śmigus – dyngus / daniel kowalewski / BY-NC-SA 2.0

Some people say it’s irreligious to celebrate Hellacious Saturday. I say they don’t know church doctrine very well. Here’s what we’re having today: horseradish bacon deviled eggs, deviled ham, and devil’s food cake — with a little Belzebuth blond ale to wash it down. And here’s some music to enjoy while we feast. Happy holy daze!

Dear Persephone,

You’re thirty-eight months old today.

I knew this month was off to a good start when you told me your own version of an old knock knock joke. It was the old “orange you glad” joke which I’d told you a month or two before. An old friend from college had reminded me of it. Here’s your version.

Knocky knock.
Who’s there?
Carrot.
Carrot who?
Carrot you glad I didn’t say banana?

Clearly you got the structure but the pun eludes you.

Knocky knock.
Who’s there?
Tangerine.
Tangerine who?
Tangerine you glad I didn’t say orange?

I love that.

This was the first April Fool’s Day you’ve been able to appreciate. You proved remarkably easy to fool. I could point to the window and say, “Look! It’s the abominable snowman!” And you’d look every time. You loved it, though. We even cooked up a plan to tell the people at your daycare that your lunchbox was full of poop. But you were overcome by modesty at the last minute.

You had some pieces of tomato on your plate one night. You said one looked like a wheel, one looked like a rainbow, and one looked like a Muse’s shoe.

You are beginning to ask more interesting questions. For example, a few weeks ago, a sermon came on our house mix and you asked me who was talking. When I said “a Christian preacher,” you thought for a minute and then asked, “What’s a Christian?” I replied, “Someone who follows Jesus,” which led to some more interesting questions. Now I’m bracing for the inevitable: “What is God?” I’m sure you’ll ask that some day soon. Perhaps I’ll draw inspiration from a recent blog post I read and say something like, “God is an idea that helps people understand the world around them.”

Another question you asked would seem easier: “What is Google?” But actually this one stumped me. How to explain Google in terms a three-year-old can understand? It’s complicated.

For a few weeks you had an intense craving for stories. It seemed you were asking me to tell you a story from the moment you woke up until bedtime. As soon as I’d tell you one, no matter how good or bad it was, you’d ask for another. But this seems to have subsided at last.

Your speech grows more sophisticated daily, but you still have lots of funny expressions. For example, You say “talk it” instead of unmute. Like when we have the TV on, and we mute the commercials, and the program comes back on but the audio is still muted. “Talk it!” Which makes sense. For what it’s worth, my spellchecker doesn’t recognize unmute either.

You remain a great lunar enthusiast. Last week, when playing with your friend Lala, you noticed the moon was out and very nearly full. Lala said, “It’s the sun!” You hauled off and hit her in the face. It wasn’t a nice thing to do, obviously, and given that Lala’s nearly twice your size you are lucky you didn’t get stomped. But eerily enough it reminded me of my admonition a few months ago to “strike a blow for the moon.” Have you been reading my blog?

Sometimes you pretend that I’m the Big Bad Wolf. “Can you get me a glass of seltzer, Big Bad Wolf?” Then you’ll wave your wand and turn me into a prince or a king.

Best of all you have begun to spontaneously say things like, “I love you.” Just a couple days ago you came up to me while I was sitting on the deck and, without any prompting, you said, “When I grow up I want to be just like you, Dada.” You said it twice. Amazing.

It’s the anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon/Macondo/BP blowout disaster catastrophe oil spill. I don’t know how much coverage it gets outside the Gulf Coast, but oil is still percolating up in marshes here, and it’s very discouraging.

Generally I have supported science and the scientific worldview, but this debacle has shown how science is just a tool to be used and abused by the powerful.

We should know exactly what happened a year ago, and why. We don’t. We should know how much oil flowed out into the Gulf. We don’t. We should know how bad the environmental consequences are. We don’t.

Our ignorance is appalling.

A while back I saw conflicting reports on the safety of seafood from the Gulf. One scientist sounded cautionary notes, while another scientist gave the all clear. They were funded by opposing sides in the ongoing legal battles that have emerged from this catastrophe. The best science money can buy! I wish I’d clipped the article so I could cite it properly now, but at the time I was just too depressed.

Since I can’t even cite my sources, you’d probably do better to look elsewhere for informed commentary. I highly recommend this brand new article by John Clark:

Life in Louisiana, and on Earth, Struggles to Survive

But what, in reality, have the dominant extractive and petrochemical industries, and especially oil, brought to Louisiana? We are one of the poorest states. We are one of the least educated states. We are one of the unhealthiest states. We are one of the states in which government is most abjectly subservient to industry. We are one of the states most scarred by rampant corruption. We are one of the most environmentally devastated states. And now, the oil industry has damaged coastal wetlands and Gulf ecosystems, quite possibly for a considerable period into the future, in the worst marine oil disaster in history.

It’s enough to make anyone crazy mad.

I suppose I should make the connection: It’s stuff like this that fires me up to work on a project like the greenway. Active transportation is one way to reduce consumption of oil. It’s a very small sling against a very big giant. I’m not trying to put myself up on a pedestal; I’m just saying, do something. You’ll feel better, and it might just make a difference.

Oh, and by the way, some of my best friends are scientists.

IMG_6994 sample image for map stitching – aerial photography – / cesar harada / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

I got the test results back from my doctor. No charge for the office consultation, though it would have cost me ten bucks to talk on the phone. They have a new online system which allows me to see all the results myself, so allow me to copy and paste.

Test results 04/12/11

GLUCOSE 90 mg/dL N
UREA NITROGEN (BUN) 15 mg/dL N
CREATININE 0.80 mg/dL N
eGFR NON-AFR. AMERICAN 109 mL/min/1.73m2 N
eGFR AFRICAN AMERICAN 126 mL/min/1.73m2 N
BUN/CREATININE RATIO NOT APPLICABLE (calc)
SODIUM 141 mmol/L N
POTASSIUM 4.8 mmol/L N
CHLORIDE 105 mmol/L N
CARBON DIOXIDE 26 mmol/L N
CALCIUM 9.8 mg/dL N
PROTEIN, TOTAL 7.4 g/dL N
ALBUMIN 4.8 g/dL N
GLOBULIN 2.6 g/dL (calc) N
ALBUMIN/GLOBULIN RATIO 1.8 (calc) N
BILIRUBIN, TOTAL 0.8 mg/dL N
ALKALINE PHOSPHATASE 67 U/L N
AST 18 U/L N
ALT 22 U/L N
VITAMIN D, 1,25 (OH)2, TOTAL 36 pg/mL
VITAMIN D3, 1,25 (OH)2 36
VITAMIN D2, 1,25 (OH)2 <8
TSH, 3RD GENERATION 0.87 mIU/L N
WHITE BLOOD CELL COUNT 4.2 Thousand/uL N
RED BLOOD CELL COUNT 4.31 Million/uL N
HEMOGLOBIN 13.3 g/dL N
HEMATOCRIT 39.2 % N
MCV 90.9 fL N
MCH 30.9 pg N
MCHC 33.9 g/dL N
RDW 12.0 % N
PLATELET COUNT 174 Thousand/uL N
ABSOLUTE NEUTROPHILS 1974 cells/uL N
ABSOLUTE LYMPHOCYTES 1680 cells/uL N
ABSOLUTE MONOCYTES 370 cells/uL N
ABSOLUTE EOSINOPHILS 172 cells/uL N
ABSOLUTE BASOPHILS 4 cells/uL N
NEUTROPHILS 47.0 % N
LYMPHOCYTES 40.0 % N
MONOCYTES 8.8 % N
EOSINOPHILS 4.1 % N
BASOPHILS 0.1 % N
SED RATE BY MODIFIED WESTERGREN, MANUAL 3 mm/h N
HIV 1/2 EIA AB SCREEN NON-REACTIVE N
HETEROPHILE, MONO SCREEN POSITIVE A
RPR (DX) W/REFL TITER AND CONFIRMATORY TESTING NON-REACTIVE N

I don’t know what half this stuff means, but the doctor talked me through a few items. I’m happy to learn that I am HIV negative. Also, I don’t have asthma. That isn’t listed above but they tested for it last week. Mostly, it’s a clean bill of health.

Except for one thing: I tested positive for mono. That’s EBV infectious mononucleosis, a.k.a. glandular fever, a.k.a. Pfeiffer’s disease, a.k.a. Filatov’s disease, a.k.a. the kissing disease. But mostly around here we just call it mono.

I was diagnosed with mono approximately twenty years ago. At the time I had three different doctors tell me three different things about my long-term prognosis. I was told you can only catch it once. I was told it can recur. I was also told I’d be feeling the aftereffects for the rest of my life.

According to Wikipedia:

Once the acute symptoms of an initial infection disappear, they often do not return. But once infected, the patient carries the virus for the rest of his or her life. The virus typically lives dormantly in B lymphocytes. Independent infections of mononucleosis may be contracted multiple times, regardless of whether the patient is already carrying the virus dormantly. Periodically, the virus can reactivate, during which time the patient is again infectious, but usually without any symptoms of illness.

Over the years I’ve noticed my lymph nodes have a propensity to swell up, often for no apparent reason. Sometimes they stay swollen for a long time. Since the mono virus lingers in the lymph system, this positive test result would seem to lend some credence to the idea that there’s a connection. I would not describe my immune system as particularly robust. Perhaps there’s something I can do to bolster it. I’ve been getting into herbal teas a lot lately. Perhaps a little echinacea and astragalus.

As for the lingering bronchitis, the antibiotic seems to have done the trick. I’m feeling fine, and better than fine. Hopefully I won’t relapse when the Z-Pak runs its course.

P1100765 / Thirteen of Clubs / CC BY-SA 2.0