Cataract House by Kamala Boeck and Ayrian Gridiron (Empty Space 2025)

Last night, my wife and I had the opportunity to sit in on the first “tech week” rehearsal for the upcoming weekend performances of Cataract House at The Empty Space. This happened in large part because I will be out of town for the entire weekend run, and really did not want to miss this. Fortunately, I know some people, and Jesus Fidel (Costumes) and Perrin Swanson (Assistant Director, Light Design) invited us to watch a rehearsal. 

 

As a performing musician, I know how rehearsals go - there are always things to work on: it’s like making sausage. Except that actually, it was really fun to see. Most of the scenes went well, and the few hiccups should be ironed out over the remaining rehearsals. It’s going to be a great show. 

 

Cataract House is an all-local production. The book and lyrics were written by Kamala Boeck, who is part of the theater faculty at CSUB. She already has several plays to her credit, as well as experience in pretty much every facet of theater. 

 

The music was primarily written by Ayrian Gridiron, with contributions from Criston Moore and Gregory Carr. In contrast to TES’ usual practice of using pre-recorded music, this one was a combination of pre-recorded and sequenced backing tracks, and live on-stage contributions by Timothy Moore (percussion) and George Molden (keys). That was definitely a nice touch, and made for great musical transitions between scenes. 

 

The story of Cataract House comes from a real place in Niagara Falls, the Cataract House hotel. Renowned as a fine upscale establishment, it drew visitors from around the United States - including wealthy enslavers from the South. 

 

What was less known…until later, was that the African American staff of Cataract House were a part of the Underground Railroad, helping the enslaved escape to freedom in Canada. Led by head waiter John Morrison, the staff was instrumental in the self-liberation of many enslaved persons in the decades before emancipation. 

 

The musical is a fictionalized account of the Cataract House story. While characters are drawn from their real life counterparts, and many of the incidents occurred in real life, the specifics of the plot and the details of the characters are fictional, inspired by the true stories. 

 

The story of Cataract House - both the real life events and the musical - is definitely not a “white savior” story. While there are admirable white characters, the real drama, the focus of the story, is in the heroic actions of the African American characters, freeing themselves and helping others do so. 

 

The two central stories involve two different pairs in search of freedom. We first meet “Samuel Bonds,” a young man, and nephew to Morrison, who has just made it north on the Railroad. He is put to work as a waiter at Cataract House with his new name and forged freedom papers. 

 

Samuel struggles with ambivalence at his new life. After all, he is still waiting on white people who call him “boy” - is this true freedom? 

 

He meets a young woman, Nancy, who is enslaved by a wealthy Southern woman who has just married a leather tycoon. Nancy, beset by unwanted sexual advances from Mr. Cox, and blamed for them by Mrs. Cox, decides to attempt an escape to freedom. Along the way, Nancy and Samuel fall in love. 

 

The other pair is the cook, Albert, who has been waiting for a long time for his enslaved wife, Martha, to finally make it north to join him. Martha is pursued by her enslaver (and general creep) Mr. Blackwell. 

 

A side drama in the musical is the conflict between Mr. Cox and the progressive Ruth Howland, a feminist (and probably an abolitionist as well) artist, who finds the arrogance and racism of Cox and Blackwell to be disgusting. 

 

Presiding over all of this is the owner of the hotel, Solon Whitney, who in real life probably did look the other way as his staff emancipated the enslaved. He, like his staff, has to “play both sides” - to play the part in public to make the wealthy white people feel pampered. 

 

This is a musical, and that means songs. The style is soul and gospel, the music is catchy, and the lyrics are excellent. 

 

The cast is an interesting mix of stage veterans and first time performers. This was, I have no doubt, a bit of a challenge to put together. Acting, particularly in small local theaters, involves a lot more than just getting up on stage and doing your thing. Everyone has to be responsible for costumes, props, scene changes, and so on. 

 

That said, I was impressed by how prepared all the parts were, and how few issues arose - this was literally the first time through with all the lights and other tech stuff. 

 

For those who are local theater regulars, I’ll note the familiar names: Karin Harmon (Ruth), Mendy McMasters (Mary), Steve Evans (Solon), Don Kruszka (Blackwell), and Rikk Cheshire (Cox) - all of them familiar names. 

 

Also great to see on the Empty Space stage (I think I’ve only seen them at other local theaters) in lead roles are Liz B. Williams (Martha) and Avery Gibson (Nancy). 

 

I should give a special mention to Avery Gibson for directing as well as playing a lead. And note her past performances in Memphis at Stars, and Antigone at CSUB. She was a stone cold badass as Antigone, one of my favorite plays, and I am happy to see her on stage in any role. 

 

Opposite her was a newcomer to Bakersfield, Mathew Caleb Brown as Samuel. He looked and sounded great throughout. I hope to see more of him in the future. 

 

I’ll also make particular mention of Tyler Vernon as John Morrison. I believe I last saw him at Ovation in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, which is way too long of a gap. He has great stage charisma and expressiveness.

 

There are too many others to mention individually, but overall, a good ensemble. 

 

Two particular moments stood out to me as powerful. First is the song “Play Both Sides,” which is a fascinating portrayal of code switching. While I think all of us have to do this in some aspect of our lives, whether getting along at work, or dealing with difficult family, this is a constant reality that any minority group faces. Particularly African Americans in our racist society.

 

The second was the scene where Mary tries to claim that she has always loved Nancy. And Nancy replies, “You never loved me. You owned me.” This is a direct rebuke to the delusional white people who look back with nostalgia on past eras thinking that race relations were better back then. (Looking at you, Doug Wilson, and you, Phil Robertson…and so many others.) No, things weren’t better. It was just more dangerous for the enslaved and marginalized to stand up for themselves.

 

Finally, I want to commend our local theaters for taking on some more risky plays and musicals over the last several years. While the old warhorses fill the seats and keep the lights on, stretching audiences a bit is a good thing. These other stories need to be told. New voices need to be heard. In Cataract House, the Empty Space is telling an important story, and bringing new talent to the stage. 

 

Cataract House is a good story, and well told on the small stage at Empty Space. It runs Thursday through Sunday this weekend only - perfect for a celebration of Juneteenth. I highly encourage local theater lovers to come out in force and enjoy this inspiring story of love, hope, and solidarity. 

 

To learn more about the musical, explore the website. Tickets are available online and, if it doesn’t sell out, at the door. 

 

(Sorry I don't have cast pictures - those haven't come out yet. For now, enjoy this picture of the foyer exhibit of travel brochures for the real Cataract House, and other fascinating materials.) 

 

 

 

Darwin Comes to Town by Menno Schilthuizen

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

 

Before I jump into the book, I wanted to say a bit about the author’s name. When my wife saw me reading it, since the title is partly obscured by the library bar code, she noted the name and asked if it was by some religious sort. 

 

The answer is no - Menno Schilthuizen is not obviously religious - he is a Dutch ecologist and writer. 

 

The name “Menno,” while common enough as a Dutch name, also gave a name to a significant Anabaptist movement during the Protestant Reformation. Dutch pastor Menno Simons is credited with founding the movement that would later be named after him: the Mennonites. 

 

My family on both sides was once Mennonite: my dad’s mother, and my mom’s father were both the children of German Mennonites who fled Germany first to Russia, and then to the United States, due to persecution from the state over their refusal to serve in the military. 

 

By my grandparents’ generation, my ancestors had left the Mennonites and joined the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination, and had become pretty normal American Evangelicals. 

 

Mennonites these days are a very broad group, from the mainstream Mennonite Brethren denomination which is indistinguishable from hundreds of other conservative Protestant groups, to the Amish and other Luddite-leaning groups. 

 So anyway, about the book. 

 

The author is an ecologist, but specifically an urban ecologist. He studies organisms that live in cities - the organisms that didn’t build the cities, but have come to live there. 

 

Part of this study is the study of how organisms evolved and are evolving. Because cities do in fact drive evolution - often rapid evolution - as the result of the new niches, challenges, and opportunities that cities provide. 

 

Despite modern cities only being around for a couple hundred years, organisms have already shown significant evolution. 

 

As the book explores, there are differences in changes that do have to be teased out, and how that is done is part of the fun of this book. For example, is a change just a change in behavior? Did the organism learn a different behavior? Or is that now encoded in the genes? 

 

One of the ways this can be tested is to remove individuals from the city and countryside at or before birth, and test how they behave in specific ways. If both behave the same, it is just a behavior. If the behaviors diverge, despite no change to learn it, then it is genetic. 

 

To try to explain all of this in detail is beyond the scope of this post, because the author is able to put a tremendous amount and range of information into the book. It is easy to understand, yet fairly in depth - a nice balance. The author looks at everything from fungi and archaea to plants and animals. And how all of them are connected. 

 

I should also mention that, although the author is Dutch, the book is written in English, not translated. He clearly is multilingual, as the writing is excellent. 

 

I’ll just mention a few of the things he looks at, and share some of my favorite quotes. 

 

To start the book, he looks at the mosquitoes that live in the London Tube. Did you know there were any? Neither did I - but they will probably find me tasty if I visit London again. (And apparently during the Blitz, they plagued those seeking shelter in the tunnels.) These mosquitoes have already evolved noticeable differences both from above-ground mosquitoes and between the residents of different subway lines. These differences can be seen in the DNA, not just in the mating behaviors. It’s pretty wild. 

 

First, we have been taught that evolution is a slow process, imperceptibly whittling species over millions of years - not something that could take place within the short timespan of human urban history. It drives home the fact that evolution is not only the stuff of dinosaurs and geological epochs. It can actually be observed here and now!

 

In one of the chapters on various birds that have become so inseparable from human habitation that they are no longer found in the wild, the author also notes that certain species are “pre-adapted” to urban life. He notes House Sparrows and Pigeons (aka Rock Pigeons) that found urban areas to contain the same basic elements of their seemingly different natural habitats. 

 

Speaking of birds, I did not know the story behind how Starlings came to the Americas. They are a European native, common enough, and even mentioned in Shakespeare (Henry IV Part 1). 

 

And that is the problem. Eugene Schieffelin was part of a group that sought to “improve” North America by importing foreign species - and his particular way of doing that was to import and release every bird mentioned in Shakespeare. And thus we have starlings. In fact, about as many starlings as people. 

 

I also found the mention of Cliff Swallows to be interesting. This is an example where evolution has definitely happened just in the last 50 or fewer years. Here in my part of California, their nests are under any overpass that is near enough to a source of wet dirt - aka mud. Many of these overpasses have cars that whiz along underneath them, which is a definite hazard. 

 

To cope with this, swallow wings have evolved to be shorter, letting them turn faster and take off more quickly. Since the 1980s, when the swallows seem to have discovered the new nesting opportunities, wing lengths have shortened by an aerodynamically significant amount, while deaths from car strikes have declined by an astonishing 90 percent. 

 

And this wasn’t even the shortest evolutionary period that the author mentions. In a study on Anole lizards, importation to a new habitat led to significant changes in only 10 years. 

 

While adapting to human hazards such as vehicles can be done in part by behavioral changes as well as evolution, others are only possible by evolution. One example in the book is that of Monkey Flowers growing around California’s Copperopolis Mine. (Which is also the name of an excellent album by Grant Lee Buffalo…) 

 

The flowers have had to adapt to the high concentrations of copper and other toxins. And they have - a mutant gene is found in the flowers growing in the area that allows them to purge the copper. Similar genes have been found in other organisms from grasses to pigeons allowing purging or tolerance of other toxins. 

 

I have mentioned elsewhere once my dad was an “old earth” Christian, and generally believed in science. (At least back in the day - now, he is a climate denialist and anti-vaxxer and Covid conspiracy theorist. Sigh.) But we were drenched in the Young Earth Creationist view from church and school curriculum, which denied the reality of an old earth and biological evolution. I rejected all that soon after I became an adult, but have continued to follow what is going on in that world. 

 

And it is….weird. Really weird. 

 

In many ways, YEC has kind of embraced evolution, but insisted that it all had to occur during the immediate aftermath of the Flood, and…well, not it doesn’t make any sense. If you want to go down that rabbit hole, I recommend Naturalis Historia for deep dives into all kinds of stuff related to natural history and YEC silliness. 

 

There is a line in this book that I think really encapsulates the ongoing issues with YEC, and why I can’t even discuss science with right wingers. (Those two are connected.) 

 

In other words, Hunter the creationist made a distinction between soft selection, which he saw as an inevitable physical process, building on already existing materials, and the origin of something entirely new, new genes and new “kinds of organisms.” Only the latter, in Hunter’s opinion, deserves to be called evolution (and, needless to say, to his mind cannot exist.)

It’s amusing to see how creationism, in the face of ever-improving evolutionary knowledge, keeps moving the goalposts about what counts as evolution. Fortunately, this is not a matter of opinion. 

 

Science doesn’t care what you believe. Reality doesn’t care what you believe. And those who deny evolution will not be exempt from it. (A bit more on that later.)

 

Birds are mentioned a lot in this book. I think one reason is that birds are fairly intelligent but also reproduce quickly, making them excellent for studying evolution versus learning. 

 

I have to mention the incident of the Carrion Crows in Sendai. They have both learned behaviors AND evolved. The behavior is that they learned that cars can be used as giant nutcrackers for walnuts, which are too hard for crows to crack with their beaks. Originally, said crows dropped the nuts from high heights. But then they discovered that slow-moving cars were less work. You can watch them at work here. 

 

But there also appears to be a genetic element, an evolution caused by the pressures of natural selection. 

 

One of the most interesting passages concerns which species - and individuals within that species - are best able to adapt to urban environments. I think it holds a lesson for humans as well. Despite the wet dream of the right wing, it is unlikely that we will go back to an un-globalized world. Future humans are unlikely to be able to live in small enclaves of people closely related to them, and never depend on people outside their tribe. That boat sailed (literally) thousands of years ago, and the world has continued to shrink. 

 

And also, to urbanize. The two go together. A greater diversity and more people living close together. Adapting to this requires certain traits, none of which are characteristics of right wingers. 

 

This discussion is part of a story about finches and the way that urban finches solve complex problems far faster than rural finches. The author sees three traits that lead to success in urban environments: tolerance (of humans), neophillia (openness to new and unfamiliar objects and situations), and problem-solving skills. 

 

I think these apply very much to humans, which evolve on two levels. First is the biological level - and there is evidence that humans have evolved over the course of time (among other things, tolerance for lactose and ethanol…) Second is cultural evolution. Culture is a response to environment - as Maslow said, it is a way that humans work together to lessen physiological emergencies. As environments change - including urbanization and globalization - human culture adapts. So called “multiculturalism” is nothing more than an adaptation to a new reality. 

 

As a result, those humans who are better adapted to a global world, a more urban world, have the same traits as the other organisms suited to adapt. 

 

Tolerance of difference.

 

Openness to new experiences.

 

An ability to solve problems.

 

In contrast, the current temper tantrum by maladapted right wingers is based on intolerance, closed-mindedness, and a belief that only violence can solve problems. This is not likely to be a successful long-term strategy. Heck, in the short term, it has already damaged the US economy, world influence, and credibility in global human society. 

 

Moving on, I found another story to be fascinating: the residence of Dark-Eyed Juncos in San Diego. I am used to seeing them in forests throughout the western US - they come in multiple subspecies. Here too, there is actual evidence of evolution at work. In the wild, the patches of white on the tail are used to attract mates. 

 

In the city, however, the white makes the birds more visible to hawks, who have clearer lines of flight than in a forest. So, the white feathers are drabber and smaller on urban birds. 

 

(Fun note here: I live in the exburbs, and get a lot of birds in my yard. Including hawks. Recently, there was the annual spring fight between the scrub jays and a Cooper’s Hawk over nesting spots in our ash tree. I have also seen Kestrels, Red Tails, and Red-Shouldered Hawks regularly. What was most surprising is that during winters, we seem to have Northern Harriers in the neighborhood, flying super low. If you want to check out my birding page, here it is.) 

 

Another bit I thought was fun was the author’s use of an unfamiliar word: “unfankle.” Apparently it comes from the Scots, and means to untangle. So, the author wanted to untangle his mind by going for a walk. 

 

In doing so, he ran across a bunch of invasive city plants that were originally intentionally introduced. Many of these either are or have been in the yards of places I have lived. 

 

Wisteria, Hydrangea, Ivy, Privet (achoo!) for example. None of these are native to the US - they came from Japan. 

 

The final passage I want to note is the one on human evolution, perhaps driven by urbanization. Within recorded history, we have indeed seen evolution in humans in a number of areas, from height to nicotine craving. 

 

The author also speculates that there will be further changes seen as we become more able to look at the human genome itself. 

 

One particular question has to do with sexuality. And he doesn’t mean sexual orientation (which hasn’t changed perceptibly over human history), but sexual selection. 

 

It used to be that humans might only meet a handful of potential partners over their lifetimes. But with urbanization, most of us are in constant contact with hundreds of theoretically possible mates. Even before the internet expanded this even more, we had already seen the problem of choice overload as one of the causes of delayed marriage and parenthood. 

 

But humans evolve too, and this will find new expressions both in culture (which we are already seeing) and eventually in biology. 

 

A further question - one that is causing huge problems for males in right wing culture - is what will be considered desirable in a mate. Already, for humans, simply being big and strong hasn’t been the definition of desirable. Humans are social creatures, and functioning well socially and having the intelligence to solve problems have long competed with physical beauty to define desirability. 

 

In a further urbanized and globalized world, what traits will attract mates? There is increasing evidence that right-wing toxic masculinity is not selling well with the female humans. Perhaps instead, what is needed are those three traits listed above: tolerance of others, openness to new situations, and the ability to solve problems creatively. 

 

Or, maybe one could go all the way back to Darwin himself: an organism’s ability to survive and reproduce over time depends on its ability to adapt. You either adapt, or you go extinct. 

 

The lesson of urban evolution is that nature finds a way. Not every species will, and certainly not every individual organism. But where there is a niche, nature will fill it. As humans, then, we must either adapt, or as a species we will go extinct. As individuals, our ability to adapt our behaviors and culture to our environment will go a long way toward determining whether we will be the kind of species that will survive and thrive, or not. 

 

Poems 2006-2009 by Mary Oliver

Source of book: I own this

 

This is part of my systematic read-through of Devotions, my Mary Oliver anthology. As I have been doing with much of my poetry collection, I decided to read a portion of this book, representing the four collections Oliver released in between 2006 and 2009. (The book is in reverse chronological order.) The collections are Evidence (2009), The Truro Bear and Other Adventures (2008), Red Bird (2008), and Thirst (2009). 

 

I previously wrote about Oliver’s last collections in this post. I also wrote a bit about her life and style there, so I won’t repeat it. 

 

As with the other poems, I found a lot to like. My love of nature and the embrace of a loving Divine rather than the psychopathic view of God I was raised with means I have a lot in common with Oliver. 

 

It really struck me while reading this collection just how much Oliver retained the language and perspective of a faith that rejected her for who she was. Like me, another outcast from what passes for “christianity” in this country, she remained fascinated by the beauty of the faith, while rejecting both the ugly parts and the uglier inventions of later theologians. 

 

I also loved the way that she so easily speaks in the language of biblical metaphor. For so many of us, this was the mythology we were raised in, the old stories and parables, the way myth was used to illustrate timeless truth. (Literalism is a relatively modern hermeneutic - created in response to Enlightenment scientific thought and rationalism…) 

 

For Oliver, a lesbian who chose a lifelong loving relationship with her partner over theology, God was something rather separate from the institutions that claim to speak for the Divine. And I very much agree with that. Oliver, like William James, also saw a hard line between God and Nature to be fundamentally illogical and untenable. If creator and creation are entirely separate, then they can never commune, which seems to Oliver, James, and myself, as a barrier to even the idea of a relationship with the Divine. 

 

With the usual caveat that I could have chosen any of the poems to feature, here are the ones that I chose. 

 

First, this short gem from Evidence. 

 

We Shake With Joy

 

We shake with joy, we shake with grief.

What a time they have, these two

housed as they are in the same body.

 

There are several of these poems that are almost like proverbs, aphorisms, sayings. In that, they are very much of the Hebrew Scripture tradition. I have never believed that God stopped speaking to us once the Bible was selected 1700 years ago. Every generation hears the call, and our understanding of the Divine changes as our knowledge changes. Oliver is one of our modern prophets (see below), in my opinion. 

 

Next up is a selection from the multi-part longer poem, To Begin With, The Sweet Grass. If any poem tells the journey of deconstruction by telling it “slant,” this is it. 

 

7.

What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.

Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.

That was many years ago.

Since then I have gone out from my confinements,

            though with difficulty.

 

I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart.

I cast them out, I put them on the mush pile.

They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment

            somehow or another.)

 

And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.

I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.

I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,

I have become younger.

 

And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?

Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world. 

 

It really is scary, now that I have left Evangelicalism and become estranged from my parents, just how central to both faith and family was the idea that they had the right to rule my heart. And, now that I have left, I have been free to embrace those I was taught were the enemy: LGBTQ people, liberals, atheists, people with empathy for those outside the group. 

 

Another poem about deconstruction that I really loved was this one. 

 

Mysteries, Yes

 

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous

            to be understood.

 

How grass can be nourishing in the 

            mouths of the lambs.

How rivers and stones are forever 

            in allegiance with gravity

                        while we ourselves dream of rising. 

How two hands touch and the bonds will

            never be broken.

How people come, from delight or the

            scars of damage,

to the comfort of a poem.

 

Let me keep my distance, always, from those

            who think they have the answers.

 

Let me keep company always with those who say

            “Look!” and laugh in astonishment,

            and bow their heads.

 

Yes, let me keep my distances from those who think they have the answers to everything. Always. 

 

Another long poem that was excellent, but too much to reproduce in full, is the title poem, Evidence. I did want to quote a few stanzas, though, which were particularly excellent. 

 

I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in 

singing, especially when singing is not necessarily 

prescribed. 

 

And this one:

 

Memory: a golden bowl, or a basement without light.

 

For which reason the nightmare comes with its

painful story and says: you need to know this.

 

Some memories I would give anything to forget. 

Others I would not give up upon the point of

death, they are the bright hawks of my life. 

 

Oliver was sexually abused as a child, although she never gave details publicly. I can guess that those might be some memories she would prefer to forget. And maybe also ones who made her who she is. I too have memories that fall into those categories (although for different reasons.) 

 

Next is this somewhat humorous poem, the sort of prayer I would love to pray myself. 

 

Prayer

 

May I never not be frisky,

May I never not be risqué.

 

May my ashes, when you have them, friend,

and give them to the ocean,

 

leap in the froth of the waves,

still loving movement,

 

still ready, beyond all else,

to dance for the world.

 

Another poem, from Thirst, which contains a lot of religious imagery, is about prayer as well. 

 

Praying

 

It doesn’t have to be

the blue iris, it could be

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

small stones; just

pay attention, then patch

 

a few words together and don’t try

to make them elaborate, this isn’t

a contest but the doorway

 

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak.

 

I am somewhat reminded of a song by Chris LeDoux that also seems so much more real than the self-important excuse for manipulation that so many prayers seem to be. 

 

A nature poem opens the next collection, The Truro Bear and Other Adventures.

 

The Other Kingdoms

 

Consider the other kingdoms. The

trees, for example, with their mellow-sounding

titles: oak, aspen, willow.

Or the snow, for which the peoples of the north

have dozens of words to describe its

different arrivals. Or the creatures, with their

thick fur, their shy and wordless gaze. Their

infallible sense of what their lives

are meant to be. Thus the world

grows rich, grows wild, and you too,

grow rich, grow sweetly wild, as you too

were born to be. 

 

Next, I want to feature a particular poem from Red Bird that really must be seen on the page. I cannot guarantee this blog will reproduce correctly on your device, so if it looks off, check it out in print. The fun in this poem can be read in two different ways and still make sense. Either across, or in two columns. 

 

Night Herons

 

Some herons                           and that was the end of them

were fishing                            as far as we know - 

in the robes                              thought, what do we know

of the night                              except that death

 

at a low hour                           is so everywhere and so entire - 

of the water’s body                 pummeling and felling,

and the fish, I suppose,           of sometimes,

were full                                  like this, appearing

 

of fish happiness                     through such a thin door -

in those transparent inches      one stab, and you’re through!

even as, over and over,           And what then?

the beaks jacked down           Why, then it was almost morning,

 

and the narrow                                    and one by one

bodies were lifted                   the birds

with every                               opened their wings

quick sally,                              and flew. 

 

And here is another nature poem from the same collection, one which seems appropriate for our political moment:

 

Mornings at Blackwater

 

For years, every morning, I drank

from Blackwater Pond. 

It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,

the feet of ducks.

 

And always it assuaged me

from the dry bowl of the very far past.

 

What I want to say is

that the past is the past,

and the present is what your life is,

and you are capable

of choosing what that will be,

darling citizen. 

 

So come to the pond,

or the river of your imagination,

or the harbor of your longing,

 

and put your lips to the world.

And live.

your life.

 

There is another bit about living one’s life found in “Sometimes,” one of the longer poems. The whole poem is really excellent, so I recommend looking it up. Here is the bit I particularly noted:

 

4. 

Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

 

That is, perhaps, why I write this blog. To tell about what I have noticed and been astonished by.

 

I mentioned earlier that I thought Oliver was one of our modern prophets. If there is one poem which will endure as a symbol of the time we live in, of the American Empire, in all its cruel capitalism and white supremacy, this is it .It also describes the MAGA and white Evangelical ethos perfectly - what they really believe in practice, not the lies they tell themselves. I have quoted it so many times over the last decade, because it is pure truth. 

 

Of The Empire

 

We will be known as a culture that feared death

and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity

for the few and cared little for the penury of the

many. We will be known as a culture that taught

and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke 

little if at all about the quality of life for

people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All

the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a

commodity. And they will say that this structure

was held together politically, which it was, and 

they will say also that our politics was no more 

than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of

the heart, and that the heart, in those days,

was small, and hard, and full of meanness.

 

This has been the greatest shock to me, to realize about the people who raised me, about the church I grew up in, that these people have hard, small, and really fucking mean hearts. The idea that other people should matter to them - people outside of their tribe - doesn’t register at all. They casually speak of ethnic cleansing as if it were the only alternative. They refer to other ethnicities as “problems.” They casually reject the idea that we should take in refugees. They refer to immigrants as “fugitives from justice.” They openly state that it is acceptable for people to die because they lack the money for housing, food, or healthcare. 

 

And don’t get me started on how religious people fear death more than anyone else, and the more religious they are, the more terrified they are of death. And also how religious people seem more prone than others to see everyone else as commodities. (On average. The worst for this are rich fucks like Trump and Elon, who has openly referred to other people as NPCs.) 

 

Oliver really nailed it. And, more than anything else, this is why I likely will never participate in organized religion again. It seems nothing more than an apparatus to accommodate hard, cruel hearts. 

 

On a far lighter note, this next one is a bit how I feel these days. 

 

Self-Portrait

 

I wish I was twenty and in love with life

            and still full of beans.

 

Onward, old legs!

There are the long, pale dunes; on the other side

the roses are blooming and finding their labor

no adversity to the spirit.

 

Upward, old legs! There are the roses, and there is the sea

shining like a song, like a body

I want to touch

 

though I’m not twenty

and won’t be again but ah! seventy. And still

in love with life. And still

full of beans.

I’ll end with this musing, another poem which resonates with my own journey. 

 

Thirst

 

Another morning and I wake with thirst

for the goodness I do not have. I walk

out to the pond and all the way God has

given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord,

I was never a quick scholar but sulked

and hunched over my books past the 

hour and the bell; grant me, in your

mercy, a little more time. Love for the

earth and love for you are having such a

long conversation in my heart. Who

knows what will finally happen or

where I will be sent, yet already I have

given a great many things away, expect-

ing to be told to pack nothing, except the

prayers which, with this thirst, I am 

slowly learning. 

 

Once again, Oliver captures the feelings of the heart, the deepest longings, the unspeakable thirst. It was good to again read her poems. 

 

The Cruise of the Snark by Jack London

Source of book: I own this

 

Back in late 2020, during the height of the pandemic, but between surges, my wife and I took a quick romantic getaway to Sonoma County. This was before vaccinations, so there was some degree of risk involved, but we followed guidelines for masking, ate outdoors, and distanced ourselves from other humans where possible. 

 

It must have worked, because to this date, neither of us has had Covid. 

 

Since she had been working crazy shifts, she definitely needed a break, and we needed some time together. 

 

One of the things we ended up doing on the trip was visiting Jack London State Park, which is a fascinating place. London bought the place with the intention of creating a model farm - with some very avant garde ideas about agriculture and animal husbandry. For a combination of reasons, the farm turned out to be a money pit, and it was only London’s frantic writing that kept it solvent. 

 

After London’s untimely death in 1916, his wife Charmian inherited the place, and built the house that still stands. (The intended house burned before its completion while the London’s were away - you can still see the stone ruins.) She lived there until her death in 1955; both of them are buried there as well. 

 

Soon after Charmian’s death, the various relatives decided that the best option was to donate the land to the State of California, to be preserved as a park. It is a great place to visit, particularly if you are a fan of Jack London. But really, even if you are not, as it captures a certain era of optimism, progressivism, science, and new ideas. 

 

I mention this in part because one of the displays at the park is a model of the Snark, the boat which is the center of this book. 

 

London had a tendency to go from project to project, sometimes completing them, sometimes not. He took a fancy to sailing, and decided to have a boat custom built, then sail it around the world, writing about his adventures, of course.

 

The cruise of the Snark was not entirely successful. Jack and Charmian and their small crew only made it as far as Australia before Jack became so ill that the voyage had to be discontinued. 

 

In fact, in many ways, the whole voyage was a total shitshow. Even before the boat set sail, crooked contractors cut corners in its assembly. Construction went far over budget and took far longer than promised. It wasn’t even entirely complete when it launched, with some of the final work done after sailing to Hawaii. 

 

Other issues included navigation. Charmian’s uncle Roscoe turned out to be incapable of navigating, despite his claims. As a result, Jack had to teach himself the art using the books he brought along. To his credit, he in fact did learn to navigate quite well. 

 

The Cruise of the Snark is London’s account of the voyage, and it really is a classic of American humor. 

 

In contrast to London’s novels, which are typically full of Darwinistic ideas, nature red in tooth and claw, survival of the fittest, and other ideas popular at the time, this book is hilarious. London laughs at everything and especially himself, and finds the good in even the worst of circumstances. 

 

To be sure, there are some instances of casual racism as you would find in most books written by white men of the era. Since they traveled around the South Pacific, there were lots of opportunities. 

 

But I do want to note that despite London’s eugenicist beliefs, he was actually a lot less racist than his contemporaries. His account of the indigenous peoples is admirable in all except for a handful of places. (Regarding “cannibals,” naturally.) His interactions with the islanders was far more on an equal basis than not, and you will come away from the book with the overall impression of human fraternity. 

 

London also took the time to stay with people and partake in their food and customs without judgment, which is why the book is so full of interesting experiences. He and Charmian were both adventuresome, and open to experience. 

 

There are many memorable episodes, such as Jack learning to surf, the visit to the leper colony on Molokai, the visit to the site of Typee (by Melville), and even all the tropical diseases they all get. 

 

Throughout, the writing is excellent, filled with descriptions that take you right to the scene. London’s larger-than-life personality is evident throughout as well, and you can see how people would want to travel with him. 

 

The book opens with a fascinating combination of personal philosophy and nostalgia for a seafaring adventure when Jack was a teenager. It sets the tone for the entire book, and draws the adventure-seeking reader in right at the start. 

 

The ultimate word is I LIKE. It lies beneath philosophy, and is twined about the heart of life. When philosophy has maundered ponderously for a month, telling the individual what he must do, the individual says, in an instant, “I LIKE,” and does something else, and philosophy goes glimmering. It is I LIKE that makes the drunkard drink and the martyr wear a hair shirt; that makes one man a reveller and another man an anchorite; that makes one may pursue fame, another gold, another love, and another God. Philosophy is very often a man’s way of explaining his own I LIKE. 

 

He also talks about the fragility of life and the heartlessness of nature. 

 

Fallible and frail, a bit of pulsating, jelly-like life - it is all I am. About me are the great natural forces - colossal menaces, Titans of destruction, unsentimental monsters that have less concern for me than I have for the grain of sand I crush under my foot. They have no concern at all for me. They do not know me. They are unconscious, unmerciful, and unmoral. They are the cyclones and tornadoes, lightning flashes and cloud-bursts, tide-rips and tidal waves, undertows and waterspouts, great whirls and sucks and eddies, earthquakes and volcanoes, surfs that thunder on rock-ribbed coasts and seas that leap aboard the largest crafts that float, crushing humans to pulp or licking them off into the sea and to death - and these insensate monsters do not know that tiny sensitive creature, all nerves and weaknesses, whom men call Jack London, and who himself thinks he is all right and quite a superior being. 

 

And he continues with this idea:

 

I dare to assert that for a finite speck of pulsating jelly to feel godlike is a far more glorious feeling than for a god to feel godlike. 

 

As soon as London announced the voyage, he was besieged with letters applying to be part of the crew. He quotes a good many of them, often with snarky comments. Particularly about the ones where the person seems wholly unsuitable for a voyage by the terms of their own letter. Here is a bit that I thought was amusing. 

 

Every mail to me was burdened with the letters of applicants who were suffocating in the “man-stifled towns,” and it soon dawned upon me that a twentieth century Ulysses required a corps of stenographers to clear his correspondence before setting sail. No, adventure is certainly not dead…

 

The chapter on surfing is particularly wonderful. I could quote the entire chapter, but will make do with a couple of passages. This one describes the ocean in the most beautiful language. 

 

The grass grows right down to the water at Waikiki Beach, and within fifty feet of the everlasting sea. The trees also grow down to the salty edge of things, and one sits in their shade and looks seaward at a majestic surf thundering in on the beach to one’s very feet. Half a mile out, where is the reef, the white-headed combers thrust suddenly skyward out of the placid turquoise-blue and come rolling in to shore. One after another they come, a mile long, with smoking crests, the white battalions of the infinite army of the sea. And one sits and listens to the perpetual roar, and watches the unending procession, and feels tiny and fragile before this tremendous force expressing itself in fury and foam and sound. Indeed, one feels microscopically small, and the thought that one may wrestle with this sea raises in one’s imagination a thrill of apprehension, almost of fear. Why, they are a mile long, these bull-mouthed monsters, and they weigh a thousand tons, and they charge in to shore faster than a man can run. What chance? No chance at all, is the verdict of the shrinking ego; and one sits, and looks, and listens, and thinks the grass and the shade are a pretty good place in which to be. 

 

I don’t surf per se, but I do enjoy boogie boarding and body surfing, and it really is a thrill to get out their in big(ish) waves and feel the power of the sea. 

 

London spent a whole day learning to surf, and fully intended to do so the next day, but…

 

For the first time in my life I was sunburned unawares. My arms, shoulders, and back had been burned many times in the past and were tough; but not so my legs. And for four hours I had exposed the tender backs of my legs, at right angles, to that perpendicular Hawaiian sun. It was not until after I got ashore that I discovered the sun had touched me. Sunburn at first is merely warm; after that it grows intense and the blisters come out. Also, the joints, where the skin wrinkles, refuse to bend. And that is why, to-day, I am writing this in bed. 

 

I feel his pain. I’ve done that, although not to the point of blisters. Thank goodness for sunblock. 

 

The chapter on the leper colony is also excellent. London dispels many misconceptions about leprosy, including the idea that is easy to spread, or that it dehumanizes its victims. This chapter could serve as a stand-alone article, first rate reportage. The colony also made its way into a short story, which likewise humanizes the ill. 

 

On the other hand, the awful horror with which the leper has been regarded in the past, and the frightful treatment he has received, have been unnecessary and cruel. In order to dispel some of the popular misapprehensions of leprosy, I want to tell something of the relations between the lepers and non-lepers as I absorbed them at Molokai. 

 

The chapter on Tai Pe, described in Melville’s semi-factual book Typee, is fascinating but also deeply sad. Rather than the robust civilization that Melville encountered, London saw a dying community hollowed out by Tuberculosis and other imported diseases. It made him sad as well, but this was before treatments were available, so there was nothing to be done. 

 

I do want to quote a passage from this chapter, which has snarky Indiana Jones vibes.

 

So we took a short ride to break in, and crawled through thick jungle to make the acquaintance of a venerable moss-grown idol, where had foregathered a German trader and a Norwegian captain to estimate the weight of said idol, and to speculate upon depreciation in value caused by sawing him in half. They treated the old fellow sacrilegiously, digging their knives into him to see how hard he was and how deep his mossy mantle, and commanding him to rise up and save them trouble by walking down to the ship himself. In lieu of which, nineteen Kanakas slung him on a frame of timbers and toted him to the ship, where, battened down under hatches, even now he is cleaving the South Pacific Hornward and toward Europe - the ultimate abiding-place for all good heathen idols, safe for the few in America and one in particular who grins beside me as I write, and who, barring shipwreck, will grin somewhere in my neighborhood until I die. And he will win out. He will be grinning when I am dust. 

 

I mentioned that London’s experience in Polynesia was written with respect toward the islanders, and I think that is true. He starts with a quote from Polynesian Researches, an older book describing the islands. 

 

“On the arrival of strangers, every man endeavored to obtain one as a friend and carry him off to his own habitation, where he is treated with the greatest kindness by the inhabitants of the district; they place him on a high seat and feed him with abundance of the finest food.”

 

Melville too noted this, and argued that the use of the word “savage” to describe them was incorrect. One might even say that it has been the white Europeans and white Americans who have behaved most savagely. And, as MAGA has taken over the United States, we are doubling down on our savage behavior toward outsiders. 

 

London also describes a custom that I remember my dad (who grew up in the Philippines) also talked about. When visiting, you should avoid complimenting anything, because the host will give it to you as a gift. Cultural differences. In this case, London pokes fun at himself and Charmian, who walked right into this, and then had to figure out how to reciprocate from the things on board their boat. 

 

There is also a great description of “rock fishing” - where the entire village joins to herd fish using canoes and rocks. London, an avowed socialist, had a fun take on all of this. 

 

The man who originated it is not remembered. They always did this thing. But one cannot help wondering about that forgotten savage of long ago, into whose mind first flashed this scheme of easy fishing, of catching huge quantities of fish without hook, or net, or spear. One thing about him we can know: he was a radical. And we can be sure that he was considered feather-brained and anarchistic by his conservative tribesmen. His difficulty was much greater than that of the modern inventor, who has to convince in advance only one or two capitalists. That early inventor had to convince his whole tribe in advance, for without the co-operation of the whole tribe the device could not be tested. One can well imagine the nightly pow-wow-ings in that primitive island world, when he called his comrades antiquated moss-backs, and they called him a fool, a freak, and a crank, and charged him with having come from Kansas. Heaven alone knows at what cost of grey hairs and expletives he must finally have succeeded in winning over a sufficient number to give his idea a trial. At any rate, the experiment succeeded. It stood the test of time - it worked! And thereafter, we can be confident, there was no man to be found who did not know all along that it was going to work. 

 

That sure seems relevant today, yes? About everything from weaning ourselves off fossil fuels to building needed public transportation. Or universal healthcare. You name it. “It will never work.” followed by “I always knew it would work.” 

 

I’ll mention a few other things I found interesting. First is the mention of a favorite historical figure of mine: Nathaniel Bowditch. You can read my post about him, but I also recommend reading his biography. He was responsible for far more than the navigation tables mentioned here, from modern Trust law to corporate forms to Harvard as a leading center of learning rather than a finishing school for rich twats. 

 

Finally, the diseases. Oh so many horrid diseases. One is elephantiasis, a mosquito-borne worm parasite that clogs up the lymph passages. Yuck. The interesting thing about this is that unlike most mosquito-borne illnesses, humans are the only host for the adult worms. That means that if we eradicate it from humans, it will go extinct, like smallpox. And good riddance. 

 

London and company did not catch elephantiasis, fortunately. But they did catch Yaws, which is also nasty. It is a spirochete infection related to syphilis and Lyme disease, but spread through contact with scrapes or cuts. Which is why it is spread largely by children playing together. London didn’t know that, however - the cause and means of transmission wouldn’t be discovered until later. 

 

These days, treatment with antibiotics is effective, and, like elephantiasis, the disease could eventually be eliminated entirely. 

 

In London’s day, the only effective treatment was the same one used for syphilis: mercury. Yeah, that’s not at all ideal, because mercury is pretty damn toxic. In fact, while London’s early death had multiple contributing factors including alcohol abuse, very likely his kidney failure was caused in part by the mercury he used to treat his Yaws infections from this trip. He also was suffering from dysentery at the time, and the opioids he was taking both for the pain and to slow his intestines down may have been a factor. It was a sad and all-too-early end for a man with so much vigor and originality. 

 

It is ironic that Charmian, who was several years older, outlived him by 40 years. 

 

The Cruise of the Snark is a fun read, full of fascinating detail, good humor, and high adventure.