Ruminatrix
...more recent posts
Monday, Jun 16, 2003
Baghdad after the Fall
The scale and seeming purposefulness of the sabotage has been the source of countless rumors. Iran's slick, twenty-four-hour Arabic-language news station—the only television available for weeks after the war—helped popularize one in particular. "The Christian right wing which controls Washington seeks to wipe out Eastern civilization," declared one commentator, adding that this evil intent was "based on the ideology of Francis Fukuyama that says ancient cultures have no value because America's superior culture has replaced them."
The vaunted accuracy of American bombing did not help the invader's reputation. When bombs strayed into civilian neighborhoods, it was assumed that these were deliberate targets. Leaving aside such "mistakes," the bombs also happened to destroy many of Baghdad's modern architectural showpieces. "Even Saddam's palaces, they were the property of the people, not of Saddam," complained a political scientist at Baghdad University.
Yet the loss must still be placed in the context of a land that has probably been ravaged more often by war than any other on earth. One of the world's oldest bodies of literature is the series of Sumerian laments for the destruction of the cities of Eridu, Nippur, Ur, Turin, Sumer, and Unug. Since its founding by the Caliph al-Mansour in 762 AD, Baghdad has itself been conquered by foreign armies no fewer than fifteen times, and razed to the ground more than once. Considering its fabled wealth and glory in medieval Islam, the city has markedly fewer historic monuments than, say, Cairo, Damascus, or Istanbul...
...I find Karim on a noisy street corner outside the hotel where he is staying, looking bemused and slightly uneasy. A former Communist, he fled the country three decades ago. He runs a publishing house in Damascus that has long been a haven for Iraq's exiled intellectuals. Now on the fringe of the furious politicking among Baghdad's myriad new parties, he has not been encouraged. Between fundamentalists intent on seizing power and Baathists determined to keep their clammy grip, and amid tensions between the "insiders" and those coming from abroad, there seems little room for dreamy liberals of the old school.
Naseer Ghadire, a young writer who has never left Iraq, tends to agree. Intense, thin, and with a passion for French philosophy and the Beatles, Ghadire spent six years at a Shiite religious seminary and three in prison before deciding Nietzsche was right about God. "No one wants to admit it," he says. "But the fact is that the only ones who really fought Saddam were either religious people or a handful of atheist intellectuals. The rest all felt that whatever his faults, he represented them, he expressed their nature."
Ghadire's own loathing for the fallen regime is unquestionable. And yet he says that just before the war, he confessed to himself that he had no desire to be "liberated." "It would mean I would have nothing to define myself against, nothing to fight against. I would have to be responsible, to think of living a 'normal' life." And besides, he adds, the sight of American soldiers slaps him like an insult...
...What makes the picture doubly uneasy is the Iraqis' own conflicted feelings. It is hardly possible for them to like America when they consider Washington's record of first supporting Saddam, then punishing his people with sanctions, then bombing the place to get rid of him. Yet neither do they have much liking for anyone else —none of the neighbors, and certainly not fellow Arabs who defended Saddam in the name of Arab honor. The Americans are an obvious affront to national pride, and perhaps even more acutely to religious pride. But they are also the only guarantee of security just now, and of the return to normality that is inherent in the promise to rejoin the wider world.
The ambivalence cuts across ethnic divisions. Kurds regard the two Bushes as national heroes, yet they fear that America may again betray them as it has several times in living memory. Christians yearn for Western protection, yet worry that the end of Baathist secularism may have uncorked the wicked genie of political Islam. The Shiite clergy, despite schisms over their proper role in politics, deliver a surprisingly uniform message. America has served its only purpose by getting rid of Saddam. Its army is here at our sufferance, and sooner or later we will make them leave.
More? Max Rodenbeck life after the fall.
Saturday, Jun 14, 2003
From the Ozarks to the Lower East Side
A picture of Pickles, 135 Rivington's newest tenant.
Friday, Jun 13, 2003
Don't Swing A Cat Here
Part of the plerasure of life in this city is the richness of the signage, particularly of the handwritten sort. A local halal snack bar, -- popular with Pakistani cab drivers -- on Houston near Avenue A, advertises fare priced by "plate" or "bowel" -ful. I will eat there soonish.
My favorite sign is not handwritten but carefully typed out. In the bathroom of a shiatsu massage place in the East Village is an idiosyncratic variant of a sign all bathrooms in NYC are legally obliged to display. It reads:
Empoyee Must Wash Your HandsNot funny, you say? Well it's in a bathroom with no sink in it, just a urinal. There's not enough room there to turn around, let alone have the employee wash your hands there. They do great massages, however.
Pannino
After work last night, walked home under thundershowers to bar veloce (the link shows their second location, but it looks just like the one on Second at 12th Street). There's always a tape of sixties b&w Italian movies playing on a video monitor. Bottles are stocked in perforated pillars. Grilled sandwich: speck and molten tallegio ($8), with a glass of Salice Salentino 2000 ($8) from Leone de Castris. Both delicious. Back out into the rain utterly satisfied.
Friday, Jun 06, 2003
Boulot, Metro, Dodo
In the middle of a thirteen-day work burst, which includes some 14-hour double shifts, so I have had very little free time -- for this, for TV, for dining out, etc, etc. The job has minor irritations, which would be easier to handle if we were making better money. But I quite like surrendering to the routine for now, the austerity of it. And I am learning some wine-related things too, not just at the high end. Still, it's tiring to spend 8-14 hours on one's feet. I'm short of sleep most days, hungry at midnight. So when I have "down time", instead of spending it planning my next move, or catching up on paperwork, I find myself napping or snacking...and now there's another full-time dependent to take care of around the apartment. More about her in a minute.
By the end of next week I should be able to scale back my restaurant work commitments to five days a week, though nothing's definite yet. I also want to check out what's available in sommelier courses, but I'm still trying to decide whether cramming my head with all that detail is what I want to do. You know, as in "do with my life," not as in "kill some time doing."
Pickles update: The vet says she can't go into the street for another six weeks, when she'll have a last round of immunization shots. Apparently NYC's sidewalks are too rich in bacteria for a ten-week-old puppy to handle. Meanwhile we are training her with disposable pads placed just outside the apartment, so she'll be ready to go outside later.
Her equivalent to the boulot metro dodo (job, subway, bed) triad is "piss/shit, play, sleep," with a tacit fourth term "eat" understood. Being a terrier, she plays in great manic bursts of crazy energy (plus chewing: signs of some teething?). These are punctuated by deep naps. Not unlike a two or three year-old child, really.
Thursday, Jun 05, 2003
Arrival
Pickles, a ten-week-old Bostom terrier puppy -- the runt of the litter -- arrived here last night. Originally she was to have been shipped to us, but there were delays and J was worried that she'd get to old to housebreak her properly. So yesterday our friend Peter flew down to Joplin Missouri to pick her up from the breeder. She slept well through last night, with Theo curled up on a mattress right in front of her crate.
She is a little flipped out by her changed surroundings, but that's to be expected when you come straight from a farm by the Ozarks to the Lower East Side. I reckon she will do fine here. Gotta go walk the dog.....
Saturday, May 31, 2003
Wine, work, whine
Back on the six nights a week work track, though I did get to go out one night this week. Dinner included a fabulous dessert of grapefruit in wine-jelly garnished with a cream tinged with scotch. This was so tasty and light that when our waiter offered one more for the table, we accepted at once.
Anyway, I haven't had much time for browsing or writing. Only for reading up on wine in general, as well as on newer French and Italian winemakers. Next I guess I'll have to buy Bastianich's Vino Italiano too.
I'm also looking for some small metal or robust plastic shelving or bins to stow dessert wines horizontally in a small refrigerator at work. The bottles are odd shapes and sizes, but mostly 375mls. I want under 14" high, preferably inexpensive, (i.e. not for display). Anybody know of a source?
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
Thin End of the Wedge
As has been reported by the NYT-- but not in screaming 24 point bold caps -- Donald Rumsfeld now "Echoes Notion That Iraq Destroyed Arms." Gotta love the faintness of "echo" being reinforced by the washiness of "notion". While not ruling out the possibility of caches of incriminating materials being discovered any day now:
"It is also possible that they would destroy them just before the conflict."Compliance with UN resolutions just before an ultimatum is now therefore equivalent to non-compliance -- just as the allegations of Saddam's sponsorship of Al Qaeda turned out to hinge on a tiny enclave on the Iranian border. But Mr Rumsfeld still holds out hope of vindication:
"There's going to be skepticism until people find out there was, actually, a WMD program.""Program" means "If we can't find large stockpiles of shells, we'll come up with a few foldersful of documents". And doesn't that "until" and its sly companion "actually" echo the notion of fully open-minded scientific inquiry? No, it sounds like the sort of thing a Kremlin official of the 1950s would say before a show trial.
Tuesday, May 27, 2003
...Saw No Sun
Bad weather (20 mph out of ESE and gusting, heavy rain setting in, small craft advisory) prevented our passage from Brick Cove to Coecles yesterday. Still got a bunch of dockside tasks done, and loved it. And had a great dinner of asparagus, grilled weakfish stuffed with lovage, salad, followed by rhubarb pie. Brunched on crab-cakes at the Frisky Oyster in Greenport.
Also got to know Chidiock Tichborne's single known work, his elegy "written in the Tower on the eve of his execution":
My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,Not bad for an eighteen year-old about to be hanged, drawn and quartered for treason. Now I have go to work. Maybe next time Theo can come along and she'll bring better weather.
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
And all my good is but vain hope of gain.
The day is past, and yet I saw no sun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
My tale was heard and yet it was not told,
My fruit is fallen and yet my leaves are green;
My youth is spent and yet I am not old,
I saw the world and yet I was not seen.
My thread is cut and yet it is not spun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
I sought my death and found it in my womb,
I looked for life and saw it was a shade;
I trod the earth and knew it was my tomb,
And now I die, and now I was but made.
My glass is full, and now my glass is run,
And now I live, and now my life is done.
Saturday, May 24, 2003
Get Your Gear On
A soggy Memorial Day weekend in New York, which feels less like May than late March. Fury the pug's going back to her real home today and we'll miss the ambient round-the-clock snoring -- she also sometimes snores when awake. Theo's puppy won't arrive for two more weeks, needing to put on a little more weight before the breeder in Pennsylvania will ship her out.
I'm shipping out for two days too, to help move David's sloop Blue from her winter quarters near Port of Egypt on the North Fork to her summer home on the western side of Shelter Island. Blue is a 13-meter LeComte North East 38 racing cruiser, built around 1969 in Jutphaas, Holland. (Jutphaas, on the Lek River, is probably not as beautiful as it sounds). It's only a few miles around Ram's Head to Coecles Harbor, but a lovely sail nevertheless -- out past the seine-rigged fishing boats in Greenport, past the ferries and past Bug Light into open water. It's not the ocean: Gardiner's Bay is well protected by Montauk and other islands. Then in through the narrow slot into Coecles. We'll time our entry for the rising tide to clear a sandbar by Red #10 in the inner harbor, then pick up a mooring with the boathook. Maybe sleep on board, but if so make sure we bring strong coffee.
A few ernes (or maybe they're ospreys) will already be in residence atop modified utility poles. Herons also love the reedy waters nearby. On a calm morning you may see someone out sculling, the blades leaving dragonfly rings in the water.
I don't get out on the water as much these days during summertime (and I didn't do any varnishing this winter), but I love this spring ritual: loading up bags of gear, hanking on the sails, fastening sheets and generally getting her ready for the season. Slow, deliberate movements. Checking everything over, stowing stuff in lockers. The creaks and the clangs of wood and wire, the first rumble of the Westerbecke diesel, the click-click of the winch ratchet during the hoist, the thunk of the sail filling, the swush and slap of the water along the hull when we turn the diesel off and lock the prop. We don't talk much, listening for these familiar sounds.
The trip back to the yard, usually in late September, is always a bit more melancholy, but just as enjoyable in its own way. It's a fall bonus if the tiny, tender, and resurgent Peconic Bay scallops are available (here's a few recipes). The season lasts only about two weeks, but they are so sweet you can eat them raw.
In some ways Shelter Island, so lushly green, is much more beautiful in this overcast drizzly weather than in it is during the summer months. A touch of damp cold in the morning really wakes you up.
To get your bearings (if the GPS isn't on), use the lights of Long Island.
