May 2021 – Into the Woods

Franz Schubert: Zum Sanctus

As I have said here before, few sounds on earth can equal the sound of well trained, well directed human voices singing together. There is the sound of the sea crashing against rocks, and birds in a garden on a spring morning, or children laughing and a cat purring. But, somehow, life on earth also learned to produce sounds like this.

The theology is dreadful, so it’s best to leave the German below as German. I was unable to find a decent YouTube performance that included the instruments scored below. This piece, like so many, is much more often murdered than performed well.

Defending against ticks

In the best of all possible worlds, there’d be no need for insecticides. But permethrin, at least, seems to be pretty benign. Permethrin is a synthesized version of pyrethrin, an organic insecticide made from chrysanthemums. The most scary thing about permethrin is how persistent it is. Clothing treated with permethrin can remain effective against insects (and ticks) through up to six washings. Still, it’s not very toxic to humans, especially after it has dried.

Each year, the tick situation seems to get worse. When I was a kid, I knew of only one kind of tick, the kind of tick that dogs got. But now there are several varieties, and I can’t distinguish one from another. I do know, though, that these days we have very small ticks, especially in the spring and early summer. They’re harder to detect because they’re so small, and their bites are just as offensive as larger ticks.

I have found that treating clothing with permethrin is very effective against ticks. It actually kills ticks — slowly, but quick enough to keep them from biting. On most summer days, two levels of defense are needed — permethrin for things that crawl, and Deet for things that fly.

The Center for Disease Control recommends the use of both permethrin and Deet. Also, here’s a nice article from NPR on permethrin. According to the article, it was the U.S. military that developed the method of treating clothing with permethrin.

Permethrin in liquid form is said to be toxic to cats. It’s best to treat clothing outdoors on a clothesline and leave things hanging until the permethrin dries. Don’t forget to treat your shoes and socks.

Some history of La Marseillaise

Please read the first paragraph before listening…

The first important thing about La Marseillaise, I think, is that it is a hymn. Hymns typically are written in four-part harmony for singing — soprano, alto, tenor, bass. This hymn has been subjected to an infinite number of variations, improvizations, and outright murders. It’s not easy to find a recording of the hymn sung in (fairly) simple four-part harmony. The above performance by the “the Minionaires” was as close as I could find. Now listen to the Minionaires. It’s only one minute and 44 seconds long…

As far as I can tell, it was only recently that the origin and true composer of La Marseillaise was questioned. Traditionally, the hymn is attributed to Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, in 1792. But was de Lile — gasp — a plagiarist? You can read on the web that, before he died, de Lisle confessed to the true source of the anthem. (He lived until 1836.)

If scholars have confidently established the truth about the history of La Marseillaise, I’m not aware of it. However, there is evidence out there that we all can hear!

A good starting place is Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C major, K. 503. The link below is an excellent performance of this concerto. The entire concerto is worth listening to, but if you’d like to hear the bits that sound like La Marseillaise, then skip to minute 12 or so, before the cadenza begins at 13:20. The literal quote from La Marseillaise starts at 15:03, but you’ll hear it coming long before that. Note that this concerto was written in 1786, about six years before de Lisle wrote La Marseillaise!

Keep in mind when listening to the performance above that the quote from La Marseillaise occurs in the cadenza of the first movement. Pianists get to improvise during cadenzas. There is no doubt that the pianist here, Kenneth Broberg, improvised into the cadenza a very literal quote from La Marseillaise. I’ve not attempted to find the score and see what the score says. But, when people have written about this, they usually say that elements of the first movement of the concerto “remind people of” La Marseillaise.

Mozart’s concerto was written in 1786. But it appears that a much more obscure Italian composer, Giovanni Battista Vioti (1755-1854), got there first. The claim in the YouTube video below is that Vioti wrote this theme in 1781:

It sounds like a smoking gun to me!

Europe at the time, it seems, was in a fever of patriotism and revolution. We Americans earned our democracy during this period. But all we got for a national anthem was “The Star Spangled Banner.”

Extra credit: Since you skipped straight to La Marseillaise part of the Mozart piano concerto, why not go back now and listen to the entire concerto. When I am in a certain state of mind, I spend a good bit of time on YouTube listening to, and comparing, musical performances. Too often, we suppose that our culture — and by culture, here, I mean European post-Enlightment culture — is being lost. But if a young pianist such as Kenneth Broberg can grow up in Minnesota and learn to play like this (Broberg was born in 1993), then it’s hard to imagine that anything is being lost. Some of the young musicians coming out of Asia almost stop my heart with their technique and the depth of their musical insight. To me, listening to music recorded around the world is an important compensation for my cultural isolation in the woods, in the provinces. Why do I listen in a state that I can best describe as incredulity, suspending disbelief? How can these young people do this? I know just enough about music to know how difficult it is. If anything, I would argue that, far from losing anything, our musicians are getting better. As long as we are a culture that can train these young musicians (and young writers — much more difficult and a subject for another post someday), then I would argue that the idea that we are a culture in decline does not hold up.

Peace of mind, and the weather

The basil in the garden is just getting started. This pesto was made from the last of the winter basil, which I grew in the kitchen windows. More about the mortar and pestle below.

Living in the woods as I do — reasonably secure, healthy, and retired — my stress level isn’t very high. I feel for those who are still in the world of work, living in heavily populated places, with heavy responsibilities and heavy demands. For four years with Donald Trump in the White House, peace of mind was tough even in the woods. Now, with Trump gone and on his way to prison, what’s the biggest threat to peace of mind for woods-dwellers? The weather, I would say. (Because it was so easy for me to isolate, Covid-19 never felt very threatening here.)

For several years, the rule for the weather here was warmer and wetter, with occasional and minor deviations. The spring of 2021 broke that pattern. Spring this year was strangely cool and dry, with late and destructive frosts. It hasn’t been raining. Some of the grass is turning brown. The birds are looking for water. They notice within minutes when I start the drip system in the garden and flutter down for a drink. A big part of my disquiet is witnessing the stress of the plants and animals around me. The trees should be fine, though. Only a prolonged drought (which does not seem to be in store for us in my location) is hard on the trees. It’s the smaller things that suffer.

The cold spring was a big setback for the garden. Things that I planted from seed — radishes, lettuces, kales and chards — just never germinated. Water was never a problem, though, because of the reliable streams just down the hill and a neighbor who hauls water up the hill with his tractor for our irrigation systems. Even ten years ago in this area, drip systems for garden irrigation were not the rule. These days, just about everybody with a serious garden has a drip system. I’m water rich, in that two streams come together at the lower end of the abbey’s five acres. One stream is fairly sensitive to recent rainfall, but the other is fed by nearby springs that no one remembers ever going dry.

The forecast is looking a little better. With luck there will be a modest rainy spell here starting in about five days.

Basil and pesto

When I was Googling for help on improving my skill with pesto for the 2021 basil season, I came across several articles saying that the old-fashioned way of making pesto — with a mortar and pestle rather than a food processor — makes a big difference. I’m hardly an expert on Italian cooking, but so far I can find no reason to disagree. It’s not just the basil leaves that like to be pounded with marble rather than whizzed with a stainless steel blade. The garlic and nuts also like it. The old-fashioned pesto ends up looking more textured, with the different ingredients more visible. And I do believe that the taste is sassier and somehow more complex. The large granite mortar and pestle (ordered from Amazon) has earned its place in my kitchen. The Cuisinart food processor has been with me for more than 40 years. Unless someone convinces me that hummus should be made with a mortar and pestle, the food processor is in no danger of being donated to a thrift shop.

Trump

Though I admit that I am far too preoccupied with politics, I’ve avoided posting about it. Trump is history. He does not deserve our attention except insofar as the law continues the slow process of sending him to prison where he belongs. Though the media have finally started to foreshadow Trump’s trials and imprisonment, they still cater to the Trumpian notion of Trumpian invincibility and the idea that Trump will get away with everything. My view is that Trump & Co. will be held responsible for everything they have done. Let’s not feel guilty about the schadenfreude. The payment, at last, of Trump’s debt to justice (and his dollar debt to Russian oligarchs and oil oligarchs and therefore his final bankruptcy), will be tremendously satisfying and healing to those of us who have had to live with Trump and his insufferable supporters. They are more insufferable than ever, actually, as their gloating has turned into threats, insane denials, and a doubling of their rage.

The weather

According to the Climate Prediction Center, the entire western United States is in for a serious drought this year. If the forecast is accurate, the eastern United States will squeak by. Still, summer is now a scary time, as scary as winter must have been for so many of our ancestors.

Making peace with summer

Every year, I think about how I might overcome my dread of summer, with summer defined as the hottest parts of July and August in the American South — temperatures well over 90F, high humidity, bugs, weeds, and indoor air conditioning as the only escape. Should I get a canoe for the Dan River? Nah. The cat wouldn’t enjoy canoeing. One idea I had today is to focus on improving my competence with Italian cooking. After all, I’ve got a garden, and if I can keep the garden going against the heat, humidity, the weeds, and the bugs, then I can be as rich with summer produce as anyone in Tuscany. We shall see. Tomatoes, squash, basil and cucumbers do an awful lot to ease the discomforts of summer.

The joy of dieting

A diet-day main meal of scallops and roasted cauliflower in a creamy tomato sauce. Painless.

To say that I’m an experienced dieter sounds like I’m making a joke. That’s because it reveals that, when I lose weight, I gain it back. That’s true. I do gain it back. But as long as one’s weight oscillates within reasonable limits, that doesn’t seem so bad.

It’s my belt that lets me know. When I have to loosen my belt a notch, it’s time to start thinking about a diet.

As much as I dislike (and postpone) making the decision to go on a diet, I always find that dieting is not so bad. A diet to me means 1,200 calories a day. That’s nowhere near a starvation diet. It’s also a predictable diet. On 1,200 calories a day, I lose about two pounds a week. So, when I start a diet, I know how long it’s going to last.

Medical opinion about dieting seems to be changing, moving toward a consensus that diets don’t work and that diets aren’t worth doing. If that’s the case, I very much disagree. Diets do work. If one gains back the weight one lost, then the solution seems simple enough: Diet again. To me, the discipline involved in managing my weight isn’t about maintaining my optimum weight. I’m bad at that. But what I’m good at is starting a new diet when my belt tells me it’s time to start a new diet cycle. The window in which my weight oscillates is about ten pounds. That window needs to be kept small, to make one’s diets shorter and therefore not as daunting to undertake.

Being an experienced dieter has its advantages, chiefly familiarity and predictability. How to go about dieting is probably very confusing to many people, because there are so many theories, so many specialty diets, and so many books and articles on dieting.

But the fundamental science of dieting has not been overturned. If you consume fewer calories each day than your body burns, you’ll lose weight.

Therefore, as I see it, counting calories is essential. One could invent a specialty diet based on eating nothing but Krispy Kreme doughnuts. That would work, if one counted calories. But that would be a miserable diet that would be terrible for one’s health. It would be miserable because the carbs involved would make one hungry all the time. I have a saying, “Carbs today, hungry tomorrow.”

So, as I see it, the healthiest sort of diet also is the least uncomfortable diet. That means keeping carbs to a minimum. When I’m on a diet, I have to give up my favorite food: bread. Ideally, a diet should improve one’s health, not damage it. I find that fish (or tofu) and low-carb vegetables are ideal. One can even have three meals a day, if two of them are small. When I’m on a diet, I cook only one main meal a day. Breakfast, if I have it, might be a couple of teaspoons of peanut butter and sauerkraut. I might have popcorn for an evening snack. These days, with fresh local strawberries to be found, the evening snack might be strawberries with a little cream and a couple of very thin cookies. This does not feel like a hardship.

It worries me when I see articles like this one in the Washington Post, “Five myths about obesity.” Encouraging this kind of hopeless attitude seems unkind, though clearly the motivation is kindness and tolerance for those for whom weight management is particularly hard. I understand that. But the unintended unkindness, in my view, is that it leads people to not even try to manage their weight, though they might want to. I also find some of the premises misleading. Though no doubt it’s true that there is individual variation in how calories are processed by the body, that does not mean that the law of calories in vs. calories out has been rescinded. It just means that individual variation must be factored into dieting.

I can testify that, in my 72 years, weight-watching is nothing new. Based on what I overheard from adults years ago, people did this even in 1958, when I was ten years old, when most people were more lean, and when I was told that I was going to dry up and blow away if I didn’t eat more. There is no such thing as not being able to lose weight.

Shadow and Bone

Who knew that Tsarist Russia could look so good? Actually, most of this series was filmed in Hungary. Not since “Game of Thrones” has a fantasy series been such a visual treat.

I had watched the trailer for “Shadow and Bone,” and I was skeptical. But I heard good reviews from friends. I’ve watched two episodes so far, and it has greatly exceeded my expectations. The plot is a bit thick. I had to watch parts of it twice to hang on to the threads. But two episodes was enough to hook me.

The casting is excellent. It’s a very attractive, diverse, eccentric, and charismatic cast of characters. The sets and settings are lavish. Filming must have cost a fortune. The music is very good. And the horses!

The series is based on a trilogy of fantasy novels by Leigh Bardugo. It’s available for streaming from Netflix. There are eight episodes in the first season. I’m surprised how little buzz this series has gotten.

An international recipe for progress

Scotland 2070: Healthy, Wealthy, Wise. Ian Godden, Hillary Sillitto, Dorothy Godden. College Publications (London), 2020. 218 pages.

What would it take for Scotland to attain the same level of wealth and wellbeing as the Nordic countries? This book lays out a fifty-year plan for accomplishing that. What’s remarkable about this book, though, is that its ideas easily translate to any country looking to the future.

I first became aware of this book from an article April 17 in the Guardian, “An independent Scotland could turn to Denmark for inspiration.” I ordered the book from Amazon.

Though one of the book’s subtitles is “An ambitious vision for Scotland’s future without the politics,” it’s not entirely true that there is no politics in the book. It’s pretty clear that the authors’ view is that Scotland can optimize its future only by breaking with the United Kingdom and becoming independent. The authors, though they are highly educated, are not scholars. They’re businesspeople. In the U.S., it’s generally safe to assume that businesspeople believe in conservative notions of small government, low taxes, keeping working people on the brink of starvation with no safety net so that they’ll work for cheap until they drop dead, crummy education, health care as a profit center rather than a means of keeping people healthy, and a manipulative and deceptive politics that ensures that people are preoccupied with cultural grievances and thus never figure out who is really eating their lunch. These Scottish businesspeople are the opposite of that. The central principle — a principle at last being advocated by America’s Democratic Party — is that government exists to serve the people. This is in opposition to the neoliberal principle that has reigned for decades, that government exists to serve private profit.

Twenty-five years ago I fell in love with Ireland on my first trip there. But Ireland has changed in the past 25 years, and not for the better. Ireland chose a low-tax, low-productivity, low-knowledge, low-education, low-equality neoliberal strategy. Global money thus poured into Ireland. The authors of this book use kinder language about Ireland’s mistakes. I’m more blunt. The way I’d put it is that Ireland greatly damaged itself and its people by becoming a global tax whore. But I’ve also been in Denmark a couple of times, where I admired the contrast between Denmark and Ireland and how Denmark has developed a prosperity that serves its people rather than the global rich. Scotland, on the other hand, has been pretty much in stasis, largely because Scotland is a tail wagged from Westminster. The United Kingdom — or should I say England — seems too inclined to waste time and opportunity by nursing its cultural hurts, which is holding Scotland back. If Scotland does become independent in the future, the power of global money would do everything possible to turn Scotland into another Ireland. The authors of this book understand that. It would be up to the people of Scotland to choose a better path by looking north rather than south, and that’s the point of this book.

Though it’s tempting to list the key points of this book’s vision, I think I won’t, because it’s a book worth reading no matter where one lives. I will say this, though. That vision of the role of government and the demands of the future have a great deal in common with the vision that President Biden has brought to Washington. California, America’s most progressive state, just announced a $75 billion budget surplus. Voodoo economics has had its day. It’s time to get serious about a sustainable green economy, with major new investments in education, health, and infrastructure broadly defined.

Go for it, Scotland.

Blackberry winter

⬆︎ A cold spell in May is nothing new in this area. Older generations, more engaged with the weather than most of us are these days, called it “blackberry winter” — a cold snap while the blackberries are blooming. This blackberry has invaded my abelia bush, but I’ll leave it for now. Spring this year has been oddly cold and dry enough to make me nervous. Is it La Niña?

⬆︎ The crimson clover bloomed about two weeks later this year than it did last year.

⬆︎ White clover perennializes and spreads. Crimson clover doesn’t. I’m making a tradition of sowing at least five or ten pounds of crimson clover in the yard each fall. I stop mowing to let it bloom. There is nothing more cheery than a stand of crimson clover on a spring morning. But where are the bees? A neighbor’s theory is that there’s a lot of things blooming for the bees right now, including trees in the woods, and clover is not the bees’ first choice.

⬆︎ My rhododendron has achieved a very respectable size.

⬆︎ Spiderwort. I have both white and blue.

⬆︎ The garlic is doing well. I’ve had to water it often, but the garlic likes cool weather.

⬆︎ I pruned aggressively in the orchard during the winter. The trees are tall enough that I was able to trim lower limbs to make mowing easier. Because of the pruning, the blooms were more sparse this year. I think that may be a good thing, though. Last year the peach tree, in particular, had far more fruit than the tree could support. I’m not sure that one could learn enough about keeping an orchard even if one had three lifetimes in which to learn. Every year is different. Fruit trees are like willful, unruly children. Some errors in keeping an orchard can be fixed. But there is nothing I will be able to do about the woods that adjoin the orchard on two sides. The squirrels come over the fence and steal.

⬆︎ This amazingly green romaine will have the honor of being the first thing in the garden to be eaten. The early garden this year was almost a total waste. The soil was just too cold for germination. My experiment with a cold frame did not go well. I hope for better luck later on, using the cold frame for winter vegetables. This romaine was started from a plant that I bought at the mill in Walnut Cove. We still have nighttime temperatures in the 40s (F) for the next week or more. I’ve put in a few summer vegetables, all of them plants from a garden shop, and will add more in a week or two. It’s still too cold, though, to plant summer seeds.

⬆︎ Each year, the house seems to recede a bit deeper into the woods. Still-young trees in front of the house — poplar, maple, and sycamore — will overhang the driveway in five or ten more years and pretty much obscure the house from view. That is according to plan. Many of the trees in the abbey’s yard are volunteers that spread from the woods. But the trees that Ken and I planted, including the many arbor vitae trees, were carefully placed so that eventually the house will feel enclosed in a stand of woods a bit less sparse, and more managed, than the wild woods at the edges of the yard. To live here is to forest-bathe, especially on the back side of the house. There may come a time when some trees will have to be sacrificed to provide more sun, especially uphill where the garden is.

⬆︎ I have only five acres. The adjoining property owners have much larger holdings of land. Fortunately the way they choose to use their land is agreeable to me. Even their gun range down in the creek bottom, though it’s noisy sometimes, is a good thing to have nearby. I practice my shooting there, with no apologies to the local Republicans that I’m a Democrat. They find it highly amusing, actually, that a San Francisco liberal is such a good shot and has a concealed carry permit. They might be surprised, actually, how many San Francisco liberals know how to shoot. That’s an antique rifle in the photo, a sniper rifle made for the army.

⬆︎ The neighbors seem to have, or to have access to, all sorts of heavy machinery. Here they’re digging out a spring on their land up on the ridge to the south of the abbey. The spring produces about five to ten gallons a minute. Their plan is to pour concrete and to build a springhouse. Stokes County is known for its springs, which a hundred years or so ago attracted summer tourists to the area that is now Hanging Rock State Park. The plan for this spring is to make it into a natural, backup water supply. Everyone in these parts has a well as the primary source of water.

⬆︎ This new bee hive belongs to the neighbors and is on the south ridge near the spring. Game cameras up there often get pictures of a young black bear whom they call Yogi. I’m concerned that Yogi will smash the hive, but so far so good. My clover is only about five hundred yards away as the bee flies. Hopefully it’s the sourwood in the woods that the bees are working right now, since they disdain my clover. Sourwood honey is the most prized of the local honeys.