Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggaugagoggchaubunagungamaugg, a guy-thing

Where were you?

I needed to relax, so I went for a drive.

I grew up in car-culture, where there was space to coast gently or even speed up without experiencing stress.

Really? That’s so funny. It’s such a guy-thing.

She was genuinely surprised, even though she had known me for a long time. But she had grown up in a city built for boats, surrounded by countryside originally designed for tractors and cows. Automobiles have extended their influence at an alarming rate over the past half-a-century, but this has happened with a competitive core feeling, and many drivers lurch at top speed from one red light to the next, not associating cars with calm.

I had never specifically thought about life in cars that way, although it’s true that driving a car was definitely a guy-thing while I was growing up. My mother drove if Dad was off at work, but when both parents were in the car; my father was always at the wheel. We sometimes drove to a favourite nature site in the Watchung Hills for a Sunday afternoon walk with the dogs. Vacation expeditions usually meant packing a picnic for a full day’s drive: parents in front, four daughters in the back. We sang songs together, practiced tongue-twisters, clung to long series of numbers to deliver a final sum and we answered riddles. All of this was administered by my father, who must also have felt that driving was a guy-thing, if only because he was doing it and there were no other males present. The arithmetic and riddle litany became familiar enough so that we were eventually able to recite the full answer as the question was being posed. When stories wore out, they were shelved, repeated no more. New and challenging riddles were introduced to keep the bar high.

Just around the time when I decided to start relaxing by going for drives, I was revisited by one of the archived riddles, in an otherwise inconspicuous article about long place names, naming Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggaugagoggchaubunagungamaugg as the fifth longest word in the world (Guinness Book of Records) and the longest name for any lake anywhere.

My father would ask:

What’s the meaning of Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggaugagoggchaubunagungamaugg?

We learned to answer:

You fish on your side, I fish on my side, and nobody fishes in the middle.

The riddle was one of Dad’s favourites, and having never heard it again since the childhood car-drive days, I felt as though his story-telling powers had somehow willed the Lake into existence, as a real place. I do accept the version which says that as a young man his imagination was piqued by this word of Algonquin origin, which he stored and passed on to his children as few others had done – I never had friends who were familiar with the sounds. But it felt, it feels, like a tribute to him that the lake is there, albeit officially known as Webster Lake, in the town of Webster MA, named after Daniel Webster (who left us a dictionary). The riddle was something of an oratorical exercise, and from a contemporary perspective, it was a lesson in Native American culture and New England geography. The competitive origins of this story would bear out years later as a girl-thing.

Rising sea levels in literature

Time to release my files, to offer transparency on documentation I’ve held onto, some of it for a very long time. First up: the “Roses are red…”quips written by a childhood friend on the back of a card which reads “Learn to complain without suffering.” This appealing take-off on the self-help industry was ahead of its time. As young girls we were amused by the messages on both sides of the cardboard. As an adult, I acknowledge that some cardboard should stay, but some should go.

Papers from my archive that can and should be recycled include blow by blow accounts of family feuds; detailed daily logs from offices, church organizations and sports clubs; Christmas newsletters containing hyperbolic reports of the achievements of one family; Certain love letters; Copies of third-time reminders of subscription cancellations; Photocopies of an article from a South Florida newspaper describing ´Floribbean´ cuisine from the ´mango gang.´ After all:
There are only four years to go before celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Julio Cortázar’s Cronopios and Famas (Historias de Cronopios y de Famas), a work addressing a number of socio-cultural concerns as relevant today as they were in 1962. Nonsense, you say, this literature of the absurd pokes fun at human foibles, but nothing is intended for serious reading. The author himself said he wrote the book for fun, but for many readers, this kind of fun can only be appreciated by those who have experienced not-fun or extreme discomfort. Cortazar’s commitment to the written word was experimental, intimate and irreverent. The texts in Cronopios and Famas are short, a length familiar to those who hoard undesignated jottings from train rides, notes from a seminar or thoughts that pile up during a telephone conversation and have nowhere else to go.

"As the scribes will persist, the few readers there are in the world are going to have to change their roles and become scribes themselves. More and more countries will be made up of scribes, and more and more factories will be necessary to manufacture paper and ink, the scribes by day and the machines by night to print the scribes’ work. First the libraries will overflow the houses, then the municipalities decide (now we´re really into it) to sacrifice their children´s playgrounds to enlarge the libraries. Then the theaters will go, then the maternity homes, slaughterhouses, bars, hospitals. The poor use the books like bricks, they stick them together with cement and build walls of books and live in cabins of books. Then it happens that the books clear the cities and invade the countryside, they go on flattening wheatfield and meadows of sunflowers, even though the Department of Highways manages to keep the roads cleared, even if only between two extremely high walls of books. At times a wall gives and there are terrifying automobile accidents. The scribes labor without let because humanity respects vocations, and the printed matter reaches the seashore. The President of the Republic gets on the telephone with the presidents of the republics, and intelligently proposes to cast the leftover books into the sea, which act is accomplished simultaneously on every coast in the world. Thus the Siberian scribes see their works cast into a sea of ice and the Indonesian scribes etc. This allows the scribes to step up their production as the earth again has space to store their books. It does not occur to them that the sea has a bottom and that at the bottom of the sea the printed matter is beginning to pile up, first in the form of a sticky pulp, then in the form of a solid pulp, and finally a tough though viscous flooring which rises several feet a day and will finally reach the surface. Then much of the water invades many of the lands and there is a new distribution of continents and oceans, and presidents of various republics are replaced by lakes and peninsulas, presidents of other republics see immense territories newly open to their ambitions, etc. Sea water, forced to expand with such unprecedented violence, evaporates faster than ever, or seeks rest. Blending itself with the printed matter to make that glutinous pulp, to the point that one day ships´ captains on the great trade routes report that their ships are advancing slowly, thirty knots drops to twenty, to fifteen, the engines sputter and pant and the propellers are wrenched and bent out of shape. Finally the ships stop wherever they are at different places in the sea, trapped by the pulp, and scribes all over the world write thousands of articles and books explaining the phenomenon and are filled with an enormous happiness. The presidents and the captains decide to convert the ships into islands and gambling casinos, the public arrives on foot upon the cardboard seas, and on these islands and casinos dance orchestras fill the night and sweeten the air-conditioned atmosphere and the dancing lasts until the early hours of the morning.. New printed material is piling up on the seashores, but it´s impossible to put it into the pulp, so that walls of printed matter are growing and mountains are being born on the shores of the old seas. The scribes realize that the ink and paper companies are going to go bankrupt, and their handwriting gets smaller and smaller and they use the most imperceptible corners of each sheet of paper. When the ink runs out they write in pencil, etc. When the paper goes, they write on slabs of wood or rock or on stone tiles, etc. The practice of intercalating one text into another begins to become popular, to take advantage of the space between the lines, or to scrape down the letters already printed with razor blades so as to use the paper again. The scribes are working slowly now, but their numbers are so immense that printed matter now separates the land completely from the bed of the ancient seas. On the earth the race of scribes lives precariously, doomed to extinction, and at sea there are the islands and casinos, or rather the ex-transatlantic liners, where the presidents of the republics have fled to refuge and where they hold enormous parties and exchange wireless messages from island to island, president to president, and captain to captain… (´End of the World of the End´, from Cronopios and Famas by Julio Cortázar, 1962.)

A Win-Win Situation

He is losing his edge, the articulate right-winger in The Hague who has provided one-liners and sound-bites for what seems like a very long time already. In one of his recent anti-Muslim rants, in this case connected with burkhas (or was it the burkhini?), he stood in front of camera’s - wearing a dark suit and light-colored shirt, as do most of his many dozens of male colleagues darting back and forth across the glimmering hallways of government buildings - and referred to women wearing burkha’s as ‘penguins.’

This Dutch parliamentarian with startling bleached blonde hair, from the PVV “Freedom Party” is (possibly) celebrating his breakthrough onto the international scene, as the person responsible for an anti-Islam anti-Koran film, not yet released, which has now triggered anti-Dutch demonstrations on the streets of northern Afghanistan. The Dutch government has officially distanced itself from the blonde’s inflammatory message, which could lead to loss of life; NATO officials have warned of further disturbances. For months the focus has been on the polarizing Parliamentarian and what to do about him. He doesn’t need official bodyguards - he has had them for years.

The film might just suddenly be there on the internet, but even if it never actually appears, the PVV-penguin will have enjoyed enormous attention because of his ability to aggravate and offend, one word at a time. I was recently reminded that it is quite easy to do this by drawing people’s attention to something that they don’t understand. That can be unpleasant. I wore a sign with core-Dutch content and non-Dutch form, so designed, I thought at the time, to draw attention to the message. This was not entirely the case.

The sign with white letters on an orange background reads in Dutch as ‘Hup Nederland!’ which translates as ‘Let’s go Netherlands!’ A more authentic rendition of the original cheer would have been spelled out as the alliterative ‘Hup Holland Hup!’ in Dutch as displayed in blue letters on the orange t-shirt manufactured for soccer/football fans from Holland.* This sign was designed by a Dutch citizen of partial Dutch descent, raised outside of the Netherlands, now a dual national here and in his country of origin, where his parents had settled as immigrants.

His choice of wording was, as far as I know, an unintentional step away from the norm. His choice of font, on the other hand, was deliberate, inspired mainly by the fact that said choice, once the exclusive province of typesetters, is now open to anyone at all. “Freedom of font,” you could say. The sign was assembled as a lark. He had not expected me to either print it or wear it, and his ambitions were totally divorced from social concerns. It became apparent while displaying the sign that this sign, which tricks the reader into thinking that the text is in Arabic, was unsettling to a small group of natives seated nearby.

On this occasion, an international skating championship in a Dutch (skating) town, the number of non-Dutch spectators would have been restricted to an infinitesimally small group, meaning that nearly all onlookers would focus warily on the sign because of its apparent foreignness. Initially skeptical of the non-Dutch English-speakers in their midst, those nearest by gradually became elbow-nudging allies, pleased that we were armed with lists of the draws for races and quick to comment on the athletes as they stepped up to face the start pistol. At this level, the Dutch skating fans cheer for everyone, and even losers are heartily applauded for achieving a personal best.

*The remarkable ambivalence of the Dutch national anthem, printed on the back of this t-shirt, will be focused on in future posts.

Peace without Printed Matter Pt.1

Free local newspapers, advertising brochures with shopping coupons, neighborhood weeklies, take-out menu’s and single-sheet ads for everything from chimney-sweeping and fortune telling to computer courses are plunked down on adjoining treads of the stone staircase leading up from the sidewalk to the front doors of four apartments, of which one is mine. In this country we have the option of pasting “Yes” or “No” stickers on the outside of mail slots, indicating acceptance or refusal of unsolicited printed matter. Some people are happy to find all of the above-mentioned stock lying inside on their door mat. The refusals can mount up, visually represented by the piles of paper cluttering the steps. Strong winds carry the loose sheets up and down the street. Paper, plastic bags, candy wrappers, cigarette butts and fallen leaves are blown to shelter behind the wheels of bicycles chained to the stands allotted by city authorities. Counter-gusts send a similar trail into shrubs and sturdy stems in the narrowest of strip gardens, created by removing concrete sidewalk tiles from the ground where the pavement meets the apartment building walls.

When advertisements from nearby stores lie on the steps for days, I have been known to carry the damp, dirty bundle over to the shops in question to point out that their expensive printing project was not going according to plan, and to ask them if they might renegotiate distribution contracts to include instructions that printed matter not be left in the open air. So far almost no one in the stores - however stressed by the environmentally-unfriendly evidence - has felt able to identify the point of origin of delivery, much less exert any influence. I abandoned that effort.

One day, as I walked down the street, I saw a woman pushing a shopping cart filled with printed matter. She was a middle-aged Dutch woman, very engaged with her work and completely open to conversation about recycling and keeping the streets clean. Apparently she had been instructed to leave bundles of paperwork halfway up the steps from the street, thereby encouraging residents themselves to retrieve items of their interest as they walk up to the apartment entrances. Going all the way up the stairs to check for “Yes” and “No” stickers on the mail slots was too time-consuming. And finding lots of “No” stickers would mean that she - with back troubles - would be stuck with excess matter at the end of her route, and it would all be thrown out anyway, so why not leave it on the steps, allowing residents who didn’t want it there to cart it off to the nearby paper recycling bins? She understood my point of view, however, and promised, whenever possible, to not leave papers lying around. I see her from time to time, but I’ve also noticed that certain kinds of hand-outs are now delivered by persons of foreign origin, badly dressed, thin - possibly undocumented workers, earning a pittance by handing out flyers. Most recycled paper from the Netherlands is sold to China for the immensely profitable recycling industry there, which, I now understand, is enormously polluting. The family behind China’s recycling industry has accumulated great wealth. I still do recycle, although I'm not sure why.

Things to think about on escalators

I was looking for a reference work on the fourth floor of the Central Public Library of Amsterdam. As spelled out on an English-language page produced for their website (http://www.oba.nl/): "The right to information is enshrined in law and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." An employee assigned to the fourth floor reference section had said that if there were any books with detailed info on the subject of drums from the Colombian Pacific rainforest, a key element in a text I was translating from Spanish into English, they would (probably) be on the shelves I was circling.

Coincidentally, the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces, the FARC, had reportedly just kidnapped (reportedly, because even with witnesses describing the culprits, their identity as FARC rebels has not yet been confirmed) a new group of people vacationing in the region referred to in the aforementioned text about the drums. The kidnapping itself was reported in international news sources but had not left what you would call a lasting impression. That's not surprising, as the new hostages vanished in the news shadow of another related event, the release by the FARC elsewhere, just days before, of two people who had been held for years. Those were high-profile negotiations. Colombia and Venezuela, the USA and France - just a few of the countries involved. The rainforest kidnapping may have now drawn Norway to the table.

I thought of this while scanning books for references to Afro-Colombian musical instruments. None were found that day, but a visit to this relatively new library is always fun. At the ground floor reception desk, visitors can pick up a foldable map of the ten-floor building, presented as Europe's largest public library. The classic library hush does not apply here, with scheduled and spontaneous piano performances audible on multiple levels, blending with escalator chatter from those en route to upper-level meetings, lectures, presentations or the view from the top-floor restaurant (n.b. the tuna sandwich displayed here upper right is no longer on the handy foldable map, perhaps in conjunction with the first recorded break-ins at the library, evidently carried out by individuals in search of restaurant cash).

Name as Gerund

http://www.boomerwolf.com/soundsmovies/single.au

The letter from Greece began with 'Deer Martha' and I imagined myself catapulted away from the computer, hooves clanging on bare floors as I struggled to stay in forward motion. I eventually found refuge behind trees and was thankful for the profound silence.

Martha Howley, Hooley, Ms. Horley - these arrived in the mail at later dates, with more boisterous connotations.

I completely understood the gender confusion and appeals to Mr. Hawley, Mr. Awley, Mr. Hawkey. Especially endearing was the message for Hans M. Hawley. My middle initial is actually "M," so it was impossible to know whether this was an encroachment upon my first or middle name. For a brief period I answered the telephone with "Hello, Hans speaking" to see how far this could go, but the Hans ID didn't really stick, and took up far too much time as I carefully screened callers, hoping to connect with the person who had called me Hans. I wanted to know why this had happened, but the story fizzled out in a series of exasperated explanations, and I let it slip away. There were other lines: Hauley, Hawkey, Hawky, Halwey, Hoawley, Fawley - it's astounding how many wrong names have reached me. I accept them all.

The freshest name has now come in clear black letters on a white surface. There was no address, and I missed the sound of the small package being thrust through the door. A beautiful new envelope arrived, bearing a gift and another new family sound, reminiscent of celebrities of our times. A gerund is a wonderful thing, releasing me from the still, dense forest.

Still, even or perhaps especially, under its own sounds: http://www.boomerwolf.com/soundsmovies/single.au

All Tar No Feathers

I tried to get a specific and clear appraisal of the roof problem from the plumber-turned-roof repairman still lingering in the doorway before he bolted down the stairs and vanished. I say ‘bolt’ because of his surname, which translates into English as “Rabbit,” and I imagined him, reluctant as he had been to use the ladder leading to the skylight roof access, applying equal strength of feeling to the moment of departure. We had climbed up onto the flat roof shared by adjoining buildings, hoping to see an obvious explanation of the new leakage once again leaving a delta of dark stains on my ceiling. There was in fact nothing at all ‘rabbity’ about the man, a lanky Dutchman with a broad, confident smile, unless one considers his enjoyment of conversation in a negative light. I did not. I was surprised, in several ways (mainly because he had initially politely turned down the customary offer of coffee/tea after descending from the roof and then suddenly said ‘Well let’s have that cup of tea’ when I persisted in my efforts to extract some meaning from this excursion to the roof, part of a long drawn-out sequence of viewings, assessments, e-mails, conversations and shoveling of roof debris into garbage bags), but my surprise diminished with the subsequent observation that his eagerness to converse found quite coherent expression.
The subject matter, it must be said, was changed almost immediately, from the roof dilemma to intercommunal frictions in the Netherlands. He asked for my opinion of an anti-immigration/anti-Islam Dutch Parliamentarian who attracts considerable attention with his inflammatory remarks about not only Muslims in general and their Holy Book in particular, but about most of his left-of-center colleagues and Her Majesty the Queen as well, remarks which have considerable following in the Netherlands, as demonstrated by his emphatic victory at the polls. In reply, I acknowledged that the Parliamentarian was successful in occupying the limelight but in the end must be seen as mostly destructive, prescribing more sanctions against those he did not like than solutions for problems facing us all. “Mr. Rabbit” revealed that he is a loyal Christian Democrat at election time, but one who is not indifferent to the persuasive arguments of the right-wing rabble-rouser, the only person addressing his anxieties experienced on the street where he lives when surrounded by roughly-hewn individuals of North African descent, most of whom do not appear to like him. Some of whom get away with very bad behaviour, when what is needed is severe punishment for their crimes, as demonstrated by the outbreak of extreme violence in Iraq following the defeat of the dictator Saddam Hussein. These people, he said, without wishing to offend anybody, clearly need to have the lid kept on tight, and if things do get a bit out of hand, force should be used to maintain order.
The conversation had shifted considerably from the moment in the doorway when I was intent upon gleaning something, anything, useful in thinking further about the roof. I tried in vain to return to the subject of repair, talking about the more recent efforts on the roof next to ours. I offered to show him the video I had made of the East European workers loading up the rubbish container under the supervision of a Dutch team leader, who became nervous when I popped up through the skylight and began documenting their labors which involved, with our permission, use of our roof space for their supplies.

The plumber didn’t want to see the video, so I tried to get him back on the topic of the disposal of roof rubble, which, in our case, had been left in our hands. The City Waste Collection Service, I had been told, will not retrieve roof debris containing dirt and vegetation as it could hold toxic waste. We had a dozen or so bags needing transport to a different kind of disposal lot, where the license plates of approaching cars are computer-checked as the driver approaches the entrance gate to verify the address of the owner and confirm eligibility for that particular dumping site. We never got that far, because someone bribed the city garbage collectors that same morning and they removed the whole lot. I don’t blame them for a minute. The garbage collectors receive little thanks for what they do, and the ultimate sham was perpetrated by the City itself, when a series of posters were printed in expression of gratitude towards these people. The words (in translation) “Thanks Joe!” (or other names, depending on the picture) accompanied images of smiling, handsome street cleaners and rubbish collectors - later exposed as male models! The workmen themselves weren't good enough? Some thanks. I had hoped to engage the plumber on these and other issues, but a pot of tea only goes so far.