The Thin Red Line

Sunset falls as ferry crosses Eliot Bay

undated photograph by Joel Farmer

Today’s pic is for Ron, who admired the ferry pic I previously posted.

I confess that today’s books have all three been on my couch in varying stages of being read for a couple of weeks now and were not in my mind connected until Blog Rush advised that I could improve my click through rate with catchier headlines. My apologies to anyone who clicked through expecting a sensational story about a local government summarily executing exceptional jazz singers.

Compared to Chaucer’s Cantebury Tales, Tokyo Cancelled is a novel about delayed travelers entertaining each other by telling stories. A flight to Tokyo is diverted by weather and lands unexpectedly in an un-named city (presumably Delhi, India) where they find that an economic conference and the protests it has drawn have created a shortage of hotel rooms. Eventually all but thirteen of the planes passengers are dispatched to various accommodations when the remainder are told there are no more rooms to be had and settle in for a night in an airport lounge and begin telling each other stories to pass the time. The group of travelers proves to be from all over the world and each tells a very different story. The framework of this novel allows the author, Rana Dasgupta, to explore an unusually diverse range of ideas and settings, which he masterfully does, while never losing the believability of the ’stuck at the airport’ framework. A thanks to Cromley whose review first brought this one to my attention. Recommended.

I have never been a big fan of "self-help". While I firmly believe that each and every one of us must solve his own problems (if for no other reason than that nobody else is going to do it for you), I have rarely been a fan or a consumer of the mega industry of self-proclaimed experts with a sure fire scheme for resolving some problem or another they are convinced I have. Neither apparently has Jennifer Niesslein, whose Practically Perfect gently skewers a wide range of self-help gurus and movements. It reminded me a bit of Aunt Erma’s Cope Book, though in a very conversational tone that is evocative of a diary or journal rather than Bombeck’s laugh out loud wit. The book did not persuade me to try Real Simple or any of the other self help philosophies mentioned, but I am confident Niesslein never intended it to. Recommended.

Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams passed under my check-in scanner a couple of Sundays ago and caught my eye. I brought it home and read the introduction, which has a very "Drug War" tone and left me feeling the book would be more of the usual propaganda and set it aside, unread. Ron then picked it up and read it and liked it very much. He said that contrary to the impression I got from the introduction, this very readable history of prohibition in America clearly shows the lunacy and un-intended consequences that have flowed from our tragically flawed drug policies. He liked it very much and it is now back on my ‘to read’ pile. Jury still out on this one.

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My three days off passed all too quickly and mostly all I did was catch up on sleep. Did not make it to the museum or any where else, though I did go over to Kathi’s and sat out on the deck with Staci and Kathi one evening. Was a very nice visit.

Staci was supposed to fly home to Boise this evening, but last night she started having stomach pain and nausea and ended up going to the hospital. She is at St. Joseph’s in Tacoma and they believe she may have a new hernia. She may have to be transferred back to UW in Seattle and possibly have another surgery, but they are still doing tests and figuring it out. Her husband, Clint has made arrangements to fly over on Sunday to be with her. It will be great to see him, though I am So sorry she is having another complication.

The most interesting check-in today was Travel By Pullman, a 2004 book on the history of the Pullman sleeping car company. With lots of photos and illustrations and detailed look at what was once America’s standard of first class travel from the earliest days of passenger rail service in the 1850’s to the hey-day of luxury service in the 1920’s–1940’s, the effects of World Wars I & II and finally the decline of passenger rail service as airplanes and freeways became dominant in the 50’s and 60’s. I have traveled long distance by rain a number of times and always enjoy taking the train, though sadly I’ve never been in a Pullman (or any other sleeping car). I did enjoy reading about this unique company and the glory days of rail travel.

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In June 2002 my father passed away and Joel and I went to New Orleans for the funeral. While we were there, The Times Picayune, published a series of articles titled Washing Away that discussed the changes to Louisiana’s coastline and explored in some detail what the consequences might be if a major hurricane hit the city head on over this dramatically altered landscape. That was the first time I heard about Louisiana’s vanishing coast, though at the time I was far more concerned by the writers’ descriptions of what would likely happen in New Orleans when The Big One hit. Three years later when Katrina hit the newspaper would seem to have been prophetic (which made me want to spit when president junior went on tv to whine ‘but how could we have known…’ ummm, you could have read it on the front page of the newspaper.)

After recently reading several books about Katrina and its aftermath, I found my attention returning to the more basic issue of the vanishing coast and picked up a copy of Mike Tidwell’s 2003 book Bayou Farewell, subtitled The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana’s Cajun Coast.

Tidwell combines a detailed explanation of the forces that cause Louisiana to lose coastal wetlands at rate of more than fifty acres a day and the plans proposed to reverse this loss with intimate portraits of the three population groups that live in the coastal region– the Cajuns, the Houma Indians and the Vietmanese. Growing up in New Orleans I always thought I knew Louisiana. But I really don’t. At one point Tidwell speaks with a Cajun fisherman in Golden Meadow and is shocked to learn that the man has never been to New Orleans, 80 or so miles away.

Following along as Tidwell hitches rides on fishing boats around the bayou region, you get to know the people and their world. Most of Tidwell’s fishing trips are with Cajuns but he also manages to fish with a Houma and a Vietnamese. Their version of gumbo (with lemongrass broth) did not appeal to me but I swooned at the descriptions of the food at the blessing of the fleet in Bayou Grand Calliou. I learned a lot I didn’t know about the land loss and the proposed solution (which as of this date is still awaiting funding in DC) and about the people and the culture. And was moved to make jambalaya for supper. Mmmm, mmmm good.

The interviewer from last week called to say that they had decided to repost the position and that I was welcome to re-apply for it. Other than that I didn’t get it, I’ve no clue what that means but suppose I will find out. Ron seemed more bummed than I was that I didn’t get it, but I am focused on my interview tomorrow.

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