An old blog, but I'm hoping to bring it back. In 2020, I ran for President of the United States as the nominee of the American Solidarity Party, drawing some 42,000 votes. For most of my career, I taught history and other subjects, mostly in secondary school, nine years at a missionary school in Colombia, one summer in China, and the rest in California. I hope to spend my remaining years writing.
(We interrupt the previously scheduled episode recapping my 1972 Coming-of-Age Jaunt through Europe, to interject this Thanksgiving message.)
I am thankful, three weeks before my 73rd birthday, that most of my deadlines these days are self-imposed and freely adjusted. Had I been able to maintain my original plan, this week would have had readers with me in Jerusalem, where I celebrated my 1972 Thanksgiving meal with a jar of peanut butter and the loaf of bread I hoped to stretch for a few more days. Instead, the recap falls short by six weeks and eleven nations. I was still in England, and still thinking I would spend most of my sojourn in France. I anticipated upgrading my high school French and working on my novel. I certainly had no inkling of getting as far as Israel. I had, however, just committed to visiting a new friend in Switzerland.
I give thanks for my God-bestowed but only-recently-acknowledged ADHD. Even as—at this stage in life—unfinished projects challenge me in space and time, the fascinating twists and turns of my distractibility refuse to let me become bored. I am rich in both hobbies and relationships. All by itself, my whimsey in spiders has brought me friendly correspondents on six of the seven continents. My early teaching career allowed me to teach groups of junior high students, and in some cases, my later career brought me their children and grandchildren. Members of each group now show-up richly on my FB friends list. As God supplied me with diverse teaching venues, I once had a class of Cacua-speaking adults from the remote jungles of Colombia. They needed the basics of government and economics to help them pass their (Spanish-language) primary-school equivalency exams. We taught the class tri-lingually. Later, in China, I had three weeks with high school and college students who hoped to improve their English. Over the years, God gave me experiences with both public and Christian school students in California. In the middle, for a decade, I taught a tightly-knit cadre of students in Colombia. Some of those children I had the privilege of shepherding from fifth grade through twelfth, and I’m able to correspond with them now as adults. For all this I am thankful.
I am thankful for the families God has given me, both the family of my birth, and the family I began 50 years ago (next July) by marrying Vicki. In July, I camped with the cousins among whom I grew up. We who could remember our wonderful grandparents and great-grandmother could now see each other’s grandchildren. This week, Vicki and I have three of our five children, with their spouses, and seven of our fourteen grandchildren. My step-counter tells me that in the five days since the grandkids arrived, my daily walking stats double over the average from the previous six weeks. Few gratifications in life can match watching grandchildren grow and their parents negotiating the challenges. The oldest two boys have their voices changing. The younger ones still want to cuddle with Papa and have stories read. I also thank God for the amazing technology that allows me to teleport to Brazil to help homeschool my grandsons there, and then zoom over to England to keep current on the antics of my British grands.
My life puts flesh to the end-time description given by God to Daniel, “Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.” (Dan. 12:4, ESV). Living now, two-and-a-half millennia after God instructed Daniel to “shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end,” I am grateful to have a storehouse of ‘to-and-fro’ memories from visits to twenty-some countries. I also carry more information through my pocket phone than Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson could access had they owned every book then in print. I am thankful for capabilities unavailable to any previous generation. I am also grateful for the Scriptures that provide a solid place to stand as floodwaters shift the sand from all around us.
As a child born just at the end of two World Wars, I have lived through a Cold War and times of increasingly dangerous proxy wars. I am thankful that both I and my children have been spared the call to arms. Amidst ‘wars and rumors of war,’ I am thankful that, in my call to overseas service, I could carry literacy rather than kill-or-be-killed armaments. I could spread the Word of Life rather than the Kiss of Death. I am thankful to be living in a pocket of peace, the likes of which so many in our world are unable to enjoy. I am not facing a winter without heating, nor the threat of incoming missiles. I have done nothing to deserve these blessings that I enjoy, just as many of the people without them have done nothing to deserve their absence. Even in Colombia, which was struggling with a civil war within our earshot, I could say, as did David, “In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, LORD, make me dwell in safety.” (Psalm 4:8). For this I am thankful.
(A conversation, just now, with my Brazilian son-in-law reminds me how thankful I am to be familiar with the tastes of both the peaches, apricots, and plums that won’t grow in the tropics, and the tree-ripened mangoes, papayas, and bananas that only show up in North American grocery stores with a pittance of their sweetness and flavor. I have tasted avocadoes, sweet and creamy as only the tropics can produce them, but have temperate-zone persimmons in the back yard as I write this.)
I am thankful that though riches and fame were never high on my list of ambitions, God’s plan for my life has delivered for me a modest level of each. I enjoy a nice house, a satisfactory pension, and a yard big enough to entertain my horticultural curiosities. Although—as late as 2016—I entertained no ambition to run for elective office, in 2018, I finished ahead of the Libertarian in my race for Congress, and in 2020, an amazing 42,015 voters marked their presidential ballots for me. I am thankful for each one of you. That total exceeds even the popular votes for George Washington (39,624 in 1788-89, and 28,300 in 1792) and for John Adams (35,726 in 1796). I am thankful that both Washington and Adams performed so well in the strenuous times with which they were faced—as have generations of patriots since—and that my family and I can enjoy the benefits thereof. I pray that those benefits will continue.
Even as God blessed me in ways I never sought, He has also gratified the desires I did entertain. I wanted to leave the world a better place for my having been here. Now, I can look at five grown children who are each contributing to the betterment of mankind. I can look at three generations of students whose lives I have touched. I can see riders lined up to utilize a bus system for which God put me in the right place at the right time to help get started. I can look back at teenagers I encouraged in the 1980s—coming from the pre-literate, indigenous peoples of Colombia—students who went on to graduate from prestigious universities, and who now supervise educational systems they have built from the ground up, on land to which their people now hold legal title. I hear of hundreds now worshipping Jesus among people-groups that had none fourty or fifty years ago. Oh, the marvels I have witnessed! Thank you, LORD!
On this Thanksgiving Day, 2022, I pray that each of my readers will enjoy a time of family and good food. I pray for God’s peace among those, worldwide, who currently feel the weight of man’s free will, expressed as it so often is, as man’s inhumanity to man. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.
The time has come,' the Walrus said,
To mark our ballots and mail them in:
Of governors — and congresspersons — and ballot initiatives—
Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
And whether pigs have wings.'
I cannot get very excited about the coming November election, with early voting already upon us. I felt fortunate, during the primary election, to at least have American Solidarity Party candidates for some of the races, but now it’s all duopoly parties all the time. In California, that generally means Democrats will sweep the statewide contests, but maybe my local county will lean GOP. The slight of hand from both parties has primarily focused on whether pigs have wings. Neither party can offer solutions to our problem with homelessness, which I consider our most pressing problem. The Republicans have no power to enact their ideas, even if they had some, and the Democrats lack the will to demand the necessary concessions from key constituencies.
I will not vote to send any Democrats to Sacramento until their supermajority has been curtailed. Each of the duopoly parties has enough whack-a-doodle ideas that neither party should be allowed to govern without some semblance of balancing power.
For a similar reason, I fear letting one party control both Houses of Congress, especially the party that controls the White House. In either case, the deciding races will probably be in someone else’s district, so my votes will simply be to go through the motions.
The propositions, however, have my full attention.
Proposition #1: No. Enshrines Uber-Roe into the State Constitution:
The SCOTUS Dobbs decision did not affect even one potential abortion law in California. What it did do was give Governor Newsom a platform for over-kill grandstanding and launching a presidential campaign. His campaign to ‘enshrine Roe in the Constitution’ goes way beyond what the status quo under Roe and accompany his efforts to have California taxpayers subsidize abortions for residents of other states. Recently, Gov. Newson added $200,000 to the state budget in support of abortion, while earlier in the year he vetoed money for perinatal coverage. I support increased spending for pre- and post- natal care, but not for abortion. Unspoken in that is that these taxpayer subsidies will pass through the hands of these out-of-state mothers and into the hands of California abortionists, a group already powerful enough to demand that a likely President abandon support for the Hyde Amendment, handpick the Nation’s Vice President in 2020, and choose the Democratic Candidate in 2024. Even Pro-Choice Californians might want to think twice about this Administration’s tax-payer cash cow for Big Abortion, and say “No!” to the whole program.
Propositions #26 (in person betting) and #27 (on-line betting): No, and No. Schemes by which the State attempts to fill its coffers on gambling always function as a regressive tax. Then, the legislature can point at the gambling funds dedicated to various services and justify giving those agencies less money from the general fund. Government sanctioned gambling is always bad policy.
Proposition #28: Yes. Guarantees that 1% of any funds going to education must be dedicated to programs in art and music. This is especially important to poorer districts like the one where I taught. In rich neighborhoods, parents often pay for private lessons, or team together an raise outside funds for art and music lessons. Art and music ought to be part of the basic program at every school.
Proposition #29: No. Yet another attempt by Healthcare unions to force expensive new rules for kidney dialysis. Voters have already rejected this idea twice.
Proposition #30: Tentative yes. Initiates a new tax on high incomes, to use the funds for electric cars, charging stations, and to fight wildfires. My State Teachers Retirement pension does not put me in the high-income category, but we do face a question over how many high earners we can chase out of the state before it hurts the overall economy. It seems to me that a Capitalist system could find Capitalist solutions to create the required charging stations, but we do need to step up our game in fighting our annual wildfires.
Proposition #31: Yes. Bans the flavored tobacco products that are custom designed to hook young people. How long have we been trying to protect kids from early tobacco addiction?
On Saturday, I celebrated my birthday with a visit to the Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture, and took along my wife and my father. I try to get this museum as often as their exhibitions change, and Near and Far: Landscapes by Japanese Artists. Rotation 1: Imagination of Nature closes December 22. Its companion, Near and Far: Landscapes by Japanese Artists. Rotation 2: Idealization of Reality, opens January 6.
We arrived just a few minutes past 1:00 pm on Saturday, just a little late to catch the beginning of the weekly docent tour. Our three doubled the audience to six as Sonja Simonis, curator of this exhibit, talked about the individual artists, the 29 landscapes on display, and the represented traditions and influences, especially as the Japanese adapted what they learned from the Chinese. The Clark Center invites young scholars for assistant curatorial internships, and Simonis is the 18th intern in thirteen years. She told me she did most of her studies in Berlin, but researched her thesis in Japan. The collection goes back into the 15th Century, and some of the commentary refers back to about the 10th. Several traditions are represented: Zen priests who painted as a path to enlightenment; Daoists who painted as a path back to nature and tranquility; bunjin, or literati, men of letters who painted as a pastime and to share with their friends; and professional painters who decorated castles for the Shoguns and Daimyo.
One of the oldest pieces, Mountains by a River, is attributed to Kenkō Shōkei (active about 1478-1506), a Zen priest who studied paintings from Song and Yuan China. In the Zen tradition, landscape paintings—usually of fictitious locations—served as meditative devises.
Detail from Mountains by a River, a matching pair of hanging scrolls, attributed to Kenkō Shōkei. Ink and color on paper.
As an example of the professional artists, the Kanō family ran an art school and served wealthy patrons, from the late 15th Century, until near the end of the 19th. In its fifth generation, a prodigy named Kanō Tan’yū appeared before Shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa at age ten. He joined the palace staff at age 15. As Simonis explained, Winter Landscape demonstrates how Japanese painting of this period retained a preference for extended empty spaces, a characteristic of Zen. Only later, under Chinese influence, did painters choose to fill the entire frame.
Winter Landscape (above), with detail (below), by Kanō Tan’yū (1602-1674).
Itaya Keishū (1729-1797) founded a school in Edo (Tokyo), and worked for the Shogun. In Priest Looking out into a Snow-covered Landscape, I was most intrigued by the painting’s three sets of angles.
Itaya Keishū (1729-1797), Priest Looking out into a Snow-covered Landscape, hanging scroll, colors on silk.
One set of angles is established by the house and the fence in the foreground. The right span of fence points to the bridge, and the left span points at the contemplative priest. A second set of angles comes from the mountains and the pitch of the roof, and a third in the branches of the tree.
Detail from, Priest Looking out into a Snow-covered Landscape.
The majority of paintings in this exhibition date from the Tokugawa period. The Shogunate cut-off Japan from outside influences, allowing only one Dutch ship a year to land at Nagasaki, and a small trickle of Chinese to visit. With Japan’s historic ties to Chinese literature and art thus inhibited, a yearning after things Chinese found expression in a school of art called Nanga. These artists (Bunjin 文人, or, "literati") were united more by the self-identification as intellectuals than by specific artistic techniques, but they tended to choose Chinese subject matter, and to tag their paintings with Chinese-style poetry. Even after the fall of the Tokugawa, as European techniques made their way into the paintings, the subject matter and poetry remained Chinese.
When I looked closely at Landscape after Dong Yuan, by
Nakabayashi Chikutō (who predates the opening of Japan), I was struck by
its near-Pointillism, a technique I associate with late 19th Century,
European Impressionists.
Landscape after Dong Yuan, by Nakabayashi Chikutō (1776-1853).
Thus I enjoyed a moment of smug satisfaction when the label said, “Dong Yuan (died ca. 962) was one of the “Four Masters of the Song Dynasty” (960-1279) and particularly famous for his pointillist painting technique. Here, Nakabayashi Chikutō successfully employs this painting method in order to create a calm and relaxed atmosphere.” Nakabayashi served as a Nanga theorist, painting and writing in Kyoto. Mizuta Chikuho (1883-1958) taught painting and frequently served as a judge in art exhibitions. In Fairly Unsettled Weather (1928), a figure in a blue kimono looks out from the window, the painting’s only deviation from a shades-of-gray color scheme.
Fairly Unsettled Weather (1928), with detail at right, by Mizuta Chikuho. Ink and light colors on paper.
The exhibit places side-by-side three paintings by Fukuda Kodōjin (1865-1944). As a young man, he earned his living as a poet, first with a volume of Chinese style poetry, and then selling haiku to magazines. He was also a master at calligraphy. Later, he developed his own style of painting. Or perhaps I should say several styles, because each of the three Kodōjin painting in this exhibit demonstrate a different approach. A web search turns up a recent book on Kodōjin, by Stephen Addiss, with over 100 of Kodōjin’s haiku and tanka poems. Each poem works in tandem with Kodōjin’s art. The representative ink paintings each distort space, somewhat whimsically, but my favorite, Plum Blossom Library, also used color.
Plum Blossom Library (1926), with detail at left, by Fukuda Kodōjin (1865-1944). Ink and colors on silk.
The inscription reads, “Drinking alone, wine beside the flowers, Spring breezes fluttering the lapels of my robe. With just this peace my desire is fulfilled, while the world’s affairs leave me at odds. White haired but not yet passed on, These green mountains a good place to take my bones. Who understands that this happiness today lies simply in tranquility of life? (trans. Jonathan Chaves)
Color and detail also attracted me to Komuro Suiun’s Mount Hōrai. A contemporary of Kodojin, and another Daoist painter of the Nanga School, this painting pictures the palace of the Daoist Eight Immortals, who live in a
place without pain or sorrow. Near the
inscription, a flock of crains symbolize luck and long life.
Mount
Hōrai, with detail on right, by Komuro Suiun
(1874-1945).
The most dramatic piece is also the most recent (1984). The full 12 panels of Hekiba Village, by Araki Minol (1928-2010) extend 72 feet, but the display room could only comfortably hold the four panels at the right end of the series.
Twenty-four feet from the 72-foot long of Hekiba Village, by Araki Minol.
Even so, I enjoyed both the full effect from standing away, and the close-up details of careful study.
Detail from Hekiba Village, by Araki Minol.
Born in Japanese-occupied Manchuria, Araki Minol began painting at age six, surrounded by Japanese, Chinese, and Russian influences. He trained and had a very successful career as an industrial designer, with homes in Tokyo, Taipei, and New York, and life-long association with clients like Tandy/Radio Shack. Only late in his life did friends convince him to display his paintings.
In this video, I attempt to catch the sweep of Hekiba Village.
The second half of this exhibit begins with a lecture by Sonja Simonis, at 2:00 pm., Sunday, January 6, 2013.
One final thought: Beside the art gallery, the Clark Center has a bonsai garden, and this has recently been redesigned to better show-off the collection.
On November 6th, I will vote in favor of
California Proposition 34, to replace the death penalty with life in prison
without possibility of parole.
Some people will vote for Prop 34 because a financially
strapped California cannot afford a death penalty that costs $185,000 per year more,
per convict, than housing that same convict for life.If California’s 725 condemned prisoners were
integrated into the general prison population, it is also likely the state
could sell its antiquated San Quentin prison, which sits on prime San Francisco
Bay real estate, and replace it with a modern facility on cheaper land,
somewhere else in the state.The
financial arguments for Prop 34 are sound, even if they are not the primary
reasons for my support.
Some people will vote for Prop 34 because of evidence that we
have executed innocent people.The
recently available DNA tests have exonerated many condemned prisoners, and
those exonerations call into suspicion a percentage of the rest.Even one such execution would be too
many.It is also evident that a
disproportionate number of the condemned were poor, marginally educated, and/or
persons of color.I accept these as
worrisome aspects of our current law.
Some people will be impressed by the list of leaders who
support repeal.Jeanne Woodford presided
over 4 executions as Warden of San Quentin State Prison.Donald J. Heller wrote the wording for the
1978 law (Proposition 7) that established our current death penalty, and Ron
Briggs led the successful campaign to get it passed.John Van de Kamp was Attorney General of
California from 1983-1991.Antonio R.
Villaraigosa is the current mayor of the City of Los Angeles. Carlos Moreno voted to uphold about 200 death
sentences in his time on the California Supreme Court, defendants who he says,
"richly deserved to die." But Moreno supports Proposition 34, because
"there’s no chance California’s death penalty can ever be fixed.”I am not a band-wagon kind of guy, but it is
an impressive list.
I do not even support Prop 34 because
of a personal friendship with one of those 725 inmates on San Quentin’s Death
Row.My interest in the death penalty
goes back to the 1960 execution of Caryl Chessman, when I was in the 4th
grade.I have now spent 52 years
thinking on the subject, read dozens of books, sat down with the assistant
warden who supervised Chessman (“He was the most evil man I ever met.”), and
made it a central theme of the novel I can’t find the time to finish.About ten years ago I began a pen-pal
relationship with a serial killer who had already been on Death Row about eight
years.Twice, I have been to San Quentin
to be locked in a visitor cell with him.The reports are that the 725 people who will be most affected by Prop 34
hope it won’t pass.(As convicted felons,
they don’t get to vote.)They know that
more Death Row inmates die of old age than of lethal injection, and that Prop
34 would deny them their roomier cells, and dump them in with the general
population.As my serial-killer friend
told me, “This place is full of some really scary people.”
All of these are good reasons to vote
for Prop 34, but my own reasons are Biblical.In this I have reached a very different conclusion than many of my
Christian brethren.I have grown to
accept a line of argument in the Mennonite tradition, though I am not,
otherwise, Anabaptist in my theology.In
this, I am most indebted to Against the Death Penalty: Christian and Secular
Arguments against Capital Punishment, by Gardner C. Hanks (1997).
Most Christians see the primary
instruction on capital punishment as coming from God’s commandment to Noah
(Genesis 9:6), “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood
shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man.”However, this is neither the first nor the
last statement by God on the subject.When the world’s first murder occurred (Gen. 4:8), God invoked
banishment as Cain’s punishment.Cain
protested that this would put his own life in jeopardy, and God pronounced a
seven-fold judgment against such vengeance.As we analyze what we hope to accomplish by Capital Punishment, it had
better not be vengeance, because God reserves vengeance as His right, alone
(Rom. 12:19).For one thing, it is
always human nature to take vengeance beyond even what God may have sanctioned.By the end of Genesis 4, a fellow named
Lamech is bragging, “If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech
seventy-sevenfold.”
It is in the context of just such
violence (Gen. 6:11) that God chooses to end the cycles of vengeance by wiping
out the violent. He will start over with
Noah.God’s first choice for dealing
with murder was banishment, but man could not live up to that plan.So in order to prevent such cycles of revenge
killings, God issues His second-choice, the commandment in Gen 9:6.God is extremely concerned to have peace
within mankind’s communities.
In the New Testament, Jesus does not
speak often of murder, but when he does, he convicts us all, “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother
shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You
good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says,
‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.” (Matthew
5:22)
Curiously, when Jesus goes to the
cross, the most immediate beneficiary is Barabbas.A condemned murderer, in a one-for-one
exchange, Jesus died in his place and Barabbas walked free (Matthew 27, Mark
15).In faith, I believe that Jesus died
for my sins, as well, but even those without faith can see how Jesus died in
place of Barabbas.After the
crucifixion, every subsequent execution in the Bible is for being a Christian.
I believe a sentence of life in prison
serves as the banishment that was God’s first choice for murderers.Life without parole serves God’s interest in
protecting society and in forestalling cycles of retaliation and
vengeance.Within the idea of justice, there
is the further sense that a crime has knocked things out of balance, and that
someone must pay in order for there to be a return to balance.This is the requirement that often calls for
the perpetrator to suffer execution.But
my theology tells me that Christ died to supply that return to balance.There are earthly requirements for the
purpose of restitution or for protecting society, but my theology tells me
Christ died to restore the cosmic balance for the debt of all sin.He also died in hope that no human soul
should ever have to enter hell, and that none is so far gone as to be beyond
salvation.
I believe, when I was visiting my
friend on Death Row, that I recognized guards escorting David Westerfield to a
visitor’s cell.Some readers, just
seeing his name, will experience anger.To call him “good-for-nothing” or “fool” hardly seems strong
enough.Yet Jesus tells me I jeopardize
my own soul for thinking such thoughts.I believe it works like this: Hell is a place intended primarily as a
punishment for Satan and his demons.Though
souls who reject God will go there, it has always been God’s hope that none
would ever do so.The reality of Hell is
so horrible that we humans should never wish it on any fellow human, no matter
how heinous their crimes.Rather, we
should hope and pray for every soul, right up until the time when God, in His
sovereignty, takes that person’s life.Vengeance is His.The timing is
His.Life without parole protects
society, and I will vote for Prop 34.
TRUE BLUE: The Dramatic History of the Los Angeles Dodgers,
Told by the Men Who Lived It
by Steve Delsohn
·Paperback: 320 pages
·Publisher: Harper Perennial (2002)
·ISBN:
0380806150
I am a Dodger fan, though I look at the current roster and
recognize only the names of coaches Manny Mota (a Dodger since 1969) and Davey
Lopes (who joined the team in 1972).My
emotional investment runs to the Walt Alston line-up of my childhood; the Sandy
Koufax, Don Drysdale, and Maury Wills Dodgers of the late ‘50s and early-to-mid
‘60s.
This summer, I have been reading a wide range of California
history, including two books on the Dodgers.Roger Khan’s delightfully literary, THE BOYS OF SUMMER, focuses mostly
on the Brooklyn Dodgers of the early ‘50s.Those same players formed the core of the team that I remember coming to
LA in 1958: Duke Snyder, Jim Gillium, Wally Moon, Johnny Roseboro, and Pee Wee
Reese.Delsohn’s TRUE BLUE dips back
into the Brooklyn years only enough to set the stage for that move.Then, year-by-year, he uses interviews to
record the memories of the players and close observers who made up the Dodger
teams until the close of the century.
That pretty much chronicles the baseball years of my
life.I was eight when the Dodgers
arrived in LA.In 1959, I attended my
first professional game, Dodgers vs. Cincinnati, in the Coliseum.For the next decade, I didn’t make it to the
bleachers very often, but I listened to most games on the radio, and checked
box scores every morning in the LA times.
By necessity, a history of fifty years—both on and off the
field—can hit only the high points, and most fans will want to offer their own
list.Yet Delsohn hit all but two of
mine.His quick overview of the
politics behind the new stadium at Chavez Ravine missed the bitterness of the
community that lost their homes.I could
only have been ten, but I remember the standoff between police and a man armed
and barricaded in his home, while the bulldozers stood ready to demolish
it.Throughout my teaching career, I
have gone back to that illustration every time I needed to explain the workings
of eminent domain.
I also would have included Dick Nen.Delsohn recalls the pennant drive in 1963,
clinched when the Dodgers swept a series in Saint Louis.I remember Nen’s homerun in that series, the
only hit he ever had as a Dodger, tying a game they went on to win.Nen came up from the minors late in the
season, and was traded at season’s end to the American League.I remember standing on the playground at
school, listening on a radio.Curiously,
all these years later, I remembered it happening four years earlier, the year
the Dodgers beat the White Sox in the World Series, and my memory had me listening
to it on a different playground.Our
minds play tricks on us, and reading history helps set us straight.
In childhood, these Dodgers were my elders—two and three
times my age—and heroes.It is
interesting now, at age 62, to look back at them as young men, half, or even a
third my age.Koufax conquered the
world, and retired at 30, almost like Alexander the Great.
I must have been about twelve when I stood in line an hour
at a bank opening, to stand in front of Koufax for a few seconds while he
signed his name to a plastic bat and handed it to me.What finally became of that bat, I don’t
know.We were kids.We thrashed it hitting tennis balls in the
street, the closest we ever got to real baseball.A rolled up newspaper was the pitcher’s
mound, and I was Sandy Koufax staring down Mays or McCovey.Never mind that I threw right handed, at a
velocity that barely overcame inertia, and my opponent was a brother three
years my junior.And we were appalled when
Koufax retired.That 1966 season he’d gone 27-9, with an ERA of 1.73.
Forty-six years later, I can view the
retirement in a very different light.I
have my own bum knee, earned at age 17, while trying to push my body beyond
what it could reasonably do.The team
doctor had warned Koufax before the 1966 season that pushing his arm could
leave him permanently crippled.Delsohn
also suggests the intensely private Koufax had been humiliated during the
previous winter’s salary negotiations.Stingy Walter O’Malley had belittled Koufax in the press for several
months, before finally raising his annual salary from $90,000 to $125,000.
The book also probes the motivation for
Koufax’s refusal to pitch the opening game of the 1965 World Series, because it
fell on Yom Kippur.Previously, Koufax
hadn’t displayed enough religious devotion to justify such a decision, but
Delsohn concludes that Koufax took seriously his position as a role model to
thousands of youngsters.That is the
stuff our sports heroes ought to be made of.
The 1972 season started with the first
Major League Players’ Strike, and ended for me in September, when I left for
Europe.It was impossible to catch Vin
Scully’s radio-casts while hitchhiking through foreign lands.Only in December did I learned who won the
Series (Cincinnati).I’d broken my
childhood addiction, cold turkey.
On the other hand, in 1973, marriage
brought me a father-in-law who bought Dodger season tickets.That brought me a very different relationship
with the Dodgers.The Ron Cey, Bill Russell,
Davey Lopes, and Steve Garvey Dodgers were my own age, peers rather than heroes
for daydreams.As Delsohn’s book moved
into the Tommy Lasorda years, I was surprised to still recognize the names of
every player.
That didn’t change until the teams of
the mid 1980s.By then I was overseas
again, this time in the wilds of eastern Colombia, teaching school on a small
Bible translation center.Delsohn
doesn’t mention Karis Mansen, but he should have.Karis became my conduit to the Dodgers.By day, she was a linguist, translator, and
mother-of-three.But in the wee hours of
the morning, she tuned into Armed Forces Radio to catch her Dodger games.Then she would keep me posted.The 1985 season stands out in my memory.Near the All Star break, Karis told me the
team was in fourth, several games below .500.I figured the season was over, and didn’t ask again until October.A very animated Karis told me the Dodgers had
taken their division, and would be facing Saint Louis in the play-offs.They had, she said, turned it around.
I no longer follow baseball, and beside Mota and Lopes, can
only name two active major leaguers (Diamondback Aaron Hill attended our church
when he was small, and Astro’s manager Brad Mills is a former neighbor).
But that was not the case 50 years ago, and as Delsohn wove
together interviews of players and others near the game, it took me back to a
time when I rarely missed a game on the radio, or a box score in the next
morning’s LA Times.He refreshed
memories and filled in gaps in my knowledge.He even supplied the missing pieces for some mysteries I’d carried since
elementary school.
These days, I may not often think about baseball.But when I do, I think Dodger Blue.
It shouldn’t happen, but it had been
twenty-seven months since I last visited the Clark Center for Japanese Art and
Culture, even though it is only a bare twenty-eight miles from my door. I was very aware of missing several
interesting exhibitions, and my only excuse is busyness. So earlier this month, I stole an afternoon I
didn’t really have, and went to see the opening of Kamisaka Sekka, 1866-1942: Tradition and Modernity (running through
July 28). In truth, the presentation
goes far beyond this one artist, and gives a history of the Rimpa School (琳派Rimpa or Rinpa), of
which Kamisaka was its last great master.
Detail from Kusunoki
Masashige before the Battle, Kamisaka Sekka (ca. 1918)
I have long been intrigued by most
things Meiji. It astounds me that a
nation could—by an act of will—redefine itself so quickly. Japan leaped from 17th Century
feudalism to 20th Century modernity in barely half a century. It made an art of copying Europe and America
in major areas of life, and yet managed to accomplish its leap with most of its
national character intact. Compared to,
say, a similar effort in China under Mao Zedong, it was almost bloodless, and
so much smoother.
Kamisaka Sekka was three when forces
loyal to the teenaged Emperor Meiji put down the last vestiges of the Tokugawa
Shogunate. He had been born into a
samurai family near Kyoto, but a major plank in modernization was the abolition
of the Samurai class. Many former
samurai turned to the arts. Others
became foreign students, sent to the west to bring back modern thought and
technology. Kamisaka did both. After mastering Rimpa, he studied in Glasgow,
Scotland, and returned home to become the father of modern Japanese design.
From Blue
Iris, Nakamura Hōchū (d. 1819)
Kamisaka considered Rimpa to be Japan’s
only native school of art, with all other styles coming first from China. Rimpa originated early in the 17th
Century, and could appear as hanging paintings, folding screens, decorative fans,
lacquer ware, textiles, ceramics, woodblock, or books of prints. Kamisaka worked in each of these. Backgrounds often bore calligraphy and a distinctive
gold or silver sheen, against which objects appeared in strong colors, sometimes with bold
outlines and other times with no outline at all. Subject matter often came from
plants, flowers, or birds, but sometimes came from legends, the theater, or popular stories. Because the patrons who supported it were wealthy, Rimpa exudes a stylized lavishness.
Perhaps a hundred guests came for a
presentation by Dr. Andreas Marks, Director and Chief Curator at the Clark
Center, which is just south of Hanford. I came with little prior knowledge
(though after returning home, I realized I have a Rimpa hanging in my living
room). Rimpa had three bursts of
development, spread over some two hundred years, and I enjoyed the overview and
introduction to the key individuals.
Moon and Waves,
Suzuki Kiitsu (1796-1858)
Pieces by several of the earlier masters
caught my attention. Suzuki Kiitsu’s
Moon and Waves achieves wild excitement with very simple colors and lines, with
a modern appearance in stark contrast to my image of Tokugawa feudalism.
I enjoyed Kamisaka’s more traditional work,
with less of a European influence. He was
sent with the assignment to discover what Europeans would like to see in
Japanese art. He accomplished the task
well, but Edwardian tastes are not my tastes.
Pages from “All Kinds of Things” (“Chigusa,”),
Kamisaka Sekka (1903)
A gentlemen saw me admiring Suzuki’s
Bush Clover and Pampas Grass and came to tell me he had enjoyed it for several
years, hanging in his bedroom. I asked
if he was Mr. Clark, and he corrected me, “Bill.” At that moment, we were interrupted by the
start of Dr. Marks’ talk, and we did not get to finish our conversation, but I
must point out that in three visits to the Victoria and Albert Museum, in
London, I have never yet been approached by either Victoria or Albert.
Detail from Bush
Clover and Pampas Grass, Suzuki Kiitsu (1808-1841)
Grasshopper detail from Autumn Grasses and Moon, Sakai Ōho (1808-1841)
Seven Lucky Gods, Kamisaka Sekka (ca. 1920-1930)
Morning Glories, Kamisaka Sekka (ca.
1920-1940)
As a westerner, it is impossible to
enter the world of Japanese art without some kind of guide. The iris is the symbol of summer and the
trademark of Rimpa. Hollyhocks symbolize
the passage of time. Seven specific
grasses and the moon speak of autumn.
Takasago, Kamisaka Sekka (ca. 1920-1930)
Hollyhocks, Sakai Ōho (1808-1841)
I enjoy visiting the Clark
Center. As a small museum, it has a special personality. After my
previous visit—a samurai exhibit, I got too busy to post anything on this
blog. Then, last summer I had the chance
to see a similar presentation, in London.
I came away impressed that the Clark had done a better job telling the
samurai story than had the Victoria and Albert.
The difference is, even if a visitor can devote most of one day to the
Victoria and Albert, one still feels the pressure to race from item to item,
running from antiquity to the present, and from continent to continent. There are thousands of things to see. Yet in the samurai room, the Victoria and
Albert was outdone by the Clark. The
Clark told a richer story, and gave visitors a more intimate setting.
Samurai at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, July 2011
Samurai at the Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture, January, 2010
I may get back for a second look at the
Rimpa before it closes, July 28th.
Then I look forward to a two-part presentation of landscapes, beginning
in September.
I represented the American Solidarity Party as their 2020 candidate for President. In a previous life, I taught middle school history. I have way too many hobbies, a wide variety of interests, and I write about them all. With friends on five continents, I am comfortable pretty much anywhere in the world. As a follower of Jesus Christ, my citizenship is of another world entirely.
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,+Priest+Looking+out+into+a+Snow-covered+Landscape.JPG)
Some people will vote for Prop 34 because a financially
strapped California cannot afford a death penalty that costs $185,000 per year more,
per convict, than housing that same convict for life. If California’s 725 condemned prisoners were
integrated into the general prison population, it is also likely the state
could sell its antiquated San Quentin prison, which sits on prime San Francisco
Bay real estate, and replace it with a modern facility on cheaper land,
somewhere else in the state. The
financial arguments for Prop 34 are sound, even if they are not the primary
reasons for my support.
Kamisaka considered Rimpa to be Japan’s
only native school of art, with all other styles coming first from China. Rimpa originated early in the 17th
Century, and could appear as hanging paintings, folding screens, decorative fans,
lacquer ware, textiles, ceramics, woodblock, or books of prints. Kamisaka worked in each of these. Backgrounds often bore calligraphy and a distinctive
gold or silver sheen, against which objects appeared in strong colors, sometimes with bold
outlines and other times with no outline at all. Subject matter often came from
plants, flowers, or birds, but sometimes came from legends, the theater, or popular stories. Because the patrons who supported it were wealthy, Rimpa exudes a stylized lavishness.
