December’s poems

I conclude this year’s poem series

With poems from the Opies

(pp. 19–25)

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Masculine, Feminine, Neuter,

I went for a ride on my scooter,

I bumped into the Queen

And said, Sorry old bean

I forgot to toot-toot on my tooter.

∙∙∙

A bug and a flea

Went out to sea

Upon a reel of cotton;

The flea was drowned

But the bug was found

Biting a lady’s bottom.

∙∙∙

Adam and Eve in the garden

Studying the beauty of nature;

The devil jumped out of a Brussel sprout

And hit Eve in the eye with a tater.

∙∙∙

Julius Caesar,

The Roman geezer,

Squashed his wife with a lemon squeezer.

∙∙∙

The sausage is a cunning bird

With feathers long and wavy;

It swims about the frying pan

And makes its nest in gravy.

∙∙∙

The elephant is a pretty bird,

It flits from bough to bough.

It builds its nest in a rhubarb tree

And whistles like a cow.

∙∙∙

As I was going to school one day to learn my A.B.C.,

I fell into a washing tub and sailed the ocean sea.

There came by a Chinaman who said I was a spy

And if I did not talk to him he’d poke me in the eye.

He tied me to a cabbage stalk

And cut my head with a knife and fork,

I grew so fat that I could not walk

And joined the Chinese army.

The captain’s name was Bango,

Bango was his name,

And he played upon his whiskers

Till the clouds rolled by.

∙∙∙

’Twas in the month of Liverpool

In the city of July,

The snow was raining heavily,

The streets were very dry.

The flowers were sweetly singing,

The birds were in full bloom,

As I went down the cellar

To sweep an upstairs room.

∙∙∙

I went to the pictures tomorrow

I took a front seat at the back,

I fell from the pit to the gallery

And broke a front bone in my back.

A lady she gave me some chocolate,

I ate it and gave it her back.

I phoned for a taxi and walked it,

And that’s why I never came back.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

I learned years ago with Samuel, this track is brilliant for getting babies to sleep.

1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 76: Comrades: Almost a love story

Compare this Hong Kong rom-com to Nora Ephron’s crowd-pleasers (When Harry Met Sally; Sleepless in Seattle; You’ve Got Mail).

Similarities:

• The lovers “meet cute”
• It takes years for them to end up together
• They’re played by big stars
• Maggie Cheung (compare: Meg Ryan)
• Leon Lai (compare: “rom-com” Tom Hanks, with a little of Forrest Gump stirred in)

Differences:

• The lovers are poor immigrants
• They don’t live in apartments that only millionaires could afford
• They don’t have respectable upper-middle-class jobs (a sample of Ephron-movie jobs: architect, journalist, CEO)

The man works for years to rise to the position of sous chef in a modest restaurant.

The woman, even more driven, holds an endless succession of jobs (hustles, really), several at a time:

• McDonald’s cashiering
• For-profit language school recruiting
• Stock trading
• Bootleg music vending
• Tour guiding
• Massaging
• Being “kept” by a gangster

But this isn’t a sordid movie, at least not tonally; it really does feel like something by Ephron.

The lovers pursue and retreat from each other, stringing the audience along. There are good arguments for their coming together, and for their remaining apart. What will the lovers choose? Or will fate choose for them?

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

They become friends because they’re lonely. Both have moved to Hong Kong from the mainland. One of them knows that the other is an immigrant; the other does not. The truth is revealed only gradually.

It won’t be these characters’ last move. The story takes them from China to Hong Kong to New York: least free, freer, freest.

Hong Kong, it seems, is the intermediate stage in a “natural” progression from China to the United States, whether or not the mainlanders who stop over in Hong Kong admit it. Their behavior in Hong Kong points to it. They take English classes. They eat U.S. food and watch U.S. movies. Mickey Mouse is a recurring image. One older Chinese immigrant, who has spent her life running a brothel of Thai immigrants, is obsessed with the actor William Holden.

On the other hand, the immigrants regard the mainland as shameful. They hush up their origins. If they cling to certain relics of the past, they keep them secret.

A pop star, Teresa Teng, dominates the soundtrack. Mainlanders in Hong Kong revere but won’t openly listen to her, lest they be detected as not native to Hong Kong.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The character who bucks the trend is Pau, a good-natured gangster played by Eric Tsang (who reminds one of Peter Lorre).

The woman involves herself with Pau during a difficult time. Pau isn’t stupid. He notices the lovers’ feelings for each other. Ruthless in business dealings, he’s surprisingly tolerant of his “kept” woman’s longings. Perhaps he can afford to put up with her equivocal feelings because, paradoxically, he isn’t a striver. He may pursue money, but he’s outside the usual hierarchy of advancement. He’ll always be riffraff; he knows what he is; he is contented.

He, too, moves to New York, and observes wryly that the rough-and-tumble neighborhood where he has ended up isn’t very different from where he began.

Meanwhile, the lovers are kept at arm’s length from each other by their mainstream notions of success.

This is my favorite image: Cheung on the left, Tsang on the right, Lai and his mainland bride in the middle. Four characters, three couples. The dream, on both continents, is for romantic and material success to issue predictably from hard work and prudent choice. But success is more capricious. The route is tortuous and unclear; at some junctures, travelers must be downright lucky.

R.I.P. Dick

Dick, my adviser at Cornell, has died.

An obituary.

Cornell’s memorial notice, with reminiscences.

Brian Leiter’s notice, with a few more reminiscences in the comments.

Dick wrote on a wide range of topics. I’ll just mention some of the political ones.

He became known, early on, for his work on Marx.

His final views on economic justice can be glimpsed in:

this online profile …

this Washington Post opinion piece (he was always listening for wisdom from libertarians, utilitarians, and other sirens, but wasn’t seduced by those philosophies) …

and the 2019 article “Social Democracy and Free Enterprise” (listed with other writings here).

When I was at Cornell, Dick was writing Globalizing Justice: The Ethics of Poverty and Power and conducting seminars on war, foreign aid and trade, global warming, and the rise of China.

His research into the last topic is another good example of how he would listen to lots of people as he formulated his views. He studied the Chinese language and got to know Chinese scholars and non-scholars. He even directed this documentary film about a provincial migrant to Beijing.

He also learned to cook delicious Chinese meals, which Karin & I enjoyed during our stay in his house. That was four years ago. I intended, later, to travel to Ithaca for a conference planned in his honor. The pandemic struck; the conference was put on hold. As far as I know, it was never rescheduled.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I arrived at Cornell in 2005 expecting to focus on metaphysics or something comparably Laputan. Alas, I had a miserable first semester. In Dick’s political philosophy class, too, I was making a fool of myself; but at least I was learning. (Note: It’s not always good when your remarks cause the other graduate students to snigger into their sleeves.) Nevertheless, Dick treated my ideas with greater seriousness than anyone else ever had. I started to treat them more seriously, too.

The next semester, I was surprised when, at a departmental function, Dick impishly asked under whom I wished to write my dissertation. It took me another year to choose him. I wonder if he’d have been so nice about it if he’d known that the project would take more than a decade to complete. He retired the day after I defended the thing.

I used to bump into him at the Cornell Cinema, where he’d make some wry comment. Once, we both happened to come out of Scorsese’s The Departed. Boom, boom, boom, was all he said. His light reading was Honoré de Balzac and George Eliot. He hated lewdness. And greed. But he was willing to give people the benefit of the doubt when they decided that nice clothes and gourmet cooking really would significantly improve their lives. He was committed to stamping out poverty and injustice, but he was no ascetic. He wanted people to be empowered to discover their own meaningful projects and direct their own lives.

He was a good man. I’m still absorbing the lessons he taught me. Above all, I’m grateful for his kindness.

He was an atheist. He used to tell how his wife, who had lost her religious belief, would visit the nuns who had schooled her. They’d ask how her prayer life was going. He liked that about the nuns. I hope non-Catholics won’t mind if I pray for his soul. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.

Body-text fonts, pt. 14: Weiss

For Easter, we went to Goshen, where Karin’s dad’s parents live. Samuel found the touchscreen that controls his great-grandparents’ security system. He set off the alarm and instigated a confrontation with the police. … This is the third time he has summoned the emergency services. Some months ago he called 911, but I was able to pursuade the operator that it wasn’t an emergency. Another time, I saw an ambulance travel up and down our street; the driver seemed unable to figure out which house had issued the summons. I checked my call log and learned that Samuel had again called 911. … Since that day, if I catch him playing with my phone, I toss him immediately and mercilessly into the Chokey.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I found a copy of Tikki Tikki Tembo upon the library sale cart. Surely, I thought, the library is divesting itself of this outdated and offensive tale! I paid a few cents and brought it home. …

(It turns out, the library has retained four copies – one of which is missing.)

Perhaps, despite its window-dressing, Tikki Tikki Tembo isn’t really about the Chinese – at least, no more than A Comedy of Errors, with its italianate duke and its Roman Catholic abbess, is about the historic city-state of Ephesus. …

No, that’s disingenuous. Justly or unjustly, the book satirizes the Chinese ethic of filial piety. Perhaps this subversiveness is what has made Samuel so fond of Tikki Tikki Tembo. He listens to it three or four times or until we make him stop. Fortunately, we don’t have to read it to him; he puts on a CD with a reading by Marcia Gay Harden (it was included in a flap at the back of the book). Whenever it’s time to turn a page, a gong sounds and Samuel turns the page and does a little dance.

Daniel, I am sorely tempted to call “Chang” – the name of the second son – but he already has plenty of nicknames.

The book is set in Weiss:

Other books set in Weiss:

Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart.

Harold Bloom: Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human.

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl.

I am told that the design of the Swedish typeface Berling was inspired by Weiss.

Le spam; body-text fonts, pt. 12: URW Garamond

For 1½–2 years, my phone wouldn’t ring. A short time ago, however, it “fixed” itself – probably by downloading an automatic update – and the spammers began making up for lost time. A spammer roused Daniel from his nap, and, when I picked up, inquired after my “senior benefits.” Within an hour, another spammer had tried, twice, to convince me that an impostor had used my Amazon.com account to buy a MacBook Pro.

The police, paramedics, firefighters, war veterans, university chancellors, air traffic controllers, dentists, etc. resumed their panhandling-by-phone. I still am waiting to hear from the U.S. Space Force – or whichever underfunded military branch it is whose job involves shooting down Chinese weather balloons.

(I mean, either the phone repaired itself or Samuel fixed it by punching who knows what buttons. The other day, he called 911.)

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

This “true crime memoir” is quite good.

The typeface is URW Garamond, the upper-case “Q” of which makes it an apt choice for setting The Fifth Queen by Ford Madox Ford.

I scour my library for small books

Unlike the last entry, which virtually no one read, this entry won’t consist of a long quotation – nor of a long anything. I don’t have time to write; I need every spare moment to pursue my reading goals.

Once again, I arrive at the finish line reading works so puny that they hardly deserve to be called books:

Some Chinese Ghosts, by Lafcadio Hearn;

Night Flight, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry;

Mrs Henderson & Other Stories, by Francis Wyndham.

This is the first Hearn I’ve read. Three ghost stories so far. Ornate. Determinedly unhorrific. Every ghost is a pretty girl.

[UPDATE: In the fourth story, the ghost is not a pretty girl.]

Mrs Henderson is very good. Try it out.

The writing in Chinese Ghosts and Mrs Henderson is so careful, so exquisite, it’s taking me some time to get through them.

Mercifully, Chinese Ghosts has lots of Chinese words that I just skip over.

Daniel and Samuel had doctor’s appointments this week.

Samuel is “socially behind,” the doctor said. Probably because he bawled his head off when she was in the office with him. He was sociable enough when she was away.

Daniel is quite the growing boy. Today he ate and ate, and he cried when he wasn’t eating.

News and visitors from Ecuador

Most readers will have heard of Ecuador’s latest political unrest (summarized here). Briefly, transport workers and the indígenas have been striking against the government’s austerity measures, and especially against the cutting of fuel subsidies (this was done to comply with borrowing conditions set by the International Monetary Fund). Thousands have marched on Quito, blocking roads. President Lenín Moreno has moved the government to Guayaquil.

It was clear that after Rafael Correa’s presidency, Ecuador would shift back toward the right; what wasn’t clear was how far or how speedily. In the election of 2016, I favored Moreno, the candidate of Correa’s party, because I thought he’d shift more gradually than his opponents would. But Correa already had made Ecuador cripplingly indebted to China; and now, perhaps out of necessity, Moreno has resumed dealings with the IMF, which, in the late 1990s, had insisted on detrimentally austere financial measures as borrowing conditions for Latin American countries. From 1997 to 2005, several Ecuadorian presidents were toppled after enacting austerity measures. I fear that history is about to repeat itself.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My parents arrived in South Bend yesterday to visit little Ada and my own child (whenever he’s born). But it wasn’t easy for them to get here. They traveled from Santo Domingo to Quito several days early, during a lull in the protests. Then they went to the airport twenty hours before takeoff. Had they not done those things, they wouldn’t have made it through.

Anyhow, they’re here. This morning they’re at the Social Security office, dealing with the obstinate bureaucracy of the United States.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

On Tuesday, I got a couple of shots. They made me ache as with fever. I was especially miserable yesterday. This morning, my arms still hurt, but I seem to be on the up-and-up.

A visit to Bethel

The snow is gone, and with it – at last – the LimeBike that obstructed my sidewalk all winter long.

This is hardly the end of our trouble with LimeBikes. On the contrary.

Not long ago, Karin & I noted a LimeBike that had been abandoned halfway up a narrow outdoor staircase.

To view South Bend’s grim future with LimeBikes, look no further than to China.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Yesterday, I visited the man who was my boss when I worked in the library at Bethel College. We had lunch together in the cafeteria. He insisted that I finish the Ph.D., and he asked me to regularly send him my dissertation drafts. It was most kind of him. I wonder if this will help me to finish the degree.

I greeted the other faculty that I saw in the cafeteria. Some were pleased that I was there; others weren’t. I can tell when they aren’t pleased because first they pretend not to notice me, and then they coldly ask, “What brings you to campus?”

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

All last week, I was sick; and now I worry that Karin has caught the bug.

Los regalos

December is just beginning, and already we’ve erected our Charlie Brown Christmas tree and put gifts under it. Why are we so “Christmassy” this year?

Because of David. Some weeks ago, he sent us his wishlist. (Life in Houston must be very dull.) Since then, we’ve all been posting wishlists. I’m not sure how effective those lists will turn out to be. For example, I can’t buy what Mary asked for; I mean, not without withholding the Gift of Rent from her.

She, on the other hand, has been buying quite a lot of gifts. Useful gifts. Salutary gifts.

She bought a storybook for her little niece.

She’s going to buy gum surgery for her husband. (These holidays, poor Martin will subsist on liquids.)

To me, she said: “I won’t tell you what I bought you — it isn’t what you asked for, but it’s for your benefit.”

Edoarda & Stephen bought a bookcase for me, which is nice, because now I’ll be able to bring more of my books up from the basement. Stephen gave some old shoelaces to Bianca.