the cassandra pages

And you thought Québec was prickly

Jacques Chirac left an EU meeting in a huff because a colleague addressed the other national leaders in English. Chirac described himself as "deeply shocked."

The expanded EU comprises 460 million people who are trying to speak with one voice without sacrificing their political cultures and identities. In order not to offend any one country, the EU uses each of the 20 languages spoken in member states, at a cost of up to $1.6 billion in translation and interpretation expenses each year.

The article notes that lingistic protectionism has been a longstanding preoccupation of Chirac's. He apparently insisted on speaking only French during a state dinner with George Bush, and at a recent UN meeting, he "pretended not to understand questions in English" and tried to get Tony Blair - who speaks French - to interpret. (Guess he didn't try that with Bush.)

Also from today's International Herald Tribune, an article on the closing of the last synagogue in Tajikistan. My father-in-law often speaks about how Jews, Christians, and Muslims coexisted peacefully, for the most part, in the Damascus of his youth, and how this was true in nearly all the cities of the Middle and Near East. Both the Christian and Jewish populations have been declining in recent decades, to the point of virtual non-existence in many areas.

40 Questions

OK, this one did cheer me up. I'm not tagging anyone - just jump in.

1) Who is the last person you high-fived?
My husband.

2) If you were drafted into a war, would you survive.
I doubt it. But I'd do everything I could to avoid being drafted.

3) Do you sleep with the TV on?
No TV to leave on.

4) Have you ever drunk milk straight out of the carton?
Yes, maybe when I was eight or so. I'd probably spill it down my front if I did that now; beside I don't really like milk so it's not very tempting. I DO drink whatever is left in the measuring cup when I make cookie dough - must be an old habit!

5) Have you ever won a spelling bee
uh, yeah.

6) Have you ever been stung by a bee
Several times. Hurts like hell. The first time was on the playground in elementary school, the last time a couple years ago when I think I put my hand down on one in the garden.

7) How fast can you type
Pretty fast, considering that I only use six or seven fingers.

8) Are you afraid of the dark?
I'm not crazy about being alone in a big house at night, actually.

9) Eye color
Bluish greenish, depending on the day and what I'm wearing

10) Have you ever made out at a drive-in?
Of course. I'm a country girl!

11) When is the last time you chose a bath over a shower?
Last night.

12) Do you knock on wood?
Yep, always.

13) Do you floss daily?
Yes, I have to. And I hate it.

15) Can you hula hoop?
Used to be able to. But my cousin Barbara was always better.

16) Are you good at keeping secrets?
Yes.

17) What do you want for Christmas?
Books.

18) Do you know the Muffin Man?
No, but I know a really cute guy at the boulangerie...

19) Do you talk in your sleep?
I don't think so...

20) Who wrote the book of love?
Boris Pasternak, for one.

21) Have you ever flown a kite?
I love to fly kites and used to be good with box kites especially

22) Do you wish on your fallen lashes?
No. Do people do that?

23) Do you consider yourself successful?
Yes, now. I didn't used to.

24) How many people are on your contact list of your cell?
Ten.

25) Have you ever asked for a pony?
No.

26) Plans for tomorrow?
Review the copyedits on my book. Take a break to pick up dead wood that's fallen out of the trees this winter. Try to resolve a work problem. Cook something decent, which will mean going to the store first.

27) Can you juggle?
No. But I've tried.

28) Missing someone now?
Not RIGHT now. But there are a few people I miss every day of my life.

29) when was the last time you told someone I Love You?
This afternoon.

30) And truly meant it?
When I said it! I don't say it if I don't mean it.

31) how often do you drink
Used to drink nearly every day. Now - hardly ever.

32) How are you feeling today?
Kind of tired, frustrated at a client, glad it's getting late and I can stop working and read.

33) what do you say too much?
"that's ridiculous"

34) Have you ever been suspended or expelled from school?
No.

35) What are you looking forward to?
Having my book be finished, although the prospect is also terrifying. Seeing some good friends this spring.

36) Have you ever crawled through a window?
Yes - to get into our house when I forgot my key.

37) Have you ever eaten dog food?
No. But I have tasted cat food - just a tiny bit.

38) Can you handle the truth?
Yes, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.

39) Do you like green eggs and ham?
Yuck!!

40) Any cool scars?
Yep. I have a scar on the front of my chin from falling headfirst down our stairs a few years ago. It's a good one.

What Does it Mean to be Human, Part 1

Years ago, when our communications career was more involved in advertising, we did national ads and brochures for a company that produced a world-renowned music synthesizer. One of the things it did incredibly well was "sound sampling" which meant recording a sound, like raindrops or footsteps on crunchy stones, storing it, and playing it back in a modifiable loop. Before sound sampling (and we aren't even talking digital recording yet, although the synthesizer itself was digital), special effects in movies and TV were produced by human beings who were called "Foley artists"; I don't know how the name arose originally, but "Foley" was the production of sound effects for an audio soundtrack. Sound sampling and synthesized sound - which has gotten a whole lot more sophisticated over the past two intervening decades - replaced some people with pretty extraordinary  -- if unusual -- vocal talents.

Today we stumbled on this, and -- as a musician and choir singer -- I was mesmerized and in the end, even moved. It's an ad for the new Honda Civic, and if you haven't seen the ad, well, watch it. And if you're intrigued, watch the video that tells how the ad was made, and watch what happens to the people involved in it. This time, advertising was merely the, um, vehicle that taught people something more about their humanity.

(Click on the link, wait for the program to load, and then choose "Watch" and "Watch Film."

Warming

Thank you again to all who wrote a message on the previous post. I was really expecting some constructive criticism ("Enough about religion already!" or "We're getting a little bored with walking up and down your street in Montreal!" or even "Stop rubbing it in about all the great food up there!") and what I got instead were congratulations and strokes {{blushes}}. I tried to write back to everyone personally in the comments, so if you haven't looked there, please do. And now, back to the regularly scheduled programming...

An article about how life is changing for the Inuit as the climate warms appeared in today's Washington Post:

Villagers say the shrinking ice floes mean they see hungry polar bears more frequently. In the Hudson Bay village of Ivujivik, Lydia Angyiou, a slight woman of 41, was walking in front of her 7-year-old boy last month when she turned to see a polar bear stalking the child. To save him, she charged with her fists into the 700-pound bear, which slapped her twice to the ground before a hunter shot it, according to the Nunatsiaq News.

By the same token, robins are among the species now ranging that far north. The changes are affecting everything about Inuit life, from fishing and hunting practices to their spirituality.

I feel more connected to the Inuit and the arctic now that I live partly in Canada. Growing up in the U.S. I thought of Eskimos as being from Alaska -- but actually the Inuit live north and even to the east of me. Leaving Royal Victoria Hospital a few months ago, I passed an Inuit woman getting out of a medical van labeled Inuit Transport, or something similar; Montréal is where the native people come for serious treatment, after an arduous journey by snowmobile, boat or airplane.

Lying in bed this March, I've listened to the by-now-familiar arctic wind whipping down the city streets, and wondered what it is saying. Upon coming home to Vermont, we've seen wind damage unlike anything in thirty years, including finding shingles torn off our roof and scattered on the snow, and the unseasonably warm temperatures in February were more unsettling than welcome. I live far north, compared to most Americans, but the true arctic is still very far away. Even so, climate change has already affected the economy here, shortening an already-precarious ski season and driving prices nearly out of reach for most families. It used to be very rare to see a snow goose here; last week my parents, in central New York, saw a flock of several thousand.

Last weekend, on Avenue Mont-Royal, I passed a café with a hand-lettered sign beside its the steps: "sucre sur neige: $1.00" - "sugar on snow." One of the restaurant's window-boxes was packed full of clean white snow, and they were selling tastes of this year's maple syrup, boiled to a ribbon-consistency and dripped onto the snow to harden. I smiled -- the whole laid-back set-up just tickled me, and seemed so quintessentially Canadian. My mind cast backwards to my childhood self, with my mother, boiling the syrup in the kitchen until it was just right to put on the snow. And then it leaped forward, as I wondered how much longer children might know this treat: how soon would the trees fail to make usable sap, and how soon would the snow give way to pulverized ice from a freezer?

The ghostly polar bear stalks us all.

Cassandra Is Three

The Cassandra Pages turns three today.

Her prophetess reputation has held up pretty well since the first post on March 20, 2003, lamenting the beginning of the Iraq war and the desperate patriarchal systems it represents. But the major focus here has not been on politics, but community - both in the sense of the blog writing-and-reading community of individuals and in the larger sense of the world community of different cultures, religions, ethnicities, races, genders, orientations, and personal experiences.

Three years ago I could not have predicted so much that has come to pass, most especially the development of friendships through this medium: some of the best friendships I've had in my entire life. I had no idea how much the disicipline and challenge of writing here, regularly, for a demanding audience (both internal and external) would hone my writing and thinking skills -- or how much I would come to enjoy editing other people's work, and encouraging them in their writing too. It was great to be part of the Ecotone community while it lasted, and then, this year, to help start the collaborative blog qarrtsiluni, which has published some of the best writing I've yet seen on the web. And as a former painter, it's also been great fun to take up photography again and be able to share visual ideas as well as verbal ones.

I've had to make some hard choices this year because I found, not surprisingly, that I couldn't write a book and devote the same time and energy to my blog as I had in the past, but I'm looking forward to getting back to a more active conversation here, with more more frequent posts in the coming months. One goal I have for the coming year is to write at least one post in French every month, and work up to greater frequency -- English readers, don't worry, I will provide a translation; French readers, please bear with me with good humor... et aidez-moi, s.v.p.!

The best birthday present I can imagine would be to hear from readers (especially those who rarely comment here!) about what keeps you coming back, or what you miss, or what you'd like to see here in the future. (E-mail me if you'd rather.) Without the comments that have been left here, or the capacity for me to comment elsewhere - and the offline conversations too - I very much doubt I would have stuck with blogging this long. Thank you so much for being mes copains* et copines (thanks, m.u.!).

*Middle English compainoun, from Old French compagnon, from Late Latin companion-, companio (probably translation of a Germanic word akin to Gothic gahlaiba companion, fellow soldier, Old High German galeipo companion), from Latin com- + panis bread, loaf, food

A Spendthrift Lover

It was a wordy day at the cathedral. At least, words were what I was noticing. The psalm of the day was Psalm 19, one of the most poetic. It begins, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork./ One day tells its tale to another, and one night imparts knowledge to another..." and then a few verses later, continues, "In the deep has he set a pavilion for the sun, it comes forth like a bridegroom out of his chamber; it comes forth like a champion to run its course. It goes forth from the uttermost edge of the heavens and runs about to the end of it again; nothing is hidden from its burning heat." I realized I was hearing this today in the context of the latest news about the melting actic sea ice (via Udge), the existence of which the psalmist could not have known, but I am sure he would have had a very clear reaction to the thought of human beings destroying it.

I'm just beginning to get used to the Canadian Anglican hymnal, which is quite different from the American one, particularly in the texts chosen for the hymns. A lot of them refer to the natural world, and there are fewer pf the old "warhorses" from the British tradition. I miss some of them, but I've often been caught by surprise in Canada by hymns with contemporary words. So, reflecting back on the psalm, I was struck by the poem that formed the text for today's offertory hymn. It was written by Thomas Troeger, born in 1945, who, it turns out, is a professor of preaching and communications at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, and the author of many hymns. the first verse goes: "A spendthrift lover is the Lord, who never counts the cost, or asks if heaven can afford to woo a world that's lost./ Our lover tosses coins of gold across the midnight skies, and stokes the sun against the cold to warm us when we rise."

Afterwards, our cathedral discussion group continued grappling with our Lenten question, "What does it mean to be human?" Today we heard presentations by a psychologist, retired from the University of Quebec at Montreal, and a cultural anthropologist from Concordia University, both members of the parish, who shared insights from their particular fields on that question, and then there was a free-ranging discussion. At 2:00 pm, heads full of new ideas, we stumbled out into the bracing air and the rollicking noise from the annual St. Patrick's Day parade, which includes contingents from all the city's ethnic communities and more. There had been bagpipes earlier; the float passing just then in front of the cathedral carried twenty or so waving, green-and-white clad singers, and big signs in French saying, "Felicitations on St. Patrick's day from the Jewish community of Montréal."

Two Musical Offerings

Work continues...and continues. Every now and then I go out for a walk, as I did a little while ago. I feel like my territory is finally beginning to enlarge again; the paths through the park are gradually shedding their snow and ice, and it is easier now to walk further. Today I walked over to St. Denis and up and down several blocks, where the shoe stores are displaying pink, tan, and grassy green sandals and the clothing stores, flirty skirts and sheer blouses.

On Tuesday evening we escaped the tyranny of our laptops, on the spur of the moment, and went to Place des Arts to hear a young Canadian soprano in a concert of opera arias with the Montreal symphony. Marie-Josée Lord is considered a rising star; last year she represented Canada in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition (scroll down and click "watch and listen" to see a clip of her performance.) And what a voice she has. But the real treat was that they sell last-minute tickets, at reduced prices, for the first few rows if you are willing to show up early. We did, and ended up front and center, one row in front of the people who had paid for top-dollar seats. For something like this, it was great - we were able to watch all the little interactions between the orchestra players, soloists and the conductor, and you could feel her sing. Interspersed with the arias, the orchestra played some suites from operas. One of the loveliest moments came during the overplayed "Meditation" from Thais; the concertmaster, a young blond man, very calm and very accomplished, stood and played the solo violin part, and it was really beautiful. It takes a special sort of confidence and authority, I think, to pull off something that is so familiar, and so often so sentimental, but he did it.

Last Sunday, the  setting for the sung mass at church was Britten's Missa Brevis for women's voices - a pretty daring offering. It was quite something. Beautifully sung, dramatic, and moving. The Agnus Dei is a grating, frightening piece that gets under your skin and grabs you and yet is somehow real and true; maybe it is about feeling and accepting the totality of our human condition. It was sung while the priests and lay servers were preparing to give communion. The Dean had just preached about the death of the Church as we know it, and why that may need to happen. I felt like all the time between the death of Thomas á Beckett and the present was somehow suddenly compressed, and wordlessly expressed by Britten's music and the implacable stones of the cathedral.

Journey toward Spring

(click for a larger image)

From the Stars

"That one annoys me," my father-in-law said, quietly nodding toward a woman at a nearby table. "Whenever we sit together at dinner she repeats herself constantly, telling the same story she told me the last time we saw each other."

He picked at the little mounds of ham salad, cottage cheese, and cole slaw on his plate, and put his fork down in disgust. "I've lost my appetite entirely," he said, for maybe the hundredth time.

"It's good he doesn't know he does it," I thought, "and I'm not going to tell him either." J. and I have gotten so used to the weekly litany about the food and the body parts that don't work and the cast of characters at the retirement home that we just nod and encourage him to tell us whatever he wants. With him, I think it is boredom and lack of stimulation more than anything, because once we get him off the predictable subjects he starts telling stories he's never told us before, like a mouse stuck in a loop who finally finds a doorway out, toward the cheese. In my father-in-law's case, the cheese is almost always located in the Middle East.

Yesterday he began talking about Africa, and his theory that that continent's problems have to do with the stars. "I've always had a theory," he began. "I was starting to write it down when everything began going bad on me! Oh well! You see, we know that energy comes from the sun. But I think maybe there are other kinds of energy, that we can't see but which have an influence all the same, that come from the distant stars. Africa, for some reason, doesn't receive many of these emissions. But the Middle East does. Every now and then, there is an extra concentration of energy from the stars and someone in the Middle East receives an epiphany - that's what I call them - that's how all the religions were founded that started there."

He looked at me, and I nodded, raising my eyebrows to signal him to go on. I didn't dare look at J.

"Remember when Moses went up on the mountaintop and came down with all the Laws? Or when Jesus went up on the mountain and - who was it they saw with him? Moses and someone else..."

"Elijah."

"That was it! Elijah. You see --" he waved his finger triumphantly. "Neither Moses nor Elijah died in the normal way."

"They were assumed into heaven."

"Yes! That's why they could come back. But anyway, those times were occasions when people had an epiphany, because they had received one of these special emissions of energy from the stars."

"It works better up on the mountains?"

"Yes, the air is thinner there." I suddenly knew from the barely perceptible sideways look in his eye that this was half B.S.; he was spinning a yarn and I'd never be able to tell how much of it he believed and how much he was simply putting on to see how far he could get. He expanded on some other examples of his theory and then said, "We all used to go up on the roofs in the summer and sleep there. Who knows what insights we were receiving?" He smiled mischievously: "You should go to the Middle East and go up on a mountain and get naked. You might receive an epiphany!"

I laughed then and shook my head. He sat back in his chair, looking pleased with himself. "It's all logic," he said. "Logic and philosophy. You just start with logic and it's amazing where it can take you."

Spring!

I've been feeling inexplicably, quietly happy the past couple of days - there's just been a feeling of gentle, quiet contentment. Maybe it has to do with getting near the end of the book project and realizing it is really going to happen. I haven't felt that contentment for so long I'd almost forgotten what it was like, and yet it is pretty natural to me: a kind of quiet warmth underlying everything.

Yesterday I bought a small bunch of orangey-red tulips, the first tulips I've seen in the store, and they've been here on the table in the sunlight all day as I worked. It was a bright clear day too, one of those late winter days with sunlight and sharp shadows on absolutely white snow, when you sense the sap is beginning to run in the maple trees, and spring promises to come fairly soon.

On Sunday I also had time for a trip to the bookstore. I was looking over the selection of Balzac novels in translation and found they had quite a few. I brought home a copy of "Lost Illusions," the Modern Library edition, and read the introduction while I took a bath. I didn't know he was only 51 when he died; it said during his last years he traveled through Europe with his longtime mistress who he married, five months before his death, on her vast estate near the Ukraine.

I liked this quotation from George Sand:

"He searched and dared everything...childlike and great; always envious of trifles and never jealous of true glory; sincere to the point of modesty; proud to the point of braggadocio; trusting himself and others; very generous, very kind, and very crazy, with an inner reserve of reason which controlled all aspects of his work, brazen yet celibate; drunk on water; intemperate regarding work, but sober in the other passions; materialistic and romantic to equal excess; credulous and skeptical; filled with inconsistencies and mysteries - that was Balzac."

I was astounded to see that he wrote 92 novels --ninety-two! Incredible! -- with the intention of capturing forever a social history of the French society of his time - the literary work he said he wished that "Athens, Rome, Persia and Egypt had bequeathed to us." He wrote every single day from midnight to midday, wearing a white dressing-gown, and always had several books in various stages of completion.

I've actually got two other books going right now as well: "The Age of the Cathedrals," by Georges Duby, quite good but totally Euro-centric in a way that is starting to feel very dated (and annoying) to me, and "A Bend in the River," V.S. Naipaul, about an Indian man living in Africa. I'm sure the slightly relaxed contentment this past weekend came from this too - having a little time again to read, to play the piano, to listen to music, lift my head up and look around - feel my whole self coming back to me after so many months of really really hard work (and having to be fierce about it in order to carve out the time.) Today it's been back to the grindstone, with a big professional project requiring all the attention I can give it, and some editing yet to be done. But the crocus leaves are up, and the late afternoon sun is gilding the jade plant and casting its idle fingers across the bookshelves: time for tea.