Yay, History!

A lot has been made recently of Virginia’s desire to push their Civil War history as a tourist draw, and the governor’s subsequent proclamation on the subject. At first he lauded their service in fighting against oppression in the form of a federal government which was trying to preserve the union. Then, when the public rightly condemned him for overlooking the detail of slavery, he made a hasty apology and inserted language asserting that the institution of human bondage may have been a bad thing after all. He was in keeping with the belief of many Southerners however, in that their deep denial features an understanding that slavery was only a peripheral issue, trailing “states rights” as the main cause of the conflict which cost over 600,000 American lives.

I say, let them have their fantasy. We can’t change them after all, any more than we can convince Tea Partyers that their motivation is really just that they’re racist. Let Virginians stew in their invention of a past. But let’s extoll our own past.

Connecticut enrolled 30 regiments in the Civil War. Most saw action, and a lot of it. I’ll take as example, just one of them, the 14th Connecticut Infantry Regiment. They fought in dozens of battles, including Antietam, Fredericksburg, Cancellorsville, Gettysburg, The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, and Appomattox. In other words, they kicked the Confederacy’s ass.

Vermont too, had many regiments which saw extensive service, and suffered losses of almost twenty percent. And don’t forget the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, roosting chickens in the Southland.

The North served and fought, and demonstrated bravery easily on a par with anything the South had to show, and they doubled down by doing it for a good and noble cause, something the South can never claim. Freeing millions of suffering people and preserving the union somehow sounds better than a contrived tale of the preservation of the way of life for a handful of slave owning aristocrats.

You know, I’m sure that the Wehrmacht had some good guys among its ranks. They were the best army in the world, and fought bravely and well. But by no stretch would they or their descendants say today that they fought a justifiable war. At least they have that advantage over some Americans.

Another Tale From a Trunk, conclusion

It took just minutes to find the fellow, and he even spoke a few words of English. No doubt our Anglo Saxon cousins from across the channel made the crossing with some regularity in order to have laugh at the old corporal’s expense, and our guide had picked up some of their speech in consequence. Not much, as we quickly learned, but enough to amuse us.

The place was hushed under the great dome of Les Invalides as we approached the marble balustrade which loomed above the cavern in which the sarcophagus lay. All was dead still as we leaned over the smooth polished stone and gazed at the resting place of Napoleon the Great.

There was a structure the size and faintly like the shape of a small house, carved of red porphyry and sitting on top of a granite base. It was a fine piece if work, surrounded by gigantic statues of mourning deities. We watched it in respectful silence for some minutes, aware of the docent’s eye, and knowing that he was expecting due reverence.

Dan and I exchanged a surreptitious glance or two, and I could tell that he was holding something back. I wanted to kick him over the railing into the space below, but forbore, due to the gravity of the scene. This was akin to the tomb of Washington to them, I supposed, and I was loath to sacrilege it with a jest. But I could see Dan growing red with the strain, and knew that it was going to come.

Finally, he looked at our companion, and gesturing to the mass of red below said,

‘Is he - ah - is he dead?”

The fellow jumped backward as if shot. “What? What? L’Emperor - he mort!” He shook his head in bewilderment.

“Now see here,” Dan answered sternly. “We are mere travelers in your country, and aren’t especially fine, I suppose, but if it’s not asking too much, we would like to speak to the Emperor.”

“If he’s not too busy,” I added helpfully. This brought fresh protestations from the guide, and no small wringing of his hands.

“It’s only a word or two I’m asking,” Dan persisted. “If he’s too busy...”

I suggested that we knock on his door and see if we could rouse him. As fortune would have it there was a curved stairway nearby which led directly down to the sarcophagus itself. We raced down the stairs, the fearful guide on our heels. Dan began to rap against the side of the structure, additional guides arrived, joined by uniformed policemen, accompanied by soldiers, and we quickly found ourselves back on the street.

It was sad to leave Paris, just as we were enjoying ourselves so.

Treme

I first visited New Orleans in the fall before the flood. The next time was 18 months afterwards. Those two occasions made me fall in love with its tattered, faded and resilient charm, and I was ready to resume the affair even before I watched HBO’s latest dramatic series,Treme (pronounced Tre-May).

The creators of The Wire, one of the best shows ever, have nailed it with this series, placed in the Crescent City three months after Katrina. Many veterans of that revered program populate this effort. If you have ever been to New Orleans, the opening scene will choke you up. A group of veteran jazz men gather to stage a mini parade through the cluttered, wasted streets of their city, perfectly symbolizing their pride and determination. They are belatedly joined by a trombone player, arriving via a taxi he is too poor to afford (a theme repeated throughout the show’s debut). The first notes you hear are enough to convince you that he is a master, albeit one with domestic issues.

There follows a montage over the credits, depicting scene after scene of cruddy walls, each with a telltale rim of back, smudgy mold, where the high water mark of the flood has been left. You can almost smell the city’s pain here. That introduction was possibly the best I have seen, providing a visceral sense of New Orleans, and made me an instant convert.

Treme follows the paths of several characters, some of whom have ridden out the worst of the storm and are trying with great difficultly to rebuild, and those who are returning after their diaspora, with the same goal. The trombone player visits his ex-wife in her bar after the parade. She is looking for her brother, who is among the missing. Assisting her is a lawyer, who has her issues with the police. Her husband, portrayed by John Goodman, channelling his best Walter Sobchak, is a conspiracy theorist convinced that federal animus has created the flood.

A local radio DJ, hearing the band parading down the street for the first time since the deluge, leaps from his bed to join the march, leaving his sometime girlfriend to find her way to work. She owns and cooks in a fairly upscale restaurant, struggling like everyone else to make it under difficult circumstances. Returning to the city around the same time is a Crewe Chief, one of those whose job it is to direct a group participating in one of the city’s many parades. His appearance late in the initial episode in full regalia is a sight to behold.

This series is all about the music, which permeates every scene and is of a very high order. It is also about the food, and the sorrow, and the hope that makes New Orleans the special place that it is. Do yourself a favor and watch Treme. Then do yourself another favor and visit the city.

Another Tale From a Trunk, pt. 1

I found this fragment, and felt that it must have been something left out of Innocents Abroad. Parts of it were badly faded, and I may have gotten some of it wrong.

The Art of Paris

We were to depart on the morrow, and naturally feeling sad to leave that eternal city (just how many of the old continent’s cities are eternal?), Dan and I decided to enjoy a last stroll. We walked by the Isle de Citie, and I managed to refrain from making another visit to The Notre Dame, much to Dan’s dismay.

We strolled along the Seine, which is split by the island containing the old church. Much is made of that stream by the poets, but having piloted the grandfather of waters in my youth, I found it lacking. I told Dan that I could probably spit across the water, and let fly with one by way of demonstration. Nearly made it across too, and was rightly proud of myself - that is, until he pointed out a fellow a little down the bank, who was managing to do the same thing with his urine.

Dan then inquired what I wished to do on our last day in that great city, and I told him that I craved to peer at Napoleon’s tomb, for never had there been a more murderous man in all of European history, and that is going some. “It must be covered in sulfurous brimstone,” I opined.

“Why,’ I continued, “he left a million frenchmen dead on the plains of Russia, and on other fields, a few million more. Do you know, French men are shorter than their continental counterparts? You can look it up. He drafted all of the males of France into service, starting with the tallest.” When all of the seven footers were killed off, he drafted the six footers. When they were all used up, he moved on to the five footers. Eventually, there none left but dwarves. Since then, France has been trying to catch up to the rest of the world, size-wise. Until now, they’ve come up a bit short, if you’ll forgive me. The Emperor, Napoleon’s nephew, figures that he has to wait another hundred years before he’ll be ready to take on an opponent, due to the stature of the raw material that he has got to work with.

“Such an evil person has got to have an impressive, evil-looking tomb,” I reasoned. It would be a hundred feet tall, and guarded by trolls. Napoleon the younger had had the corpse carted back to Paris Years before, from his neglected grave on St. Helena.

Dan was convinced, and we hired a hack to take us to Les Invalides, which served as the great dictator’s latest address.

En route, our driver, through the means of Dan’s truly horrific French, deduced our mission. This was miraculous, because Dan’s abilities in the language were dire. He didn’t merely wound the thing. He killed it as dead as Napoleon himself, and into the eleventh generation. I suspected the driver of some mind-reading trick, and suggested to him that it were so. This seemed to upset him, so I let it go.

We arrived at the tumble of bricks and mortar that are Les Invalides, part museum and part old soldiers home. The last part is no longer true, but I wanted to say a good word for the place.

I was content to look over the martial artifacts which were there in abundance. One item struck with particular poignancy. It was a cuirass, or metal breastplate, worn by a dragoon at Waterloo. Over where the heart would have been, a jagged hole pushed outward, some four inches across. It must have been made by a piece of artillery shell, or perhaps by grapeshot. He would have been shot in the back, as he rode away from one of Wellington’s squares on the battlefield. And so a young man, full of ardor and pride, died before he realized his life’s ambitions, and before he knew what had struck him. This mangled bit of shining metal now resides in Les Invalides, mounted on a post. Its owner would have been an aged grandfather now, heavy with years and respect, telling his rapt audience of how he has once served under the immortal Napoleon.

As I was saying, I was quite content to wander amid these reminders of folly, but Dan was hot to get on with it, so we sought a docent to direct us to the object of our search.

TO BE continued...

Just Two Things, and Then I'll Go

Here's a couple of things that have me wanting to mouth off.

I saw a note on the CNN site that reported how some Democrats are joining the Tea Party movement. They say that they liked Obama to begin with but now see he is really bad for the country. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that they are not among the 50 million or so who don't have health care coverage. I don't get it: if we are such a great country, what is it that makes us say fuck you to our fellow citizens, as long as we have what we want in our lives? Isn't it best if everyone has a chance? Doesn't that make for a stronger country overall?

Then you look closer at the CNN article and you see that 96% of Tea Partyers call themselves Republicans, and only 4% define themselves as Democrats. And if you look even further, you can see at least one "Democrat" saying that he eventually voted for John McCain. Just what kind if Republican is that? And what is CNN's angle? They couldn't come up with any real Democrats who dislike the administration enough to join an openly racist organization? Guess not.

The second thing that has gotten me a bit riled is the latest Roman Catholic pedophilia scandal. Of course, the acts resulting in the scandal go back decades, and continue to occur today, but let's not sweat the details. I saw a letter in Time magazine from a woman who said: "Pedophiles exist in all walks of life, yet Catholic priests get the headlines, even though just a tiny percentage have committed this shameful offense. Choosing to live the vow of chastity is a gift of one's total self to God and has no relevance whatsoever to pedophilia."

First, I would wonder what percentage of pedophiliacs in a religious organization, often left in charge of young children, is acceptable. Second, you miss the point if you think that the greater offense is in the acts of a sick individual. It is, by far, in the universal cover up committed by the Catholic Church in their delaying, obstructing, denying, and removal of the offender from retribution, and their placing of that offender in a position to commit the same crimes, without a hint of warning to the new community of victims. They haven't just driven the getaway car, they have loaded the gun, they have formulated the plan, they have held the victim down while the perpetrator raped them, again and again. They are just as guilty, and they should be made to pay. And when they are done, by which I mean when they have run out of money, they should be shut down, so that at long last a plague can be removed from the people.