Dear Hank,

I've been reading a book on the history of the Eastern Roman Empire, Constantinople and all that. Thank goodness we don't live in those times! Just have a gander at what was happening in 675 A.D.

From Lost to the West by Lars Brownworth page 117

But as the sixth century drew to a close, there were troubling singns on the horizon. The merchants, industrialists, and small landowners that made up the middle class were diminishing as wars and uprisings began to disrupt trade. Natural disasters and the seizure of their produce by passing troops made life difficult for farmers and frequently led them to borrow money they couldn’t hope to repay. Growing numbers of poor tried to flee the land to avoid their creditors, while those who remained sold themselves into serfdom to resolve their debts. Small farms began to disappear, swallowed by the ravenous hunger of the great aristocratic landowners. With a shrinking tax base and powerful landed magnates enjoying considerable tax exemptions, the central government was forced to resort to increasingly severe measures to keep coffers full, but harsh tactics met with diminishing returns. Always chronically short of funds, the emperors who followed Justinian could spare no time for the relief of their citizens and turned deaf ears to their complaints.

Dear Hank,

I can’t keep silent anymore. I’ve seen a recent headline and I’ve got to tell you I’m personally distressed. It reads and I quote (if I can find it...:)

“ Will Kardashian backlash hurt ‘Kourtney and Kim take New York’? “

Finally, a news story we can sink our teeth into.

No more debating “Is pizza a vegetable?” (It is Congress said so. Another Congress in Indiana set pi to 3 so let’s stop quibbling over ‘.14 bla bla bla’ - case closed.)

Here we’ve got a real story.

First let’s get the facts out in the open: “Is there a Kardashian backlash?”

Well, obviously, otherwise they wouldn’t have made a headline out of it now would they? (btw Just because World news closed up shop does not mean there aren’t aliens next door to you in the RV park. I just want to be clear here.)

Okay, so there’s a Kardashian backlash. From who? From where? We don’t know. Why? We haven’t read the article. But let’s ignore that for the moment and concentrate on the issue at hand, “Will it hurt ‘Kourtney and Kim take New York’?”

Let’s break this down, slice it and dice it and see what we come up with - okay?

There are two schools of thought and one outlier: Yes, No, and ‘who gives a xxx?’ There are any number of substitutions that can be made for the ‘xxx’ mentioned previously, among them: “rat’s behind”, “feces”, “flying copulation” - to name a few.

Let’s look at the “Yes” side of things. It is highly likely some would argue that people may be so upset at the Kardashians that they won’t tune in to see if Kim and Kourtney go shopping in the Big Apple or not. I view this as a remote possibility for those who regularly tune in to the Kardashian shows. I mean love ‘em or hate ‘em if you ain’t watching you can comment. Am I right? Am I right? boo-yeah.

Okay, then looks look at the “No” side of this issue. Well, if it’s “no, it won’t hurt them” then we need to look no further into this side of things because it won’t hurt them and that’s the question we were trying to answer.

Let’s look at possibility number three: who gives a xxx?

Well, in this case “Yes or No” really doesn’t matter.

I think the status is quo.

So by ruthless logic I think we have come to the answer.

I hope you’ll be able to sleep better tonight.

Now, onto “Secrets of the Hollywood Celebrities.”

By before I go there let me comment that I saw “Say Yes to the Dress.”

This is a long running show on cable TV. I somehow missed it until my daughter showed it to me. It centers around brides to be not being able to make up their minds as to which dress to wear when they get married. I don’t know how I’ve missed this show.

But it reminds me of the old SNL monologue where Eddie Murphy assures parents that regardless of how fat, ugly, or inept your child is “Everybody gets it on prom night.”

Similarly, “Say Yes to the Dress” has shown me that no matter how fat, homely, ugly or mentally challenged one is someone will marry you.

Just look at Kim and Kris!

Ah bliss.

I gotta go.

Someone is knocking on the door wearing a rubber suit.

Bryce

Awaiting the Green Flash

I got up early this morning. The sun hadn’t come up, I could tell because the sky had lightened somewhat in anticipation of sunrise but it wasn’t there yet. I took a look out on the water. The sky was clear. There were a few clouds hanging on the mountains at Sargent and Cadillac but otherwise the sky seemed unobstructed.

I threw on a bathrobe and went to the living room. I hoped it wasn’t too cold in there. Last night’s fire had died out I was sure. How much heat was retained? As I slide open the door from the chilly back hall I was pleasantly surprised by the warmer atmosphere that greeted me. I could stand it without having to build a fire.

This was important because I speculated that this might be a morning to catch the green flash. It’s one thing to watch the sun as it sets and gauge about when it will disappear behind the Earth’s curve leaving only magnificent reds, pinks, and oranges with just a brief moment of green at the tangent where it left your view; it’s quite another to find that point at sunrise. The point where it will rise and quickly run through the spectrum of color leaving your mind’s eye with a memory. So fast is it that you have to replay it in your mind, unsure of what you have seen. It’s a momentary burst of yellow green light, maybe some purple.

I sit and I wait. I try to calculate where it will be. To see the green flash you need to have a smooth surface such as the horizon of the ocean. Too many waves or too big and it may be lost. I’m on the edge of The Western Bay behind Mount Desert Island, home of Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. The highest mountain on the east coast is here, Cadillac, named for the four-flusher who halfway across the Atlantic gave himself the preposterous title and then began to name as much as he could after the appellation. Ever after hearing the story of Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, a commoner who made up the title, lied to his father-in-law about his age, and created a coat of arms by stealing from others and is the man we remember for naming this mole of a mountain after himself; whose unreal coat of arms can still be seen on a car hyped as the epitome of luxury here in America.

But Cadillac Mountain and it’s nearby rival Sargent have an asset for watching the green flash; they are bald. Huge stretches of smooth granite sculpted by eons of wind and rain. If you can’t see to the horizon then looking at sunrise over a distant smooth object should do. But if there are clouds in the way then all is lost. Around the peaks hung a long low band of moisture. Was it not to be? Would I be foiled by those clouds?

I looked at the horizon trying to guess the exact spot where the sun would first appear.

If you study the subtle shades of light on the horizon at the sun’s rise and it’s setting you’ll notice that the light turns red away from where the sun is, not at the point where it actually rises. The red/pink effect comes in two distinct patterns. One is opposite where the sun is. The far side of the horizon will glow pink. The other pattern is a redder color; it is seen to either side of where the sun will be. I think of it is as a bowl of red light that the sun is pushing before itself and I, being on the inside of the bowl, will only see the two places where the rim of the bowl contacts the horizon. Between those two points of reddish orange there is a faint yellow green tint to the fading grays and coming blues. The sky tends to be still. I try to find the middle; the point between the reds that will be the exact spot where the sun will rise. I know as time progresses the reds will slip ever further to the sides of the horizon and the central point will become brighter.

But will that point be on the bald part of the mountain? Or will it be where the pine trees are and thus present a ragged edge and the green light diffused and lost? Will the clouds obstruct it?

I remembered being in this room with my father, waiting for the green flash to come over Cadillac Mountain. It was February, It was cold. The sky was clear. We had gotten up several mornings to await the sunrise. Each morning we had been thwarted by the clouds hanging on the top of the mountain. But not this one morning, we waited side by side in the chilly cold stillness of dawn. Then it came. Like an emerald green laser it burn into my mind’s eye. So clear, so bright, so unforgettable. If you’ve seen the green flash in warmer climes like the Caribbean the flash tends to be softened by the moisture in the air, but February in Maine it’s clear, sharp and unforgettable. I remember that moment and the moments before; we sat together. There was nothing to say. I could feel the connection. Father to son, waiting, anticipating, wondering.

Today I wondered as well. I saw the water flowing out with the tide. The waves dimpled the surface. there were two curved bands of water that pushed out below the dimpled surface. What was that? What could cause it I wondered. I watched the slight fog, the “smoke on the water” running out of the bay with the water. a single duck and a smaller pelagic bird sat silently on the water awaiting the dawn.

The sky is yellower now. I look at the notch between Cadillac and Sargent. It’s clear. I wonder; I hope that will be the place where the sun rises. When you have as wide a view of the horizon as you do here in Maine you get a good sense of where the sun will be at sunrise. In the summer it rises far to my left, behind the large green tree covered island. On December 23rd it’s almost straight ahead on the far right side of Sargent Mountain. In February I know it’s right over Cadillac to the left of Sargent. But now? I’m not sure. I allow myself to be confused.

The smoke ghosts of the water are in full retreat scampering not down the bay but angling across it, as if to hide in the far inlets where the sun will lastly shine. Hoping desperately to hide from the rays that will spell their doom, vampires of the dawn.

Two times I remember sitting like this with my father. Once was awaiting the green flash, the other was watching a young college quarterback. My dad had no interest in sports; saw no reason why it mattered who the pitcher was in a World Series game or a quarterback in a football game. One was as good as another to him. He missed the subtlety.

I remember sitting in the old TV room in Connecticut, my mother’s office. We had a big square box that sat upon a table with a black and white tube in it. Turn it on and wait a minute or more and then something would happen. I remember the warm smell of the vacuum tubes and the ever present hum. Dad joined me part way through the first half. He started in on his “What difference does it make who the pitcher is or who the quarterback is?” routine and, for the first half, it certainly didn’t make any difference, nothing much happened. I remember saying to my dad, “I hear this guy Steve Spurrier is pretty good.”

In the second half Steve could do no wrong. He hurled long loping passes that a darting wide receiver could only catch over his outstretched arms on the outside shoulder as he raced down the sideline. He did it time and again; first to his left, then his right, then down the middle. It was a magical performance, maybe Spurrier’s best. Dad was silent. I think he saw what the difference was. For that half against whomever Steve Spurrier played - I will always be thankful and indebted to him.

A line of five birds flew down the bay flapping their wings desperately fast, trying to gain speed before the coming dawn.

The clouds over Sargent were turning red then yellow golden then orange. The sun would becoming up there - somewhere. It looked like the clouds would take away the flash. It meant I’d have to wait longer to be sure. Once I saw the rays of the sun I could turn away, but not before.

I have been watching the flat spot created by the Great Pond next to Echo Lake. It’s to the right of where the sun will be rising and it’s sharply defined between Mansell Mountain and Beech Mountain. There is a flat low bank of fir trees that hide the body of water, still it’s an odd flat spot in the horizon. The clouds have been packed in that space like its a glacier of tumbling snow and ice forced to sit between the two mountains. With the light rising to the left the clouds are lit first in pale somber grays then lighter tones. As the sun rises they color yellow and orange and pink and red. As the streak of cloud over Sargent lights itself in white light surrounded by bright stunning orange and yellow the glacier of clouds appears passive in grays and reds.

A cloud has skirted across the sky its faint wraithlike composition suggests the lion on the British crest. It seems to be ready, claw lifted to rake the few wisps in front of it. Later there’s another image, a goat?, I can’t remember, it’s faded from my memory already. Gone.

I dare not take my eyes off the impending rise for fear that in those brief few seconds I’ll miss it. I have my camera ready and I snap away at random intervals. I wish my camera could do more to capture the essence of what I’m seeing but it fails me.

I think of Robert Frost. “The horse must think it strange to a pause in these woods.” I think of his being unable to read his poem at Kennedy’s Inauguration but what a boost Jack Kennedy did for poetry to have him there.

I think about my friend Mel who made me see for the first time the subtlety of shades of green in the new spring foliage. What a wonderment it is. What poetry. What subtlety of light and shade and color and tone. In a world crying out for answers in black and white I see the wonder of the heavens displayed before me in a vast palette of poly tone and color.

Then on the right side of the mountain, below the line of clouds but above that of the trees I see it, the breaking green. It rolls up the hill following the slope, like an old fashioned can opener, the kind with a hook you have to jab into the can and rock up and down around the rim, so the sun rips the through the veil of gray and rolls up the mountain in one brilliant instant ripping flash of green light followed by a piercing bright white light so intense I have to turn away seconds later.

I savor the moment, remember the memories. I wonder what it was I just saw. It is lost but remembered. It grows incomprehensible seconds later. But it was there. It was glorious.

Thanksgiving Morn 2011

Die Trying

Hank,

As you know I've been busy. What with the whole mess with Kim Kardashian and the worries over the terrible weight gains and losses of various famous people that I've never heard of, from shows that I've never watched; there hasn't been much time to address other important pressing issues of the day, like who the next great: chef, artist, Republican candidate, home remodeler or cake baker will be.

I have just finished reading Die Trying by Lee Child, his second novel. His writing is in the vein of other murder mystery action writers like John D. MacDonald and Randy Wayne White. Like MacDonald’s Travis McGee or White’s Doc Ford Child’s main character, Jack Reacher, is a strong independent unattached man who just happens to have lots of military training in weapons, hand to hand combat, intelligence and other subjects that come in handy when you accidentally get kidnapped by a group of thugs and handcuffed to big metal pipe in a horse barn. He’s not scared or frightened. He’s actually thinking he’s been in situatons a lot worse. He’s unconcerned when being interrogated by the big bad guy, who is casually suggesting all kinds of awful fates that might befall him. No at that moment Jack Reacher is reading the spines of the books in the fellow’s library and thinking about what this fellow knows. If you like page turning action like Calvin Trillion and Robert Ludlum but with the more introspective outlook that White and MacDonald give you’ll like Lee Child.

In Die Trying, the main bad guy, a fellow named Beau Borkin, is a leader of a para-military group hiding out in Montana. He’s upset at the Federal Reserve and the banks for his father having gone into debt trying to save his farm and no being able to repay the loans when conditions worsened on the farm. The screed, at least that part of it sounds like something that could be right out of Occupy Wall Street. It’s curious how times have changed. This book, first published in paperback in 1998, would be using the motif of the banks are out to get us as a pretext to show how crazy Beau Borkin is. Now, it doesn’t seem so far fetched. Borkin’s financial screed also has a lot of the sound and fury of Taylor Caldwell’s Captain and the Kings.

The idea that The banks are out to screw us has been a recurring theme in history, literature, and the arts. Oftentimes, it is tied to as secret society, or a semi or quasi government agency hidden, partially or wholly, from the public. In a movie like Da Vinci Code it’s the Masonic Order, in a book like Foucault’s Pendulum, it’s The Knights Templar, in history it’s accounts of German bankers coming to meet the Spanish Galleons as they came into port. Jack Kennedy is quoted as saying, “the gnomes of Zurich” in reference to the bankers in Switzerland, institutions long famous for the secrecy of their clients. In recent U.S. history it is known that the man who helped write the regulation to set up the Federal Reserve is also one of the founders of Goldman Sachs.

While on the one hand it’s hard to believe that a large group could keep themselves hidden from view for a clandestine purpose for years, decades, or centuries is it so hard to believe that a mindset, or double mindset, could not enable some of the activities suggested. Could one not believe it’s someone else’s job to watch out for that and also to have a small group of like minded people try to influence governments: state, local, national for a purpose they want?

B

Dear Hank,

Re: The Blue Flash

November 16, 2011

I don’t remember exactly when it was, about a week or two ago, we were waiting for sunset. When it’s clear enough we especially like to watch because we like to watch “The Green Flash.” This is an optical effect cause by the bending of light at sunset just like a prism can bend light and break it out into the different colors of the spectrum. Typically, you see the red end of the spectrum; but, if you watch the last place where the sun appears to be in contact with the horizon, at that tangent point, you will typically see a brief spot of green light. This is because the Earth is blocking the Sun’s red rays and thus the next part of the spectrum will be visible. On some evenings the green will appear as a small circle and will close down to nothing in a few seconds. Sometimes you’ll even see a purple tinges around the green and as the green circle gets smaller and smaller you’ll see a small purple circle, a “Purple Flash.”

On this evening the sunset and we watched the tangent point. It went green then it went a deep blue in a perfect circle., blue, like the top end of a crayon. If you remember your color spectrum It goes: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.

I’ve seen the green flash with tinges of yellow and then purple but the blue usually gets lost. But on this evening it didn’t get lost. It stood out big and bold. Why? There was a low layer of clouds. Typically, if there are clouds or if the horizon is ragged you won’t see any flash. On this evening I have to conclude that the low layer of clouds blocked the purple light and let the blue shim through, and what a blue it was! The kind of thing I can see over and over in my mind.

Gotta go, stay safe,

Bryce

The New Bread Machine

Dear Hank;

Nov, 15, 2011

Sorry it’s been a while but I’ve been busy doing things I don’t really care about, which is a whole different story. So let’s start with the new bread machine.

The old bread machine worked just fine. Okay, you had to know how to tweak it here and there and half the time the loaf didn’t puff up. Bad yeast I think. I was in the middle of a two year experiment to figure this out when my wife and daughter ganged up on me and gave me a new machine. I should be thankful I suppose, but they started to explain all the features and benefits. It made a smaller square loaf so you wouldn’t have so much bread, half of which usually went moldy. The machine was top of the line. Yeah, okay, but a square loaf? That’s not a loaf that’s a deformed hockey puck. But okay, I’ll try the damn thing. One good thing is they put the basic bread recipe right on the side of the machine. With a mind like mine that’s a big advantage.

Why is it I always put the flour in first only to remember right after I do it that they want the water in the bottom? You’d think I’d learn, not me; I’m a traditionalist. So I dump the flour into a bowl, thus showing that even on simple tasks guys get a lot more stuff dirty in the kitchen than a woman would. So what? They don’t normally drink when they cook; I do. Except, if I’m making bread it’s usually in the morning so it seems a little; I don’t know, “gauche”? to do so that early.

So when you start the machine up the first thing the little display says is Resting. I’m sorry, what? You haven’t done anything yet and you’re resting? What kind of sh*t is that? My brother had a friend Jerry. Jerry was in his seventies when my brother was still a teen. Jerry had a big old Cadillac, 60’s style, big fins, chrome, outrageous lights - the whole bit. Jerry raced midget cars. My brother would go over and help Jerry get the cars ready. Jerry asked a local shop to soup up his car.

He brought it back the day after he got it from them and said, “Listen, when I’m going 120 and I step on the gas I want something to happen.” That’s the way I feel about the bread machine, when I hit start I want something to happen. I want to hear the whapper whapping or a motor going “gee-gee-gee” or something. I don’t want silence and then have to look on the little screen to see the words “Resting.” What the heck have you been doing all the time you were sitting there, seeping?

Okay, then there’s this other little feature that drove me crazy the first time I used it. Part way through whatever it was doing it stopped and made a noise. I looked at the display and it said some obscure thing that indicated you were supposed to put more stuff in the machine. More stuff? Like what? I already gave it yeast. What do you want? I was in a panic. Had I missed something? Was there something else I needed to do? Fortunately, the instructions were still around. I frantically searched. There was a picture with an arrow to the display panel marked “Display Panel” great. Nothing.

On the third or fourth time, after thoroughly reading the instructions, I found a one sentence explanation, “When the bread machine displays ‘put stuff in’ and the recipe calls for added things like nuts or raisins this is the time to add them.” Now, couldn’t they put that in the index? Or the general display messages table? Or somewhere that you could easily find it?

No, the answer is no. Because this machine wants to make you feel stupid. I refuse to be cowed by this little metal box.

There’s one last thing. After all is said and done and you have a lovely squarish loaf the machine displays some stupid message. What do I want to do? I want to turn it off. I want to flip a switch and turn off the machine. Is that too much to ask? Answer – yes. The only way to turn off the damn thing is to unplug it from the wall. Good thinking guys.

But I’m not complaining. I’m just telling you the way it is. And then there the blue flash, which is what I really wanted to tell you about, but I gotta go.

Take care, say hi to the wife and kids,

Bryce