Maggie's Farm

The Jewish-born Roman Catholic convert Czech composer Viktor Ullmann's Der Kaiser Von Atlantis was his last composition in the Terezin concentration camp outside Prague before he was shipped to Auschwitz in 1944 and gassed on arrival.

One of the remarkable stories of the era is about all of the music in the camps, and Terezin had more than its share of talent. The Nazis and even the SS loved music and thus encouraged camp musicianship. Mrs. BD recently heard a Terezin survivor speak about being in the choir there at age 11. (140,000 passed through Terezin: 20,000 were liberated at the end.)

In this short (50+ min.) modernist opera, the Emperor of Atlantis (a thinly-disguised Hitler-type) declares total war on the world. (As one would expect from a prison camp opera, the "Loudspeaker" has a major role and, instruments being limited, it's like a cabaret band.) Death goes on strike out of resentment at the competition from the Emperor, but love reappears on the battlefield and, in the end, Death is persuaded to resume his merciful task of erasing pain from the world when the emperor himself agrees to die.

Here's a snippet of the opera on YouTube, the Emperor's farewell aria:

From Jim Bishop's reminiscences of his father, A Father's Love Goes on Forever and Forever, one quote:

Being a father is an awesome calling and responsibility. Granted, just about anyone can father a child, but what an awesome calling and responsibility it is to be a father. At 64, I’m still learning, even though both our daughters have long flown the nest, are married and have put Anna and me squarely in the grandparenting stage of life, something we thought old people did.
A lot of who I am today and how I act, as a parent and as an individual, can be attributed to my dad’s influence.
Among those things I learned at my father’s knee: to be honest and reliable in daily dealings and to give the other person the benefit of the doubt - until he or she proves unworthy of trust; to be on time and don’t make others wait; to devote oneself fully to an honest day’s work; to make church a priority; to know how to have fun; to be there for your kids; to be an encourager; to say “please,” “thank you” and “I love you” often; to know when to say “no” and don’t jump too quickly on the bandwagon; to not wait for a funeral to give someone flowers; to set goals and persevere to meet them.

For Father's Day, I am recommending Matthew Crawford's 2006 essay about work, of the above title, in The New Atlantis. One quote:

...the time is ripe for reconsideration of an ideal that has fallen out of favor: manual competence, and the stance it entails toward the built, material world. Neither as workers nor as consumers are we much called upon to exercise such competence, most of us anyway, and merely to recommend its cultivation is to risk the scorn of those who take themselves to be the most hard-headed: the hard-headed economist will point out the opportunity costs of making what can be bought, and the hard-headed educator will say that it is irresponsible to educate the young for the trades, which are somehow identified as the jobs of the past. But we might pause to consider just how hard-headed these presumptions are, and whether they don’t, on the contrary, issue from a peculiar sort of idealism, one that insistently steers young people toward the most ghostly kinds of work.

I see he has expanded his thoughts into a new book. An excerpt from the book appeared in The NYT Magazine last month: The Case for Working with your Hands. A quote from that:

High-school shop-class programs were widely dismantled in the 1990s as educators prepared students to become “knowledge workers.” The imperative of the last 20 years to round up every warm body and send it to college, then to the cubicle, was tied to a vision of the future in which we somehow take leave of material reality and glide about in a pure information economy. This has not come to pass. To begin with, such work often feels more enervating than gliding. More fundamentally, now as ever, somebody has to actually do things: fix our cars, unclog our toilets, build our houses.

When we praise people who do work that is straightforwardly useful, the praise often betrays an assumption that they had no other options. We idealize them as the salt of the earth and emphasize the sacrifice for others their work may entail. Such sacrifice does indeed occur — the hazards faced by a lineman restoring power during a storm come to mind. But what if such work answers as well to a basic human need of the one who does it? I take this to be the suggestion of Marge Piercy’s poem “To Be of Use,” which concludes with the lines “the pitcher longs for water to carry/and a person for work that is real.” Beneath our gratitude for the lineman may rest envy.

Some days, definitely. Other days, more abstract work is just fine. 50/50 might be ideal for me, but a work-out in a gym is no substitute for doing something physical and real. We men need to engage mind and muscle together to feel whole.

You can see it in any little boy, and it never goes away. Chain saws, brush wackers and tractors are my skill level. It's called unskilled (at best, semi-skilled) work.

Is it summer yet? 60 degrees F here this morning with fog and a cool rain. It's what we call Cape Cod weather. Here are some normal summer waves at Orleans. (the constant misspellings on YouTube titles bugs me):

Nice autumn surf at Nauset:

A sucky day. Two tooth extractions last evening as prep for some implants, and then today the basement flooded (17/20 of the past days with heavy rain). It's raining as I type, too.

Six guys here all day with a dumpster and suction hoses removing everything from the basement (old tax records and other records too, totally soaked), the carpet, the tiles and linoleum underneath, the wood shelving, etc etc. How heavy is soaked carpet? Plus the wallboard took a terrible hit: it's done. Fans and dehumidifiers humming away right now. What an f-ing mess.

Glad I have homeowner's insurance. Sorry I do not have dental insurance - but I'd be uninsurable in that regard.

I tell myself that if these are my worst problems, I am probably in pretty good shape. But my jaw hurts. Don't you hate it when people complain? It makes others feel like they should say or do something to make it better, or to fix it. 

Well, at least I am not in an iron lung ward. That must have really sucked. The last iron lung inhabitant died last year. My brain makes me wonder how they avoided bedsores, how they pooped, and why they didn't unplug the damn thing late at night while the nurses were dozing:

As we grow up, we realize that no Dads are "great men" in the usual sense. Just as flawed as we are. But, in my view, any Dad who sticks by his kids and keeps 'em in sneakers is a darn good one.

Neptunus discusses his Dad for Father's Day.

A CT friend emailed these (you can readily tell in what sorts of directions his interests lie):

Danbury Railway Museum

Connecticut Antique Machinery Association

The Shore Line Trolley Museum

and, if your travels happen to take you near Coalbrookdale, England,

Ironbridge, Birthplace of Industry.

Photo: An old trolley at the Trolley Museum. I remember how the old trolley tracks could twist your bike tires when you rode over them as the tracks were gradually consumed by layers of asphalt. The bus lobby beat out whatever trolley lobbies there were and roads, unlike tracks, were built and maintained by government. A shame.

Photo below: Cylinder of a Corliss Steam Engine at the Machinery Museum

A friend sent a photo he took of the Darien, CT train station. At 5:45 am the southbound platform would be jammed with riders to NYC:

Firesign Theater, 1974:

I thought it was just an Alaska-style lawn sculpture, but the thing moves, too. Battlefield potential no doubt. Can you picture 30 of these, heavily armed, at the Battle of the Somme? h/t Jonah at NRO

Photo quality looks like the Bird Dog pup took these with her cell phone yesterday, in Chelsea (aka Hell's Kitchen):

Tiger posted some toon sites. I liked xkcd. A sample:

It's time for a free ad for Sippican's craftsmanship. Readers may recall the stunning and unique humidor he made for me. He seems to be able to make anything, in any historical style, including custom built-ins.

I'm sure he'd love to build something for you, especially if you are friendly to him. Here's his furniture site. Here's a small (Shaker?) Tiger Maple side table he made for us:

Sipp was kind enough to bring over a similar table the other day, in an antiqued (can't appreciate the antiquing in my in photo) finish. It is situated among the pile of other engagement gifts, below: 

Nina Anasiashvilli in Giselle: