People and things

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by Richard Nilsen

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Throughout the history of ideas, we have mostly divided existence up into two vast categories: things and people. Humanity and the cosmos. The portrait and the landscape. The lyric and the ode. There are many ways to think about existence, and each has its applications. But this one explains much about the vicissitudes of history, and perhaps the current cultural climate.

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Individuals and historical periods tend to spend their time and effort either with society and the interactions and relationships between people; or with questions of existence and the structure and meaning of the cosmos.

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Of course, there is some considerable overlap, as we can study humans as things — as animals — and study human anatomy the same way we do horse anatomy. And we often anthropomorphize animals and object.

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But by and large, the world that excites our curiosity falls into either the sciences, broadly speaking, or the humanities — again broadly.

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And so, we have astronomy or zoology or linguistics or geology on one side, and we have psychology, sociology, art and literature on the other. Yes, I know this is a gross generalization. I admit it. But it helps us understand some of the broad directions of history. For, there are periods when the knowledge of people and behavior seems paramount, and counterbalancing eras where it is the cosmos itself that seems most important.

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This is not to deny that even in those more cosmically oriented times, that it is the position of Homo sapiens within that cosmos that becomes discussed, nor that in the corresponding cultural epochs, when humans seem most important, that their relation to the gods and the heavens are totally forgotten.

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But still, these two approaches to knowledge and to existence are clear in outline as we look at both history and the arts that were created during their times.

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These two approaches have been given various names over the years, as different thinkers have noticed the bifurcation and attempted to regularize our conception of them.

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They can be called “classical” and “romantic,” or “Apollonian” and “Dionysian,” or simply “human-centered” vs. “nature-centered.” We focus on the chess pieces or on the chessboard. Psychologically, we are extroverts or introverts.

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And all through history, the pendulum has swung back and forth, one way and then the other, with each succeeding age disparaging the accomplishments of its predecessor — the way youth always discounts the knowledge gained by the older generation that gave it birth. Tick. Tock. It swings back and fro.

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Those of us my age, or thereabouts, who came of age in the Sixties, the “Age of Aquarius,” had parents who lived through Depression and World Wars, and for whom the problems of people dealing with people was the central issue: How do we keeps humans from slaughtering each other wholesale? But, for us in the following generation, a more germane question seemed to be the discovery of alternate realities, the finding of universal truths. Advertisers knew and gave us the Dodge Rebellion and Prell shampoo contained “all natural natural ingredients.” Nature good; society corrupt.

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The emphasis switched from the human’s relationship with other humans, to the human’s relation to the cosmos.

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Of course, both issues are always there in the human mind, but their prominence alternates. In the Middle Ages, the prime relationship was Man and God (i.e., the cosmos); in the Renaissance, Humanism took hold. In the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, emphasis was switched back to the cosmic issues; comes the Enlightenment and 18th century, and rationality takes charge. “The proper study of Mankind is Man,” wrote Alexander Pope.

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That, of course was followed by what we now call the Romantic age, and although the word implies a soft, gushy sweetness, the writings of the age speak more about the vastness of the universe and the pitiful small human presence within its fury. To the Romantic, rationality will only get you so far in an irrational universe.

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(It is one of my significant peeves that so many think the term “romantic” means something warm and willowy, when the truth of the era given that name is really very hard and brutal.)

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The 20th century took all this with skepticism and brought a reversion to irony. Let’s not take on too much. As Wittgenstein posed it: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” But now, the times we are watching change before our eyes looks askance at anything we once valued as human. It is human activity that is destroying the planet. And shouldn’t we be more concerned with the wider world than with our petty squabbles?

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Again, I’m exaggerating, but the overriding cultural directions are clear. Irrationality pops to the fore; rational thought is mistrusted — consider the wide anti-science sentiment, and the loss of trust in what used to be valued as expertise.

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One very strange result is that what used to be called conservatism is now called liberalism; and tenets that were in the past considered liberal are now flags waved by those who call themselves conservative, but hold views anything but. Culture has rolled over like some giant toppling iceberg.

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Conservatives used to value tradition and precedent. That was a core value. It was liberals who wanted to chuck the whole thing out and start over. New bottles for new wine.

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It’s all topsy-turvy. And that goes with the wider cultural shift I’m writing about.

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One way of considering this split of sensibilities is that the rational ages tend to focus on the limitations of existence. Edmund Burke, defining the conservative view of society, explains that humans are so limited in understanding, so irrational in their desires, that they need a strong government to keep their impulses in check. Limits were not only good, but necessary.

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It was William Blake, in the succeeding age who wrote the opposite: “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.” And: “Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead. The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” It’s hardly surprising that Blake is enjoying a revival of popularity.

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“The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.” And no one is angrier these days than MAGA Republicans.

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I have been writing about European culture, and that is the one I am born to. But I believe this alternation is most likely a universal human trait. If I look at Chinese philosophy, for instance, I see Confucianism, which is almost wholly concerned with human relationships and its sibling, Taoism, which seeks to establish the truths of the cosmos.

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All of us go through stages tending one way or the other. When we are infants, the only thing we know is mother and family. When we are ancient, we have the time to devote to an understanding of the universe and our place in it.

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It is why, in Hindu culture, age is given over — at least theoretically — to a contemplation of the cosmos.

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So, people and things. The one view favors moderation and compromise; the other knows certainty and natural “law.” We of a certain age see many of the nations of the world entering a new phase, and are not very comfortable with what we see.

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Richard Nilsen inspired many ideas and memories at the salons he presented through the years when he was an arts critic and movie, travel, and features writer at The Arizona Republic.   A few years ago, Richard moved to North Carolina.   We want to continue our connection with Richard and have asked him to be a regular contributor to the Spirit of the Senses Journal.   We asked Richard to write short essays that were inspired by the salons.

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Watch your language

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by Richard Nilsen

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Like for so many English majors, the casual misuse of our language gives me the hiccups. I find myself yelling at the TV screen when some news anchor says, “disinterested,” when he means “uninterested;” or “less” when she means “fewer.” The one that drives me absolutely bananas: “centered around.” It can be centered on some point, or arranged around it, but “centered around” is a topologic oxymoron. Being overly sensitive to such solecisms is an occupational hazard; I was at one point in my life and for my sins, a copy editor. (I.e., the waste bin for English majors.)

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And so, I am careful about “farther” and “further.” Or “imply” and “infer” (That one really gets my goat.) And “enormity” does not refer to size.

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But, although I might blue-pencil a text I’m reading or scream at the TV, I generally hold fire when conversing with a live human. We all make mistakes. It seems rude to attempt to correct someone; spoken language is often quite informal. I don’t wish to become a pedant.

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All I can do is try to maintain my own standards when writing. Believe me, when I do make a mistake, my readers feel no hesitation in pointing it out.

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One problem is that the language keeps changing. What was improper in one generation may be perfectly fine for their children. The English language seems engineered to collide phrases into words, shorten words (“telephone” into “phone,” for instance), drop endings, and shift vowel sounds.

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Grammar nazis will still insist that “nauseous” really means “causes to be sick,” and what we feel is “nauseated.” But that train has sailed on that one. Now, to cause sickness is covered by “nauseating,” and “nauseous” has been elbowed over into the result, not the cause.  All language changes.

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It does so all the time and constantly. We no longer write like Chaucer or Shakespeare or Walter Pater. Words change definition over time; new words are coined; once popular words go out of fashion. How soon these changes shift from being mistakes to being general usage varies, but usually over some period of time.

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When I was a boy, teachers still used to make a big deal about “Can I go,” and “May I go.” (“Can I go to the boy’s room?” And my second grade teacher would answer, “I don’t know. Can you?”) No one much cares anymore. Nor does anyone use “shall” or especially “shan’t,” or “hither” and “thither.” Gone though still perhaps a foggy collective memory.

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One of the changes in usage over the past 30 or 40 years has been about gender. We long ago decided even women can be “actors.” And we have scrubbed our speech of such gendered labels as “policeman,” “fireman” and “postman.” Women now normally also hold these jobs. There were gender-specific names for the jobs in the past that now seem insulting and reductive. “A secretary should always do her best for her employer,” or “A nurse is kind to her patient” implies a world-view no longer held by the majority of us.

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 And in the “old days,” when we used to talk about “policewomen,” we generally meant someone who wrote parking tickets, or dressed up like a hooker a la Beverly Garland in the 1957-58 TV series, Decoy (aka “Police Woman.”)

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The replacement terms, disengendered, can come across as rather more awkward and certainly more bureaucratic sounding: “Fire fighter;” “postal worker,” or “police officer.” Such titles are speed bumps in prose. But the trend to gender equity in language is certainly a good one by intention. I suppose we could say “cop” instead of “peace officer,” and I like the French word “pompier” to shorten “fire fighter.” We borrow a lot of words, so surely it isn’t too much to ask of France to lend us their pompiers. (They are also known as “sapeurs,” or, in English, “sappers.” Surely preferable to “fire fighters.”) But that is a personal bugbear; I should stop worrying.

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The question comes up now because so many grandstanding politicians are trying to stoke the fires against “wokeness,” despite never actually being able to define the term. For most of us, being sensitive to other peoples’ feelings is only a good thing, but for some, complaining about it is a way of disguising homophobia, racism and anti-Semitism. The problem has only become worse with a rising awareness of gender dysphoria. If someone is uncomfortable being called a “he” or a “she,” what harm can there be in adapting?

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But this is part of an overall problem with English, which has no gender-neutral third-person pronoun, and so, many neologisms have been devised to try to change the language.

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Through most of history, not only in English, but in many ancient languages, such as Greek or Hebrew, a male-gendered pronoun has been accepted for non-gendered usage. “The male stands for the female,” it used to be said. But a rising concern over the sins of patriarchy has made some of us a bit touchy about the whole idea.

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It can even get quite ridiculous. Consider the speech of N.Y. State Assemblyman Albert Bleumenthal, speaking in favor of a bill:  “… everyone will be able to decide for himself whether or not to have an abortion.”

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Or this, from The New York Times in 1985: “The average American needs the small routines of getting ready for work. As he shaves or blow-dries his hair or pulls on his panty-hose, he is easing himself by small stages into the demands of the day.”

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The usual solution to inclusiveness was always awkward. “Everyone agreed that he or she would bring his or her lunch with him or her.” Cumbersome, even silly. “Everyone agrees, doesn’t he or she?”

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As early as 1795, dissatisfaction with the convention of the collective masculine led to calls for gender-neutral pronouns, and attempts to invent pronouns for this purpose date back to at least 1850. The most common solution is the use of “they/their” as a singular pronoun. The usage goes back to the 14th century, merely a century after the plural “they.” “Everyone should wear their hat.”

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The usage was not regularly criticized until the mid-18th century, when a fever of regularizing language took hold. The Victorian grammarians proscribed it in no uncertain terms, but no one could ever actually extinguish it. It serves a necessary purpose.

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There is, of course a gender-neutral third person pronoun — “it.” But except for discussing babies — “Is it a boy or a girl?” —  animals or plants, it has seemed dehumanizing and avoided when discussing people. And even animals, after we have named them, “Fido,” or “Peaches,” tend to get a “he” or “she” rather than an “it.”

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When I worked for the newspaper, the preferred solution was to recast the sentence, if possible. So, instead of writing, “Anyone who is vegan should take his lunch at the salad bar,” it was suggested it might be simply pluralized to, “Those who are vegan should take their lunch at the salad bar.” Tidy. But not always possible, especially in quoted material.

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The Associated Press Style Book was our bible for usage, and it slowly changed over the years to accept the reality of what was actually being said among normal people. It has recently come around to accepting the singular “they.”

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There have been overt attempts to force change in the language, usually to accommodate current political sentiments. Under the rubric of “political correctness,” it has many opponents. Conservatism in language, as in politics, is omnipresent.

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They shouldn’t worry so much. Language change is always slow, and usually organic. The last forced change that has taken, and become widely used, is the honorific “Ms.,” which took longer than most realize, to be finally accepted. It was first proposed as a solution to how to address a woman whose marital status was not known, by the Republican, a newspaper in Springfield, Mass., in 1901. “Now, clearly, what is needed is a more comprehensive term which does homage to the sex without expressing any views as to their domestic situation…” They suggested that “For oral use it might be rendered as “Mizz,” which would be a close parallel to the practice long universal in many bucolic regions, where a slurred Mis’ does duty for Miss and Mrs alike.”

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The idea was brought up again in the early 1950s for use in business correspondence. In 1961, feminist writer Sheila Michaels attempted to put the term into use when she “was looking for a title for a woman who did not ‘belong’ to a man.’” Gloria Steinem picked up the term as title for her new magazine in 1972. The same year, the U.S. Government Printing Office approved the word for official use. Stick-in-the-mud William Safire finally gave in in 1984, realizing that opposition was a lost cause.

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“Ms.” served a need, and is now widely used with few even noticing it as it passes by. But other proposed language changes have not taken hold. The interrobang (the grafting of exclamation points and question marks into a single hybrid) is largely forgotten; and who now uses the genderless ugliness of “waitron,” meant to be a unisex term for what we now generally just call a “server.” Forcing change rarely works.

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And so, we now face the problem of what pronouns to use for non-binary individuals, or trans people. One doesn’t always knows what to call someone you have just met who may be in some non-obvious gender situation.

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Those who believe in forcing change in language have come up with a whole raft of potential third-person pronouns to use. Instead of “she/her,” or “he/him,” and when “they/them” doesn’t work, activists have offered: thon, thons, hir, ze, zir, zie, xe, xem, xyr, fae, faer, e, ey, em, eir, per, pers, co, cos, ve, ver, vis, vi, vir, ne, nir, nirs, nee, ner, ners, mer and mers.

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It is possible that one of these pairs will rise to the surface and join “Ms.,” but we are nowhere near that yet. Or near a consensus on whether such terms are needed.

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 There is certainly an age gap in that. In 2019, a survey from the Pew Research Center found close to a third of young Americans aged 18 to 29 personally know someone who prefers being referred to using a gender-neutral pronoun. I know from my own experience with my granddaughters, who, when still in high school, were friends with a non-binary person, and they, and all their friends, had no problem at all with the whole idea, any more than if they were dealing with red hair, foreign ethnicity, or race. Just something interesting about the friend. Personhood is personhood. It is primarily older people who have a problem with gender fluidity.

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 In the early 21st century, use of singular they with known individuals emerged for people who do not exclusively identify as male or female, as in, for example, “This is my friend, Jay. I met them at work.” And while it may seem awkward for older speakers, we should always remember that we have all adapted to “Ms.” In time, it will probably sound as normal as “Everyone feels comfortable with what they grew up with.”

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Richard Nilsen inspired many ideas and memories at the salons he presented through the years when he was an arts critic and movie, travel, and features writer at The Arizona Republic.   A few years ago, Richard moved to North Carolina.   We want to continue our connection with Richard and have asked him to be a regular contributor to the Spirit of the Senses Journal.   We asked Richard to write short essays that were inspired by the salons.

Anonynyms

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by Richard Nilsen

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“Hey, Mack! You want a piece of me!”

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The fastest way to get a punch in the nose is to reply: “My name ain’t Mack.” At least in New York. In the American South, I believe, you would more likely be addressed as “Sir.” As in, “Sir, are you casting aspersions upon my family’s name?”

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At issue is how you address someone whose name you don’t know, or a group of people in aggregate. Some anonymous word or phrase that conveys what you need to, without needing to use particulars. I call them “anonynyms” (yes, I’m making up a word for it).

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Such a class of words or names is obviously needed, for interactions with groups, or for talking with strangers — or simply to create an insult.

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I started thinking about this issue after being hit, again, with the most famous Southern expression, “You all,” or more properly, “Y’all.”

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There was a time when the expression was said to be used only for groups of people, never when addressing a single person. But we all know that’s not true. I’ve heard many times the phrase used when talking to just one person. “Y’all going to the dance on Saturday?”

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And so, to reestablish the plurality of the expression, many Southerners now use the doubled-term “all y’all.” “Is all y’all going to the dance?”

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But where I grew up, in New Jersey, the substitute expression for a group of people being addressed is “youse guys.” “Is youse guys gonna be armed?” Notice the subtle use of the singular verb to-be with the plural expression.

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It has been pointed out that in parts of the Midwest, particularly around Pittsburgh, the parallel expression is “y’ins.” As in, “Are y’ins going to the church supper?”

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This is akin to another language habit that is not so often remarked, which is the expression used for addressing someone you don’t know, usually with the intent of venting some anger or vexation, although sometimes the expression is either more neutral or even, at times, affectionate. So, I decided to compile a list. I’m sure my catalog is incomplete. Perhaps you can add to it for me.

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A child will often address a grownup man as “Mister.” As in “Hey, Mister, you dropped your wallet.”

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If it is a woman being addressed, the child will often say “ma’am.” Or at least in earlier years when courtesy and etiquette still held sway. “Ma’am, ma’am, you forgot your umbrella.”

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In the UK, you will sometimes hear a woman addressed as “madam,” as in “Madam, I assume you will be pressing charges.”

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An alternate version, spoken by a young person, could be “Miss.” “I don’t know who took the chalk, Miss.” Often a pupil to a teacher.

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Now largely out of date, but culturally fixed by Jerry Lewis is, “Hey, lady.” It’s hard not to imagine it other than in Lewis’ glass-etching voice.

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Of course, where I came from, there are a multiplicity of such terms, almost always with the subtext of expressing anger or frustration.

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“Look, Mack, we don’t want no trouble here.”

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Or, “Hey, Pal, whatcha got there, under your coat?”

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Perhaps “I don’t like the tone of your voice, Buster.”

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“Look, Buddy, I don’t know where you think you’re going in that get-up.” Sometimes just shortened to Bud.

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“Listen, chum, if you know what’s good for you…”

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“Hey, Champ, can you move this car?”

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Others include “Tiger,” “Sunshine,” “Cuz,” as in “cousin,” “Stud,” “Slick,” “Ace.” All of them with a strong undercurrent of mockery.

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Then, there’s Boss, which, like many of such terms contains a backwash of condescension. Yelling on the highway, “Hey, Boss, pick a lane!” You can hear the word in Paul Newman’s voice from Cool Hand Luke, speaking to one of the guards: “Need some water here, Boss.”

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Joe Biden is famous for his “Jack.” “Listen here Jack, I’ll only say this once so listen up.”

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Sometimes, it is the name of an actual person that is spoken, as when you observe a person doing something stupid, like parking badly at a Walmart: “Hey, Einstein, try again.” Or the demotic critic: “Hey, Rembrandt, ya call that art?”

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These are all almost exclusively used by men toward men. When addressing a woman, the version is “Sister.” “Any idea how fast you were driving, Sister?” Or, in James Cagney’s voice, “Sista.”

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A good deal of this badinage comes from Yankeeland. The South has its own, but usually more genteel versions. You hear Sir a lot, and not always with the overtone of respect the work implies. It can be ironic. An older man, being avuncular, will address any male younger than himself as “Son.” “Son, let me give you the benefit of my years of experience.”

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Though I was born a Yankee, I’ve lived in the South for the majority of my life, and I find that the implied politeness of “sir” has become my default. It is something you hear from Marines of impeccable posture, from distracted teens deferring to my annuated seniority, or from elderly Southern colonels implying an invitation to a duel.

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The West gives us a few, like Pardner, as in “Smile when you say that, Pardner.” (The origin of the catchphrase comes from Owen Wister’s 1902 novel The Virginian, where it not only comes without the “pardner,” but turned front to back: “When you call me that, smile.”)

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You can also hear Hoss and Chief. And Pilgrim is only coming out of John Wayne’s mouth, and I can only hear it in his voice.

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Brother is used by African-Americans referring to Black men, when it is often pronounced as “bruva,” or shortened to “bro.” But it has its precedent in the Great Depression, devoid of race: “Brother, can you spare a dime?”

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Broheem is used only for friends, and not for strangers, so it probably doesn’t count.

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Women also have to address those unknown to them, but usually with a patina of affection, the way a waitress will say, “What’ll you have, Honey?” Or “I don’t know what you call, it, Sweetie, but where I come from…”

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I want to mention the odd fact that in the American South, such anonynyms tend to be affectionate and often used for friends and family as well as for strangers, while, in the North, they are almost always aggressive.

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I have no research to back this up, but I believe it stems from the fact that the South is traditionally agricultural and rural while the North tends to be urbanized. In rural areas, people tend to know everyone else, even across class and racial lines, and so they will either address someone with their actual name or a pet name. In the North, most people you meet will be strangers to you and a certain assertiveness in greeting is necessary to make sure you have carved yourself an adequate place in the society.

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These anonynyms change over generations. In Jay Gatsby’s day, you might call someone “Sport.” In recent years, most of these anonynyms have distilled down to “Dude,” which increasingly is unisexual and used for both male and female by those under the age of 30. “Awesome, Dude!”

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Historically, names get genericized as national sobriquets, like Mick or Paddy for the Irish or Fritz for the Germans. These are almost always insults, like calling a Mexican Pedro no matter what his actual name. Usually mispronounced as “Peedro.” And as such can be used as anonynyms when addressing a stranger whose ethnicity appears obvious. “Hey, Fritz, how ya like them apples.” This soon devolves into Archie Bunker territory. All Russians become “Ivan;” all Scandinavians become “Sven;” Italians are “Luigi;” and Frenchmen just become “Frenchie.”

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But anonynyms occur in other cultures. In England, you can address a new acquaintance whose name you don’t know as “Old Sport.” A belittling name given to those you are scolding or arresting is “Sonny Jim,” as if it would be beneath you to learn such a scoundrel’s actual name. “Come along now, Sonny Jim.” The Irish have their own word for it: boyo.

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In the UK, having pet names for strangers that you just drop into the end of sentences is a very working class thing and it makes the talker seem friendlier. The words used vary dramatically by region across the countries. Examples include “Flower,” “Treacle,” “Petal,” and a hundred more.

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Northern England dialects have a wealth of such names, most commonly “Pet” and “Luv.” And while they are often meant endearingly, they can have a bit of an edge: “Don’t flatter yerself, luv.”

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In Australia, the universal address is “Mate” or “Matey.” “You call that a knife, Mate?”

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Finally, I must mention terms of endearment. Anyone who is married will know how silly it sounds to call your wife or husband by name. After 30 years of marriage, it is presumed you will each know what your spouse’s name is. And so, we fall into habitual terms of endearment. They become your mate’s default name. And like the real name, it is usual the same one each time. It is rare for a husband to call his wife different things. And so we get: Baby; Sweetie; Sweetie Pie, Sweetheart; Love; Sugar; Honey; Pet; Duckie. Well, that last one not so much.

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In other cultures, there are equivalents, some just literal translations of the English terms, such as “Amour” in French. But there are some idiosyncratic ones as well. “Mon Chou,” in French, i.e. “My Cabbage.” “Maus” in German, “Mouse;” also “Hase,” or “Bunny.” German, of course, has all those portmanteau words, and so you get: Knuddelbärchen, “Cuddle Bear;” Honigkuchenpferd,” “Honey-Cake Horse;” and “Mausebär,” “Mouse-Bear.”

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In Italy, you might talk to your “Fragolina,” or “Little Strawberry;” or your “Microbino Mio,” or “My Little Microbe.”

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There are many more. And, except for that last one, they tend to fall into three categories: sugary foods; cute animals; and valuable objects, as in the German “Perle,” or “Pearl. The familiar German “Schatze,” or “Treasure.”

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And there is a subset of this: Talking about your wife to your child or grandchildren. That’s why we have so many words for “grandmother” that become the names that grandchildren know them by. “Nana,” “Meemaw,” “Grammy,” “Bibi,” “Bubba,” “Yaya.” It just feels wrong to say to a five-year-old “Carole is going to the store to get ice cream,” when it’s really “Granny is going to the store.”

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And so, at the end, we have to acknowledge that we all bear multiple names, for various social interactions. And this goes well beyond the nicknames we grew up with. What name does your spouse use to remind you to take out the garbage? What name does your grandchild use to ask you to bounce them on your knee? We are many names, many people, many roles to play.

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Richard Nilsen inspired many ideas and memories at the salons he presented through the years when he was an arts critic and movie, travel, and features writer at The Arizona Republic.   A few years ago, Richard moved to North Carolina.   We want to continue our connection with Richard and have asked him to be a regular contributor to the Spirit of the Senses Journal.   We asked Richard to write short essays that were inspired by the salons.

It’s elemental

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by Richard Nilsen

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I am always amazed at how smart the ancients were. We tend to think of them as primitive, compared to our modern knowledge. But over and over, they turn out to have been on to things we are only now catching up with.

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Of course, they didn’t have the apparatus for testing chemicals or physics, but considering their guesswork, they were often prescient.

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As far back as the 5th Century BCE, Leucippus and Democritus inferred that matter was created out of atoms (from the Greek word “ἄτομον,” meaning “uncuttable”). They figured that if you could break apart a clump of dirt into smaller clumps, eventually you would get to a clump so small that it could no longer be subdivided. That would be the basic substance of creation. They didn’t have the experimental means to prove it, but then, neither did modern science until Einstein’s work on Brownian Motion in 1905. Although atomic theory was widely accepted in chemistry, proof of it is only a little over a century old.

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But the Greeks weren’t alone. In the 6th or 7th Centuries CE, several Indian thinkers also came up with the idea, called “kalapas,” or “bundles,” which were the indivisible chunks of reality. These smallest units of physical matter were said to be about 1/46,656th the size of a particle of dust from a wheel of chariot.

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Further, such thinkers as Dharmakirti actually anticipated quantum mechanics in his belief that such atoms were only local manifestations of motion or energy, and could pop into and out of existence quite randomly. I.e. — Sailing on the Dirac Sea.

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 Most of what we find in the way of science in ancient cultures is astronomy and mathematics — and that primarily geometry. The ancient Mesopotamians calculated the length of the solar year quite accurately (so much so, that we still base our months, weeks, and days on their systems).

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The data collected by these Mesopotamian astronomers led the Greek mathematician Hipparchus to calculate the precession of seasons. Hipparchus (ca. 190 BCE-ca. 120 BCE), often called the father of astronomy, calculated many amazing things, including the distance and size of the moon.

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Among the other findings of Ancient Greek thinkers, both Classical and Hellenic, you find:

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Eratosthenes (ca. 275 BCE-ca. 195 BCE) accurately measured the circumference of the earth and the tilt of the earth’s axis.

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Aristarchus of Samos (ca. 310 BCE-ca. 230 BCE) hypothesized that the sun was the center of the solar system and the earth revolved around it.

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Hippocrates (ca. 460 BCE-ca. 270 BCE) recognized that illness was not visited on people by the anger of the gods, but had organic causes.

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But what I am interested is not merely the advances in science and medicine by individual Greeks, but in the pervasiveness of certain aspects of ancient Greek science that persisted into the modern era, and how we have come to disprove some of those theories, only to later come to see in them some surprising glimmers of truth.

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One of the longest lasting ideas in ancient science was the belief in the four elements: earth, air, water, and fire. It began with pre-Socratic philosophers in the seventh century BCE and continued through the Middle Ages, with vestiges hanging on into the early modern era.

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These early thinkers argued over whether the primordial substance of matter was perhaps water, perhaps air. Thales (ca. 626/623-ca. 548/545 BCE) believed that water was this principle. Anaximenes (ca. 586-ca. 526 BCE) favored air, and Heraclitus (fl. ca. 500 BCE) claimed it was fire. Anaximander (ca. 610 – ca. 546 BCE) argued that the primordial substance was not any of the known substances, but could be transformed into them, and they into each other.

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It was Empedocles (ca. 450 BCE) who first numbered the elements at four. He called them the “roots” of existence. It was his schema that took hold and became codified by Aristotle and it was the primacy of Aristotle during the later classical and Medieval ages that cemented them in place.

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“An element, we take it, is a body into which other bodies may be analyzed, present in them potentially or in actuality (which of these, is still disputable), and not itself divisible into bodies different in form. That, or something like it, is what all men in every case mean by element,” wrote Aristotle in On the Heavens.

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It is hard to overestimate the authority Aristotle held for European (and later Islamic) civilization before the Enlightenment.

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In On Generation and Corruption, he said that the qualities of each could describe all of matter. Fire, he said, was both hot and dry; air was both hot and wet (thinking particularly of vapor); water, he said, was both cold and wet; while earth was both cold and dry.

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If we go back to the early atomist thinkers, most held that these atomic particles must exist in a medium other than themselves, and so posited that the cosmos consisted of atoms, on one hand, and a “void,” or emptiness on the other. Otherwise, as the Latin poet Lucretius said, motion would be impossible because they atoms would need some space to move into. Others called this interstitial emptiness the “aether.”

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Aristotle accepted the idea, although not the name. The name, however persisted, even to today.

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The Neoplatonist Proclus defined the four elements with other properties:

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It should be noted that other cultural traditions also split up the cosmos into these five things. In the Vedas of India, the “Five Great Elements” are bhumi, or earth, apas, or water; agni, or fire; vayu or wind (air) and akasa, or void (or space).

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Tibetan Buddhism have the same five elements. In Pali literature the four elements (mahabhuta, or “great elements), are identified with solidity (earth); fluidity (water); temperature (fire); and mobility (air). In another tradition, these four great elements are amplified with a secondary group of color, smell, taste and nutriment, all of which derive from the primary four.

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In the baKongo religion of central Africa, the physical world is made of water (identified with the south); fire (the east); air (the north); earth (the west), and mBungi, the circular void that begot the universe.

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In Japan the godai (the “five great”) are earth (rocks and stability); water (fluidity and adaptability); fire (life and energy); wind (movement and expansion); and the Void (spirit and creative energy).

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The Islamic philosopher, including Avicenna, followed Aristotle, but also divided the four elements into the active forces (heat and cold); and the recipients (dryness and moisture).

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The Medicine Wheel in many indigenous American cultures is almost always divided into four quarters, which are the four cardinal directions; the four seasons; the four ages of man; and the four elements: earth; fire; wind; and water.

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This division of matter is almost universal across cultures and seems a natural way of sorting out the material world.

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The four elements also used to build early medical theories. The four elements were akin to the four humors: blood (air — although why is difficult to explain now); phlegm (water); yellow bile (fire); and black bile (earth). Galen believed that illness was due to an imbalance of these humors.

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“Humor” is a translation of the Greek word χυμός, or “chymos”  which literally means juice or sap.  Each humor was associated with a temperament, or personality type. Someone was “phlegmatic” when they were slow to act, were lazy, or slow of wit; To be “choleric” was to be ruled by yellow bile, which made you ambitious, aggressive, short tempered;  the sanguine personality (ruled by blood) was enthusiastic, active and social; and black bile (literally melancholy) was a depressive.

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In the Medieval mind, which was systematic if nothing else, these all lined up very well.

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I bring all this up, not just because it is interesting, or because more than 2000 years of western culture relied on them so that they show up in art and literature, but because after a century of disproving them, we have again come back to them, albeit in a quite modified form.

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Take the four elements, which are no longer elements, but are the four states of matter: solid, liquid, vapor, and plasma. And the four humors are now dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, acetylcholine and a host of other neurotransmitters, hormones, and pheromones. We have fancier names for them now, but the basic idea of the humors has come back to medicine.

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Isaac Newton believed that gravity, as a force, had to be carried by something, which he called the aether. Later, scientists thought that light needed a medium to travel through and used the term aether.

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In his two theories of relativity, Einstein proved that such a medium was not needed, but did have to add a “cosmological constant” to his equations to make them work out. That constant — later proved unnecessary — he called “the greatest blunder of my life.”

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And yet, quantum scientists have now given us the idea of the quantum vacuum state, which is very like the void of the ancients. And it raises the possibility that dark energy might be a new version of the aether.

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After all this, my primary point is that the ancient philosophers and natural scientists and medical practitioners were not simply dumb bunnies who didn’t really understand how things really are, but rather amazingly intelligent thinkers who managed amazing insights without the aid of microscopes, telescopes, litmus papers, titration devices, voltometers, geiger counters — or any of the whole storage bin of hardware we have incrementally devised since the 17th century. Newton said we stand on the shoulders of giants, and these ancient thinkers were the strongmen at the base holding up the human pyramid on which we stand as the current pinnacle.

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Richard Nilsen inspired many ideas and memories at the salons he presented through the years when he was an arts critic and movie, travel, and features writer at The Arizona Republic.   A few years ago, Richard moved to North Carolina.   We want to continue our connection with Richard and have asked him to be a regular contributor to the Spirit of the Senses Journal.   We asked Richard to write short essays that were inspired by the salons.

Eye on Picasso

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by Richard Nilsen

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Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso was a very impatient man, perhaps because his name takes so long to say or write.

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I say he was impatient on the evidence of his paintings. I certainly never met the man. But I have seen a boatload of his paintings in person and hundreds in reproduction, and they all tell me he didn’t have the patience to spend time on their finishing touches.

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Don’t misunderstand: Pablo Picasso was a great artist, and for many reasons. But he was not what I would call a great painter. Let’s take a look.

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There was a time when many thought that Picasso’s art was a hoax. You know, the “My kid could paint better than that,” and serious-minded critics would say, “First, you have to be able to master the techniques before you can experiment with abstraction.” (Yeah, this was a while ago).

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But then, some of the young Picasso’s art, from his adolescence, began showing up and it was clear that he had been a masterful draftsman and could draw and paint as realistically as anyone.

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He could pump out an academic figure study like an Old Master. And he could put on canvas as realistic a painting as you could wish. Just look at some of these, from 1893, when the artist was 12, and 1896. It is clear he could do anything. But he didn’t: By the turn of the century, he had been taken with more modern trends in art, from Impressionism to Post-Impressionism, to Fauvism and Expressionism. His style loosened and the works became sketchier.

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This evolution of style was characteristic not only of Picasso, but of other artists, writers and poets. There had been Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne — all with different styles.

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By the middle of the last century (that’s the 20th, remember), Modernism had not only established itself, but become entrenched. Its hagiography had been codified and the heads of its various branches were Igor Stravinsky in music, James Joyce in prose, Ezra Pound in verse, and Picasso on canvas.

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These were hardly the only names in the mix, and they may not even have been the best artists working, but they became the names we all knew.   They are the names in the anthologies and textbooks.

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And they all burned through styles. Stravinsky went from late Romantic chromaticism, to a savage primitivism, to Neo-Classicism and finally to his version of 12-tone serialism. Joyce from some of the most beautiful, clear prose in The Dubliners to the stream-of-conscious jumble in Ulysses and into the paronomastic almost-abstract gibberish of Finnegans Wake. Pound began with highly poeticized Edwardian prettiness to a hard-edged sarcasm and into his own form of pan-linguistic word salad.

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Most serious artists go through stylistic growth from early to late periods, but Modernism seems less like organic growth and more like a conscious seeking-out of something new, something that would get attention. Pound’s battle cry was, “Make it new!” Where style had been a function of personality, it became a “brand” and ever newer versions were sought, like updating your car every few years.

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I’m being too harsh here, but to make a point. Picasso kept evolving, from that early Expressionism

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To the famous “Blue Period

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Through a subsequent “Rose Period”

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to African primitivism,

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to analytic Cubism,

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to Synthetic Cubism,

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to Surrealism

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and Neo-Classicism

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Then a brief period in the mid 1920s of what might look like a return to a kind of realism

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and then, into what can only be termed Picasso-ism — his playful mix of everything and anything, usually turned out in a few hours and often rather haphazard.

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And this gets to my main point: That Picasso was an epically inventive visual artist, clever in the first degree. But from his earliest work onward, was always rather indifferent about the craft of painting. His application of paint to canvas was often sloppy; parts of many paintings were essentially unfinished; many are more caricature than character; even his color choice often seems unconsidered — any red might do, any green, any blue. His art is one of suggestion rather than observation.

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This was typical of his approach in other ways. Where most artists use their work to react to life and the world, Picasso seemed always more interested in cultural tropes. That is, he picked on several archetypes — or stereotypes — and re-imagined them over and over. These are themes straight from his brain, without recourse to the actual world.

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There were bulls and bullfights; Harlequin and Pulcinello; circus performers; the down-and-out; birds; women, both as portrait and as nude; satyrs, fauns and demons; still lifes; and over and over: the artist and his model.

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He drew these subjects from his mind, not his eye. And the goal seems to have been to get them down as fast as possible and to get on to the next canvas. During the Renaissance, an artist might work on a painting for a month, polishing it to a perfect finish; Picasso seems to have been more likely to complete several paintings in a day.

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You can see how fast he works (and how fast his mind could work) in the 1956 film by director Henri-Georges Clouzot, The Mystery of Picasso, in which, over the course of its 75 minutes, the shirtless Picasso completes 20 drawings and paintings. Of course, most of these are merely sketches, but you can see how fast his brain is functioning — and how diagrammatic his take on the visual world really is. He is not capturing the way the world looks, but rather creating hieroglyphs to be read, the way his dove is a symbol for “peace.” Or the stick-figure man or woman on restroom doors.

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The one time he made the effort, worked over many preliminary sketches and worked his canvas to a fine finish, he produced what is probably the most important, most powerful painting of the century — his 1937 Guernica, about the bombing of the Basque city by Nazi planes supporting the Fascist forces of Francisco Franco. The giant painting —roughly 12 feet by 25 feet — hung for many years at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, as, under the will of the artist, it could not be returned to Spain until the reestablishment of democracy. It finally went home to Madrid in 1981.

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I saw the painting many times when I was a young man, living just outside New York, and visiting MoMA as often as I could. It anchored one end of the museum and you could see it as soon as you got out of the elevator on the second floor, the focus of the whole museum.

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I’m not saying that we would have been better off if Picasso had spent more time on fewer paintings — his prodigious energy is largely why we honor him. But what can’t be ignored is that his work is often slapdash, sometimes not much more than a doodle.

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When I was young, and for the first three-quarters of the 20th Century, Picasso was a colossus, almost universally acclaimed as the era’s greatest artist — the Muhammad Ali of the paintbrush — but in recent years, his primacy has receded. Partly because the adrenalin rush of Modernism has petered out; partly because the art market has become so much more simply part of the financial world, more interested in investment and less in the actual art; and perhaps most of all because Picasso, the man, has been revealed as such a misogynist pig. He was a very unpleasant man.

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Since the publication of the four-volume biography by John Richardson, it has been clear what a self-serving, self-promoting, egotist he was. He went through wives and mistresses, using them and often abusing them. Once we thought of him as the great stud of art, now more like a frat boy with little care for the women in his life. Fernande Olivier, Olga Khokhlova, Marie-Thérèse Walter, Dora Maar, Françoise Gilot, Jacqueline Roque — there and gone.

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Then, there was the semi-criminal past, selling fraudulent or stolen art, and footsying with the Nazis in occupied wartime France. In our current more censorious age, we more likely to knock the laurels off the heads of our writers, artists, filmmakers and actors — Did they diddle underage girls? Did they coddle to dictators? Did they steal the credit due to women? Were their intentions less than pure?

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If we give in to these worries, we will have to strike from the record much of our cultural heritage. Artists are just as human as the rest of us.

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And so, I forgive the genius his sins — they are past and he is dead — and honor the art. But I cannot ever not notice that for all his brilliance, Picasso was an indifferent craftsman. When I look at his work, I see the careless brushwork, the muddy colors, the repetitive subject matter.

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My own youthful enthusiasm for Picasso has aged into a mature appreciation for his accomplishments. However diminished he is in the public eye, he is still the dominant artistic name from the first half of the 20th century.

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Richard Nilsen inspired many ideas and memories at the salons he presented through the years when he was an arts critic and movie, travel, and features writer at The Arizona Republic.   A few years ago, Richard moved to North Carolina.   We want to continue our connection with Richard and have asked him to be a regular contributor to the Spirit of the Senses Journal.   We asked Richard to write short essays that were inspired by the salons.

Starry Night

by Richard Nilsen

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Astronomy is the science for the unscientific, indeed, for the English major.

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For those of scientific bent, there is math and physics, parsecs and red shifts — the whole catalog of data and number crunching; for the English major, there is the starry night, from Vincent van Gogh to Carole Steele.

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Now, I am not implying that the scientist takes no note of the wonder; it’s there for everyone. But for those of us with no ability to exchange logarithms for exponential functions — or even to calculate seven times nine — the night sky is the best entree into what we think of as science: an organized study of the particulars of the universe.

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I say this as someone who takes interest in all the latest developments in gravitational waves, dark matter, string theory and the multiverse, but has no notion of the complex thought, mathematics and experiment that go into such ideas. I only know what I read in the papers. But from my earliest years, beginning in grade school, the stars, planets and night sky have fascinated me.

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My best school friend was genuinely a scientist-in-making. He was the smartest kid in the class and whose father was already a scientist. Nicknamed “Gizmo” or “Giz” for his brains, by the time we were in seventh grade, he owned a 6-inch reflecting telescope and we would spend the darker hours on the clock changing oculars to find the best view of Saturn’s rings or the Orion nebula.

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And, in 1963, Giz’s father drove him and me from New Jersey to Maine in order to see the total eclipse of the sun. The day began in overcast, and it seemed we would be disappointed, but the clouds parted and the sky grew eerily dim. Shadows evaporated from below the trees and the birds went silent. Cows lowed in the fields and a black spot in the heavens grew a halo — the corona — and reality seemed suspended for two minutes. There were no seven angels or seven trumpets, but there was silence in heaven for the space of … well, a couple of minutes.

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Science could calculate the path of the moon’s shadow across the map. That’s how we knew where to drive. But I had no clue how to determine such things. To me, the eclipse was simply a manifestation of beauty on a cosmic scale. And at that age — again, ignorant of the data and the math — that is what, for me, science seemed to be.

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I am reasonably sure that for those, like Gizmo, who entered the field of science quite seriously, it was the magic that first grabbed their hearts. Differential equations lay in the future, but the beauty was there first. Even for the mathematically inclined, I am convinced that the origin of their interest came with the magic discovered in a complex series of numbers that seemed to line up into an order of the universe. Look: This equals that. How can that be? Fibonacci, primes, Avogadro, odds and evens — there is an order to the universe — or at least an order to the math we use to describe it.

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And there is a beauty to that order. Those who can do the math can see the bones of that order, but for those such as I, it was looking up at night, watching the moon wax and wane, seeing the morning star just above the brightening horizon.

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When I was young, I often went to Manhattan to visit the Hayden Planetarium (now called the Rose Center for Earth and Space) and stared for times unmeasured at the beautiful photographs from the Wilson Observatory of the Andromeda Galaxy or the star cluster in the Hercules constellation, lit from behind to glow in the darkened gallery. I would sit under the great orrery and watch the planets slowly circle the yellow basketball at the center; or sit in the planetarium proper as the great Zeiss-Ikon projector splashed the night sky on the ceiling dome. I would mount a scale that told me how much I weighed on the moon or on Jupiter. I would laugh at the lit sign pointing the way downstairs to the “Solar System and Rest Rooms.”

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At home, I had a small black globe-lamp with pinholes poked in that would project the stars on my bedroom ceiling. I later had my own 2.4-inch refracting telescope through which I could see the tiny red disk of Mars or the sharply-etched craters of the moon. I had a subscription to Sky and Telescope magazine and pined for the 3.5-inch Questar tabletop telescope advertised on the back cover. Way out of my price range.

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But my gifts were in language, not numbers, and although I was fascinated with the sciences, my attention was always on the “ah-ha” aspects and never on the grunt work. I was a mediocre chemistry student, a poor botanist, and hopeless at physics. I read as much as I could, and tried my best to fathom the Bell’s Theorem, I could only grasp it as metaphor. (I mean literary or visual metaphor; for it must be remembered that the math itself is only metaphorical).

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As explained to the lay reader, physics and quantum mechanics can be understood only by what we can picture, by what we already know, human size and touchable by exploring fingers. The scientific mind can extrapolate from columns of numbers and white-boards scribbled with impenetrable mathematical symbols, but for the rest of us, just give us the cardboard cut-out puppet version. We see through a glass darkly, but we can make out the outlines.

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That doesn’t mean I don’t have a clearer understanding of these abstruse thoughts than the average bear. I do OK for an English major. But I always know there is a haze — a filter — through which I see these things.(On the other hand, I can correct the spelling and grammar of any scientist writing a technical paper, and boy, do they often need help on that count).

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I am not making a case for the one mode of appreciation over the other: It is the appreciation that matters, not the manner of it. As one who took the path of the humanities rather than the sciences, it remains the mystery of it all that counts.

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There is a perfect paragraph in filmmaker Werner Herzog’s new memoir, Every Man for Himself and God Against All. He describes as a child living in the Bavarian mountains, far from any city or electric lights and looking up at the night sky and all the glowing specks dusted across the black inner dome and thinking how natural that humankind has been marveling in worshipful awe at those stars since the dawn of the species. But then, thinking also that if none of those stars existed, and the night sky were a totally black, empty, featureless void, how we would feel the same gobsmacked awe.

Not mean but be

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by Richard Nilsen

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Some people should not be allowed anywhere near a poem. Let me explain.

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There are certain poems that I read periodically, and the re-reading brings a swell of deep emotion that vivifies my inner life. There are at least a dozen of them — I’ve never actually counted, and the membership in this anthology club seems to change over time — but I can at any point pick up Wordsworth’s Intimations Ode, or Arnold’s Dover Beach, or Auden’s Sept. 1, 1939, or Frost’s Birches, and immerse myself in the words as if I am swimming in a current. These poems are constant companions.

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One of them is Willie Yeats’ Song of Wandering Aengus. The other day, I had a notion to reread it and, instead of diving into a pile of unorganized books on a dozen bookshelves to attempt to find my copy of his Collected Poems, I thought, I’ll just pull a version up on Google. Many sites offered the text.

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But I pulled up the wrong one. This site did have the poem, but was primarily an “analysis” of the poem. Big mistake. I read that the poem is about the “dangers of infatuation.” That is was about Yeats’ own unrequited love for Maud Gonne, that the “fire” in the first line “seems to symbolize some overwhelming passion or desire, and it might suggest that Aengus is a person driven by irrational impulses.” And that the “hazel wand” might be “a phallic symbol.”

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What a depressing deflation: All the poetry gone out of it. This is the kind of reader who should never be allowed near an actual poem.

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Yeats opens the poem with “I went out to the hazel wood/ because a fire was in my head.” The website then tells us what that means: “The speaker remembers going out to a wood full of hazel trees because he felt some burning passion.” Yeats: poetry. Website: prose — and fatheaded prose at that.

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And then, one of my favorite lines in the poem: “And when white moths were on the wing,/ And moth-like stars were flickering out, …” Which the webguide tells us means “As white moths fluttered around him and stars, flickering like moths, faded in the morning sky…” The heart droops. Because Yeats’ words needed no such deflation and explication. They said what they meant and clearly enough.

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“Since Aengus’s quest draws from the symbolic realm of myth and fable, it allows for many interpretations. It could represent any kind of boundless, one-sided passion — such as an artist’s passion for art, or, more specifically, the poet’s deep longing to find beauty through the written word. In any case, the poem finds both beauty and sadness in the lifelong pursuit of romantic dreams — even those that turn out to be mirages.”

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How does this web-writer move around this earth with such leaden boots on his feet? The point is, that the poem does not need any “interpretation.” It needs only to be experienced.

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For anyone less familiar with the poem, here it is:

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The poem reaches me emotionally as a story or as a myth. It is not a puzzle to be solved but an experience to be had. It is not “what it means” that works its magic, but what it is. To quote Archibald MacLeish, “A poem shouldn’t mean but be.”

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While this may seem a very obvious thing to say, it is neither how poetry is commonly taught, or how a young person usually approaches it. I remember encountering poetry in high school, thinking it was a coded message and if I were smart enough — or knew enough arcane information — I could parse it out.

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That is, it was a symbolic message, and if I could master what the symbols meant, I could translate the meaning of the poem from something incomprehensible into words ordinary people could understand.

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It didn’t help that at that age, the idea of a great poem was Eliot’s The  Wasteland, and that the poet had included a section of footnotes to help decode the thing. (Only later did I come to realize the notes were a kind of joke Eliot was having on his readers — the notes explain nothing.)

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(I admit there are times when a note can help. Language changes over time and some older poetry may need a gloss, so that when we hear Hamlet say, “So conscience doth make cowards of us all,” we can understand the the word “conscience” meant something different then — not Jiminy Cricket in our ear, but awareness, consciousness. The line means “thought doth make cowards of us all.” But that is simply a guide to getting to the meaning of the words, not the meaning of the poetry.)

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And so, The Song of Wandering Aengus digs its way into my psyche not because it has any biographical secrets about Yeats and his pining after the unavailable Maude Gonne, nor is it a secret mystical explication of Irish mythical arcana. It has meaning without meaning something else.

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It is much more like a fairy tale for grown-ups. A way for us to access what Bruno Bettelheim called the “uses of enchantment,” but with the issues of adulthood rather than those of children.

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There are two things that are commonly misunderstood in all this.

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They are the words “meaning” and “symbol.” We have become all to used to the idea of a symbol as a substitute for something else, although I would more likely call this a “sign.” Symbols, as used in poetry or literature, tend not to stand for something else — the whale in Moby Dick doesn’t “stand” for god, or evil, or nature, or obsession. It is a whale, and its power is its whalehood.

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But it has meaning. And as I use the term here, meaning is not something aside from or in addition to the symbol itself. As I use it, “meaning” is an emotion, a sense one feels of significance. A sense that something has “meaning,” even if we can never know what. As when you wake from a dream and know the content of the dream was important, although you can’t explain what it may have meant. The feeling of significance is the meaning.

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And so it is with the poem. It works its magic because it is a story told and we feel its currents and countercurrents as it wakes in us suggestions of our own unconscious.

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I think of the psyche as a combination of the rational, conscious mind, and the murkier, impenetrable unconscious. Between the two, there is a surface, as of the surface of the ocean. We are aware of what is above that surface, but know there are creatures down below that we can never fully know. Occasionally a fish rises up near enough to the surface that we can make its outlines and recognize it. That is poetry.

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“The shadow of the dome of pleasure/ Floated midway on the waves…”

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Wandering Aengus speaks to me directly, in its own words, which move me to tears. If I analyze it, I suffocate it. I don’t care about Maude Gonne; I don’t care about “an artist’s passion for art.” I care about Aengus and the Aengus I recognize in myself.

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It is the words and images strung together that give a poem its magic. If I were to read a prose recasting of Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, it would seem quite flat. I might get the content, but I’d lose the poetry. And it is the poetry, not the content, that vivifies, that electrifies my grist and sinew.

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Richard Nilsen inspired many ideas and memories at the salons he presented through the years when he was an arts critic and movie, travel, and features writer at The Arizona Republic.   A few years ago, Richard moved to North Carolina.   We want to continue our connection with Richard and have asked him to be a regular contributor to the Spirit of the Senses Journal.   We asked Richard to write short essays that were inspired by the salons.

This town ain’t big enough….

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by Richard Nilsen

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Most everyone living in Arizona is familiar with the story of how the town of Show Low got its name. According to Arizona Place Names by Will C. Barnes, there was a disagreement between the towns founders, Corydon E. Cooley and Marion Clark, and in 1876 they decided to settle it with a card game where the winner could stay and the loser would leave. It came down to a final cut of the deck. Whoever would “show low” would stay. Cooley drew the two of clubs and won, and Clark left town. The place was called Show Low ever since.

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Or so it is said. I have always had my doubts. It sounds too much like a folk etymology, or an urban myth (although Show Low could never claim to be urban). Such stories are common in family histories, and often don’t hold up. No one, I thought, ever utters such a contrived sentence as “Show low and you win.” It sounds more like a back-formation to justify the town name. I could be wrong. I would like to know where the legend of the card game originated and if there is any contemporary accounts of the purported event. I haven’t come across one.

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Many years ago, when reading a book about the history of the Hashknife Outfit (i.e. the Aztec Cattle Company), I found an alternate explanation: that Show Low is a corruption of an Apache word meaning “low boggy place,” or “boggy place with water.” The U.S. is filled with such corruptions of Indian names, Spanish names, old family names. That sounds to me like a much more likely origin for the town name.

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But given the advice from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

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There’s a good deal of this in our collective knowledge. To paraphrase Mark Twain, it isn’t what you know but “what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

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No immigrants had their names changed at Ellis Island. No names were written down at Ellis Island, and thus no names were changed there. The names of arriving passengers were already written down on ship manifests required by the federal government, lists which crossed the ocean with the passengers. Most changed their names themselves after settling here in an effort to assimilate.

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Many African-Americans believe they have Indian blood in their ancestry. “My great-grandma was one-quarter Cherokee.” This did happen, of course, but rafts of DNA tests over the years have proven this much more rare than is commonly believed.

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Stories are handed down over generations and often get altered in the retelling. My late wife always believed that her great grandfather, Rowan Steele was a courier for Robert. E. Lee in the Civil War and had been injured in the “last cavalry charge” at Appomattox. Once, when we visited the surrender site, we did our research and discovered that Rowan was, indeed, a courier (he was 14 years old at the time), but not for the Great General, but for his son, Captain Robert Lee Jr., and had gotten detached from Lee Jr.’s regiment in the confusion after the retreat from Petersburg. We found no mention of a last cavalry charge. Rowan was injured during the battle at Appomattox, though, a head injury that left him deaf in one ear.

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Most of us have these sorts of family stories. It is often very difficult to research them to discover their truth. But almost always some distortion is added in the telling and re-telling. Usually the distortion bends toward flattering the family.

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But it is not the flattery that gives these mistakes their staying power. It is that they are stories. You find them behind all those folk etymologies that capture popular imagination — a story that explains a word usage.

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Take a few notorious examples: King James I once pulled out his sword in the midst of a banquet and dubbed an especially tasty cut of beef “Sir Loin.” Never happened. Sirloin is simply the cut of beef from above the loin, or, in Old French, “surloigne.“

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Or: Mary Queen of Scots was visiting France and became seasick on the voyage. She couldn’t work up an appetite to eat anything except a kind of jam. But she heard the maids repeatedly say “Marie est malade,” or “Mary is sick,” and mistook it for the name of the jam, calling it “marmalade.” Again — never happened. In reality, it is simply an English attempt at the Portuguese word for quince jam, marmelada, which in turn traces its origin back to Ancient Greek meli (honey) and mēlon (apple), which was their name for quince: melimēlon.

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Etymology is generally an attempt to trace words back through their changes in spelling, pronunciation and meaning over long stretches of time. Most etymologies are rather humdrum. A good story is so much more interesting.

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Such as: The belief that 18th century British judge Francis Buller ruled in a famous case that a husband could beat his wife, as long as the stick used was no wider than his thumb — hence, “rule of thumb.” Buller was later known as “Judge Thumb.” But no, husbands weren’t given permission to abuse their wives. Pure poppycock. The rule of thumb was just a measuring shorthand for taking an inch to be roughly the width of thumb.

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“Saved by the bell” has nothing to do with coffins being fitted with bells in case someone was accidentally buried alive and could then alert the above-ground world. No. It just meant that  boxer knocked down at the end of the round could escape being counted out.

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There are tons of these folk etymologies, and they are nothing new. Ancient Greeks were very fond — and proud — of their etymologies, usually finding Greek echoes in words of non-Greek origin. Herodotus explains Aphrodite (whose name modern scholars take to be of obscure Semitic origin) as deriving from the Greek word aphros (sea-foam), hence one version of the goddess’s birth. Of course, there are other origin stories for the goddess of love. Aphrodite rising from the sea is only one, and may, indeed have been invented to match the misunderstood etymology.

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Artemis, the huntress goddess, has a name of either Phrygian or Persian origin, but Plato, in his Cratylus links her name to the Greek word meaning “unharmed” or “pure.” The Greeks absolutely loved etymology, which they almost invariably got wrong. To the Ancient Grecian, everything looked Greek.

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The Greeks found correspondences and etymologies on the flimsiest evidence. It is the basis for Mark Twain’s famous dictum on the derivation of the name of the village of “Middletown” from “Moses,” “by dropping ‘oses’ and adding ‘iddletown’.”

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A particular branch of all this that has become popular, mostly after the Second World War, is the back-formation etymology as acronym. Acronyms hardly existed before the war, but the armed forces seem to be in love with them, and their use has spread. To the point it’s all gone FUBAR. And so, it has become widely believed, for instance, that the word “posh” can be explained as a “backronym” from “Port Outward, Starboard Homeward,” meaning rich people could book steamboat passage on the shady northern side of the boat (the port side) on the way to India and on the shaded starboard side on the way back to England.

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Unfortunately, no record of this ever happening has been found, no tickets, no luggage, no reference in newspaper or books. The earliest attestation for the folk etymology is 1955, long after its supposed origin. “Posh,” from early 19th century slang was just another term for “money,” like “dosh.”

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And so, you can forget “Fornication Under Consent of King,” or the idea that those caught in flagrante delicto would be marked “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.” The actual word goes back to early Germanic languages and has a very, very long history.

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 Or the story that ships transporting manure had to store the cargo topmost in the hold, or the methane escaping might explode and sink the ship, and hence required such a load to be marked with the acronym for “Ship High In Transit.”

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And let’s please forget the backronym for a derisive term for Italian immigrants, “Without Papers.” The term’s source is elsewhere. And “golf” was never “Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden.”

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And let’s face it, you would have to tip your waiter before you ate, instead of when paying the tab, if it were an acronym for “To Insure Promptness.”

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Yet, many people believe these stories, and perpetuate them. What is central is that they are stories, and stories are more powerful than facts.

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When an argument is made from facts and figures, it can all become a kind of confetti thrown in the air. The brain doesn’t want to have to deal with it all. But a story by nature makes sense of the situation. It has a beginning, middle, and end.

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Which is why you hear politicians referring to the need to “fashion a narrative” instead of explicating a policy. Every State of the Union Message in the past decades has featured at least one civilian guest (usually more) brought in to illustrate a story enhancing the president’s accomplishments.

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In fact, controlling the narrative has now become the most essential part of political discourse. Anecdotal information about “welfare queens” or “immigrant caravans” or drag queens “grooming” teens outweigh the actual statistics and policies. The story — true or fictitious, and mostly fictitious — overpower weighing actual evidence and rational policy making. Reality can be swamped in a rip tide of narrative.

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It is the power of the conspiracy theory. As Donald Clarke put it, “The false etymologies are even more usefully compared to conspiracy theories. They make a complicated, frayed, uncertain world easier to digest. In what kind of random universe could one demented loner kill the president of the United States with a lucky shot from a book warehouse? It is more satisfying to attribute the murder to a well-organized cabal within the military-industrial complex.”

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The idea that there is a pizza parlor with a basement where children are molested or eaten has the same power that stories of Medieval Jews abducting Christian children had, or that tales of witches in Salem had. The story has power that can overpower common sense, observation, and empirical reasoning.

Stories have always had this power. From the first written records, stories, in the form of myths, epics, fiction and family stories, have taught morals and promoted our best behaviors. We may be taught the Ten Commandments, but it is Bible stories that we remember. The Ancient Greeks had their Iliad and Odyssey. Gilgamesh taught loyalty and the acceptance of mortality. Beowulf demonstrated bravery and selflessness. Aesop is all about little life lessons in story form.

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Even the greatest literature, from War and Peace to Catch-22 teach us what life is and how we might function in the world.

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Every culture we know of, from the most primitive to the most sophisticated, has its storytellers. We cannot do without them. Even if those stories now come via television or YouTube.

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The problem is that with great power comes great responsibility. Artists use story to attempt to understand the world; politicians and demagogs can use it for their own ends.

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.Richard Nilsen inspired many ideas and memories at the salons he presented through the years when he was an arts critic and movie, travel, and features writer at The Arizona Republic.   A few years ago, Richard moved to North Carolina.   We want to continue our connection with Richard and have asked him to be a regular contributor to the Spirit of the Senses Journal.   We asked Richard to write short essays that were inspired by the salons.

A word, please

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by Richard Nilsen

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In the 1740s and ’50s, British writer Samuel Johnson spent seven years compiling an English dictionary. He thought it would take three.

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But consider it. This was essentially the first true English dictionary, and Johnson had to write definitions, provide examples and occasionally etymologies for nearly 50,000 words (actually, 42,773 words; but, as many words have multiple meanings — próject and projéct — he actually had to write 140,871 definitions). He had to invent those definitions; he couldn’t just “look them up.”

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We like to have a good laugh at some of Johnson’s contorted and often idiosyncratic definitions (“Rhinoceros: A vast beast of the Indies armed with a horn on its front”), but think of the difficulty of succinctly explaining the meaning of any ordinary word — the more ordinary, usually the more impossible the task.

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Take “door,” for instance. How would you define it? “A hole in a wall?” So is a window; so is the gash of a bomb-shell. “A hole in a wall through which to pass.” That’s better. But that isn’t enough, is it? “A hole in a wall through which to pass, and also a means of closing over the hole, usually in the form of a panel hinged and with some sort of latch.” It starts to get more complicated. But think of all the ramifications.

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Is a door only through a wall? A trap door opens in a floor. As for hinges, what about sliding doors or revolving doors — don’t they have to be accommodated in the definition? And not all doors provide for passage in or out of buildings. A cupboard or cabinet has doors, too. So, too, does my refrigerator and my oven. Can a good definition cover all eventualities?

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The Wikipedia entry for door uses 336 words to define it, trying to cover all possibilities. (The actual article goes on for pages beyond that, discussing types and usages, materials, customs, and designs).

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That’s a lot of words to describe something that any English speaker knows without needing a definition. But when you are forced to put it into words, it gets complicated.

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Johnson’s own definition — at least the primary one — goes: “The gate of a house; that which opens to yield entrance. ‘Door’ is used of houses and ‘gates’ of cities, or publick buildings, except in the licence of poetry.” In fact, Johnson provides seven different usages of the word and provides 15 quotes from literature to illustrate those usages.

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So, I give Johnson a pass when chuckling at some of his more peculiar phrasings. Neither you nor I could likely do any better than Johnson, even given seven years to attempt the task. And the fact is that the vast majority of Johnson’s definitions are solid, unexceptional and direct. In fact, some of his definitions have been used in subsequent dictionaries, including the Oxford English Dictionary. Still — we can always enjoy some of his more unusual entries. It’s fun to read through Johnson’s dictionary.

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There are quite a few entries for words that we no longer use — if they were ever used. Words such as:

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Acroamatical — Of or pertaining to deep learning; the opposite of exoterical.

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Some so ordinary they stump the lexicographer (the odd spellings are his):

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And — The particle by which sentences or terms are joined, which it is not easy to explain by any synonimous word.

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“But” has 18 distinct definitions. Johnson makes the distinctions. “Bring” has 22.

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Air — The element encompassing the terraqueous globe. If I were to tell what I mean by the word air, I may say, it is that fine matter which we breathe in and breathe out continually; or it is that thin fluid body, in which the birds fly, a little above the earth; or it is that invisible matter, which fills all places near the earth, or which encompasses the globe of earth and water.

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And there is the wonderful 18th century vocabulary, deeply Latinized, which Johnson wields with such alacrity. Consider:

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Cough — A convulsion of the lungs, vellicated by some sharp serosity. It is pronounced coff.

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“Vellicated?” “Serosity?” Well, we look down to the “Vs” and “Ss” and find:

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Vellicate — To twitch; to pluck; to act by stimulation.

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Serosity — Thin or watery part of the blood.

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I hope that clears everything up (ahem).

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The very height of Johnsonianism must be his definition of “network,” which I love to quote at parties:

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Network — Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.

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Reticulated — Made of network; formed with interstitial vacuities.

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Decussate — To intersect at acute angles.

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Johnson didn’t always get things right. He defined “pastern” as “the knee of a horse.” It should be a part of the horse’s foot. When a lady asked Johnson how he came to make this mistake, he answered, “Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance.”

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And when he tried to define “beemol” (actually B-moll), gave up:  “This word I have found only in the example, and know nothing of the etymology, unless it be a corruption of by-module, from by and modulus, a note; that is, a note out of the regular order.” In fact, it is simply the key of B-flat minor in its German iteration.

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Johnson’s definitions tend to fall into two camps: Those that seem unnecessarily fussy (such as “network”):

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Axle — The pin which passes through the midst of the wheel, on which the circumvolutions of the wheel are performed.

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Roll — To be moved by the successive application of all parts of the surface to the ground.

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Shears — An instrument to cut, consisting of two blades moving on a pin, between which the thing cut is intercepted. Shears are large, and scissors a smaller instrument of the same kind.

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— and those so blunt and direct as to verge on comic:

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Ape — A kind of monkey remarkable for imitating what he sees.

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Bubble — A film of water filled with wind.

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Fart — Wind from behind.

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Lizard — An animal resembling a serpent, with legs added to it.

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Orgasm — Sudden vehemence.

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Ship — A ship may be defined a large hollow building, made to pass over the sea with sails.

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Vowel — A letter which can be uttered by itself.

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Johnson was notoriously bigoted and it shows up in some of his definitions, most famously in “oats:”

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Oats — A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.

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This bigotry, mainly against the Scots and the Irish, constantly vexed his dear friend and biographer, James Boswell, who was Scottish. Johnson was also firmly Tory and member of the C of E, which he defined as:

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Tory — (A cant term, derived, I suppose, from an Irish word signifying a savage.) One who adheres to the antient constitution of the state, and the apostolical hierarchy of the church of England, opposed to a whig.

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On the other hand, the despised whigs are:

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Whig — The name of a faction.

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And in his example for the term, he quotes a writer: “All that opposed the court came in contempt to be called whigs: and from Scotland the word was brought into England, where it is now one of our unhappy terms of disunion.”

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Sometimes this prejudice can, however, seem remarkably prescient:

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Patriot — One whose ruling passion is the love of his country. It is sometimes used for a factious disturber of the government.

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A prime virtue of the 18th century was wit and Johnson was famous for his. “A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out as good for nothing.”

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Or, in a letter to his biographer, Boswell, Johnsons notes that Boswell’s wife hated his visits, “She is a sweet lady, only she was so glad to see me go, that I have almost a mind to come again, that she may again have the same pleasure.”

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And so, it is quite likely that some of the more facetious sounding definitions may simply have been written with a twinkle in his eye. A bit to take the tedium out of the drudgery.

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The preface that Johnson wrote to his dictionary is often anthologized with other essays. It is one of the most heartbreaking pieces of prose ever written, and heartfelt, in which, after explaining his method and the expenditure of effort over the seven years, expresses sorrow for the toll it has taken on his life and health, and apologizes and defends its defects and omissions. It should be required reading for any English major.

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“I look with pleasure on my book, however defective, and deliver it to the world with the spirit of a man that has endeavoured well. That it will immediately become popular I have not promised to myself: a few wild blunders, and risible absurdities, from which no work of such multiplicity was ever free, may for a time furnish folly with laughter, and harden ignorance in contempt: … no dictionary of a living tongue ever can be perfect, since while it is hastening to publication, some words are budding, and some falling away; … that what is obvious is not always known, and what is known is not always present; … I have only failed in an attempt which no human powers have hitherto completed.”

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His own definition of his job:

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Lexicographer — A writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge.

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I have enjoyed reading dictionaries, purely for fun, since I was in second grade. I have owned at least a dozen over the years, including the ultimate: The Oxford English Dictionary. They are fun, not only for discovering new words, but in enjoying the manner in which their creators have tried to tie down the meanings of sometimes very simple words. And the etymologies are often fascinating. A good dictionary is a jewel.

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Richard Nilsen inspired many ideas and memories at the salons he presented through the years when he was an arts critic and movie, travel, and features writer at The Arizona Republic.   A few years ago, Richard moved to North Carolina.   We want to continue our connection with Richard and have asked him to be a regular contributor to the Spirit of the Senses Journal.   We asked Richard to write short essays that were inspired by the salons.

Midsummer Quandary

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by Richard Nilsen

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There is something that has vexed me since I was old enough to see Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And that is because it was when I was first aware there was a holiday called Midsummer — celebrated mostly in Europe, ignored in the U.S., and celebrated more in the past than at present.

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Midsummer celebrations were a remnant of early pagan agrarian religions, later subsumed by Christianity (sound familiar?) Certain folkway rites remain in northern Europe, like the burning of bonfires, or the leaping over bonfires for luck. (In Iran, newly married couples were meant to ride white horses to the foot of nearby mountains and, on accomplishing that, a cow was released — there’s no explaining customs.)

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But what caused me to scratch my head was that Midsummer fell on the same day as the first day of summer. How could it be both? Start and middle at the same time?

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It further, and concomitantly struck me that winter officially begins just a couple of days before Christmas. Surely the season is well established before Santa flies. It is as if the circular calendar had been rotated a month-and-a-half off — as if some Medieval version of daylight saving time had been instituted for months instead of hours.

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My issue is not with the solstices or equinoxes. They are celestial events and are pegged to the orbit of the earth, not to any earthly calendar. But the seasons are experienced not simply in the skies, but on our skins, as we feel the temperatures change, and our eyes, as we sense the waning and waxing of sunlight hours. So, experientially, the equinoxes and solstices should mark the center of their seasons and not the starting gun.

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Of course, if we consider the seasons as we experience them, we would have to admit that they are not of equal size. And depending on where you live, in Maine or Alabama, they vary in length. For most of the country, spring and fall are short seasons, sometimes only a few weeks, while winter and summer can go on and on and on. In the deep South, spring can sometimes be counted in mere hours, before the mugginess sets in.

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My friends in Maine count spring as beginning in mid-May, when morning frosts taper off. When my daughter lived in Mobile, Ala., spring began in the middle of February, when the daffodils popped out.

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And when I lived in Arizona, there really was no winter at all. If we had a good rainy November and December, then the desert was a carpet of color beginning in January.

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Here in North Carolina, I mark the beginning of spring in March, of summer in June, of fall in October and winter just around Thanksgiving. But that is only an approximation, especially with the onset of climate change, when we hardly seem to feature winter at all anymore. I’d have to go visit Maine to find it.

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But really, the problem is the human tendency to systematize. We create orderly ideas and attempt to impose them on a disorderly world. We segment what is continuous, name what is protean, establish borders where geography offers none.

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I mean, why does it become OK to imbibe alcohol on the day you turn 21? This bothered me back in high school, when the drinking age in New Jersey was 21, but a mile north, over the border, in New York state, the age was 18. I could drive that mile and guzzle all I wanted. That was a notorious systematization both of geography and age. Surely French kids with a bit of diluted red wine at dinnertime were not genetically different from me (although I was once offered a sip of Manischewitz wine when I was maybe 8 years old and thought it tasted like cough syrup. “Why would anyone drink wine?” I thought).

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We see television campaign ads constantly that divide the electorate up into liberals and conservatives, as though there were a solstice intervening, rather than it being a continuous spectrum, with idiosyncratic bubbles all along the way. Was Barry Goldwater conservative? Did he nevertheless support gays in the military. “All I care is that they shoot straight,” he famously said.

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Four images from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with color data from the spacecraft’s Ralph instrument to create this enhanced color global view of Pluto.

Is Pluto a planet? It used to be, and no matter what we call that frozen glob of ice and stone, it still spins around the sun. I doubt it cares a whit whether it is a planet, a mini-planet, a sub-planet, or a dwarf planet. Yet, there are heated arguments among astronomers, and Neil deGrasse Tyson reports getting death threats over the issue.

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Perhaps the irony and disjunction between system and reality first hit me in kindergarten. Our home was at the border between Teaneck, N.J., and the borough of Bogota. But because the actual borderline between municipalities ran along our driveway, and a sign plopped down there would block access, the sign “Entering Bogota” on one side and “Entering Teaneck” on the reverse, was placed at the other end of our property, leading any casual observer to assume our house was, in fact, in Bogota. Yet, I went to school in Teaneck. Even at that age, I was aware of the disparity. I have doubted signage ever since.

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There are things and there are ideas about things, and the two are often confused, but they are not the same. The ideas are cleaned up, their rough edges smoothed, they are given uniforms and marching orders, and their angles measured and recorded. But life as it is experienced is immersive, chaotic, contradictory and ever so much more fun.

Richard Nilsen inspired many ideas and memories at the salons he presented through the years when he was an arts critic and movie, travel, and features writer at The Arizona Republic.   A few years ago, Richard moved to North Carolina.   We want to continue our connection with Richard and have asked him to be a regular contributor to the Spirit of the Senses Journal.   We asked Richard to write short essays that were inspired by the salons.