"Give me land, lots of land - don't fence me in"

I grew up in a small town of 1,800 people but then moved to the nearest big city, Durban, where I went to pharmacy school. (In those days, 45 years ago, the population of Durban was about 650,000 but is now over 2 million.) The biggest change was that I went from being a big smart fish in a small pond full of mental minnows to being a little naive fish in a big sea full of sharks. A few years later I moved to London (8 million people) where I was a little bit of krill in an ocean of whales. That's when I started to realize that I had better adapt to city life if I wanted to survive and thrive.

What that meant in practice is that I had to become less open, trusting and simple and more closed, suspicious and complex; in other words: develop two faces; one public and one private. It's not that I had never encountered two-faced people before. My village had it's fair share of two-faced people but you knew exactly who they were because many of them were also trouble-makers and gossips and nobody trusted them.

I had noticed that there were lots of two-faced people in Durban but they were not that much more complex than the villagers. However, in London, I was completely out of my depth. The British have been living on a small island on top of each other for so long that they have developed certain survival techniques and the most polite armor in a fairly civilized society is a two-facedness so subtle that it is not immediately obvious. Hypocrisy is, as the old saw goes, the lubricant of society.

When I moved to America, I realized that big-city Americans are also two-faced. But I travelled by car six times across the states in the first three years that I was here and saw that small-town Americans are just like small-town Brits who are a lot like small-town South Africans.

I moved to this small town six years ago and it took a while to adjust after more than 35 years of living in cities. It happened so slowly that I did not really notice it at first. The most obvious change was that I no longer was defensive, constantly looking over my shoulder when I was out in public. I knew that I would not be mugged. A more subtle change was finding that I did not have to be cagey with other people or try to impress them.

In San Francisco people are very "open" and give each other lots of hugs and kisses but they're very shallow "displays of affection" and often gave me the creeps. My current neighbors are very reserved and keep their "displays of affection" to polite handshakes. And nobody tries to impress anyone else with flash. Yes, they will try to impress you by bragging about their hunting, fishing or farming achievements but they are not interested in flash or fashion. (I brought all my city clothes with me: dozens of white and pale pink work-shirts and 50 beautiful silk ties. I've worn one tie once and my nice shirts go unnoticed - and get dirty too quickly.)

People here tend to not waste time on unimportant things. I think it's because we live so far apart from each other and don't see each other every day. When you live on top of other people in cities, you have to develop much more complex social interactions. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just that I prefer a more simple life where I don't have to live on top of other people, put on an act or play devious games. "Give me land, lots of land - don't fence me in."

A real born again redneck

Tonight we said farewell to our guests, Andy's family. At first I simply was polite to my bible-thumping Arkie "brother-in-law" but he grew on me over the past week. He was a Marine during Nam and fell off of his Baptist wagon and became a drunk and a drug addict for 20 years. Then, 25 years ago he reached rock-bottom after nearly beating a man to death in a drunken rage. His friend introduced him to AA. He "saw the light" and began to read the bible. He was born again and eventually got into "ministering" to other drunks and drug addicts and that is now his life's work.

Yes, I disagreed with him about politics but I never fought with him over it. I soon realized that he is not an educated man and has many misconceptions (and it would take years to enlighten him) but he is a good, sweet, kind, big-hearted man.

Just as we parted he said to me: "You know I'm not nearly as left-wing as you think and many things you said have made me think. I wish I had more time to talk with you. It's just that the Republicans seem to have become so cruel and unkind. I can't reconcile the Christ who saved me with that kind of thinking."

Saturday dining rooms

Marxism is the antithesis of the Bill of Rights

Tonight after dinner we were sitting around the dining room table chewing the fat. Unlike polite society, politics is always a welcome topic in my house and my Arkie visitor (who being Andy's sister's husband seems to me a lot like a brother-in-law and is just as likable and annoying as other all my other brothers-in-law) misunderstood me.

He was going on about the evil corporations and I said: "Well, of course capitalism isn't perfect...."

I was going to add a qualifying phrase but, before I could, he jumped in and said: "Exactly! Communism isn't perfect either but it's better than capitalism."

Chills ran up my spine. I had been going to add: "Nothing in time and space is perfect. Only something that's infinite and eternal can be perfect" but that silly metaphysical thought immediately disappeared and I managed to say (politely and cheerfully of course): "You think Stalin murdering 50 million people is just an *imperfection* of communism?"

Then, as my Arkie "brother-in-law" would say, "the spirit came into me and spoke" and I said the usual stuff when trying to educate Marxists. You know the schpiel: "Capitalism isn't the opposite of communism. Freedom is. And capitalism/free trade is human nature etc etc."

"But," says he; "we need a bit of socialism."

So of course I then had to tell him about living under socialism in the UK for 8 years and how I watched how Big Daddy government infantilized the Brits to the point where they no longer take any real responsibility and think everything is a joke.

I concluded: "Maybe you think that's better than what I have. Maybe it is. At least they don't have to live with the worry of not knowing where the next meal is coming from as I have."

A fleeting expression of puzzlement flashed over his face before he turned on his very toothy grin and tells me that he was a unionist most of his life and used to earn $135,000 a year and now gets $5,000 a month combined SS disability/union disability insurance.

That's when I realized that this dog was too old to teach new tricks. Unionists can never see the contradiction of their position: that unions can only work within a capitalist system. So I let him talk while I sipped my last glass of wine of the night.

Of course I thought of all sorts of other things I could have said but they were all stale old cliches to me and I prefer to surprise myself with my conversation and in writing otherwise it's not much fun.

The only thing that occurred to me that I had not yet thought of was: "Communism isn't the opposite of capitalism. It's the opposite of the Bill of Rights."

Our visitors from the South

Andy's mom and sister (and her husband) are visiting. Andy's mom and sister are from Texas but the sister's husband is originally from Arkansas and the two of them now live in Oklahoma. Naturally I talked politics and assumed that we would all agree on a lot although I knew that Andy's mom had voted for Perot and I had argued with her about that at the time, telling her that that would mean Clinton would win.

But the sister's husband shocked me - I'm sure my jaw hit the floor - when he told me that he had voted for Obama and still thinks he's "good for the working people."

So of course I had questions. Turns out the "good ole boy" Arky husband (who is a former Marine and now a Bible-thumping preacher man) is a life-long Democrat who has mostly voted Republican until McCain whom he furiously dislikes. He readily admits to having been raised prejudiced and to call blacks "niggers" but has since "seen the light." His whole family voted for Obama not only because they hated McCain but because they felt that the Bushes are not true conservatives and have "destroyed" the Republican Party. He defended Obama as a "centrist" pretty well but his arguments were full of holes and he turns a blind eye to certain contradictions.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. He is my age and as stubborn and set in his ways as me. I think I will have to stay away from talking religion and politics with him. He is also a teetotaller so I can't talk about wine with him either although he didn't mind that his wife had some champagne last night as it was her birthday. About the only thing we can talk agreeably about is guns and hunting and fishing.

But he is basically an amiable and charitable fellow and last night, when it was time to go to bed, he took my hand and called me "brother." He's not the first Southern Bible-thumper that I've met who is unpredictable and contradictory.

Naked underage redneck chick post - life in the slow lane speeds up

As you may have noticed: I lead a very boring life. The latest excitement at Robin's Wood was the birth of four hybrid chicks - the third generation of furry-footed half-Cochin "Hobbits" and the adoption of six brown Leghorn pullets.

But there's been another exciting event looming on the horizon that is finally here: Andy's mom and oldest sister (and her husband) are arriving from Texas tomorrow for just over a week's visit. We haven't seen Andy's mom since she visited us in San Francisco and Chas and I have never met his oldest sister. So, yes, we're pretty excited.

Today was another perfect day in paradise here: 64F, blue skies and the apple trees in blossom. But it will be raining for the next two days. I guess that's appropriate. The part of Texas that Andy's from is pretty dry and his family expects it to be rainy in Oregon. Well, they'll get rain for two days at least but then it will be back to our boring spring perfection: blue skies and gentle spring breezes.

I love having a boring life in the slow lane. The boringer the better because I never get bored. Just sitting in the orchard today drinking a cup of tea, soaking up the sunshine, breathing in the soft scent of the apple blossoms, watching the chickens scratch for worms and yelling at the dogs to stop rolling in the chicken shit was enough excitement to wrap up the weekend for me.

I sometimes think I should have moved to Boring. Problem is that it's too close to Portland. BTW Boring was named after a man called Boring.

At least we know that Andy's family will not be bored - as our guests from San Francisco were. Unlike the latter, Andy's family are country people and will probably enjoy our chickens as much as we do. Our friends from SF started rolling their eyes when we started telling them the names of the chickens.

But I must admit that it will be fun to have someone else to talk to other than the chickens.

Saturday dining rooms

My family didn't eat in the dining room. My mom used the dining room table for her sewing and we ate in the kitchen. In fact the kitchen was our living room. But I did have rich relatives and friends who had fancy dining rooms.

One of my favorite rooms was the dining room of one of my great aunts. The furniture, the floor and the wainscot were made of imbuya wood from a Brazilian tree which could be grown in South Africa. The wood was always highly polished and smelled of polishing wax. The room had big windows with lace curtains and there was always a vase of flowers on the sideboard. One of my most sentimental memories is of that room.

Nothing dramatic; just being allowed to eat with the adults for the first time when we went to my great aunt's house one Christmas Eve, walking into that room, seeing the white lace curtains blowing inwards in the breeze and smelling the polishing wax and the roses in the vase. The table was set with white linen and had lots of shining silverware and twinkling glasses.

One of the Upanishads suggests that we should worship food as God because we are all food but I used to love food long before I read that. And my aunt's dining room to me was like a temple of food. And I like my temples of food to be just like my aunt's. The perfect dining room (which is the epitome of civilization) must have lots of polished wood, crisp white linen, sparkling silverware and glistening glasses.

The first picture may not be my idea of the perfect dining room - the wallpaper is too busy - but it is beautiful. It's Mark Twain's dining room in his Connecticut house. My favorite of this bunch is the fourth pic - if only the wood were slightly darker.

Today's naked redneck chicks post: spring chickens

From Chas' Farm Report:

Here is a photo I took of our new brown Leghorn chicks that we got from the local Feed Store. They were about two and a half weeks old when the photo was taken, which was Easter Sunday. They are growing fast.

In the last report, I mentioned that the Bantams where hatching chicks, five and one in process. Well the 6th one died not long after hatching (it's true: never count your chicks before they're hatched). Then, the 5th one died when it fell into the dogs water dish and drowned.

So there are four left, it looks like two little roosters and two hens. One of the hens is a runt, she lags behind, but manages to survive thus far.

Goya's Ghosts

Tonight we watched the movie, Goya's Ghosts, about the painter who is regarded as the last of the Old Masters and the first modern painter. He lived from 1746 till 1828.

The movie was directed by Milos Forman who has made a few excellent movies: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Amadeus (1984) and Man on the Moon (1999). It stars Natalie Portman and Randy Quaid is surprisingly cast in the role of Spanish king Carlos IV. It's the best movie I've seen in ages. Every scene looks like a Goya painting.

Goya was employed as the court painter by the king but ran afoul of the Inquisition which was still operating in Spain at the time even though it had been disbanded elsewhere in Europe thanks to the Reformation which barely had any influence on Spain owing to its isolation from the religious wars of 1560-1715.

Goya was a lot more than a painter, etcher and printer. He was a chronicler of his times. His paintings ranged from conventional religious frescos in churches and portraits of the aristocracy to the unconventional (and horrendous) depictions of the Peninsula War and political/satirical cartoons which he printed and sold like postcards.

Like many of the Romantic artists, including Beethoven, Goya had been an ardent admirer of the French Revolution and later Napoleon and welcomed Napoleon when he invaded Spain and destroyed the Inquisition. But the horrors that the French army visited on the Spanish people disillusioned him and his paintings became more gruesome.

Goya was not a starving artist. He was actually a successful businessman and became very wealthy not only from his commissioned oils but from selling his prints.

This painting is called The Parasol and is typical of the portraits of wealthy merchants and aristocrats that Goya was commissioned to do:















Goya's depiction of the Inquisition:














A painting of the Spanish royal family. The writer Théophile Gautier described the figures as looking like "the corner baker and his wife after they won the lottery":



















Chronos (Greek for Saturn, Father Time) was warned that his child would be his downfall and took to eating his offspring. (It is said of this painting that it perfectly depicts the hideous times in which Goya lived):






















Probably Goya's most famous painting, The Naked Maja (maja simply means a female of the lower class):












One of Goya's war prints sometimes called The Castration:




















One of Goya's political/satirical prints (I don't know it's precise significance but I think I'll save this one to post whenever I write about our current crop of Donkeys):






















And a self-portrait:






















You can see the complete works of Goya here.

PS I was just thinking: All this fuss about the Catholic Church and pedophilia today can't compare with the Inquisition - especially the Spanish Inquisition which was supposed to be about ridding Spain of Muslims but turned into a slaughter of Jews and other "heretics." The Catholic Church has definitely improved with time.

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Grace Kelly

I haven't done a "Movie stars I loved as a kid" post in ages but I was reading about the new exhibition on Kelly at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and that inspired me.

Grace Kelly - a graceful masterclass in allure:

Grace Kelly’s acting career was shorter than you might think, cramming 11 films – and a Best Actress Oscar in 1955 for The Country Girl – into a mere five years before her life changed direction in 1956 when she announced her engagement to Monaco’s Serene Highness Prince Rainier (“pronounced Raynyay” as the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin helpfully explained). It was a fairy tale of sorts but Kelly conferred every bit as much status as she gained. The $2million dowry from her building tycoon father was a welcome shot of liquidity for the cash-strapped Grimaldis and a Hollywood princess put their tiny country on the map – well, almost.

Grace Kelly was a leading lady in film and in life:

Grace Kelly’s film career was as brief as it was incandescent. She managed 11 features in five years, three of them for Alfred Hitchcock, the collaboration for which she is best remembered.

Kelly had a simple, decorative part as Gary Cooper’s pacifist bride in High Noon (1952), but it was her role as a prissy anthropologist’s wife in John Ford’s Mogambo (1953) which first caught Hitchcock’s attention. He quickly cast her as the obliviously imperilled heroine of Dial M for Murder (1954) and the process of sculpting her into the cool, stylish blonde with the fire beneath was under way. That shoot was fraught with technical difficulties and Hitchcock neglected his inexperienced leading lady, whom he later regretted was a little stiff in the part.

Rear Window (1954), his next film, was such a meticulously planned and orderly production that Hitchcock could devote more of his attention to Kelly – and to crafting the most perfect, seductive close-ups that he, costume designer Edith Head and cinematographer Robert Burks could contrive between them.
...
Before teaming up again with Hitchcock, Kelly did three films with other directors, one of which was dramatic, pointedly unglamorous and won her the Best Actress Oscar. George Seaton’s The Country Girl is an oddly forgotten film now, possibly because “dowdy” and “embittered” aren’t modes that casual Kelly fans are entirely comfortable seeing her try. But this woman-wronged role can be chalked up as her biggest stretch as an actress, and many of her scenes with Bing Crosby (as her tragic has-been husband) and William Holden (as the intemperate, woman-hating Broadway director who wants Crosby for his show) are fierce and surprising: this is the film that hints hardest at the serious actress Kelly might have become.

Instead, it was back to Hitch for one of his flimsier outings, the cat burglary romp To Catch a Thief (1955), opposite a disgustingly tanned Cary Grant.
...
It’s certainly clear from the later performances of Eva Marie Saint, Vera Miles and Tippi Hedren that Hitchcock never got over the abrupt retirement of his leading lady. As Hedren, subjected to hours upon hours of hair, make-up and screen tests, explained once: “I was very touched by his evident need to re-create Grace Kelly – or whoever it was he wanted to re-create out of the raw material that was me – but I didn’t really want to go along with that sort of thing.”

Grace Patricia Kelly was born on November 12, 1929 and died on September 14, 1982:

Hitchcock offered Kelly the lead in his film Marnie in 1962. She was eager, but public outcry in Monaco against her involvement in a film that portrayed her as a kleptomaniac made her reconsider and ultimately reject the project.
...
In 1951, the newly famous Kelly took a bold stand against a racist incident involving Black American expatriate singer/dancer Josephine Baker, when the Sherman Billingsley's Stork Club in New York refused Baker as a customer. Kelly, who was dining at the club when this happened, was so disgusted that she rushed over to Baker (whom she had never met), took her by the arm, and stormed out with her entire party, vowing never to return (and she never did). The two women became close friends after that night. A significant testament to their close friendship was made evident when Baker was near bankruptcy, and was offered a villa and financial assistance by Kelly (who by that time had become The Princess of Monaco) and her husband Rainier III of Monaco. The princess also encouraged Baker to return to performing and financed Baker's triumphant comeback in 1975, attending the opening night's performance. When Baker died, the Princess secured her burial in Monaco.
...
On September 13, 1982, while driving with her daughter Stéphanie to Monaco from their country home, Princess Grace suffered a stroke, which caused her to drive her Rover P6 off the serpentine road down a mountainside. Grace was pulled alive from the wreckage, but had suffered serious injuries and was unconscious. She died the following day at the Monaco Hospital, having never regained consciousness. It was initially reported that Princess Stéphanie suffered only minor bruising, although it later emerged that she had suffered a serious cervical fracture. It was rumored that Princess Grace had been driving on the same stretch of highway that had been featured in her 1955 movie To Catch a Thief, but her son has always denied it.
...
In his eulogy, James Stewart said: "You know, I just love Grace Kelly. Not because she was a princess, not because she was an actress, not because she was my friend, but because she was just about the nicest lady I ever met. Grace brought into my life as she brought into yours, a soft, warm light every time I saw her, and every time I saw her was a holiday of its own. No question, I'll miss her, we'll all miss her, God bless you, Princess Grace."

Kelly was one of the few blonds whom I found attractive. In fact I never really thought of her as a cool blond because the was something smolderingly hot and sexy about her.

Local news: the only chromite mine in the USA

Recently another battle (on top of the one over a liquid natural gas shipping terminal on the bay) between the developers and our local neo-Luddites has happened because a mining company has applied to construct a chromite mine in Coos County.

Why here?

COOS BAY - Erosion, geologic events left unique natural resources in Coos County that could support the only U.S. chromite mine.

It’s common to find large chromite mining operations in South Africa, Kazakhstan and Turkey. But in Oregon? In Coos County?

Currently, the United States imports 100 percent of its chromite, but that soon will change when Oregon Resources Corp. starts sifting through piles of sand here later this year.
...
The last time the heavy mineral had been produced here and in this country was during World War II, with a blip in the Korean War. Then 20 years ago, Oregon Resources showed up on the South Coast, looking to mine high-grade chromite ore.

Industrial Minerals Corporation LTD., based in Australia, founded Oregon Resources in 1989, specifically to mine black sands for chromite, zircon and garnet in forestlands near Coos Bay through a one-of-a-kind chromite mining operation.

Over ages, nature eroded the Klamath Mountains down rivers to the sea, and longshore currents then swept the tiny sand sediments northward, forming the mineral-bearing placer deposits found between Seven Devils and the mouth of the Rogue River. Over time the subduction zone has uplifted the paleo-beaches two to three miles inland and 600 feet above sea level, to where they currently rest and where Oregon Resources will be mining. There are no other beach chromite placer deposits of this sort in the world.
...
Because of its hardness and resistance to heat, the chromite Oregon Resources is exporting predominantly will be used as a metal in making molds for automotive and other heavy equipment parts. Garnet is a water-jet cutting medium, and zircon is foundry sand often used for tile glazing.

Montana has an underground hard-rock chromite deposit, but it’s not economical to mine because of its low grade and limited transportation access without waterway.

There are several hard-rock garnet mines operating in Idaho and one in New York, and a single zircon mine in northern Florida. The zircon mine, which is at Trail Ridge, also is a beach deposit and has been in use since 1948.

Most chromite, over 90 percent, is converted into ferrochromium, which is used predominantly for stainless steel, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

While America may import 100 percent of its chromite ore, it is still the world’s second leading producer of stainless steel. Oregon Resources will export roughly 130,000 tons of finished product a year by water, rail and truck. One-third will go to markets in Australia and Asian countries, such as China and Indonesia; one-third to Europe; and one-third will stay in the U.S.

One of the biggest reasons that Reagan wanted "constructive engagement" with South Africa while everyone else was pushing for sanctions was because the US gets most of its chromium and vanadium from there.

I wrote about this before:

Maybe that's why I feel so at home here. In fact this is the first time that I've felt "at home" since I left South Africa over 40 years ago. In those 40 years of wondering all over the world, I always felt like a stranger in strange lands till I moved here. The dirt here is my kind of dirt. I love the smell of the soil on my farm just like I loved the smell of the soil of my grandfather's farm in South Africa.

Now, if only I can get the locals to realize that chromite is a strategic mineral and, since "the only other chromite sources in Africa are drying up," we could fill a real need. Of course there are lots of folks here who hate progress and are opposing building a LNG (liquid natural gas) terminal on Coos Bay as well as the chromite mining. I understand their concerns. They don't want to destroy this small piece of paradise that we live in but there are more and more mouths to feed everyday and, as I said: chromite is a strategic mineral.

Saturday sitting rooms

This is the last of the sitting rooms series. I know two people (in real life) who will miss them but most will be glad to see the end of them. Starting next week I will be doing dining rooms.

Saturday sitting rooms