Who was Cassandra?
In the Iliad, she is described as the loveliest of the daughters
of Priam (King of Troy), and gifted with prophecy. The god Apollo
loved her, but she spurned him. As a punishment, he decreed
that no one would ever believe her. So when she told her fellow
Trojans that the Greeks were hiding inside the wooden horse...well,
you know what happened.
the cassandra pages
words, pictures, and a life
Friday, September 10, 2004
SHEEP HERDING, HORSES, AND ROUGH RUSSIAN TOBACCO
Lovers of place writing will enjoy the post from Thursday, Sept. 9 at Footprints. It's a memoir by an Icelander, now living temporarily in the U.S., about the sheep-herding drives he used to participate in as a young man, and is both an evocative description of places and experiences few of us will ever share, and a coming-of-age story. And the author is a dear friend, so I can vouch for his authenticity!
"There were four of us heading up from the farm I had worked on. Each one had a pair of well-rested horses, and a saddlebag with a few sandwiches, a thick slice of blood sausage, and a bottle of milk. We started our ascend at first light, about six o'clock. This early, even the wind is not awake yet. We floated lazily up the neck of the mountain, along the canyon, where the river tirelessly pushed itself down one waterfall after the other. As we reached the shoulder, the wind had picked up, and it began to rain. After reaching the middle of the moor, around mid-day, we ate quietly, and then split up. As we parted, one of the other men reached over and stuffed a package of cigarettes and a box of matches into my coat pocket. "You'll need it", he said, and rode away..."
I rarely talk here about what I’ve done all these years to make a living. I’m a graphic designer, and J. and I have worked together in our own design/publishing firm for twenty-five years. Yesterday we were at a large regional printer for the press approval of two jobs for a client. There had been a serious hitch: the proofs for one of the jobs, Fed-X’d to Montreal, had gotten lost and were on their way to California instead – only the second time this has ever happened during the years we’ve been in business. So yesterday we arrived early to go over a new set of proofs, and then approve the job on press.
When you’ve been doing this for a long time, you sort of take the process for granted – but actually it’s very complicated, even with all the digital advances of the past fifteen or so years. A pressroom is a pretty cool thing, especially in the age of virtual communication: modern printing presses are big huge metal machines with complex moving parts, computerized controls, and a million things that can get out of whack, and yet they manage to place microscopic dots of ink precisely where they need to go, in register with three other colors, and form a printed image on a sheet of paper. The work required to prepare a piece for printing used to be a long, mechanical process involving cameras, chemistry, precise handwork by skilled craftsmen, and a lot of judgement based on years of experience. Advances in digital pre-press technology has meant that much of that work has now migrated away from the printing industry into the hands of specialized pre-press houses, or designers like us. We did all our own color separations and proofed them in our own shop; one hour before presstime, the printer was making our final changes on our original .pdf file, before making the offset printing plates that would go on the press.
High-end color printing is meticulous and expensive, but it still seems to satisfy something in the human psyche that computer screens don’t. I sometimes wonder if we humans have a particular affinity with paper – its dryness, the way it feels in our hands, the way we can look at it, turn it over, see ourselves and our world reflected upon it in words and images. Along with my collection of books, I have drawers and drawers of blank paper in my studio: heavy watercolor sheets, light drawing paper, translucent tracing paper, charcoal paper that feels like the cloth it is made from, colored papers and printed papers with beautiful patterns. I save them, and occasionally am inspired to make marks on their surfaces or fix them together into a painting, calligraphy, a drawing, a box, a book.
The restrained preciousness of those papers is one reason the pressroom feels so over-the-top: here there is an entire stack of paper, so heavy it has to be moved by a forklift, on the end of the press, ready to be printed on both sides with images and words that came into existence inside our computers. I’ve spent a good deal of my adult life learning exactly how this is done, and keeping up with the revolution that has happened during that time in the graphic arts industry (yes, when I started we used wax and x-acto knives and ruling pens) so that we can handle the mysterious procedure, at minimal risk and reasonable cost, for the clients who hire us. Nearly all of our work is digital, and much is now web-based, and never printed at all. But there is still an excitement for me when I walk into a pressroom: I love the smell of the ink, and the plain-speaking, skilled people who run the presses, and the heavy whack-whack of the rotating cylinders, and the sight of the identical pages coming off the press - pages I’ve imagined in my mind, and then seen here on this screen, now on their way into somebody’s hands.
"The Surreal World of Bush" - an editorial by Haroon Siddiqui in the Toronto Star. Politicians don't always deliver what they promise. But George W. Bush is in a league all his own. ..
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Last night, driving down from Canada, we passed through torrential rain and then, over Vermont, the skies became perfectly clear - a great black bowl studded with a million stars. The Milky Way arched over us, complete, and the rest of the stars were so bright and numerous as to nearly obliterate the patterns of constellations. But when we made that final left turn, getting off the interstate, there was the Drinking Gourd hovering in the north, like the signpost it once was for the slaves escaping the south.
In our house, with the windows opened, I listened to the song of the insects outside, serenading the summer. Tonight it's raining here. I close my eyes and listen to the sheets of sound, falling like vertical stripes on a piece of old silk: gloss/matte/gloss/matte. Without looking, I can see where the water has pooled in the street and where the streetlight shines in it, reflecting the aging leaves of the big cut-leaf maple. It sounds like the rain will keep up all night.
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
Last night I was very moved by P.'s essay, part of the current Ecotone topic "Creating A Safe Place", about trying to create a safe physical and emotional environment for his little girl in a world that seems anything but safe and predictable. Today I've been ruminating about various aspects of this dilemma. Part of it is to recognize the actual odds and risks, which are much smaller than political figures would like us to believe - more on that another time. Another aspect is the very great need for deep, ongoing, societal self-analysis, driven by people, not politicians, who recognize that the current policies are not making anyone in our world safer.
Today's BBC had a small headline beside the report about the funerals of the Russian children and other hostages. It read: "Press Bares Russian Soul" and the link led to several excerpts from editorials that have recently appeared about the tragedy in Russian newspapers.
The excerpts were remarkable for their direct critique of both the givernment and present Russian society: for someone like me, raised during the height of Cold War, this forthrightness was amazing. but they were also remarkable for the close parallels to what one might say about our own society and government, and to the differences between political rhetoric and human reality. Both our countries are, after all, struggling with terror. Both have taken a very hard line of refusing to negotiate. Both have suffered large civilian losses. In the wake of September 11th, Americans did a lot of soul-searching. The Russians seem to be doing that now. I wonder if their path will be any different from the one we have taken.
"Beslan, and other tragedies testify to one of our fundamental characteristics - indifference to the squandering of human life. To us, human life is not the most precious thing. We are ready to sacrifice a huge number of people. This happened 100 years ago, and 300 years ago, and during the rule of Ivan the Terrible. Corpses floated down the Volkhov river for a week, but the state's objective was achieved - Novgorod was forced to join Moscow. Exactly the same thing has happened now. We have lost several hundred people, but we have shown that we cannot be spoken to in that manner."
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
"We in Russia are fond of reproaching everybody for double standards, whilst we ourselves, for the sake of our prestige in the Arab world, continue to cling on to Yasser Arafat, for whom terror has always been and still is a way of exerting political pressure on Israel. We try to fight against terrorism, yet we protect Syria because it buys weapons from us. We prefer to overlook the fact that Damascus has sheltered 15-odd terrorist organisations and openly approves of terrorist attacks if they are directed against Israelis.
Countries which have suffered from terrorist attacks have one common weakness. They are so concerned at rebuffing terrorism that they do not particularly concern themselves with the reasons for it. Not only Russia, but also Israel is trying to play down the connection between terror and the problem of a real and full settlement of the conflicts. Moscow asserts that 'the political process' in Chechnya is in full swing and the situation is swiftly changing for the better. However, this does not convince the terrorists. Jerusalem repeats that there is nobody in Palestine with whom to conduct talks, and shuts itself off from it with a wall. But the terrorists find loopholes in it. Meanwhile, both Russia and Israel cherish the hope that the fire can be extinguished by foisting loyal leaders on Chechnya and Palestine."
Monday, September 06, 2004
Tomorrow we'll be traveling back south. I'm not eager, which is less a comment on what awaits me than the fact that I'm still having trouble adjusting to the transitions between places. I wonder how people do adjust to this sort of dual lifestyle. Other than Coup de Vent, are there any other readers/bloggers out there who live in two markedly different places on a regular basis?
Aside from the fact that I woke up in the middle of the night with a wickedly sore throat (it's much better, but I'm still not sure if it's a cold or allergies, or a reaction to the stuff we've been using to try to remove the wallpaper in our bedroom), today had two excellent aspects. The first was a number of solid, productive hours on The Book - the best day of work I've managed in ages. (This has been a major source of frustration and angst, although I haven't talked about it much here - so today was a big psychological boost.) The second was a bike ride in the late afternoon out to Parc Maisonneuve, across from the Stade Olympique. Parc Maisonneuve is adjacent to the Botanical Garden, and it is a huge, open expanse of rolling grass and trees with paved paths which today were being used by a wide variety of human-propelled conveyances: roller blades, baby carriages, bikes of every type and description, occupied by riders of every age from toddlers to geriatrics. There were so many seniors on roller blades - huzzah for them! And little kids learning to ride and skate. Novice roller-bladers, and people gliding effortlessly, one hand behind their back, who looked like speed skaters training for competition. Children in bike seats, on attached training bikes, in canopied carriages pushed by roller-bading parents. I saw a little dog carried papoose-style, in a snugglie, by a tall girl on blades.
Under the trees, lovers and friends sat or laid in the grass, talking. A couple flew a white kite with black eye-spots. Kids played with a whirring frisbee. We'd never been to this park before, and so we too left the path for a while to sit under a tree, marvelling at the size of the park, and the variety of human exuberance within it.
It's a strange thing. One of the aspects of Montreal that we are responding to most positively is just being around so many more people; to seeing a much wider spectrum of seemingly-happy human beings in a place where people are far less self-conscious, less anxious, stressed, and rushed than where we came from. So far, this is endlessly fascinating, and very freeing. At the same time, the two of us are more isolated than we've ever been: more thrown together, more dependent on each other for reassurance and affirmation about what we're experiencing. I don't want to add any analysis to those statements; it's simply where we're at - and no doubt all this is subject to further change.
It's a long weekend in Canada too; at the bakery yesterday a small handwritten sign said that the shop woud be closed Monday for the "Fete du Travail". I was surprised, because when I asked, once, when they were closed they replied, cheerily, "Jamais!" - "never". Yesterday and today Avenue Mont Royal was closed to through traffic, and a street fair was in progress. It was actually more of a sidewalk sale than a fair, with most of the merchants putting out late season items on tables and under tents, and pedestrians lazily cruising up and down, stopping once in a while for a cup of coffee or the delicious-looking mangos-on-a-stick that were being sold by several Asian resturants: peeled mangos cut sort of like an artichoke, so that the golden flesh had opened up and was easy to eat. It was all very low key, and I wasn't sure that a lot of buying or selling was taking place.
Yesterday we met friends for brunch at Le Petit Alep, a Syrian restaurant near the Jean-Talon market, where we drank fresh lemonade and ate grilled pita sandwiches, and then we took a leisurely walk through the very crowded marketplace, where bushels of San Marzano tomatoes, huge bunches of basil, garlic and hot pepper strings and late-season eggplants and colored peppers shared the spotlight with the last of the summer berries. Our friends pointed out a special Quebec delicacy: chocolate-covered blueberries. At one vendor we found an opened box, set out for people to taste. They were truly delicious - a light coating of chocolate melting on your tongue, and then the burst of the blueberry skin and juice.
This morning I set off on my bike and rode through the sparkling light on the criss-crossing paths in the park until I was tired. At 10:00 the bells of St. Jean-Baptiste began ringing for mass, and I got off my bike and stopped at a shady overlook above the lake and the fountain. Sea gulls skimmed the lake, screeching, while nonplussed ducks floated in the rushes on the edge. A few people walked along the paths; one man in the distance had gotten off his bike and was feeding the squirrels, while under the trees two young men practiced martial arts moves in slow motion. Someone was singing.
I sat and listened to the bells, and felt my heart and breathing gradually slow. Why was it, I wondered, that I felt no urge these days - months - to go to church? And yet, there was the same spiritual pull I always have, especially in nature: the desire to slow down, to listen deeply. I sat and watched the fountain spray its white lace into the dark water. A couple lingered on the footbridge; another stopped to feed the ducks. The sun went behind a cloud, and a woman pulled a shawl from her bag and wrapped it around her shoulders. A bicycle bell sounded in the distance. A runner went by on the path behind me; I heard her feet and her rhythmic breaths come closer and then fade away. Time moved, and did not move; I asked my questions, let the thoughts fade away.
People make music alone in the parks, and they also talk to themselves - something I find rather endearing. No one pays much attention. The parks aren't crowded, so you can have your own space, even an aural one, and it's respected. When I had stopped meditating, I felt like singing - something I've been wanting to do on my bike or in the park anyway, but I've felt too shy. This time I didn't. First I sang an Italian art song, sitting there on the bench, and then two Mozart arias - in fractured Italian, since I couldn't remember all the words - getting a bit bolder with each one. It didn't sound that bad, I thought. The runners and bikers just kept going past behind me, and the sea gulls didn't pause in the swooping flight, and the man kept on feeding the squirrels. Nobody seemed to think I was any crazier than anyone else, or more or less interesting, for that matter. I was just happy, singing -- and then I got on my bike and pedalled off to buy eggs and a loaf of bread.
