Author: David Gorsline

Camus quoted

There are a couple versions of this eminently quotable passage from Albert Camus knocking around online, but I have found none of them that clearly cite the original essay and translator. So let’s rectify that situation, shall we?

This paragraph is from an essay that appeared in the symposium Réflexions sur la peine capitale, by Camus and Arthur Koestler, and published by Calmann-Lévy in 1957. Translated by Justin O’Brien, it appeared as “Reflections on the Guillotine,” and was collected into Resistance, Rebellion, and Death, published by Alfred A. Knopf, in 1961. The collection in English is posthumous, as Camus died on 4 January 1960. Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957.

It’s the last three sentences of the paragraph that are most quoted (and most powerful), beginning with “what then is capital punishment…”

Let us leave aside the fact that the law of retaliation is inapplicable and that it would seem just as excessive to punish the incendiary by setting fire to his house as it would be insufficient to punish the thief by deducting from his bank account a sum equal to his theft. Let us admit that it is just and necessary to compensate for the murder of the victim by the death of the murderer. But beheading is not simply death. It is just as different, in essence, from the privation of life as a concentration camp is from prison. It is a murder, to be sure, and one that arithmetically pays for the murder committed. But it adds to death a rule, a public premeditation known to the future victim, an organization, in short, which is in itself a source of moral sufferings more terrible than death. Hence there is no equivalence. Many laws consider a premeditated crime more serious than a crime of pure violence. But that then is capital punishment but the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal’s deed, however calculated it may be, can be compared? For there to be equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life. (p. 199)

(Thanks to The Atlantic for bringing this quotation to my attention.)

Showing up

Dwight Garner’s provocative challenge in last week’s Times magazine to novelists who publish infrequently,

If you and your peers wish to regain a prominent place in the culture, one novel a decade isn’t going to cut it.

is more than a little short-sighted. Did James Joyce forfeit his influence on literature, his place as a modernist, for publishing only two books in the 23 years after A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man? (Granted, all three works were serialized first, à la Charles Dickens.) Do we think less of Ralph Ellison for never publishing his follow-up to Invisible Man?

And yet, Garner makes a good point. He finds exemplars in Dickens, John Updike, Woody Allen:

Good times, bad times, you keep making art. Many of your productions will hit; some will miss; some will miss by a lot.

Bank on it

Catherine A. Lindell, Ryan S. O’Connor, and Emily B. Cohen make a contribution to what we know about songbirds’ nesting success in active and abandoned coffee plantations and active pasture. Specifically, they studied White-throated Thrushes (Turdus assimlis) and Clay-colored Thrushes (T. grayi) in Las Alturas reserve (for four breeding seasons) and Rio Negro, an active coffee farm (unfortunately, only for one season).

These two species of birds, congeners of our American Robin, do not migrate north to the U.S. to breed (there are some records in south Texas for Clay-colored Thrush), in contrast to the charismatic migratory wood warblers (used to promote shade-grown coffee) that feed in forests and plantation overstories in the winter months. The thrushes of the research prefer to nest on the ground or low in a tree. The slightly surprising results of the paper are that nesting success is only indirectly affected by type of land cover, and the effect is through how well the terrain provides concealment from predators. In particular, nesting in a steep bank in pastureland provides the greatest protection (the nest can’t be detected from below, and cattle can’t trample it).

There is a scintilla of a hint that the birds can be more successful in an active coffee plantation—more humans means fewer predators—but keep in mind that only one year of data is available.

I’ll let the authors summarize the research’s conservation implications:

Conservation recommendations based on land-cover type would be relatively easy if we could rank land-covers as to the quality of habitat they provide for target species and if rankings were consistent across species. Our results indicate these conditions are not met for these species.

Happy Days

Delia Taylor gives a gleeful yet genteel reading of Winnie, Beckett’s lady of the mound—indeed, it’s musical: her “Hoo-oo!” summons of Willie (Jose Carrasquillo) is particularly fine. Taylor’s eyes (a key to this role) are mobile and expressive; her various reactions to the revolver in her bag are effective. Carrasquillo adopts a creaky old man’s voice for Willie that doesn’t quite fit.

Technical elements in this production are mixed. Here, the mound that encloses Winnie is a clever extension of her elegant china blue brocade dress. Tony Cisek’s design also places Winnie high enough off the deck so that we all can see her clearly, especially in Act 2. But the constraints of working in Artisphere’s black box theater leave Winnie pinned onstage during the intermission, so that the transition to her neck-deep state in Act 2 has to happen in black, after an unnecessary introductory “the days pass” lighting effect. And the challenge of Beckett’s specification “Maximum pause. The parasol goes on fire. Smoke, flames if feasible” isn’t met.

The program notes that provide the details of the allusions in Winnie’s text (Shakespeare, Milton, Robert Browning, Thomas Gray, and others) are quite helpful.

That explains it

Eric Fidler answers a question that’s been gnawing on my mind ever since my last ride down North Capitol Street from the Catholic campus: what’s with the brick silos and open fields between Michigan Avenue, N.W., and Channing Street, N.W.? An abandoned Nike base? Sequestration of toxic waste from the big domed building at the start of North Cap? The Undisclosed Location? (It looks even more hush-hush on Google Maps.) No, it’s the remains of the McMillan Sand Filtration Plant, which originally purified the city’s drinking water.

Bristoe Station Battlefield Heritage Park

on the vergeA meadow in early fall means a goldenrod clinic for the experienced, but I shied away from genus Solidago and concentrated on the easier plants. Charles Smith ably led a VNPS field trip to Bristoe Station Battlefield Heritage Park, which features more than 100 acres of upland that are being restored to meadow. (The park is so new that it doesn’t register on Yahoo! Maps.) A field of fescue aside, the place looks pretty good (especially compared to another old field that I have visited recently).

The country around Bristoe (or Bristow) Station, on the railway line that connects Manassas to the Virginia hinterlands to the southwest, was the site of Civil War battles in 1862 and 1863. The line is still in heavy use (we heard freights come through about once an hour), and Bristow is just beyond the Broad Run terminus of VRE commuter service. Some of us complained about noise from the general aviation airport nearby. No two ways about it, this park is wedged in close to the built environment of exurbia and its housing subdivisions. According to a trailside map, the park also lies in the headwaters of the Broad Run watershed.

driftingCharles (who is part of Fairfax County’s Resource Management team), along with field trip participants who volunteer at Fairfax County’s Huntley Meadows Park, was a good source of peripheral resource management information and opinions. He calls the alien grass Arthraxon hispidus “the Microstegium of wet, open places.” Apparently the county champion Winged Sumac (Rhus copallinum) can be found in Huntley Meadows Park. Charles encouraged us to get a whiff of the maple syrup-scented Sweet Everlasting (Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium); pointed out the cunning fruits of Seedbox (Ludwigia alternifolia); and found a loosestrife with the hard-to-spell name Cuphea petiolata, otherwise known as Blue Waxweed. Charles does birds, too, and he reports that Grasshopper Sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum) is uncommonly cooperative in this patch—worth a return trip.

targetin fruitOthers in the group found several examples of a Ground Cherry in flower and fruit that we consensus ID’d as Smooth Ground Cherry. USDA gives the nomenclature as Physalis longifolia Nutt. var. subglabrata (Mack. & Bush) Cronquist. The ornamental plant Chinese Lantern is in the same genus.

getting the shotthe native oneNo fruits, but a native Red Mulberry (Morus rubra) was doing well (the common White Mulberries [M. alba] you see everywhere were imported by colonists in a failed attempt to establish a silk trade). I believe I heard Charles say that the leaves on rubra are more regular, a statement borne out by the image at right. David Sibley’s book also points out the lenticels in young bark, which you can also see in the photo.

A couple of Monarch butterflies made an apperarance; a skipper or two—the weather remained cloudy and cool. While I was stroking the greasy top of Purple-top (Tridens flavus), we spotted a lettuce and a spurge, each with their own milky sap.

mistyA lovely composite, no longer in the genus Eupatorium with the bonesets and Joe-Pye weeds, this is Blue Mistflower (Conoclinium coelestinum).

Bull Run Mountains loop

veiled mysterycoral brancherAfter our recent heavy rains, the woods were exploding with mushroom fruiting bodies on today’s field trip to the Bull Run Mountains, under the auspices of the Virginia Native Plant Society and the Prince William Wildflower Society, host to the VNPS’ annual meeting. I wish that I had had such conditions when I was working through David Farr’s mushroom class last year.

repose5 mos. 2ds.We hiked a state preserve property managed by the Bull Run Mountains Conservancy. The trailhead (within earshot of I-66) is on Beverley Mill Road, which parallels Virginia 55 through Thoroughfare Gap. Moving north, we crossed the railroad and moved into the area that was once the managed by the Chapman family. The family cemetery is compact, with most of the markers representing nineteenth-century passings, some of them quite premature.

long gonelate bloomerAt the ruins of Meadowland, the family home, late-blooming Wingstem (Verbesina alternifolia) (in the Aster family) was still going strong. Smartweeds around here were prevalent, and I made a note to bone up on my Polygonum knowledge.

Our group was quite large, and it was only after we split into smaller groups to make the climb to the ridgeline that things felt completely organized. There was a temptation to hang back with the fern and lycophyte specialist leader as we moved up the Fern Hollow Trail—the hollows of this mountain are jumping with lycopdodium and other spore plants—but I pressed on with the climbers.

easy climbinglooking westThe ascent is fairly gentle, rising about 850 feet in 2 miles or so to the High Point Overlook. (The return felt a little more crumbly.) Going up, we paused to ID Pitch Pine (Pinus rigida). But the destination pine for this trip is Table Mountain Pine (P. pungens), found at the High Point overlook. The overlook, accessible through the indulgence of private property owners, is just over the line in Fauquier County, by my map reading. Also near the summit, False Foxglove (Aureolaria spp.) was isn bright yellow flower.

one flowermany flowersComing back down, parasitoids seemed especially easy to find. Both species of Monotropa (Indianpipe in the left image and Pinesap in the right)…

nice and freshand a Broomrape family member, Beechdrops (Epifagus virginiana). This is a lovely natural area completely new to me, visited by not too many people, not far from D.C. (It’s just a few miles beyond the Gainesville split.) I will make it a point to return.

Smith decoded

So. So the fact is, at the end of the 4th century Greenwich was covered in the kind of plant life and so on that grows over the places no one goes to or uses. Probably there was a lot of ancient wildlife which came when that happened, the equivalents of frogs and hedgehogs and the kinds of things that come and inhabit places like on Springwatch on TV. On that programme they tell you how to make a wilderness in your garden so that live things will come and visit it or even decide to make their homes there. Some of them can be quite rare like the bird that is called a willow warbler which used to be widespread but now there are hardly any. But the point is, places that right now right this minute are places people go to in London and do not think twice about being in, can seriously just disappear. (There but for the, p. 286)

Ali Smith’s ten-year-old narrator Brooke has the gist of the conservation argument, but her facts regarding the status of Willow Warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus) are not quite there. Across Europe, the bird is not listed as a species of concern; it’s only in Britain that populations have fallen off, placing it on Amber conservation status.

Holiday weekend

zoom zoomzoom zoom zoomLast weekend was a time of watching things go very fast—the Baltimore Grand Prix, from our grandstand on Pratt Street. The people we saw on the office building roofs had the best vantage point. Leta was bemused by the sponsorship of Braille Battery.

Pekoe at easeAnd for watching things that go much slower, but not necessarily quieter. Pekoe’s purr has been known to approach the triple-digit decibel range.

Bollard envy

Via DCist, images of jersey walls and other security barriers in the District of Columbia, signs of the pernicious growth of what Tom Sherwood called “securicrat” culture. But, writes Sherwood,

Look up beyond the barricaded doors and bomb-proof glass to see how many flagpoles sprout from private and government buildings. Take a moment to enjoy the sight of Old Glory waving in the wind. (We particularly like the big flag on Freedom Plaza, an aptly named space on Pennsylvania Avenue.)

Look at those flags that stand for freedom — and for a country that honors freedom and tries to export it to the world. That’s the America we want to see. And we want to see it with as few barriers as possible.

Pause on 9/11 to honor the victims of those horrible attacks, but don’t give in to fear. It would be downright un-American of you.

Lewis decoded

Two proper names in Babbitt, both of which the Library of America edition’s editors chose not to gloss (although the note on the Torrens system of registering land titles is quite helpful):

The customer joined him in the worship of machinery, and they came buoyantly up to the tenement and began that examination of plastic slate roof, kalamein doors, and seven-eighths-inch blind-nailed flooring, began those diplomacies of hurt surprise and readiness to be persuaded to do something they had already decided to do, which would some day result in a sale. (ch. VI)

Kalamein was used as a trade name for the sheet metal cladding on doors and windows, applied as a fireproofing measure in the absence of high-quality timber. As John M. Corbett writes,

A century ago, wood windows were first clad in zinc coated or zinc plated steel, with the object of making them fire resistant, and marketed under the trade name “Kalamein”. This name refers to calamine, the mineral which furnishes the ore from which zinc, the eighth metal known to man, is extracted…. While the trade name “Kalamein” seems no longer to be maintained, the terms “kalamein”, “kalamien” and “calamine” persist, referring to the general practice of cladding architectural elements in sheet metal of any composition.

The implication of the passage from the 1920s by Sinclair Lewis is that kalamein, like the plastic slate, offered an inexpensive, relatively safe dwelling. Somewhat paradoxically, Corbett, addressing architectural restoration, says that kalamein doors now are no longer cheap.

It turns out that I’ve already done the research for the second mystery name. Babbitt is stumping around the city’s ethnic neighborhoods for mayoral candidate Lucas Prout:

Crowded in his car, they came driving up to Turnverein Hall, South Zenith…

I found a Turnverein Hall in Sacramento last month.