4 November 03
Sophia: Living Wisdom
I spent Saturday at a women’s retreat exploring Sophia, the embodiment of wisdom in the Hebrew bible and New Testament (and well suppressed over the centuries) but also present in similar form in many traditions. Or so I’m told: this was all very new to me. The speaker was Ann Denham, who explained how Sophia is being reclaimed by feminist theologians and thinkers, both Christian and Jewish.
Attributes of Sophia include the cosmic divine wisdom, spoken of by the mystic Hildegard of Bingen; the shekhinah, the spirit of god present among us, a sister, a midwife, and a prophet; and as Lover, eros, the mother, bride, and queen, the source of creativity and erotic energy.
A divine feminine image like this is definitely more interesting for me, at least, than some others we might be asked to swallow, and we spent the afternoon session working on soul collages of wisdom—of Sophia. Mine, pictured at left (click for a larger version), revolves around she-coyotes, wily and nurturing, full of power and stealth; it reclaims the apple and exalts it; it delights in the pair as well as in solitary power. It swims through the cosmos, providing the life force and creative drive.
31 October 03
Halloween Costumes
I decided not to go into work today with two black boots pretending I was Frankenstein’s monster, not because they wouldn’t have been great for the purpose, but because I couldn’t figure out how to handle the head. Plus I had physical therapy during the day: difficult to do floorwork with two bolts sticking out of your neck.
Lots of my coworkers dressed up, though, and much jollity ensued.
The best costume I’ve seen for many years was on a person standing outside the front of Mrak Hall where I work. It was dark. The figure was hooded and caped and stood motionless outside the front door. A scythe emerged from behind the black cloth. Tall: Darth Vader plus scythe.
When we got round the front of this sinister figure, a full human skeleton started talking to us, explaining that his wife was a forensic anthropologist, and he wasn’t trying to scare people, and he was waiting for his ride. For a second, though, it appeared as though the angel of death were delivering a particularly interesting message to the administration of the University.
27 October 03
Back School Started Today
I’ve been so impressed with Numenius’ progress with his back problems that I’ve decided to go to back school myself in order to fend off what seems to be an almost inevitable result of being a biped, namely, pain in the lower back. Today I got the thorough work-over, trying to determine where my weak spots were (between L5 and S1, for all you PTs out there). On Wednesday I learn how to lift, bend, deload deload deload, and so on.
Mat the PT talks of the back as analogous to a bank: you put checks in, you take checks out. Deloading sets up credit; lifting boxes of books sends you shopping. I’m not sure I quite understand all this but I’m happy to start super-strengthening my trunk; to deload when I get home from work (lie on the floor and push myself away from the door with a broom handle); to bounce around on the exercise ball; and to watch how I sit. I might start raising a few eyebrows at work, is all.
19 October 03
Soup Season Jumpstarted
I was scheduled to lead a beginners’ bird walk for Yolo Audubon this morning. I’m walking better than I was a month ago but I have to confess I was hoping nobody would show up at the meeting place at 8:00 am so I could return to my tea and mellow morning.
But no: a couple rolled up in a BMW. When it became clear they’d be the only customers, I asked them what they’d like to do. Oh, she said, I’d like you to tell me what all the birds are I see and hear in my yard. I’ll make you a cup of tea.
Well, this is what we did, and saw a number of birds and Karen’s spectacular garden. She learned a lot of birds, and I got a huge bag full of apples, peppers, tomatoes, basil, and sage. Such a deal! I made pesto and we had the tomatoes for lunch. I have since made a large pot of soup, which is what we live on in winter—it has cooled down enough for long simmering.
Since this was the first soup, there was no stock for it, giving it a “shallow” taste. But all the veggies—cuttings, leavings, ends—have ended up in the freezer for next week’s stock.
3 October 03
My New Goddaughter
One of my oldest friends has recently adopted a baby girl from China. Jennifer and Harald live in Sweden and their new daughter, Linda Qiu, seems to be adjusting quite well to the cold, to five dogs, and to a red-painted farmhouse.
I hope to join them all in Madrid in early December for the Christening. For now, I’m having a lot of fun trying to find suitable children’s books! Linda will grow up speaking English at home, Swedish at school. (Hope there’s some Spanish in there too…)
This is a great honor for me. I have never been a godmother. It seems really, momentously, important, somehow.
27 September 03
The World Lost a Great Mind Yesterday
Edward Said died at the age of 67 after living for years with leukemia. He spoke eloquently not only for Palestinians but for justice throughout the world. A scholar at Columbia University for many years, his book Orientalism (1978) is credited with starting the post-colonial studies movement.
Whenever I saw him through my work at Harvard University Press he was debonair, brilliant, a little intimidating, and always intensely thoughtful. The Arab world has just lost its most articulate mouthpiece.
26 September 03
A Vision Of Lucre
Last week Pica attended the Chancellor’s Fall Conference, a day-and-a-half shindig where UC Davis faculty and staff discussed the just released campus strategic plan, a document entitled The UC Davis Vision. This document is filled with platitudes about how the campus will “ensure that [it] maintains and develops high-caliber courses, curricula and academic programs” and will “invest in targeted areas of established and emerging excellence and distinction.” This is the sort of document that university administrators feel the need to produce every few years, and one wishes they would merely dust off the previous edition from the archives in the basement rather than go to great effort to rewrite the thing anew.
Absent from the plan is much discussion of how the university plans to achieve this grand vision in the face of a massive budget crunch, let alone avoid the internecine fighting that accompanies such. There lies however, off in the bucolic northwest corner of Yolo County, a possible solution to the university’s woes. This valley is home to the Cache Creek casino, a fantastically successful enterprise a few years old run by and for the benefit of the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians. (In California gambling casinos are only allowed under tribal auspices.) Many Cache Creek Valley residents are not very fond of the casino for bringing lots of traffic to their formerly quiet valley, but given tribal sovereignty there is little they can do.
But here an opportunity beckons. What if the Rumsey Band were to partner with the university to move the casino to campus? All parties would benefit. The casino would be in a much more accessible location, being right off the interstate running from the Bay Area to Sacramento. Both the Rumsey Band and the university would share in the profits, and the university would be ensured of a stable and growing funding source. Cache Creek would get their quiet valley back, and there would be many new part-time jobs for the students. (Who wouldn’t rather be a croupier instead of delivering for Woodstock’s Pizza?) Indeed, whole new university programs could spring into existence—what about a hotel administration department? (Cornell has one, why not UC Davis?) And seeing as how the Mondavi Center is built on a Native American gravesite, placing the casino nearby is not that geographically inappropriate.
Looking a few miles and years down the road, there are other prime opportunities for public-private partnerships. There’s a proposal afoot to build a $250 million racetrack and entertainment complex entitled Dixon Downs, to be located about 7 miles down the highway from UCD. Think of the funding that could come the university’s way with a little bit of creative outreach! Plenty of opportunity for the veterinary school at the very least.
Serving the entertainment industry—the new function of the university in the 21st century! Sounds like it would make a good proposal for Governor Arnold.
25 September 03
They’re BAAACK…
Today was the first day of classes at UC Davis. There were thousands (about 30,000, to be concrete) people wandering around these 5,000 acres, many of them a) completely lost b) on bicycles they hadn’t ridden since grade school c) talking on cellphones d) oblivious of the hazards they posed. Sometimes they just fall over for no apparent reason and get up again.
It’s at times like these when Davis and campus are best avoided if possible. Unfortunately it’s not really possible; we both work on campus. Going somewhere for lunch or dinner just got a lot harder. So did getting from A to B.
Our drive to the Coop this evening was a slalom run through kamikaze eighteen-year-olds. We almost entertained driving miles out of our way to get home via the freeway in order to spare ourselves the dangers.
For all this, I’m still happy to see the students back. They’re young and hopeful (at least some of them). They’re our future, even if they’re not sure about this. I just wish they’d learn elementary bicycle safety…
A baseball footnote: the Boston Red Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles tonight to clinch a spot in the playoffs. I’m ecstatic. Which is very dangerous for a Red Sox fan.
23 September 03
The Joy of Taking a Shower
The hardest part about having an extremity in a cast, splint, or boot is not being able to get really clean. I’ll spare you the gory details of what that translates into but you can probably imagine. Anyway, from sponge baths where I got water all over the floor to sitting in the shower with my left leg in two tightly tied garbage bags, protruding while I perched on a commode in the shower and got even MORE water all over the floor, I have moved on to the ideal solution: take a shower elsewhere.
The PT’s place is a fully functioning gym complete with three showers, one of which, since it’s new, is handicapped accessible. This means I can hop over, grab the rail, hope I don’t slip, sit on the handy seat, wash merrily between my toes, and hop back out again. I think I’m the only person who ever takes a shower in there. At least now I don’t have to go to the hairdresser to get my hair washed, though I must say I miss the chatter of the three Latina hairdressers who, try all they might, never manage to say more than one sentence in English before lapsing into laments about this child or that relative. The handicapped shower in the PT’s place is very silent and unsociable by comparison. But I just BASKED in it this afternoon.
I’ll have to go get my hair trimmed soon to find out the latest on whose quinceaera party is next, is all.
22 September 03
When Carnosaurs Ruled The Roadways
This weekend I read Keith Bradsher’s recent book High and Mighty: SUVs—The World’s Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way. It’s a sordid tale, and not one for those who have low tolerance for accounts of raw greed. A favorite quote:
Who has been buying SUVs since automakers turned them into family vehicles? They tend to be people who are insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors or communities.No, that’s not a cynic talking—that’s the auto industry’s own market researchers and executives.
Bradsher sees little relief from the scourge, and worries about what will happen when the current crop of SUVs starts to age and have mechanical problems, and show up on the used market to be purchased by less capable drivers such as youths and drunks.
Some good SUV links today: Philip Greenspun wonders how SUVs can remain fashionable when only unfashionable people (e.g.. middle-aged suburban parents) drive them. On a geekier note, he also considers Java to be the SUV of programming tools.
Kos meanwhile finds it a bit ironic that Arnold Schwarzenegger is campaigning on a platform of clean air, water, and the environment when he drives a Hummer. Actually, it’s worse than Kos realized: he owns six Hummers, and as Bradsher recounts, Schwarzenegger was the person most responsible for the commercial introduction of the formerly military-only vehicle.
Finally, a look at the SUV of the future, at the classic SUV poseur site.