Cultural Anthropology of Community 9-19-9

Trafalgar Square, London

For some weeks now, artists and carpenters have been building an astounding chess set and board here in front of the National Gallery, in perhaps one of the most public spaces in the world. This stunning construction includes ceramic chess pieces designed by Spanish artist Jaime Hayon; 5 feet tall; gilded and over glazed. These are nearly surreal in their perfection and size. A game is in progress, each player up on a grand platform reached by stairs, overlooking a board thirty feet square. A gallery of thousands is watching the life size pieces moved by uniformed attendants. An announcer calls the game, much as one would call a football match.

There are perhaps twenty thousand people here, some flowing swiftly through, others finding a destination here. I found a place on a short wall in front of the gallery’s Sainsbury wing. No longer a passer-by caught in the current, I become an anthropologist, observing the organic vortex that is Trafalgar Square.

Soon hundreds of cyclists in a British road race will storm though here, careening down Whitehall towards Big Ben. For certain, they will know what time it is. Countless resources have been used to close roads in one of the busiest cities in the world, set up barricades, create routes, and hire extra police and ambulance drivers by the hundreds. In the end, only one of these racers will have fifteen minutes of fame in the limelight. The rest will be able to say they “got the T-shirt, been there, done that.” That’s all. The possibility of accolades seems a powerful driver of human behavior.

Ambulances are careening towards the race route. It must be a high stake’s event.

The bully pulpit is occupied as always. Up there one can expound on anything at all. Free speech is still free here. A cherry picker just enabled a shift change. There is no way to and from the summit of the twenty-five foot limestone monolith short of being plucked or plopped by crane or picker. The newly arrived expositor is up there arranging his notes. No one is really paying attention to him. Most of the spectators are finding the chess game a more interesting past time than end time prophecies.

More ambulances are screaming through. A police chopper is hovering overhead. Security seems to be a big deal here. A couple of days ago after I was locked down in a glass elevator, a security man told me, “You just can’t be too careful.” I wonder; perhaps a bit paranoid. This may be understandable, given unsavory events in recent years. The chess game just ended in a stalemate - no winners.

The London Eye is just visible above the nine floors of neo-classical facades that line Charing Cross Road. Tourists in the top of the Eye can see the bully pulpit for about five minutes during their one hour spin through the London sky. Despite paying $25 for the ride, headphones are not included. They will have to come over here to listen to the circadian orations that will answer their existential questions.

It is intriguing, being an observer of all this rambunctious life, and having two people sitting six inches from where I am writing this. They speak in unknown tongues; with no one to translate. I am unseen to them. We could be like two galaxies that pass through each other but never touch. We go on our own ways, unaffected; they caught up in the current again; I clinging to my perch on the wall.

There is such an amazing density to life here, a world so far removed from the bucolic sensibilities in a Victorian world, one under glass. Yet it is good. There must be no place on earth that has this magnitude of diversity and quantity of people flowing by my wall every minute. To be in this concentrated caldron of life, yet unique; is good. Tourists on top of the myriad open-top double deckers have about forty-five seconds at the red light to experience this world occupied by about twenty thousand different kinds of us.

Another ambulance screeches.

Thin afternoon sunlight reminds me of approaching autumn. This is a good thing for the ‘freeze’ dressed in a black suit, wearing bright red braiding. He has not moved in an hour, trusting passers-by will be properly impressed by his immobility, putting their spare change in his dented cookie tin. I’m duly impressed with such stillness in this tsunami of humanity flowing in and out through a dozen hypertensive asphalt veins and arteries. Business looks pretty slow for him. I must remember to carry money for unexpected purchases.

Choppers have appeared again, directly overhead. There seems to be some compelling need to keep all of us in proper order.

A gentle breeze has begun to blow. A cloud of pigeons at my feet are eating fresh bread dropped by tourists passing by my wall. I had a fine lunch myself consisting of a spring onion and cheese sandwich, yogurt, a peach, and a fair-trade banana. The pigeons are politely sharing. Several have jumped up here by my hands as I write. This part of the universe seems pretty well-mannered. Maybe we really don’t need the choppers.

Another chess game has just started.

The concrete wall beneath me refused to soften up and contour itself to my seat of knowledge. I got up to go wander in the National Gallery a bit; figuring on fruit from a Renaissance still life for an afternoon snack. Not thirty feet from my wall, I nearly stumbled onto a stunning piece of beauty. A true fleck of paradise just washed up onto the shores of my life, appearing at my feet. On the sidewalk is a seven by nine foot depiction of Botticelli’s 15th century masterpiece depicting Pallas and the Centaur. Its creator, a demure young woman sits quietly in lotus position at the top of her work. That I was seeing this image on the pavement in Trafalgar Square and not in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence is incredible. More incredible is the effect it has on the organic masses flowing past; instantly bifurcating on either side of the painting and then freezing, not unlike the nearby man in his red braids. They all pay homage with their cameras and coins. I must remember to carry money for unexpected purchases.

The artist has just disappeared, leaving her masterpiece, her money, and her belongings there at the mercy of the hordes. Some people are profoundly trusting. I am seeing this being put profound beauty into the lives of thousands, with her brush and with her trust. I feel like I should go over there and put stanchions around Botticelli. I keep looking for her, hoping she just left to take care of essential needs. Amazingly, no one touches anything. Everyone watches his step. Everyone watches her step. Periodically, huge clots of humanity accrete around the goddess Pallas Athena, but never occluding her beauty. Admirers fill the artisan’s hat with their coins.

Choppers. We really don’t need choppers.

There is much beauty here in the currents of life and we are watching our step. Good. She has come back. I can cease being over responsible for something that is not mine. She trusts us.

The ice cream vendor is doing a brisk business. Children are getting their favorite flavors from attentive parents. Young women are smiling in expectation of their treats. I must remember to carry money for unexpected purchases.

Two guys, not paying attention, just stepped on the Centaur’s head. They instantly backed up, as if they had just walked on hot coals. Botticelli’s protégé didn’t flinch. She seems to hold life with an open hand. Anita never received formal training in art, instead receiving inspiration from a former boyfriend who encouraged her to express her gift to the world. She is out here in one of the most crowded places on earth, subjecting her work to the scrutiny of thousands. So far, she has thumbs up from all.

A very street-worn homeless man has just climbed up next to me on the grass. He passed out within about fifteen seconds. I wonder why he is in frayed threads, appearing to have lost the urge for personal grooming. Survival probably uses up all his resources. Perhaps, the ice cream man will share his good business and give the guy a cone.

I went into the National Gallery and accessed the museum’s digital image data bases for Botticelli. Fifteen of his works showed up. Anita does really good work. She could have apprenticed to Botticelli if she had shown up about five hundred fifty years earlier. Two minutes later I was standing in a gallery full of the real thing, hoping that people outside were plunking down in Anita’s hat. I really must remember to carry money for unexpected purchases.

“And God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good."

Oasis - The World Under Glass 9-18-9

The Palm House, Kew Gardens

In the early 1970’s a haunting science fiction film “Silent Running” was produced, depicting a world in which all natural flora had been extirpated by nuclear holocaust. The only remaining flora existed under glass, in modules orbiting above the earth. Virtually no living person had ever known the joy of walking beneath a canopy of leaves. No one had ever walked on grass barefoot. It was a rare privilege for one to walk in an oasis of green, being only possible for those that could afford a ride into space. Alas, the orbital transport service company responsible for the maintenance of the modules decided on other priorities and these islands of emerald were cast off into the darkness of interstellar space to die. Fortunately, it was but a work of fiction.

In the mid-to-late nineteenth century a powerful aesthetic of beauty emerged in the Victorian world, forever gifting the world with sublime music, art, architecture, and expansive places of public gathering. We ended up with the transcendent music of Ralph Vaughn Williams and the captivating visual images of Claude Monet from this inspired era. Perhaps the most compelling structures erected at the time were the great white iron and glass conservatories built as centerpieces of botanical gardens to showcase fabulous collections of plants and trees from around the globe.

Today I left the frenzy that is inevitable when twelve and a half million people live in a smallish space and hopped on a crowded train for an hour. I noticed that virtually everyone in the train was implanted with a phone and a frown. None seemed happy to be alive on a fine cerulean day of early autumn.

Alighting and walking half a mile through a quiet and pleasing neighborhood where the first fringes of autumn crispness were in the air, I soon passed through Victorian Gates into an oasis that put the modules of “Silent Running” to shame. In the context of “Silent Running”, it seems appropriate that I should now find myself in the largest surviving Victorian conservatories in the world. During the past century, other priorities resulted in the loss of most of these glorious structures. The far-sighted custodians of Kew Gardens have maintained and enlarged its botanical collections for two-hundred fifty years and a glorious preservation and conservation effort by visionary managers and volunteers has provided for us the spectacular crystal jewels I now find myself in.

Richard Turner in 1844-1848 built this particular imposing structure to the design of Decimus Burton, inspired by the shape of a ship. This grand edifice is indeed a ship, an ark. Unlike those of “Silent Running”, this one has not been cast off into space to freeze. An army of volunteers and staff take care of the structure and the legions of tropical plants tucked away beneath thousands of panes of glass. There is a potted plant here from East Cape in South Africa. It made a two-year ocean voyage in 1773. More than two centuries later this plant is alive and well in its very large pot. This plant has been running silently for two hundred and thirty six years with good care and attention. It is reported to be the oldest known potted plant in the world.

There is a thin consistent golden sunlight flooding the crystalline vaults above, the kind photographers pray for. I walk around softly in visual nirvana, collecting living images of the emerald realm, under glass. The white lattice of the ironwork weaves an entrancing pattern beneath the cerulean sky. I consider my great fortune to have been gifted with the opportunity to come across six time zones to such a place and find the patterns in my own life that give entrancing evidence the universe is really a friendly place after all.

I wander around the gallery catwalks, almost feeling the transpiration of all these vibrant tropical plants and trees below me. The tree ferns are huge and lush beyond words. Life feels strong and vital in here. Plants are not the only things fairing well under glass. A wavelet of serenity is washing over me and I am feeling a calmness and contentment that most people would give anything for. I am getting it for the price of admission, and even that was given to me by a friend who thought I needed to be here in this oasis, under glass.

I am suddenly back in another conservatory many thousands of miles away, one where I found daily refuge as I struggled back to life again after a long dark night of the soul, now twenty years distant. In that glass house at Birmingham I learned, as did Francis Bacon, "God almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures."

There is a prominent sign in the nearby entrance of the Palm House that asks, “What Does Kew Do?” The expected answer is something to the effect of, ‘collecting, nurturing, propagating, and archiving the botanical heritage of our world.’ I would suggest a mission statement should include providing a place where one goes and then doesn’t want to be anywhere else. I wonder if all those passengers in the train might have found a reason to smile if they were to have come here, turned off their phones, and put themselves under glass. How grand to feel rooted, if not for 236 years, then a few hours at least. As Dorothy Frances Gurney put it, "Kiss of the sun for pardon. Song of the birds for mirth. You're closer to God's heart in a garden than any place else on earth."

Turn off the phone, find a garden, and find God.

Leave the Driving to Us - Above the Cumulus 9-15-9

Near Iceland

There is such an extraordinary world out here, up here, to be explored. Several miles below my dining table there are aureate tops to cumulous towers that bring much needed rain to those living in the far north. Beneath these cumulous towers, Icelanders are settling in for the night, about to enjoy their evening meals cooked on geothermal energy from the hidden fires of the earth.

Out one of my four private windows a subtle lavender rim is forming on the cerulean dome that forms the plate of heaven above me. In the west the sun descends for its rest from warming life yet another day. Those around me are settling in for sleep, cozy in their beds in cocoons of white down. There is a profound sense of repose; that is the perfect word. Life is presently very quiet, very generous, and wondrous; all is very well here.

One of our three impeccably trained stewards has just inquired if this would be a good time for me to have my dinner served. How could it ever not be a good time to have fresh canapés brought to me in a white-gloved hand attached to a radiant smile? Shortly a table for two was arranged with fresh linen, silver and goblets placed, a moist towel offered for refreshment. The four guests visiting me in my cabinette were invited by one of the stewards to take their leave so I could have a quintessential dining experience with full undistracted focus. Not liking to eat alone, I began to object and then thought the better of it and kept my mouth shut. I made peace with my guests by sending back glasses of 2000 Bolinger. The steward later apologized for dismissing my guests.

As the sky transmuted from cerulean to lavender to violet and finally into deep indigo before becoming truly colorless, I managed to stretch canapés, lobster bisque, a well-oiled salad with dressing from Castello Monte Vibiano and smoked chicken with Tuscan tomato across about seven hundred miles of cumulous tops. In proper European style, a plate of sweet Marion Bleu, Herb Brie, and Kilchur Estate Cheddar was then offered with a basket of chilled fruits.

The Icelandic world has settled down for the night. My heavenly world has settled down; low-level indigo lighting washes the ceiling, creating a sense of being in a planetarium. I wonder about the people who are granted the opportunity to design and build this kind of an environment. The stewards are performing well those things they do in hidden places to create an atmosphere of amazing elegance and attentiveness for those of us that have been admitted into a place of extraordinary privilege, here in heaven.

Enjoying the after glow of a fine dining experience, I now wonder about the true nature of luxury. Is it merely having the very best of everything? Am I having an epic bigger-than-life event because it normally costs more per hour to buy this seat in heaven than most people make in a week? Is it because I can be here and you probably can’t? Am I having a peak life moment because I don’t normally eat off crystal on the top side of cumulous clouds? Because it was given to me as a grand gift? Or is true luxury the ability to have a peak life experience no matter what? As I sit here, literally in the ultimate lap of luxury; I wonder if gratitude, the queen of emotions, what makes the experience transformative. Perhaps a profound appreciation for whatever life gives us is the key.

Last Saturday I was sitting at a picnic table under an old oak tree in the middle of nowhere. A nearby herd of goats was munching away at patches of brittle brown grass. A cloud of no-see-ums buzzing around my head reminded me that first frost was still a long ways off. I was eating a meal that cost me six bucks and was wiping with a thin paper napkin. Yet, I had a peak life experience every bit as powerful as the one I am having up here in the heavenly realm. I was seated at that battered green table with a dozen good friends who took time out of their Saturday to join me for brunch at a country eatery out on a goat farm in my county. Another couple heard I was going to be at this restaurant and made the journey out there to find me. I felt like true royalty, holding court with people seeking an audience. It was glorious; a transcendent life experience. The community that comes from true friendship and shared experience has few peers.

As I sit here in the clouds with an empty chair across from my table, I am reminded of the reality that relationship is ultimately the magic ingredient that produces peak experiences in life. This incredible opportunity to see the world from the top of cumulous clouds provided for me the right to offer that chair to anyone who wanted it, at no cost to them. The only thing that could have made this epic journey better would have been the opportunity to pay it forward - to gift it to someone who could never embrace it with their own resources; to show them the plate of heaven through the lens of crystal at 40,000 feet; to watch them slumber away in a cocoon of down softer than the clouds far below.

The next time you are offered something and you believe it too good to be true, reconsider. As the great British theologian, GK Chesterton, liked to say, “Occasionally, flecks of paradise do wash up on the shores of our lives.” Today might just be your day.

It’s All in the Details 9-14-5

New York City

For decades the Holy Grail in aviation was the sound barrier. Many were the speculations as to what lay on the far side of it. Countless would-be space explorers knew this barrier would have to be breached; somehow, some way, if humankind was ever going to make it to the stars. Many theorized that no man-made object could survive pressing through the sound barrier; objects would simply disintegrate. Intrepid test pilots don’t like to be told ‘no’. They fearlessly hopped into x-bodies, flying wings, and various highly suspicious apparatus to see just what was on the other side of the upper stratosphere.

Growing up near Los Angeles I heard the results of countless attempts to penetrate Mach 1, the 768 miles per hour at which sound travels. School days on the edge of the high deserts were often punctuated by the powerful percussion of planes compressing air to unimagined pressures, only to have it suddenly break loose and sweep back along aircraft wings and then across the cerulean skies to reach our young intrepid ears.

By paying attention to all manner of details and tweaking their aircraft, test pilots were able to demonstrate supersonic flight could actually be safe. New York to London was reduced to a three hour milk run. The only fatalities involving supersonic commercial flight were caused by scrap metal lying on the ground. Someone was not paying attention to the most trivial of details - sweeping up the trash on the runway in Paris. The ill-fated plane never got going much faster than a really good Toyota can accomplish.

I took a leisurely bike ride this morning at the languid pace of 11 miles per hour; no sonic booms, no concussions to wake up bored kids in school rooms. Later in the morning I had a leisurely workout in the Y where no time trial records were breached. This penetration of the sound barrier was yet to come.

Back home, I decided it would be a good idea to print out a boarding pass so I could actually get onto my jet flight de jour. It was really important to get on this flight, as it was the beginning leg of my grand prize; a thirty-day world adventure. Missing this flight would have meant most probably being penalized for taking too-much time at the free throw line and being thrown out of this game altogether. I was casually printing the boarding pass when I noticed my outbound flight was leaving at 2:45 PM and not 4:15 PM. A horrible prickly feeling washed over my entire being, much like that which one experiences when one sees a truck hurtling into one’s car. My inbound flight thirty days out is leaving at 4:15 PM from a distant part of the planet. I had misread the confirmation e-mail. No problem except the departure gate is 132 miles from where I was casually printing my pass to begin my planet-wide romp.

Time trials!! With no warm-up and no stretching I managed to dress, cram my suitcase, stuff all my chargers, data transfer cords, cameras, computers, drives, power converters, and tripods into a canvas bag, gather my paper work, passport, credit cards, and passes and be in the car in six minutes; breathless and at a decidedly heightened state of alertness. I suspect my pupils had constricted to the tiniest of pinpricks - I would need the utmost acuity for the high-speed road trials ahead.

One does not normally associate supersonic travel with fifteen-year-old Toyota Corollas with nearly 175,000 miles on the main turbine. Four miles into my time trial I stopped to refuel, taking on only enough fuel to get me through one long high-stakes time trial. Frantic phone calls headed off the Good Samaritan who had planned to take me on a leisurely drive to the airport in her nice Lexus. With no pre-flight check, nothing at all, I launched that old car into a sub-orbital trajectory. I now fully appreciate the turbulence and shaking that test pilots experienced when their lifting bodies approached the speed of sound.

About one hundred miles into the time trial; my craft started to disintegrate. It appeared my mission was doomed and the world was not going to be mine after all. I pulled off and went to impulse speed and eventually landed for emergency inspection. The engine seemed intact. A very hasty diagnostic revealed air pressure at high speed had torn the left fender loose and what remained of it was dragging on the pavement. Want to guess how that sounded compared to a sonic boom? I jerked it up and away from the tire and was back in sub-orbital trajectory within four minutes. Backing slightly down from Mach 1, I was able to hold things together with a bit of in-flight prayer.

Incredulous, I soon found myself under the flight approach at the Charlotte Airport. My Corolla had survived the sustained buffeting of high speed travel. I wasn’t in the clear yet. The window for successful orbital insertion was still closing. The details do matter. At the long term parking lot I found parking only at the far end of the lot. I got out of the car and walked up to the shuttle stop. A bus came up instantly. Orbital mechanics require launch at a precise moment and I did not want to wait until another century for optimal planetary alignments. From my car to the terminal, clearance of security, jettisoning of my baggage, and, processing the paperwork - seventeen minutes. For certain, I must have set some kind of time trial records in several categories today. I don’t recommend doing this if you want to maintain any peace of mind and serenity.

One hundred five minutes for packing, driving one hundred thirty two miles, and making it to a departure gate must count for something? It does. I was telling the guy at the gate about my grand sprint to make it to his gate for the beginning of my planet-wide exploits. He asked if I would like to have an unaccompanied seat in the second row, as in eight feet from the cockpit. Upgrade!! The Holy Grail for air passengers had landed in my lap again.

Suddenly, sitting in airports seems a delicious serene way to spend time - not moving.