Paris: At the Grave of Jim Morrison -- Third Visit

Third visitation to Cimetière du Père-Lachaise in Paris, including paying homage at Jim Morrison's grave, this time on May 1, 1986: fête des travailleurs/International Workers' Day, just days after the Chernobyl fiasco began. An anarchists' procession romped through the cemetery while I was there -- black flags, red armbands, singing and music. Then the police moved in to disperse everyone among the living.

Père-Lachaise: always interesting.

Today's Rune: The Self.  

Time for a Global Perestroika

I remember this day twenty years ago, the day of the attempted Soviet August coup d'état -- when Mikhail Gorbachev was placed under house arrest and all his ideas about perestroika (reform) and glasnost (openness) were put in danger of being completely overthrown by conservative hardliners. Though Gorbachev survived (he's now eighty years old) and the putsch collapsed, he never fully regained political power; Boris Yeltsin took the reins and almost simultaneously the Soviet Union broke into pieces. 

Yes, that was all in 1991. I was in England doing a library internship for the Central Architectural Practice of English Heritage thanks to a USA-ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) award.  Afghanistan was plunged in civil war and British troops were returning from the Persian Gulf War, parading through the streets of London.

If the world felt surreal twenty years ago, it feels -- and looks -- far more so now.

The model that emerged during the final decades of the 20th century has turned out to be unsustainable. It was based on a drive for super-profits and hyper-consumption for a few, on unrestrained exploitation of resources and on social and environmental irresponsibility. . . The current model does not need adjusting; it needs replacing. I have no ready-made prescriptions. But I am convinced that a new model will emerge, one that will emphasize public needs and public goods, such as a cleaner environment, well-functioning infrastructure and public transportation, sound education and health systems and affordable housing.

-- Mikhail Gorbachev, "Time for a Global Perestroika" (2009). Is anyone else so optimistic out there?

Today's Rune: Fertility.

Dr. Strangelove, Meet 2011

Chernobyl plus twenty-five. Above: Original trailer for Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).

Today's Rune: Defense.   

Chernobyl, Harrisburg, Sellafield, Fukushima

Чорнобильська зона. 
Chornobyl's'ka zona.

Restricted Zone.  
Tschernobyl.
福島
 
Energy matrix. Choices.  Nuclear? Coal-burning? Petroleum? Solar? Wind Power?  Hydropower? Geothermal?  Mass suicide by collective poisoning? Spontaneous combustion? 

What's your favorite form of energy?  Locomotion?  Walk, run, ride, crawl, drive, fly, float, swim, dream, beam, imagine, project? 

福島

Kraftwerk, ""Radioaktivität / Radioactivity," The Mix (1991) version reduxe:  Chernobyl, Harrisburg, Sellafield, Hiroshima . . . And let's not forget yet another notable mix, by Franco-Armenian-American François K (François Kevorkian).



Today's Rune: Journey. [The core of this post was originally dated April 26, 2010].

White Noise: The Airborne Toxic Event Revisited

A fitting time to reanimate this one, originally posted on October 6, 2006:

Would you be shocked if you found yourself dragged out of your home and sent to an evacuation center in the dead of night? After 9/11, probably not. Still . . .

Very early this morning in Apex, North Carolina (not far from Raleigh, the state capital), some 17,000 residents were evacuated in the wake of explosions and toxic fires at the humorously named Environmental Quality Company, whose headquarters are based in Wayne, Michigan. The fiery cloud release includes chlorine gas, the type used in trench warfare during World War One, and other agents that cause respiratory distress and, potentially, death.









This horror show immediately reminded me of one of the most perceptive novels of the past fifty or so years that I have read – Don DeLillo’s White Noise (1985), especially its Airborne Toxic Event. DeLillo finished this brilliant satirical work after the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, India, which by now has caused the deaths of perhaps 15,000 people (12/3/1984). The following year came the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (4/26/1986).










This is the third major plant fire fiasco in North Carolina in the past fifteen years that I can recall. In Hamlet, John Coltrane’s little hometown, a grease fire (it was a large vat, apparently) at the chicken-nugget plant owned by Imperial Foods led to the immediate death of 25 workers – the emergency exits had thoughtfully been chained shut by management to “prevent theft of chickens” (9/3/1991). At West Pharmaceutical Plant in Kinston, an explosion killed at least four outright and injured another 37 (1/29/2003).

One thing we can count on: there will be plenty more Airborne Toxic Events to come, and not just potentially above Iran and North Korea.

As for White Noise, there are rumblings this year that Barry Sonnenfield is going to produce a movie version. It’ll be just like real life, only more so. [Hasn't happened.  Instead we've gotten additional doses of real life. Just like fiction -- only more so].










Today's Rune: Wholeness.

Do svidaniya!

Nuclear Disaster: Now and Then

The nuclear disaster unfolding in Japan makes me think immediately of Chernobyl, which I first posted about just under five years ago. This year will be the 25th anniversary of that nuclear disaster, and the first anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon Gulf petroleum disaster. I can only come to the conclusion that humankind is too clever for its own good, very foolish and myopic, nothing less than tragic. Post first dated April 26, 2006:

I remember the Chernobyl nuclear disaster very well because it began in the Soviet Union the same day as my first wedding took place back in the USA. The exact date it started was worse than an omen, because we flew to Europe that evening and arrived in London -- just as the first rumors of the accident were making their rounds. This was before ubiquitous internet access and 24 hour news, so it was hard to get any facts. But we knew about it immediately.

Many Londoners, however, seemed oblivious during the first few days of the “toxic event,” even while radiation continued spewing out of the burning reactor number four. Someone or some article from the International Herald Tribune suggested swabbing iodine above one’s knees and one’s wrists as a block against fallout. Don’t drink milk, avoid rain, and wait for news updates. Some honeymoon!

Wild rumors began flying: Kiev was under martial law. Thousands of Soviets were poisoned and dying. The Red Army had sealed off dead zones. Warsaw was in the path of a large plume; Sweden would be next, then Scotland.

My newlywed wife Liz Pauk and I warily proceeded and next made our way to Paris. Since we had unlimited Eurail passes, we could hop most trains and go just about anywhere in Western Europe. We headed for the south of France, where Liz became ill, but recovered enough that we pushed on to Italy via Pisa, and eventually we made it as far east as Vienna before heading back west via Germany. By that time, a clearer picture was emerging. Yes, the Iron Curtain borders were being sealed as a safety and security precaution by the Warsaw Pact countries. Yes, radiation was a real danger, but there wasn’t much anyone could do about it. We flew back to the States from Paris.

The Soviets lost something like thirty-one killed either in the initial accident or trying to contain it. Twenty years later, we still don’t know how many have died or suffered as a result of the disaster. Estimates range from 9,000 to over 90,000 dead or dying from radiation poisoning.

The timing for us personally was so bizarre it still makes me wonder. What are the chances of getting married on such a day? We chose that date out of convenience, having been just laid off by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill as they transferred their business operations out of North Carolina and therefore had a block of time before starting new jobs at Duke University.

All in all, 1986 was a rough year. The space shuttle Challenger blew up in January, and Ronald Reagan and his crew of yahoos were acting like scary war mongerers, supporting Islamic extremists against the Soviets in Afghanistan and fighting a series of clandestine guerilla wars in Latin America. The Reagan administration funnelled weapons to Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, even while it also supplied weapons to Iran and propped up the Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. All in keeping with George Orwell's dystopian 1948 vision for 1984.

Oh, the ironies abound for today, exactly twenty years later. A salute to the rescue teams and all those who died.

Early on, I have no idea whether this is an accurate projection of radiation fallout. I do know this: don't ever believe Big Energy "experts" -- they are either liars or fools or worse, well-meaning zealots who are just plain wrong in their over-optimism about "safety."  


Today's Rune: Defense.

All Hallows: First Day of the Dead, Reprised

To the departed and the fallen: Gone but not forgotten.

Last year at this time, I saw Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others / Das Leben der Anderen (2006), about life in the DDR (East Germany) in the mid-1980s, and ending in the 1990s, after reunification. I liked it.

In the 1980s, participating in an undergraduate history trip led by Jim Leutze (who is currently running for state office in North Carolina, as a Democrat), I ventured behind the Iron Curtain (around the time the movie begins) and checked out East Berlin and Dresden in person. Nothing quite like seeing things for yourself!  This allows you to cut through a great deal of media smoke and propaganda bullshit generated by all sides at all times.

Strange to think how much has happened regarding that area since then: Gorbachev, Chernobyl, Glasnost, Perestroika, the Soviet pullout of Afghanistan, fall of the Wall, Der Deutsche Einheit, and now German units participating in Afghanistan, fighting some of the same people the Soviets did. Who would've dreamt how things have turned out? Sometimes we forget how much things can change -- for good and for bad. We mustn't. Cultural amnesia is not healthy, but when I look around today, it explains a lot.

Today's Rune: Defense.

The Chernobyl Zone, 1986-Present

Чорнобильська зона / Chornobyl's'ka zona / Restricted Zone.  Tschernobyl.

Let's not forget.  Energy matrix. Choices.  Nuclear? Coal-burning? Petroleum? Solar? Wind Power?  Hydropower? Geothermal?  Mass suicide by collective poisoning?  What's your favorite form of energy?  Locomotion?  Walk, run, ride, crawl, drive, fly, float, swim, dream, beam, imagine or project? 













Kraftwerk, ""Radioaktivität / Radioactivity," The Mix (1991) version reduxe:  Chernobyl, Harrisburg, Sellafield, Hiroshima . . . And let's not forget yet another notable mix, by Franco-Armenian-American François K (François Kevorkian).



Today's Rune: Fertility.

The Airborne Toxic Event

Meanwhile, back in Europa . . . already the 25th anniversary of Don DeLillo's White Noise and its "Airborne Toxic Event" (the Bhopal disaster transpired in 1984); next year, the same anniversary for Chernobyl and my ill-fated honeymoon trip to Europe.  DeLillo was exactly right on target, and still is.  No need for a movie version -- we have the reality versions rolling out on a regular basis.














Below: The Illuminoids' Remix of "Gimme Shelter."




Today's Rune: Joy.

All Hallows: First Day of the Dead

To the departed and the fallen: Gone but not forgotten.

Also got to see Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's The Lives of Others / Das Leben der Anderen (2006), about life in the DDR (East Germany) in the mid-80s, and ending in the 90s, after reunification. I liked it. Got to venture behind the Iron Curtain around the time the movie begins, see East Berlin and Dresden. Strange to think how fast everything has changed since then: Gorbachev, Chernobyl, Glasnost, Perestroika, Soviet pullout of Afghanistan, fall of the Wall, Der Deutsche Einheit, and now German units participating in Afghanistan, fighting some of the same people the Soviets did. Who would've dreamed how things have turned out? Sometimes we forget that. We mustn't.

Today's Rune: Strength.

The Cruelest Month

And so we come upon those dreadful anniversaries of April, the tragedies of Waco (1993) and Oklahoma City (1995), Hitler's birthday, Columbine, the Armenian Genocide, Chernobyl, and so on (including Fort Sumter).

I remember Chernobyl, Waco and Oklahoma City all very well. I was married on the very day of the first one (1986) and was living in Philadelphia while in graduate school during both Waco (1993) and Oklahoma City (1995). I have Armenian friends, have seen the Dachau Concentration Camp and Berlin and the still-ruined parts of Dresden, and was teaching the day of Columbine (it was a Tuesday). I've since visited the scene of the Branch Davidian disaster.

April is the cruelest month, but only one of twelve. And we pretty much get a taste of all these things all too often. After reading -- and living through -- enough, very little surprises me. Really, mostly good things still surprise, like the Obama presidency, which is a wonder to behold so far. And April includes Earth Day, too, yes?

Earlier post: http://eriklerouge.blogspot.com/2007/04/how-millennium-comes-violently.html

Today's Rune: Initiation.

SOS: Chernobyl/Tschernobyl

It was probably not good luck to have a wedding day on April 26, 1986, and then fly to Europe for a honeymoon -- all on the first day of the Chernobyl/Tschernobyl nuclear disaster. Talk about timing. By the time we touched down in London, it was too late to turn back. We divorced, however, in 1992.

On the other hand, during this same period Kraftwerk reshaped their song "Radioactovity" into a powerful artistic statement, with pulsing SOS signals and repeated naming:

.-. .- -.. .. --- .- -.-. - .. ...- .. - -..--

Tschernobyl, Harrisburg, Sellafield, Hiroshima.
Tschernobyl, Harrisburg, Sellafield, Hiroshima.

I saw them play this track with a starkly effective neon backdrop at the Brixton Academy, London, in July 1991, and again in an almost identical, near-perfect performance at the State Theatre in Detroit on June 11, 1998. As long as this song exists, people will be reminded of the perils of radioactive fallout. Of course, it also always reminds me of my aborted anniversary. All in all a reflective kind of day.


Today's Rune: Partnership.

Birthdays: Marcus Aurelius, Muhammad (Shi’ite tradition), Eugène Delacroix, Frederick Law Olmsted, Ma Rainey, Anita Loos, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Bernard Malamud, Morris West, Carol Burnett, Giorgio Moroder, Joan Chen (b. Chén Chōng).

Prosh-chavay!

Tokyo Storm Warning: What Do We Care if the World is a Joke?

1986: Chernobyl. Elvis Costello and The Attractions bashing out Blood and Chocolate, a live-in-the-studio album, produced by Nick Lowe with Colin Fairley. Cáit O'Riordan, former bassist for The Pogues and Elvis' then-wife, sings along for the ride. Elvis assumes his Napoleon Dynamite role eighteen years before the movie of the same name.

No one writes more elaborate lyrics than Elvis Costello -- not even Bob Dylan. "Masters of War," anyone? North Korea, Iran, Iraq, USA? Here we go for a little sing-along:

Tokyo Storm Warning

The sky fell over cheap Korean monster-movie scenery
And spilled into the mezzanine of the crushed capsule hotel
Between the Disney abattoir and the chemical refinery
And I knew I was in trouble but I thought I was in Hell

So you look around the tiny room and you wonder where the hell you are
While the K.K.K. convention are all stranded in the bar
They wear hoods and carry shotguns in the main streets of Montgomery
But they're helpless here as babies 'cause they're only here on holiday

[Chorus:]
What do we care if the world is a joke?
Tokyo Storm Warning
We'll give it a big kiss
We'll give it a poke
Tokyo Storm Warning
Death wears a big hat 'cause he's a big bloke
Tokyo Storm Warning
We're only living this instant

The black sand stuck beneath her feet in a warm Sorrento sunrise
A barefoot girl from Naples or was it a Barcelona high rise
Whistles out the tuneless theme song on a hundred cheap suggestions
And a million false seductions and all those eternal questions

Chorus

So they flew the Super-Constellation all the way from Rimini
And feasted them on fish and chips from a newspaper facsimile
Now dead Italian tourists' bodies litter up the Broadway
Some people can't be told you know they have to learn the hard way
Holidays are dirt-cheap in the Costa del Malvinas
In the Hotel Argentina they can hardly tell between us
For Teresa is a waitress though she's now known as Juanita
In a tango bar in Stanley or in Puerto Margarita
She's the sweetest and the sauciest
The loveliest and the naughtiest
She's Miss Buenos Aires in a world of lacy lingerie

Chorus

Japanese God Jesus robots telling teenage fortunes
For all we know and all we care they might as well be Martians
They say gold paint on the palace gates comes from the teeth of pensioners
They're so tired of shooting protest singers
That they hardly mention us
While fountains fill with second-hand perfume
And sodden trading stamps
They'll hang the bullies and the louts that dampen down the day

Chorus

We braved the cold November air and the undertaker's curses
Saying "Take me to the Folies Bergère and please don't spare the hearses"
For he always had a dream of that revolver in your purse
How you loved him 'til you hated him and made him cry for mercy
He said "Don't ever mention my name there or talk of all the nights you cried
We've always been like worlds apart now you're seeing two nightmares collide"

Chorus


Today's Rune: Fertility.

Sayonara!

White Noise

Would you be shocked if you found yourself dragged out of your home and sent to an evacuation center in the dead of night? After 9/11, probably not. Still . . .

Very early this morning in Apex, North Carolina (not far from Raleigh, the state capital), some 17,000 residents were evacuated in the wake of explosions and toxic fires at the humorously named Environmental Quality Company, whose headquarters are based in Wayne, Michigan. The fiery cloud release includes chlorine gas, the type used in trench warfare during World War One, and other agents that cause respiratory distress and, potentially, death.

This horror show immediately reminded me of one of the coolest and most perceptive novels of the past fifty or so years – Don DeLillo’s White Noise (1985), especially its Airborne Toxic Event. DeLillo finished this brilliant satirical work after the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, India, which by now has caused the deaths of perhaps 15,000 people (12/3/1984). The following year came the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (4/26/1986).

This is the third major plant fire fiasco in North Carolina in the past fifteen years that I can recall. In Hamlet, John Coltrane’s little hometown, a grease fire (it was a large vat, apparently) at the chicken-nugget plant owned by Imperial Foods led to the immediate death of 25 workers – the emergency exits had thoughtfully been chained shut by management to “prevent theft of chickens” (9/3/1991). At West Pharmaceutical Plant in Kinston, an explosion killed at least four outright and injured another 37 (1/29/2003).

One thing we can count on: there will be plenty more Airborne Toxic Events to come, and not just potentially over Iran and North Korea.

As for White Noise, there are rumblings this year that Barry Sonnenfield is going to produce a movie version. It’ll be just like real life, only more so.


Today's Rune: Possessions.

Do svidaniya!

Chernobyl

Twenty Years
I remember the Chernobyl nuclear disaster very well because it began in the Soviet Union the same day as my first wedding took place back in the USA. The exact date it started was worse than an omen, because we flew to Europe that evening and arrived in London -- just as the first rumors of the accident were making their rounds. This was before ubiquitous internet access and 24 hour news, so it was hard to get any facts. But we knew about it immediately.

Many Londoners, however, seemed oblivious during the first few days of the “toxic event,” even while radiation continued spewing out of the burning reactor number four. Someone or some article from the International Herald Tribune suggested swabbing iodine above one’s knees and one’s wrists as a block against fallout. Don’t drink milk, avoid rain, and wait for news updates. Some honeymoon!

Wild rumors began flying: Kiev was under martial law. Thousands of Soviets were poisoned and dying. The Red Army had sealed off dead zones. Warsaw was in the path of a large plume; Sweden would be next, then Scotland.

My first wife Liz Pauk and I warily proceeded and next made our way to Paris. Since we had unlimited Eurail passes, we could hop most trains and go just about anywhere in Western Europe. We headed for the south of France, where Liz became ill, but recovered enough that we pushed on to Italy via Pisa, and eventually we made it as far east as Vienna before heading back west via Germany. By that time, a clearer picture was emerging. Yes, the Iron Curtain borders were being sealed as a safety and security precaution by the Warsaw Pact countries. Yes, radiation was a real danger, but there wasn’t much anyone could do about it. We flew back to the States from Paris.

The Soviets lost something like thirty-one killed either in the initial accident or trying to contain it. Twenty years later, we still don’t know how many have died or suffered as a result of the disaster. Estimates range from 9,000 to over 90,000 dead or dying from radiation poisoning.

The timing for us personally was so bizarre it still makes me wonder. What are the chances of getting married on such a day? We chose that date out of convenience, having been just laid off by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill as they transferred their business operations out of North Carolina and therefore had a block of time before starting new jobs at Duke University.

All in all, 1986 was a rough year. The space shuttle Challenger blew up in January, and Ronald Reagan and his crew of yahoos were acting like scary war mongerers, supporting Islamic extremists against the Soviets in Afghanistan and fighting a series of clandestine guerilla wars in Latin America. The Reagan administration funnelled weapons to Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, even while it also supplied weapons to Iran and propped up the Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. All in keeping with George Orwell's dystopian 1948 vision for 1984.
Oh, the ironies abound for today, exactly twenty years later. A salute to the rescue teams and all those who died.

Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun

Today I found a 1962 yearbook that had a photograph of Jean Harris when she was a teacher in the Detroit area. In the picture -- a group portrait -- she's sitting by a window about ten feet from where I was holding the book. How creepy is that?

HBO is still showing Mrs. Harris and it's well worth seeing. Annette Bening is perfect in the role, and the rest of the cast is quite good, too.

Meanwhile in Iraq, Operation Swarmer is underway. More human squander. And who makes up these horrid names?

Globally, the omens are bad and coming fast; they go way beyond mere politics. We seem no better prepared for global warming and its fallout than we were for the tsunami or Katrina, which were probably in themselves signs of things to come. FEMA has managed to house thousands of people in mobile homes -- horribly vulnerable to the fast-approaching new hurricane season (which is predicted to be very active and dangerous). The bird flu is on the way to North America and could begin mutating as early as this fall. Are we prepared for a worldwide pandemic on the scale of the 1918 influenza? Not by a long shot. Are we prepared for melting ice floes and massive coastal flooding in the near future? Are we prepared for anything, really?

Jim Morrison may have had it right decades ago. "I don't know what's going to happen, man, but I want to get my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames." (American Prayer, 1978. Amen).

With spring break looming, I showed Pompeii: The Last Day (2003) in class today. It's good. The students were riveted. The reenactments are quite believable and seem remarkably appropriate to today's world. Last time I really visualized that disaster was in Amsterdam, watching Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii. And speaking of disasters, what do you suppose the omens meant on my wedding day -- April 26, 1986? The day of Chernobyl, the day we flew to Europe for a "honeymoon"? Interestingly, San Antonio Bill posits that this fearsome nuclear disaster was a significant factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union (and come to think about it, it may have been a significant factor in the collapse of my marriage, but that's another story). I think that Bill is entirely correct in his other points, too (Afghanistan, sectarian uprisings, etc.) But collectively, what have we learned by all this?

Despite all, good personal news today: an acceptance by Pearl: A Literary Magazine for next year's poetry issue (37) by way of a very sweet letter from editor Marilyn Johnson. Here's their website: www.pearlmag.com

More good news: I applied for a grant to go back to the Hotel Chelsea and today got word that I got it for this summer. I'm very excited and appreciative -- and, of course, thinking about many of the people I've been writing about having stayed or worked there. What a great place. There's an image of Diane Arbus terrorizing Germaine Greer, snapping a fearsome photo that Greer hated. There's Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison; there's Valerie Solanas lurking in the lobby on the day she shot Andy Warhol; there's Edie Sedgwick; Jack Kerouac; and hundreds of others. Quite a vibe to work in. Global warming notwithstanding, I can't wait!

Finally, William S. Burroughs, another denizen of the Chelsea, heaps on the scorn with "A Thanksgiving Prayer." Though wicked, this short text applies now more than ever. Here's a link: www.inter-zone.org/thanks.html

Adieu for now . . . . .