The Renaissance: Historical Contexts - Here Be Dragons

The Renaissance (1450 – 1600) marked the flowering of culture, science and ideas about the nature of humanity that occurred in Europe, starting in Italy, spread throughout Europe. Characterized by philosophy, art, architecture, and literature, the Renaissance was a cultural revolution fueled by wealth from trade and new technology, along with political consolidations. 

The Big Question: 

What were the economic, political, and technological innovations that made the flowering of the Renaissance possible?

Watch:  Renaissance and Humanism

With ships and caravans equipped with new astronomical equipment, and able to travel long distances without getting hopelessly lost, the brave crews encountered new civilizations, and, more destiny-changing than anything else, new sources of spices, precious gems, new plants, and intoxicatingly vast hoards of gold and silver. 

The new wealth poured into Italy and Spain, and then to France and England, resulting in a building and cultural boom that was to celebrate not only the church, but the monarchies that sponsored the quests and the expansion. 

Stability was perhaps the most critical element.  In Italy, the Medicis were powerful trading and banking moguls who financed enterprises and kings. In Spain, the Moors were finally expelled and when Isabella married Ferdinand, the new Spain unified almost the entire Iberian Peninsula. In France, warring factions came together under a single monarch, and in England, religious warfare was brought to a close as Queen Elizabeth I successfully bridged the divides. 

The name of the new focus was Humanism. Petrarch, Pico, More, and Montaigne looked at the human being as being able to advance through the exercise of will, ingenuity, and self-directed effort. God still existed, but God desires self-directed creativity and innovation. God helps those who help themselves, thought the Humanists. 

But, what was the best way to express this new exuberance and belief in the limitless potential of humankind? The answers were in the mysterious ruins and statues of Ancient Greece and Rome, and also in their mythologies, with gods with magical powers and humans who could be part-god, part human. 

The silk, spice, and precious gems that came along the Silk Road and in the voyages to Asia, and then the gold, silver, tobacco, indigo and rum that flowed in from the Americas, enriched the monarchies and the entrepreneurs. 

The models they found in Classical Art and Architecture were inspiring to them. So were the writings of Plato and Aristotle, preserved in libraries thanks to the work of Muslim philosophers who translated the work into their Arabic and had written extensive commentaries.  Later, these were translated into Latin and found by Renaissance philosophers.  They were embraced by an entirely new audience who loved their ways of viewing the world.

We will explore what happens when vast wealth meets new monarchies who want to show the world they are on equal footing with the church (Catholic or Church of England), and when they eagerly fund the efforts of artists, architects, writers, and philosophers whose work illustrates the new Humanistic worldview. 

Read:  Technology, Political Ambition, and a Boundless World

Overview: The Renaissance had a foundational philosophy that encouraged people to think of a limitless world, and one with treasure and infinite possibilities. The encounters with the Americas and the voyages around the world to the Spice Islands and back were absolutely magical, as were the tales brought back – some true, some greatly embellished. The Renaissance benefitted from the convergence of facilitating inventions, political-economic developments, and the discovery of new lands. 

Facilitating Inventions

Astrolabe: a mechanical device for determining one’s position in relation to the Sun and constellations. It could be used for calculating distances as well. It was vital for sea navigation. 

Magnetic Compass:  A device that consistently and accurately measures direction, using a magnetically charged “lodestone” (iron oxide) that aligns north and south. 

Mechanical Clock: The earliest accurate mechanical clocks used the pendulum (which had been invented by Galileo) to mark time, and to assure accuracy within a few seconds. 

Gunpowder: an chemical explosive and firearm propellant that consists of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). Its use transformed warfare in Europe, and gave great advantage to invading armies coming from Spain to the Americas. 

Printing Press: invented by Gutenberg, the printing press made it possible to spread pamphlets, religious tracts, and publicity, both raising literacy and a knowledge of the world and its marvels. 

Map of the World: The “Mappa Mundi” published by Amerigo Vespucci was the map that suggested that there were many more yet to be explored lands in that great space between Europe and Asia. The Mappa Mundi inflamed the imagination of generations and triggered investment in joint stock companies and expeditions. 

Facilitating Political Developments

Unified Spain: Spain was unified by the marriage of Ferdinand (Aragon) to Isabella (Castile), and the union of their kingdoms. No longer was it partially dominated by the Moors, and no longer was it referred to as Al-Andalus. 

La Reconquista: The term that signifies the final expulsion of the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula in 1492.

Church of England / Henry VIII: The creation of a new church – somewhere between Catholic and Protestant, successfully wrested the power of the Catholic Church and lodged it squarely on the head of its ruler, who was head of both the secular and the religious state. 

Elizabeth I: Sought to heal wounds of religious partisanship and seek reconciliation. Elizabeth I was focused on rebuilding England through protecting itself and not wasting resources on internecine clashes. 

Facilitating Economic Developments

Financed Voyages for Spice, Gold, Jewels, Treasure: Kings and queens, especially those of the unified Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella, were willing to gamble and invest in expeditions in search of gold and treasure. The investments paid off many times over. The territories were extremely rich, not only in gold but also in productivity.  

Medici Mercantilism: The Medicis invested in trade, with the goal of opening up new routes and controlling territories. 

Privateering - Legalized Piracy: The French and English preyed upon the Spanish galleons because they often held cargos of gold, silver, and jewels. They allowed pirates to be legitimate rather than outlaws, as long as they shared with the king or queen. 

Colonialism: Colonies were established in the Americas, determined by which nation first staked a legitimate claim. At the end of the Renaissance, the following countries had claimed territory for their countries. 

Spain: North America, Central America, South America, Philippines

Portugal: Parts of South America and the Caribbean, parts of India, Java, Africa

France: Islands in the Caribbean and New France (Canada)

England: Parts of Canada, a few islands in the Caribbean, parts of North America

Holland: Parts of Africa and South America, West Africa

Reflect: That was impressive! What impresses you most?

1. The Reconquista

2. Unification of Spain

3. Voyages of Discovery

4. Inventions such as the astrolabe and magnetic compass

5. The evolving level of knowledge of geography of the world

6. Privateers

7. French exploration of Canada

8. Control of trade networks

Expand! Let’s Explore the World

Voyages of Discovery

Magellan: According to most historians, the Portuguese nobleman Ferdinand Magellan never actually planned to the globe. He was simply trying to find a new way to get to the Spice Islands of the East Indies. He commanded a fleet of 5 ships, and went from Portugal to Patagonia through the Strait of Magellan, where he encountered many storms. He arrived in the Spice Islands in 1521, after two years on the seas.  He was killed in the Philippines on April 27, 1521. His ships returned home via the Indian Ocean and then around Africa via the Cape of Good Hope. 

Columbus: Columbus, born in 1451 in Genoa, Italy to a weaver, was the first to explorer to encounter the Americas, which he did in his first voyage in 1492 in which he was trying to find a direct path from Europe to Asia.  His later voyages, which took place in 1493, 1498, and 1502, were motivated by the same goal. Needless to say, he did not find a direct route to Asia, but he did encounter Hispaniola, Trinidad, and the South American mainland. In his last voyage, he encountered Panama where he was attacked by hostile natives. He died in Spain in 1506. 

Martin Frobisher:  An English privateer and explorer, Martin Frobisher set out to find a Northwest Passage that would provide a direct link from England to Asia. Born in 1535 in Yorkshire, first sailed at the age of 9 when he joined the Navy as a cabin boy. In addition to attempting to find a direct route to China and India, Frobisher tried to find vast stores of the gold and silver that the Spanish had encountered. He was unsuccessful, although he did bring back ore (primarily different types of iron ore, he later found out) in each of his three voyages. Although Frobisher never did find gold (and eventually bankrupted his company), he did claim territory for the Queen of England, and also gained prestige and honor for being a talented privateer, bringing back much Spanish gold to fill the English coffers. 

Cabot: John Cabot (born Giovanni Caboto in Venice) received a commission from King Henry VII of England to explore the northern Atlantic. He landed near Newfoundland or southern Labrador. He returned to England, where he equipped a second expedition, but unfortunately, disappeared, probably perished in a shipwreck. 

Cartier: Jacques Cartier sailed on behalf of France’s King Francis I in 1534 in order to find gold, spices, and gems in the Americas. Cartier successfully completed three expeditions in which he traveled up the St Lawrence River to the point that France could claim the territory that was first called “Kanata” (Huron-Iroquois for “settlement”).  Cartier brought back massive quantities of ore, but they were disappointingly devoid of gold, silver, or precious gemstones. His last voyage took place in 1541. 

Vasco de Gama: Born in Portugal around 1460, Vasco Da Gama’s first voyage rounded the Cape of Good Hope in Africa. His crew spent time in Mozambique, a Muslim city-state, Kenya, before sailing for India. Da Gama and his crew stayed in Calicut for three months. The people he encountered in his travels to Asia and Africa were traders and controlled very lucrative routes. Although he had received much hospitality, the King of Portugal charged Vasco da Gama with finding a way to dominate the trade routes. So, da Gama obliged his king and embarked upon grisly massacres. He did find a way to carve an alliance with the local leaders, and so was able to return home alive. Portugal claimed India as its own and created a Viceroyalty. Later, da Gama was named Portuguese viceroy in India. He died in India, still holding the title of viceroy. 

Drake:  Francis Drake, explorer, pirate (legitimized as a “privateer”), commissioned by Queen Elizabeth I. One of the most successful plunderers of Spanish galleons, Drake brought significant quantities of Spanish treasure back to England and to Queen Elizabeth I. Drake was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe. An accomplished naval officer, Drake was part of the team that defeated the Spanish Armada. Drake died in 1596 in Panama. 

Coronado: Francisco Vazquez de Coronado (1510 – 1554) was governor of New Spain when he was essentially duped by reports of Seven Cities of Cibola that were theoretically paved with gold. In search of the famed cities, Coronado traveled up the western coast of Mexico, and through the desert Southwest through what is now California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma, encountering along the way the Grand Canyon and very hostile Indians. He wintered in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and spent the spring in Palo Duro Canyon (in the Texas Panhandle). The expeditions considered an expensive failure, Coronado returned to Mexico where he eventually lost his governorship of Nueva Galicia and spend his last days on the city council of Mexico City. 

Champlain: Samuel de Champlain was an explorer who helped colonize French North America through his extensive exploration of Canada. He founded the city of Quebec, and helped popularize New France with French settlers. 

Ponce de Leon: Born in 1474 in Leon, Spain, Juan Ponce de Leon was a member of the Aragonese nobility. He traveled to the Americas where he served as the governor of the eastern province of Hispaniola. He discovered Puerto Rico, Bimini, and also explored parts of Florida near what is now St. Augustine. Ponce de Leon died in Cuba.

Explore the Relationships between Exploration, Conquest, and Economic Systems

Exploration and conquest usually meant that a single European country controlled a part of a continent. This was a positive thing on the face of it, but there were tremendous costs. First, it was quite expensive to run a continent, and the 20 percent tax (la quinta) imposed by the Spanish government did not do much to defray the costs, particularly when there were uprisings and uncertain production of gold, silver, and plantation items. 

Also, having control of a vast territory made you a target, which Spain quickly found out after galleon after galleon was attached and pillaged for its cargo. 

The main economic system during this time was trade, which made a mercantilist economy a must.  

Discuss:  Similarity and Differences

What are the similarities and differences of the territories held by Spain, England, France, and Portugal? 

Check your knowledge Quiz (5 questions):

1.  Astrolabe: a device used to 

a. shave down the edges of gold coins

b.  measure the clouds and predict the kind of precipitation that would occur

c.  calculate distances by means of stars and the Sun (correct) 

d. used in astrology to predict one’s destiny

2.  Magellan

a.  founded a series of investment funds used to finance voyages

b.  born in Norway and raised by his uncle, The Merchant of Venice

c.  the first to circumnavigate the world (correct)

d.  killed in Goa, India by a tiger

3.  Mappa Mundi

a.  a spice used to create a peppery meat dish

b.  a map of the world published and sold widely (correct)

c.  a map that given to Coronado and which showed the location of the Seven Cities of Cibola 

d.  another term for the Spice Islands

4.  Privateer

1.  A pirate who received a commission from a king or queen to plunder on their behalf (correct)

2.  A type of ship developed by Frobisher which had a special cargo hold for private storage for investors

3.  A person who did not work for the government but had a company dedicated to private enterprise

4.  A type of weaving used to create sturdy hammocks. 

5.  Coronado

1.  The governor of Nueva Galicia (Mexico) who raised funds to explore for the Seven Cities of Cibola, supposedly paved with gold (correct) 

2.  A method of roasting meat that was essentially flame-broiled over open flames, used in Argentina and in Chile

3.  The explorer who searched for the Fountain of Youth, and discovered Puerto Rico and Florida

4.  The coronation of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile

Glossary

Galleon: Spanish ship used for transporting gold to Europe and back

Privateer: Pirate with a commission from a king or queen

Astrolabe: device used in navigating using the stars 

Mechanical clock: mechanism for keeping time using a pendulum

Gunpowder: chemical explosive containing charcoal and saltpeter

Magnetic compass: a device with an iron oxide lodestone that always aligns itself to the north and south

Reconquista: Christian takeover of the Iberian peninsula

Mappa Mundi: the map of the known world in the 1500s

La quinta: the 20% tax imposed by the Spanish monarchy on production in New Spain

Al-Andalus: The Arabic term used by the Moors to denote the Iberian peninsula

Key Takeaways

Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to 

1.  List key world events during the Renaissance

2. Describe voyages of discovery 

3.  Explain how new inventions made long voyages possible

4.  Discuss the unification of Spain

5.  Identify benefits to England for having privateers and pirates

Lesson Toolbox

Resources (links) 

Renaissance Links

Encyclopedia Britannica:  Renaissance art and architecture. https://www.britannica.com/event/Renaissance  

Metropolitan Museum of Art: Renaissance. 

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/keywords/baroque-art/

History.com: Renaissance Art: http://www.history.com/topics/renaissance-art

Art Institute of Chicago: Arms, Armor, Medieval, and Renaissance http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/armor 

Virtual Uffizi Gallery / Florence. https://plus.google.com/u/0/+UffiziFlorence 

Art Museums: Where to see Renaissance Art. https://www.italian-renaissance-art.com/Art-Museums.html 

Renaissance Inventions: http://www.inventionware.com/renaissance-inventions/ 

More, Thomas. Utopia. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2130/2130-h/2130-h.htm 

Machiavelli, Niccolo.  The Prince. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1232 

Grotius.  The Rights of War and Peace. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46564  

Cortes, Hernan. Letters to Emperor Carlos V. https://archive.org/stream/lettersofcorts01cortuoft/lettersofcorts01cortuoft_djvu.txt  

Lope de Vega. Comedias: El remedio en la desdicha; El major alcalde, el rey. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28408

Calderon de la Barca.  La Vida Es Sueño. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2587/2587-h/2587-h.htm 

Garcilaso de la Vega. The works of Garcilaso de la Vega. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49410 

Montaigne, Michel.  Essays. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3600/3600-h/3600-h.htm 

Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2235 

Petrarch. Sonnets. Triumphs and other Poems. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17650 

Sir Philip Sidney. Astrophel and Stella. https://archive.org/details/sirpshisastroph00sidngoog 

-- Susan Smith Nash, Ph.D.

Susan Smith Nash, Ph.D.

Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn, NY: Prison Ship Martyrs Monument

 12 or 13 years ago, they completed the restoration of the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument, a 149-foot tall Doric column with an ornate metal urn and an eternal flame, almost as though someone had grabbed the flame from the Statue of Liberty and hoisted it here, the green was such a familiar color. 

Photo credit: Wikipedia

The initial enthusiasm has clearly given way to indifference, or the tedious attention of true believers; somehow this place is not exciting the passion of those who visit. The small visitor’s center and museum is a single room with a brace of hand-held muskets on the wall, some curling, fading cardstock maps and lists, and then a blurry parchment document with fuzzy, hard-to-read list of names of the men held in the fetid bowels of rotted wood. 

As for a small nature center, there is a small glass case with a tree branch that has dead leaves on it, and placard, “Our Marvelous Cockroaches” (or something like that). I did not lean in close to the glass to see if I could see them.  I just assumed they were those magnificent waterbugs you often see in Houston after a flood, which have a sleek amber husk and are the length of my pinky finger. Welcome, Grigor Samsa.  You’re telling me magic happens here. I believe you. 

Over the course of 6 or 7 years, 11,500 men and women prisoners died here – by 2s or 3s or tens at a time, all depending on the degree of ice, mosquitoes and outbreaks in general. “Bring up your dead!” and there you’d roll up your buddy in his hammock, the same buddy who had been asking for his wife or his mother, and a small sip, please, of water. 

Photo - Wikipedia

Wrapped in his own hammock, and slung over your shoulders, you’d tremble under his weight, even though he was at this point, a sad bag of bones. Then you’d tremble again because your own thin tendons had become like stiff rawhide and because your mind had become a hard, dark, flat emotionless mirror of the brutal way the fragile being on the floor becomes a cockroach and not a brother with a name; a vector of some infectious, toxic regicidal idea, and not an open-hearted dairy owner’s son with a dream and a soft-eyed girlfriend the next farm over.  

I’m walking up the steps to the monument. I stop and pause at the small columns with golden eagles perched atop them. My eyes fill with tears.  I do not know why. 

Flash memory.  Cold December evening. I’m on the tram back to Roosevelt Island, where my cousin, Elizabeth, has graciously invited me to stay with her a week or so, as I have job interviews, order wholesale items for my fledgling business, “Perfumes Plus” and, attend training for the products I’ll be representing in Latin America, commission only. The lights of the city reflect in the river. My cousin can see her parents’ building across the East River. Her rent is $2,500 per month for a luxury apartment. It’s another $400 to rent a space for her car. She thinks it’s a bargain. That was 25 years ago. It is probably $5,000, but she has long since married and moved away to San Francisco. 

I moved on, too, earning my Ph.D. and breaking out of my own prison ship of self-hatred and doubt, where the only escape was a Dionysian frenzy of sweat and loss after loss after loss. Heartache is not really good for the soul, no matter what the Heidelberg ruined-castle Faust & Co. wants to sell you. 

Did I simply move from one prison ship to another? Yes, of course, that’s what happened. But, at the same time, I don’t want trivialize the true prison ship experience by metaphoricizing it, although I probably need to spend a bit of time looking at what happened and trying to understand why. 

Let’s just say I gave up. 

Urban Rangers. I’m so grateful for them! My moments in the miniscule Prison Ship Martyrs Monument museum and Nature Center did little more than provoke more questions. How did Walt Whitman get involved? Did he write a poem? How could he live with himself, with his deep, deep sense of compassion and connectedness?  Oh, my. 

When I was in Heidelberg I felt that this was the absolute birthplace of German Romanticism. 

Now I have the sense that the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Monument is the true birthplace of American Transcendentalism, but even as I say that, I sort of hate to do so, because I run the risk of intellectualizing something that is so emotionally compelling and intense, with bones and skulls washing up onto the river’s edge, onto the cutbanks and point bars, each time there was a flood or a crazy high tide. 

Did Walt Whitman encounter a human remain in his walks along the East River in Wallabout Bay? Did he see a skull?  A tibia bone?  I suspect he did. 

As Heidelberg was the birthplace of German Romanticism, I suspect Wallabout Bay was the true birthplace of American Transcendentalism – at least Walt Whitman’s transcendentalism. Walt Whitman believe, more than anything, that we’re all connected and that there is an ultimate of unity. 

I mean, how could you ever go back after you encountered washed up bones on the banks of the East River during your daily walk?? And, you would have known that the bones you were seeing were those of those who died without ever being able to let their loved ones know where they were, and being able to tell them they were not rejecting them; it was just that they were detained incommunicado due to circumstances beyond their control 

Oh, my. If you were inclined to believe in the interconnectedness of all souls and all beings, how could stumbling upon bones not affect you. Suddenly, Shakespeare’s scene in Hamlet that features “Oh Poor Yorick” seems trivial. Yorick was at least known at one time during his life. What can we say about these prisoners of war? 

What can we say about the way that they, too, caught the viral dream of liberty? 

My Uber driver’s name was Suleyman and he was from Mauritania. He used to spend weeks in a small town outside Shanghai where they would custom-make t-shirts and other clothing for him to ship and sell in Mauritania.  He speaks French, Arabic, and English. Now he drives for Uber and lives in a two-bedroom, 1-1/2 bath apartment in a part of Brooklyn near the COPE Institute. His brother and his wife use one bedroom. He and his wife and child live in the other. Is this better than Mauritania?  I am quite certain that it is many, many times worse than his lifestyle there. But, ironically, perhaps he has a surplus that he can wire back home.  I am only guessing. 

Walt Whitman is walking along the East River. He is rounding the curve to Wallabout Bay. He looks down and he sees the whiteness of a bone pushing itself, birthing itself through the sand, and then he sees a skull crowning itself through the slimy muck of a tidal flat.  

And suddenly, I ache, ache, ache as though I were giving birth with my heart as well as the rest of my body. Is this what Walt Whitman felt, singing “the body electric” connected to not only the souls who live but the collective energy of those who suffered and died alone, invisible. 

Somewhere along the trajectory of the bone-voyages, the owner of a Long Island farm where a hundred or so were interred, passionately refused to let anyone disturb them, and only relented when he was promised to be able to be buried with their bones, wherever that might be, however that might take place. 

And so it was. 

But, I wonder if he ever saw the boundless, transcendent Doric column, the eternal flame, the leaf-rustling of oblivion as the west wind takes hopes and dreams into the drizzly gray soft sinking into night. 

And, if you inhale, hold it, and pause, you’ll hear the whispers behind the bones.

Nineteenth-Century Female Novelists Incorporated Scientific, Philosophical, and Economic Concepts

I had a conversation with a friend who mentioned that she was having a hard time finding female intellectuals pre-20th century. 

It is not easy. If one looks at the dominant cultural structure (universities, Royal Societies, journals, presses), you just will not find them. There is always a smattering – most of whom led tortured lives. 

But, if you look at the so-called “popular” writers, who wrote novels and poetry, it is surprising how many deal directly with philosophical and scientific ideas, and even propose their own. The first two who come to mind are Elizabeth Gaskell and Mary Elizabeth Braddon. 

Elizabeth Gaskell wrote an industrial novel, North and South, that far surpasses Benjamin Disraeli’s Sybil: The Two Englands,  which is an effective depiction of the impact of industrialization on the populace of England, and a reminder of the fact that England was a nation of conquered and subjugated: the victorious invaders, the Normans, and the subjugated and dominated losers, the Anglo-Saxons. 

What were Elizabeth Gaskell’s deeper philosophical ideas?    

Utilitarian ideas reflected in the discussions about factory life and factory owners in the “North.” She also discusses at length the implications of religion and religious beliefs. 

One of my favorite books of Elizabeth Gaskell is My Lady Ludlow. Lady Ludlow is between generations, and reflects on French friends and relations she lost during the French Revolution, on the guillotine.  Her orientation and mindset is one of duty and honor; she contrasts that with the new ideas of the day, which seem to focus on libertinage (rather than liberty).  The novel is set in 1800, as reflections of a poor relation of Lady Ludlow. The poor relation, Miss Golindo, is a young woman, with chronic pain from a disfiguring accident, impoverished by her irresponsible father who gambled away the family’s wealth, now has few chances of marriage. Lady Ludlow gives her a home, covers her expenses, and shares her values. What develops is a deep regard and respect for the woman who, at first glance, seems to be a relict from the past, who resists change of all kinds.  Lady Ludlow’s son is a profligate and a deep disappointment.  I consider this book a philosophical novel of the first water, and I would like to re-read and revisit it. 

Mary Elizabeth Braddon is another intellectual consigned to a role as a popular novelist. Braddon’s works are chock-full of allusions to Greek mythology, and they incorporate and challenge the scientific notions of the day.  She was also subversive. Lady Audley threw her husband down a well so she could marry a wealthy man, and when she was found out, she explained it was not her fault. Her mother died in a madhouse, so she, herself was genetically doomed to homicidal madness.  The homicidal stepfathers and wastrel con men fathers do not get an easy out. They are not considered insane, although they are clearly psychopaths.  It is an ugly, sad moment of reckoning when the daughter realizes that her father murdered her mother in Thou Art the Man.  Likewise, it is an ugly moment when an heiress whose mother has fallen under the spell of an evil, domineering dentist, Philip Sheldon, in Birds of Prey and Charlotte’s Inheritance. The good doctor is slowly poisoning the young heiress, and, like any good “black widow” psychopath from The Forensic Files, he feigns concern and compassion. He’s a monster. 

Who Really Paid for the Sun King's Versailles? A Look at Le Code Noir and France's Slave Trade

 If behind each gorgeously ornate Baroque cathedral in Mexico and throughout Latin America there is a blood-soaked history, is the same the case for Louis XIV, the self-appointed Sun King, and his stunning complex, Versailles?  

In a word, “yes.”  The sugar plantations and the slave trade between Africa and the Caribbean produced the vast wealth needed to supplement the draconian taxation system in place in rural France. The French were the third largest slave traders in the world, after the British and the Portuguese. The sugar and indigo plantations in the Caribbean included those in Haiti (Saint-Domingue), with 773,000 slaves, Martinique, with 217,200, and Guadeloupe, with 73,000 (Slavery and Remembrance, 2020).  There was also a significant French slave trade to North America through New Orleans. 

There was an ongoing high demand for slaves to work in the sugar plantations where crushed sugar cane was used for fuel, molasses, sugar, and the base for rum.  Work in the fields, as well as in the sugar cane processing plants, was dangerous and harsh, with long hours and few moments to rest. The plantation owners profited from the sale of their sugar cane-based products, but often the largest profits came from the slave trade itself. The slave ships and their voyages were financed by investors who often received enormous profits, although there could be risk, such as disease, shipwreck, or slave uprising, which give some indication of the horrific conditions during the “Middle Passage” – where the deeply unfortunate Africans were chained down in the lower decks of aging, borderline-unseaworthy boats. 

Le Code Noir in the Caribbean and in Louisiana

Called the most monstrous document of modern times (Sala-Molins, 2006), the Code Noir (Black Code) was passed in 1685 by Louis XIV in Versailles. Drafted by Controller General of Finance Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683),  Le Code Noir contained 60 articles that specifically addressed the way that slaves were to be treated. Immediately implemented, the document was used throughout the French colonial empire. 

A later version of it, applying specifically to Louisiana, was passed in 1724 after a large number of slaves were transported to New Orleans as a part of the disastrous “Mississippi Scheme” investment bubble, described at length in Charles Mackay’s book, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841).  Napoleon Bonaparte’s Code Civil (1803) incorporated it in response to the Haitian revolution that led to independence and the abolition of slavery in that country. 

The Code reflects Governor Bienville’s fear that the quickly growing population of slaves who were brought in to provide labor might overwhelm the non-slaves. He wanted to control a rapidly growing slave population. 

Le Code Noir (The Black Code)

Le Code Noir goes a long way in explaining the deeply implanted ideas, attitudes, and beliefs that still exist in the American South. After all, the Code was a Code of Law and as such, enforceable by pain of legal punishment.  It governed the way that whites and blacks must interact with each other and set out very rigid and explicit limits.  

Le Code Noir also helps us disavow ourselves of any illusions that slavery was anything but a cruel, dehumanizing practice.  It is common to hear the argument that slavery was tantamount to a paternalistic social welfare system.  If one has no contact with facts, it might be possible to believe that fairy tale.  But all one has to do is to read a few of the 60 articles to gain an appreciation of how nefariously cruel it was. Not only did it incorporate physical brutality into its law, it created and hardened toxic, inhuman ideas about fellow human beings. Those ideas persist into today’s world. 

A quick review of some of the sixty articles give us a sense of how all-encompassing they were and also how they reflected the values of the time and also set them in place for the future. 

Overview of the Articles in Le Code Noir

Articles I-VI:  This part of the Code Noir focuses on the Roman Catholic religion. The first article states that any Jews who may be living on the island must leave.  It does not say why, so we must enter into a bit of conjecture. No other religions except Roman Catholicism are allowed, and all slaves must be baptized and instructed into the faith. This edict provides insight into why and when the religious beliefs they carried from Africa would have been blended into and potentially disguised or cloaked by a veneer of Catholicism.  This seems very similar to what happened in Peru and other parts of Latin America, in a process of syncretism. 

The Moor’s Baptism.  Ludwig Emil Grimm (1841)

Articles VII – XIII: These articles rigidly control the relationships between slaves and non-slaves, and they set out complex rules and punishments for having relationships, attempting to marry, having children, and more.  These articles are profoundly dehumanizing and invasive of something that would ordinarily be considered to be very private and personal. 

Articles XIV – XXVII:  Slaves are not allowed to carry anything that could be used as a weapon. These articles describe the kinds of punishment to be meted out in response to different behaviors. They are incredibly cruel. Slaves are not allowed to engage in commerce or to have money. 

There are numerous articles that describe how and when a slave can be punishable by death.  Slaves could be put to death for something as harmless as slapping one in the face. It was also perfectly legal to beat slaves with straps whenever the master thought it was warranted. 

These are just a few of the sixty separate articles. Reading them makes the 21st century reader feel a sense of horrified astonishment, and it’s extremely hard to imagine how and why such behavior was justified. 

Louisiana’s Code Noir (1724) was based on Louis XIV’s law, and it made it illegal for blacks and whites to marry. Centuries of institutionalized racism, and the reinforcement through the judicial system, probably make people unaware of their own deep biases. 

The Person behind Le Code Noir

Jean-Baptiste Colbert is credited for designing and carrying out a program of economic reconstruction that made France the dominant power in Europe.  That economic reconstruction included increased tribute and taxation in the countryside, expanded slave trade, expanded commerce with the colonies, and an expansion into the Caribbean. The provisions in Le Code Noir are law, but they are also crimes against humanity. It is important to note that although Jean-Baptiste Colbert drafted the Code, he was by no means an outlier.  His views were widely held by individuals who owned the plantations, mills, and equipment. There is a sculpted bust of Jean-Baptiste Colbert in the Louvre Museum in Paris. 

Portrait of Jean-Baptist Colbert

Le Code Noir and Literature

The laws surrounding the treatment, conditions, and interactions of slaves permeated all aspects of southern life.  Many works of literature incorporated the code and depicted the impact on individuals who were living their lives. 

One contemporary example written in Louisiana while the impact of the Code.  Louisiana resident Kate Chopin’s “Desiree’s Baby,” a short story published in 1893, depicts the anguish of a woman of uncertain origin who has married one of the most prominent members of the parish. In the story, Armand Aubigny, the owner of L’Abri plantation, marries Desiree, who was foundling of unknown origin, who was raised by the compassionate Madame Valmont. In this story, the baby that Desiree has with her husband, is absolutely adored by both. 

However, one day, doubt is cast into the race of the baby.  Desiree is accused of being of mixed parentage.  Grief stricken, she leaves with her baby, possibly to never return.  Her husband watches her leave. Then he assembles all the old letters and other correspondence he can find. As he goes through the documents, he happens upon a letter from his mother to his father.  In it, she expresses gratitude to her husband and to the fact that their son will never know the fact that he has African blood.

 REFERENCES

Grimm, Ludwig Emil. Die Mohnrentaufe (The Moor’s baptism) https://universes.art/en/documenta/2017/documenta-14-kassel/06-neue-galerie/ludwig-emil-grimm

Mackay, C. (1841). Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24518/24518-h/24518-h.htm#miss_scheme

Sala-Molins, Louis. (2006). Dark Side of the Light: Slavery and the French Enlightenment, translated by John Conteh-Morgan, University of Minnesota Press.

Slavery and Remembrance. (2020). The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. http://slaveryandremembrance.org/articles/article/?id=A0097

SLAB OF DREAMS: STROUD, OKLAHOMA

Listen to the recording here (podcast)

This vast grey white slab was once an outlet mall before the May 3rd, 1999 tornado outbreak sucked it into its vortex of change and dismay.

It was your birthday and we were dining at On the Border, watching the monitors as electric lines and transformers flashed abeyance to the tornado’s raucous sojourn.

Now, the slab is there, a perfect congregating point for 10 or so flashy cars seeking new owners; an impromptu car lot replete with hopes and dreams and the ghost’s footsteps over the vestigial trace of walls now long gone more than 20 years.

My mind's eye reconstructs that once-proud outlet mall, an important employer for a small town halfway between Tulsa and Oklahoma City.

It purveyed its quirky treasures and extraordinary values for Turnpike travelers on an Oklahoma New Silk Road.

It was my lovely prairie caravanserai; I loved to sip on a cappuccino and watch the ebb and flow of human interaction shaped around the buying and selling and selecting of those consumables we now consider our life.


March 7, 2020
Norman, Oklahoma

IN THE SHADOW OF CONEY ISLAND

Listen to the recording here: Podcast.

Footsteps clatter
fairy tales crossing
a wooden bridge
or the slow ascent
metal wheels, the rackety thrill

Flags fly high
over the original immersive idea
a theme park
a triggered memory
what a Boardwalk ought to be
sands slipping away with the offshore currents

You know what friendship is
tides, currents, water sliding by
and suddenly you have a point bar or a barrier island

a towering rollercoaster on shore
a soft smile in your mirror


March 6, 2020

A Strategy for Analyzing Joseph Wright of Derby's "Experiment on a Bird in an Air Pump" (1768).

Joseph Wright of Derby is one of my favorite artists, and his explorations of science / natural philosophy tell us a great deal about life in the 18th century, and underlying beliefs.

Please watch my guide for analyzing Joseph Wright's "Experiment on a Bird in an Air Pump" (1768).

THE CRUMBLING OF THE VANILLA WAFER

Listen to the podcast. 

The sharp snap
of the sacred
the sugar, the will

bent, persuaded
by slow syrup drizzling
down from on high
your words whispered
sweet

A delicate demitasse
in a tiny tangle
napkins, ribbons
dreams

The crackle of the wrapper
a sense of a new beginning
words lying on their sides
on my outstretched palm

the structure of belief


March 6, 2020

A CICADA’S LIFE

Listen to the podcast / poetry reading. 


Harsh buzz whine whir scream
blind illumination
You’re the perfect cicada
17 years of anticipation
a short sweet hot
moment of life
for life’s sake

I’m only here to breed
let’s get that straight
That’s why my hallmark sound is
of whip-sawed metal
and the concrete
you stroll down as though
summer would never die

If the night is sweet
the air damp and warm
the dog watering fountain splashy
with the sound of a collar and fur shaking
I may take a moment to stare into the stars
Imagine stardust under my incessantly vibrating wings

I saw you as you took that final fall
my pine needles will say nothing
As your wings turn to weeping
the night deepens
consciousness
leaves not a mark


August 24, 2019

How the world is pivoting: Where will investment go in the next 18 - 24 months?

Here is an expanded presentation for Pivoting During the Pandemic, Part 2

Prevailing during the Pandemic: New Revenue Sources and New Diversification Strategies

If you operate oil and gas wells, own a basketball team, work for an airline, provide catering for large conferences, or provide science or engineering for the energy industry, COVID-19 has hit you like an F5 tornado. Your business will be hit hard over the next 18 - 24 months.  What do you do during that time?

Here is a 7-step strategy for diversifying yourself and your business to weather the storm, and emerge with new potential revenue streams that can work now, and continue in the future.

That strategy will include the following, and more:

•    Redeploying: Repurposing your human capital and existing resources to meet current and emerging needs
•    Investments 2020 - 2022: New investments in manufacturing and capacity building in response to COVID-19
•    Selective import substitution: global supply chain resilience with local results
•    Economies of scale revisited, this time with smart technology
•    Comparative advantage revisited: this time with smart technology and local markets
•    7-Step Plan: Identifying new revenue sources and diversification opportunities 
•    Aligning your assets (human and physical capital) with emerging needs

Background and Contexts
In the span of a mere few months, the much of the world went from a state of exuberant self-actualization to the most primal level of survival (health, food, shelter) insecurity.  Import-dependent island economies were perhaps the first to run out of food, water, medicine, and other necessities. Even even the largest economies faced and will continue to face tremendous supply chain ruptures that are of such a scale that they could usher in severe shortages of basic necessities of food, medicine, medical equipment, transportation and warehousing that could result in widespread hunger, disease, and structural unemployment.

Link to the PowerPoint presentation (pdf format):
http://www.zenzebra.net/podcast/repurposing-capacity.pdf

Link to a video recording / podcast of the PPT presentation. :)

https://youtu.be/COy--d68jNE

Virtually every country in the world has been plunged into the same situation, resulting in a common outcry, “Never again will we be reliant on sole source supplies!” and the desire to establish multiple sources of food, medicine, and essential products, as well as re-engineer production so that shuttered businesses can pivot and provide needed services. Countries and communities are recognizing that they must have blended and balanced economies in order to weather pandemics, massive natural disasters, and conflicts.

From 2020 through 2022, the old supply chains will move from disarray to reconfiguration due to factory closures, raw materials shortages, insufficient quantities of the correct type and size of transportation and storage, labor shortages, protectionist walls of tariffs that seek to block exports of food, medicine, and strategic goods, critical shortages of spare parts, and asymmetrical collapses of demand.

So, while some industries will essentially cease operations, while others will be unable to achieve needed capacity to satisfy demand. Industries that will cease or at least greatly reduce operations will include oil and gas drilling and exploration, refining, air travel, hospitality, tourism, large-scale manufacturing.

Investment: 2020-2022
The vulnerabilities will be addressed by investing in local manufacturing to bolster local or regional food, medicine, transportation needs in order to avoid supply chain issues.  Instead of a heavy reliance on Just-In-Time, there will be a new emphasis in the following:

• Small manufacturing, food processing, and storage
• Water processing and storage
• Flexible manufacturing (3D printing, etc.)
• Pharmaceuticals precursors
• Intermediary warehouses (can be repurposed Big Box stores and mall spaces)
• Medical equipment and supplies
• Equipment for work / live / study at home (computers, video cameras, productivity apps,  arts and crafts supplies, dumbells & kettle bells & yoga mats)
• Equipment for home and small acreage farming: equipment, seeds, hoop houses, green houses, etc.

Temporarily Repurposing to Prevent Hunger, Help Nations Recover
Pandemic-devastated industries may survive by generating cash flow by pivoting into other operations. Industries that will cease or at least greatly reduce operations will include oil and gas drilling and exploration, refining, air travel, hospitality, tourism, large-scale manufacturing.

• Oil and gas exploration, production, transportation: Reuse equipment and capabilities; switch to generating electricity for on-site manufacturing / server farms
• Pipe and valves? Now home gym equipment and gardening tools? 
• Refining: Switch to the grades where there are still needs in long-haul transportation and generators
• Manufactured homes / structures for supervision?  Pivot to greenhouses and gardening storage buildings

• Tourism:  Transform for safety? 
• Air Travel: Convert to cargo? 
• Hospitality: Convert for flexible labor needs? Traveling workers? 

Selective Import Substitution and Avoiding Sole Source Suppliers
In the past, import substitution was negatively viewed. Now selective import substitution offers a number of benefits:

• Safety net for the supply chain
• Strategic reserve for critical food, energy, medical, equipment supplies

As a form of protectionism, import substitution was perceived as inefficient and ultimately too expensive for the consumers, and it also encouraged bloated, inefficient, and outdated local manufacturing. However, during and after a destructive and disruptive pandemic when the sole sources are no longer available, having at least 3 potential suppliers is vital. Having multiple sources of supply helps weather ongoing flare-ups of the pandemic, regional lockdowns, shortages of container ships or port facilities, lack of storage.  Seeing the economic devastation caused by the pandemic, it becomes clear that without exception, all nations of the world are vulnerable.

Using Technology to Improve Economies of Scale 
When some of the massive poultry and pork processing plants in the U.S. were forced to shut down due to a COVID-19 stricken workforce, a large percentage of the country’s meat / protein supply was placed in jeopardy. Compounding the problem was the fact that pork farmers had no place to send their mature animals and faced the possibility of having to slaughter them. Not only was this absolutely horrifying from a humane perspective, the fact that doing so would trigger shortages for late 2020 and early 2021 is a real possibility.  What is the solution?  Using distributed applications to transport the pigs, plus process them in alternative locations the key.

Economics of scale apply to marketing / distribution as well. For example, if you've recently pivoted and how market storage sheds instead of wellsite trailers, you can partner with larger distributor to get the word out. If you are now selling kettlebells and dumbbells for home gyms, you can market through Amazon as well as directly. You'll also need to work with someone for a social media blitz -- keep in mind that in today's global pandemic, social media presence is a "must."

In this case, we're looking at pork processing.  However, it is just one example that could be modified and used for other industries:

OPERATION PORKLIFT
An intervention to help the pork processing plants that are having to shut down due to lack of a healthy labor force and safe conditions.
• Identify the beleaguered pork processing facilities
• Needs assessment: what do they need? Are substitute slaughterhouses needed?
• Alternative processing (will let people know when they have space for the pork)
• On-demand transportation (Pork Lift)
• Warehousing (repurposed restaurants?)
• Alternative retail? (Insta Cart for Operation Pork Lift?)

Rethinking Comparative Advantage
We import from countries because they have comparative advantage and can produce goods so that the cost to import them, even with transportation and storage, costs less than to import the product.

For example, pineapples can be grown in Hawaii and shipped to stores in the continental U.S. for much less than it would cost to grow pineapples in a greenhouse. But, what happens if the ports are closed and there are no container ships to transport the pineapple? Then, comparative advantage falls apart.

For some foods and essential products that are in high demand, it is worthwhile to produce them at home, even though it is not always the lowest possible price.  It is at that time, too, that countries that have gamed the system by manipulating their currencies or by subsidizing their exporting countries will begin to show their vulnerabilities.

Why have they played such an expensive game?  Usually the short-run response is that they want to keep their labor force fully employed (and out of mischief), and the long-run end-game is to destroy the competition to result in being an oligopoly and being the sole-source vendor for which there is no substitute.

 But, in a pandemic, the vulnerability makes countries very unwilling to rely on a sole source, particularly when it is a foreign country that could easily become extortionate.  Perhaps this would not be the case for pineapples, but it certainly could be for important precursors to important / vital medicines such as antibiotics.

Countries that do not have balanced economies and rely on exports (primary products, manufactured goods), imports for intermediary goods (re-export), services (tourism, financial services, hospitality) are particularly negatively affected, and their unemployment numbers are staggeringly high. Without a blended and balanced economy, the unemployment can quickly become structural. 

Operation Rescue:  Repurpose Existing Capacity, Rescue Economies from Sole Source and Sole Client Dependency

Step 1:  Needs Assessment: Identify “Pain Points” 
What are the most urgent needs that have the highest level of negative consequences?

• Food Supply
• Cleaning supplies 
• Medical supplies / oxygen equipment, etc. 
• Labor supply // workers at the right skill level
• Clothing / shoes (especially for growing children)
• Car parts / truck parts / spare parts 
• Farm and industrial equipment, etc – spare parts
• Construction equipment / building materials
• Home work and study tools (computers, cameras, arts and crafts kits)
• Home and small acreage gardening (tools, storage buildings, greenhouses, irrigation systems)
• Industrial / commercial-scale disinfectants and sprays for grocery stores, essential services, and later for night-time disinfecting for all shared spaces
• Home gyms (exercise equipment, dumbbells, kettle bells, yoga mats, balance balls)

Step 2:  Capacity Assessment (internal and external – starting with very proximal)
a)  inventory of what you have on hand
b)  inventory of what you can get
c)  inventory of what we would like to have
d)  storage capacity  (for storing other things?)
e)  informal new warehouses?  What can we use?  Goodwill, empty Family Dollar, empty restaurants, mall stores, Tulsa Promenade, OKC Crossroads

Step 3:  Where are the most urgent needs, and what are the steps to get there?  
Identify the need and propose local alternatives
What’s keeping it from happening?
What are people lacking?
Substitutes

Step 4:  Proposing solutions
Short-term
Identify and place in warehouses / identify substitutes and warehouse them / distribution. This is the stage for proposing solutions in general terms, to start envisioning where and how the solutions can be implemented.

Challenge conventional wisdom!
Challenge the “eternal verities” of economics, finance, human relations.  Here are main categories:

• Labor Solutions
• Transportation Solutions
• Food supply solutions
• Medical / pharmaceutical solutions
• Home productivity solutions (work, study, gardening)
• Home and small acreage gardening (home and urban gardens / coops)
• Small scale food preservation (canning, drying, freezing solutions)
• Storage solutions (freezers, refrigerators, small sheds for supplies)

Long-term

• Selective import substitution
• 2 or 3 contingency sources (adequate substitutes) for each product
• Blended economy with imports, exports, manufacturing, and service
• Improving economics of scale so that small factories are profitable
• Rethinking comparative advantage:  Small, local, flexible – now economic
• Small-scale manufacturing that is flexible and near markets 
• Using machine learning / analytics to work with economies of scale
• Flexible factories with 3D printing, adaptable manufacturing
• Rethinking comparative advantage:  Small, local, flexible to meet local needs quickly
• Simple, easy-to-modify, accommodates multiple raw materials and substitutes

Step 5:   Selective import substitution and economies of scale
• Which imports wreak the most havoc when they are unavailable?
• Where can we use technology to make small scale operations more flexible and economic
• Where can we “export” our production ?? 
• Repurposing uneconomic / dormant capacity: if you have an oil industry processing / transportation, etc.  – can you use these for other industries? The “survival industries”?
• Agility-Maker:  Proactively develop contracts and agreements and MOUs for the “new” business arrangements; help be a facilitator and also negotiator … insurance, permits … what kind of package will this require?

Selective import Substitution in the Informal Economy: The Mexican Drug Cartel Shakes its Dependence on Imported Precursors
This is an intriguing example of how agile criminal networks can be. It is useful to study because if amoral (I would argue "immoral") organizations can innovate, so can positive, moral ones!

• Pharmaceutical precursors (now manufactured in India and China and exports are blocked) – setting up new pharmaceutical labs.  
• According to Ben Westhoff, author of Fentanyl, Inc.  (2019), most precursors for cartel-traded methamphetamine and fentanyl comes from a now-shuttered state-supported chemical plant in Wuhan, China.  

Drug cartels essentially ordered online and the chemicals were shipped to Mexico where they were processed into the kinds of street drugs (methamphetamine, fentanyl, “bath salts”) that plague the U.S. and Canada. Now, the cartels are hiring local chemists and setting up local labs to replace Wuhan supplies. They believe it is well worth the investment since, according to Logan Pauley, analyst at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, the prices for the precursors have risen from 25% to 400% since late February 2020.

o Question:  if the informal economy can be so agile, why can’t the legitimate formal economy follow suit, but do so for good, and not evil ???

• Recycling / reusing containers:  While blow-molding low density polyethylene facilities are expanded, and 3D printing centers expand, in the short run it is a good

Step 6:  Re-opening Recently Closed Larger-scale Manufacturing: 
Which ones are most necessary, and where are their components coming from? Which plants can be reactivated? Are there any “old school” shuttered plants that can be opened back up—even though they may be circa 2012 or later? 2019?

Let’s look at every plant shut down in 2019 and see which ones we can open back up quickly. Granted, some will be obsolete, and the products may not be competitive in the world market, but if there is a local need, it is possible that the initial investment could be recovered in 18 or 24 months.

This is particularly true if supply chains continue to broken and there is worldwide protection of strategic or key products required for the survival of the people of a country.
• Manufacturing:  tires, parts, HVAC, water processing, refrigeration units, gardening supplies, home fitness, etc.
• Food processing:  packaging, desiccators, drying, etc.
• Hospitals, motels, etc.: Multi-purpose for telemedicine centers, etc.
• Pharmaceuticals:  precursors for key medicines; delivery systems
* Converting small buildings and manufacturing into storage sheds, greenhouses, home and small-acreage gardening supplies, home-based gyms


Step 7:  Temp-Army for Tyson’s (and other “make or break with labor” industries)
With high unemployment, but still undetermined labor mobility (is housing available for temporary workers?), there is no need for crops to go unharvested, meat packing plants to be empty, or for key industries to shut down due to lack of healthy workers.

It must be pointed out as well that many unions and other groups use the pandemic as an opportunity to pressure management into capitulating and agreeing to increased pay, benefits, and work conditions.

• Work Alert! app or repository for listing urgent, short-term labor needs
• Optimize labor mobility, and build redundancy in our system
• Reward the temp agencies for filling the vacancies
• Bonuses for free agents
• Resolve labor disputes and unreasonableness on both sides
• Evaluate the workplace and modify it to make it safe
• Give the workers the equipment they need to be safe; and provide training (for example, installing a sneeze guard?  Be sure to wipe it down with bleach at least 3 times a day!)
* Obtain industrial-scale disinfectants

General Suggestions for Co-Existing with COVID-19: 
Dealing with painful messages – maintain a solution-centered approach
Communication skills – conflict resolution, accepting messages, listening, spacing out the information intake (step away & think about what  you want to say)
David Burns – the “Feeling Good” book and the “Feeling Good Handbook” …
Evaluations and “look back” studies – learn from our challenges

General Needs / products
Mask Dispensers for places of business
 Electrostatic cleaning for quick, effective disinfecting
Don’t have a mask? Buy one here for one little dollar bill! (or credit card or Apple Pay or Venmo or CashApp)
Selective use of cobots for the most high-risk part

Food Supply Chain:
Crops: Planting & harvesting
Food processing:
Transportation: Getting the pigs to the processing plant? Getting milk to the cheese factory?
• Milk-Moove
• PorkLift
• Food-Move (match the specialized transport with the need & look at what can be adapted from other industries) …

Brief Poems: Cattle on a Hill

Podcast: click here.

OAK TREES


They cling to their dry crackly hopes and misplaced modesty:
Leaves that will not fall.

They endeavor to create an illusion of solidity and sempiternal life
Yet they simply transmit a message of never letting go.

Whether that is good or bad
I will never know.


Norman, Oklahoma
March 7, 2020

************************
CATTLE ON A HILL


They are eating the tough dry grass of winter.
It fills their mouths but perhaps not their minds
except to remind them what it does not have:
stick-to-the-ribs grains and blossoming flowers.

And on a beige carpet
Jackson Pollock working with weeds, not paint:
dribbles of cocklebur, butterfly milkweed, hoary alyssum
and a poke sallet banner bending in the wind --
Hail, Spring!

The greening of the fields
makes my heart beat fast with joy
but I must remember –
the first greens are always the most deadly.


March 6, 2020
Norman, OK

******************
BRADFORD PEARS 


The first few days of March
     come and go
         in a whirlwind of the mind
         when nothing seems to stick
               to the bare trees of memory
         until overnight white and curiously odorous
                                    flower clouds fly up

      punctuate the wordless
          timidly deciduous trees
          so that the idea of a message
                with its contradictions of beauty
                        and a noxious scent

      sends a message of reality
                rather than idealizing gazes


March 7, 2020
Norman, OK

Bradford Pear Trees in Oklahoma

********************************

THE WAGES OF LIFE


Cedars burned by a prairie fire
two or three years now gone by now

half-naked skeletons
draped in scorched rags

their ash quaffed by the wind

somewhere between
desire and fear


march 7, 2020
norman, oklahoma


****************************
WE, THE SHEEP


A field of sheep
A field of sleep

Those odd, square-shaped ponds
Storing oil pumped from shallow wells

The oil field below rumbling into a gusher
Men covered in mud and sweat

    Those were the days
    Oh yes, they were

Joy and infinite potential
Long before we knew –

    a lake of oil
    a lake of pain

From the highway, I see
   nubbins of wool

   knobs of cedars
          and a field

               drifting off to sleep

March 7, 2020
Norman, Oklahoma

I Will Keep You Safe

Podcast. Link to recording.

In 1887, a small woman with delicate features sailed with 14 families to Paraguay to establish the “Nueva Germania,” something that began as a grand utopian experiment, but in the end had fewer than 100 settlers. The doll-like charismatic leader was Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche, the sister of Friedrich Nietzsche. Friedrich had already written The Birth of Tragedy, On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, Untimely Meditations, Human, All Too Human, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, and On the Genealogy of Morality. But, almost no one had read the work. Two years later, Friedrich was to collapse, foaming language no one cared to hear. He was deemed mentally diseased due to tertiary syphilus (never actually confirmed) and treated with mercury, which did, in fact negatively affect his mind and his body.  Friedrich was essentially incarcerated in a mental hospital. He lived until the year 1900, the birth of the 20th century, which his ideas (mediated by Elisabeth, who edited, organized, and promoted) so deeply shaped.  When Friedrich collapsed, Elisabeth was still in Paraguay in her doomed utopian experiment.

*******
Her face, tender and sweet like a model in a Northern Renaissance genre painting depicting life in the home, gazed imploringly to the knot of true believers gathered in the building sturdily constructed of red quebracho, its tannins permeating the humid air with a pleasant, woody cologne.  They sat on benches made of the bottle-shaped samuú, and many held small cups carved from cow horns, from which they sipped through a metal bombilla a cool infusion of tereré, a mildly stimulating tea made from yerba mate.

Elisabeth was unrepentant. Nueva Germania was not thriving, but it had, at any rate, allowed the true believers to escape the foul miasma of Europe that was infecting most of the tiny German principalities with endless, internecine war.

“When the sickness has passed, we will go back,” said Elisabeth.  She had not intended the sojourn to be a temporary quarantine. She and her husband, Bernhard Forster, intended it to be a model for the world of racial purity and the supremacy of German culture. But, potatoes rotted in the soil and their innocence about sand flies resulted in terrible infections.

“Last year, before dear Bernhard, passed away,” said Elisabeth, solemnly euphemizing the death by suicide by her partner and fellow ideologue, “He told me that we must go back to Germany with the truth, and I made a sacred promise to share our truths with the world.”

Elisabeth had in her possession the few published copies of Friedrich’s work. Word had reached her that he was ill, and her heart ached to go back and make all his, her brother’s, and her true believers’ pain and sacrifice meaningful in the world.

Above all, her own.

Heinrich Raus took a long cooling sip of tereré, and as he did so, the afternoon rain began, with thunderclaps.

“I don’t think we’ll go back. Once we switched from potatoes to mandioca, and we learned to take a siesta during the heat of the day, and also to raise the floors up from the ground, things were good,” he said.

What he did not say is that his soul resonated with the ghost of the soldiers killed in the Triple Alliance War, and he, too, had felt the presence of the luisón, the werewolf creature who feasted on the dead, and he saw all around him the impact of the Pombero, the trickster creature, who loved nothing more than to sneak in during the siesta and have his way with young women.

Sex and Death. Eros and Thanatos.

The ideas were boiling in the zeitgeist even before Freud, and Elisabeth’s dear brother’s passionate writings about the Dionysian in literature. In Paraguay, in Nueva Germania, they were living, breathing, sweating, and streaming with the rain of an afternoon.

“The outside world has suffered from diseases.  The outside world IS a disease,” she said softly.  Her true believers paid more attention when she spoke in tones between a whisper and a lullaby.

Her eyes slowly filled with tears.  Was it her fault that dear Bernhard took his own life? She suspected it was so. Was it her fault that Friedrich had collapsed and was being considered mentally ill?  She suspected it was so.  She was altogether too weak, too undisciplined, and her ideas about a better world only ricocheted from side to side inside the skulls of those she loved.

“Come with me, or not. It is up to you. But you know how I kept you safe while the whole world around us roiled and twisted with a murderous disease. And so, I will keep you safe.”

********
Elisabeth sailed alone back to Germany.  Her true believers stayed behind in Nueva Germania, clinging to the safety of Bernhard’s beliefs in the superiority of the German race and culture, even as they planted mandioca and yerba mate, and slowly changed their language to a blend of Guaraní. Each succeeding “pure” generation was increasingly deformed and mentally impaired.

**********
“Oh, Friedrich!” cried Elisabeth when she saw her brother unable to get out of bed for days on end. “I will help you with your books, and we will make sure that you live on.”

Friedrich closed his eyes and imagined a self-designed modern Leviathan, many steps removed from the self-limiting monarch described by Hobbes. Elisabeth closed her eyes and imagined a Superman constructed from the building blocks of hate and fear, each block a chunk of a terrified citizen’s heart.

“Keep them afraid,” she said to herself.  She turned quietly to Friedrich and laid a soft, doll-like hand on his arm. Her other hand rested on a pile of his books and manuscripts.  What failed in Paraguay could prevail here in Europe, she vowed.

“I will keep you safe,” she said.

Somewhere in Paraguay in the light of the full moon, the pure evil of the luisón, the werewolf devourer of souls, glowed cool blue eyes.

Philosophical Foundations of Romanticism: A Quick Look

A philosophical definition of Romanticism is very useful when taking a look at the paintings, poetry, and novels of the Romantic movement. While Classicism was focused on the structure of the work, and emphasized tenets of balance, equilibrium and structure, Romanticism focuses on unity, transcendence, and the individuals perception and response.

F. W. J. von Schelling profoundly influenced artists, writers, and architects with his philosophical writings, which encouraged intense, subjective engagement with reality, and encouraged immersion in nature in order to achieve a transcendental experience. He argued that one can discover essential truths about reality, nature, and even one’s own identity by a close study of nature. In many ways, his work was a continuation of the kind of neoplatonism one might see in Renaissance writing such as Sir Philip Sidney’s “A Defense of Poesie.” 

For Schelling, the “absolute” was a union of the subjective and objective, which, in the case of painting and literature, makes subjective perception more important than the objective reality, in that the objective elements form a frame, or a scaffolding, while the subjective response is where the true meaning-making process takes place.  So, the agreed-upon common elements – the objective structure (in a painting, the elements, in a poem, the prosody) – provide the base and foundation. The meaning-making process is what occurs as the writer or artist adds aspects that trigger a response in the reader, and establish a kind of unity which elevates the reader to a comprehension of the larger, more universal concepts, and insights / knowledge. This moment is often characterized as “divine.”

Thomas Cole - romantic landscape with ruined tower

 Emmanual Kant’s writings about the concept of a transcendental ego, which builds knowledge from sensory perceptions which then are processed in a mind that has prepared itself with universal concepts and categories, has much in common with Schelling. In fact, one could look to Kant for an explanation of the mechanism at work in Romanticism. What are those categories or universals that we must learn and have in place in order to construct truly moving and timeless art?  What are the most effective perceptions for creating a sense of transcendental knowledge? How are they best communicated?  All these questions were addressed, and more, as more artists, writers, and philosophers embraced the new power that Romanticism gave them.

Romanticism was popular and powerful because it posited that individual interpretation mattered and was meaningful.  In fact, the more unique and individual your perception, the more valuable it might be in being able to tease out the ultimate meanings of life, the universe, the divine, and our relationship to it.

Core to the Kant and Schelling’s work was that the nature of reality, God, and existence itself could be understood through a close analysis of nature. Far from simply creating observations and filing them away in Aristotelian or Linnaean fashion, a Romantic (influenced by Kant, Schelling, and later Hegel) would let his or her mind make connections in juxtapositions, oppositions, and in extremes.  He or she would also seek the guidance of one’s emotions or produced mood to further structure meaning.

Romantic Landscape by John Trumbull

 While the freedom and individualism accorded the artist and the writer by means of Romantic philosophy and transcendental Romanticism were often euphoria-producing, the essential problem was in the evaluation of Romantic output. If you measure the value of a work by the way it makes you feel, the thoughts it triggers, and the insights that you personally experience vis-à-vis your own life experiences, then your evaluation is likely to be idiosyncratic and unique.

What is “good” in a world where standards are subjective?  Either one values something by the intensity of the sensation it produces, which could easily start to degrade itself into something degenerate, or it’s essentially assessed by consensus. In many cases, the supporters of Romantic work were patrons who were able to indulge their individual taste.

Since the value of Romantic writing was often measured in the level of “sensation” it produced, an entire genre of novels emerged.  Coming from the Gothic tradition, and known as “sensation” or “sensational” novels, the readers were drawn into dark webs of passion, secrets, hidden treasures, addictions, concealed evil intent, and the threat to innocents and the good. Wilkie Collins, Mrs. Henry Wood, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon were masters of the sensation novel.

History, Fables, Richard III, and a Patron Saint Day

Narrative poetry, prose, and paintings that tell us about history are constructed in order to teach, persuade, and instruct, and thus they have a very close relationship to poetry, especially the fables and epic poems.

That at least is what Sir Francis Bacon wrote in “The Advancement of Learning” published in 1605. I wonder if he was considering how Elizabethan narratives were actively legitimizing Elizabeth I’s right to rule.  The Tudors were lionized. The Plantagenets, be they Yorks or Lancasters, were demonized.  Shakespeare’s Richard III was considered by those who watched it to be absolutely faithful to reality. Now we know, thanks to uncovering Richard III’s skeleton when digging and constructing a car park, that his scoliosis was pretty minor, and he was in no way the twisted hunchback the play portrays him. His personality was said to mirror his physical appearance.  Another exaggeration? A downright lie?  It is possible.

I think it’s quite fascinating that Sir Francis Bacon clearly sets out a “social construction of history” (which is just a hair away from “social construction of reality”), and anticipates much of the rather earth-shattering philosophical shifts of the 1960s and 1970s.

I love Francis Bacon’s The New Atlantis (published in 1626 after his death), which includes the notion that scientists and knowledge-workers are “merchants of light.” “Light” is science or “natural philosophy” – he says it so well that there is no reason whatsoever to elaborate.  I just love it.

https://youtu.be/Wiv8q5pXtzM

I’ve been trying to replicate the way I used to write in the mid to late 1990s with little or no success.  I have just changed.  I’ve been digging through old journals and I feel depressed that I no longer have the ability to write anguished and philosophically vexed poetry or prose poems.  I’ve been writing a lot, but it has been with a view to clarify rather than obfuscate.  If I’m obfuscatory, it’s unintentional, whereas it was intentional before. I was obsessed with “limit experiences” and mystical dark nights of the soul.  Now I am not. I fear aging and lack of mobility.

******************************************
PATRON SAINT DAY: SAN MIGUEL EL ALTO, JALISCO

You found another way to say it.
    I did not.
    Your words were pink, dusty cantera pulled from an impossible quarry
        a fountain? a statue of St. Michael? A grape-strewn pillar?
            my eye sees none of those possibilities
            hoofbeats clattering at dawn

Four colonial baroque churches San Miguel El Alto
    rosy pink cantera walls and stunning domes
    industrious, proud, peninsulares married amongst themselves

        now after centuries, the same dark eyes, distinctive noses
        slim hips, long lives
            preserving the Spanish heritage
                Patron Saint days in September
                bullfights and blood in the sand
                    music in the streets
                    Spanish pan dulce supplanting tortillas

Tonight, at the edge of the largest church
        a thin young man ascends the “castillo”
        the hand-built fireworks frame
                gangling legs spider up the wire-frame ladder
                half-smoked cigarette burning like a red eye
                    he touches the tip to the fuses
                    fiery kisses that could kill

The Castillo and the Cathedral divine light
 golden lamps and showers of sparks
    Virgin Mary, sacred hearts
        flying crowns, rocketing to heaven
        or the oblivion of night

            Faith, faith, holding my hands in unconscious prayer
            no one ever will be burned

A tuba, a trumpet, and a hoarse whisper of Bruno LaTour
    “nothing is real any more”
            nostalgia? sadness?

            or the belief that this night only
           and only this night

                fiery chthonic heart
                illuminating this stop on the Camino Real
                    colonial road from the mines of Zacatecas
                                   to Mexico City

       is real
        as if anything ever were real
       
**
Sigh.

Today was a game day. I was exhausted and took a three hour nap. I did not bother to check the score. Now I will make a trek across town and visit my dad. I may eat part of a grapefruit before I set out.