a kaddish for new orleans

The meetings. New Orleans. Again.

Our session this time was 'On the Circulation of Trance: Trance in 21st century globalized society' or something like that. One of those times when every paper led seamlessly into the next, each amplifying the concerns of the previous. Each of us, in our own way, questioning the problems of authenticity, as trance and trance rituals become things of the past worth either retrieving or letting go. A fitting topic for New Orleans.

New Orleans, after all, specializes in entrancement. And here were 5,000 or more anthropologists hitting the Big Easy over the last week, each one of them it seems having a pretty hard time staying focused on the meetings when the city itself beckons so seductively.

Something happened while we were there, that might strike you as not terribly important in the scheme of things, given Katrina and the the BP oil spill in the Gulf. But I think it was indicative of more of the same to come.

It was a little thing. The water went out.

Can you say that? Meaning it the same way you might say 'the power went out'?

You go to brush your teeth or wash your face, or flush a toilet, and there just isn't any water. At all. Just like that. And you think, okay, there's something wrong in my room. But no. It's the whole town. With no water. And no warning.

And then the warnings come on the phone, the papers, banners on the bottom of your television screen: When the water returns, don't drink the water. Don't wash your face with it. Don't let it on your skin. Boil all your water. Or use bottled water.

Until we figure this one out.

And it makes me think just how incredibly fast a city can go down. That infrastructure in any community — from a major city to a tiny oasis in the Sahara — is a miraculous but fragile thing. We build it over very long periods of time. Build it up from scratch and watch it take shape, and grow, and provide more services. And come to depend on those services. We talk about the provision of schools, medical care, protection from fire or crime. Electricity.

But before that, and maybe first of all, comes the expectation — the necessity — of good clean, safe water.

In the Sahara we carried our own water. And we had maps that showed every well across the desert. Without knowledge of where those wells might be, one does not venture out across the Sahara. We rationed carefully. But we also knew where those wells were. And if one was dry, we knew where to expect the next one, and the next, in close enough proximity to survive. And in the Sahara, it's very clear when travelers have been mistaken in this regard. The remains of bone and metal litter the panorama, picked dry by birds and bandits in equal measure.

So, I'm used to this from the places that I've lived or traveled. Abroad. The power, if there is power, goes out. The water is rationed. You improvise. You share. You help your neighbors, or nobody survives. I've taken this for granted when I'm over there. The Middle East. North Africa. West Africa. Central. East. Systems on the edge of no system at all.

America, however, presents itself as immune to collapse of systems. But all systems eventually fail, do they not?

New Orleans has been giving us a lot to think about in this regard. We've been seeing one system failure after another, each one a little bit different. Each breach very possibly having no real, durable, long term solution at all.

In New Orleans, if anything, one expects too much water rather than none at all, right? But this week there was a drop in the water pressure on the east bank of Orleans Parish. And nobody's quite sure yet why. The Sewerage and Water Board power plant just failed. One report stated that apart from this the NOLA water system is leaking more than 70% of its water at present. I mean, that's worse than Damascus, isn't it?

Okay. So, I'm not talking here about how much I love New Orleans. How great the music is, everywhere you turn. How each person you meet is ready to talk your head off for hours at a time, just for the pleasure of the conversation. How walking the narrow lanes of the French Quarter makes my own town, San Francisco, seem downright boring, banal and tame. I'm not telling you anything about my visits with a voodon priest and meeting the newest young, sweet pythons in his brood. Or my tears over the loss of Jolie and Eugene, the elder pythons I remember. Nothing about the distinct flavors of 'Slap Ya Mama' spices, Alligator jerky, Swamp Fire Seafood Boil, or hot Cajun eggs. Not saying a word about New Orleans pride: the Bud Light 'Here We Geaux!' signs, the 'Geaux Saints' flags flying proud. Not a word about all that music. And not a word about Marie Laveau, the St. Louis cemeteries, and John T. Nothing about being called 'baby' or 'darlin' in that lyrical lilt every other sentence. Nothing 'bout just how very much I've loved New Orleans from the first time I set eyes on it about 25 years ago.

No. This is me, thinking infrastructure.

Thinking 'bout the Sewerage and Water Board proposing increased taxes to pay for projects to fix 'it' all — once they figure out what on earth the problem might actually be. This is me thinking about Mayor Landrieu saying, no, no way. No more taxes.

Thinking about how saying no to taxes is saying no to infrastructure.

A.F.C. Wallace reminds us, in case we have forgotten, that revitalization is not inevitable. The only thing that is inevitable is that the Steady State will fail.

And New Orleans seems to be our canary-in-the-coal mine in this regard. Our early warning system, that systems are going down. And we don't want to fix them. No, it's just so much easier to blame politicians for the failures and vote them out of office. And vote folks in who'll make sure nothing long term ever gets repaired again.

No taxes? Sure, we can do that. No water. There are, after all, consequences. Guess we don't want to think about that one when we call for smaller government.

Don't get me wrong. This is not a plea to fix New Orleans.

It might be a plea to think about la longue duree. The long term consequences of our actions.

Or maybe not that either. Maybe, as good little anthropologists, we just take notes and watch it all fall. Watch cities fail, one at a time. Maybe we move in time to save ourselves. Maybe we choose to go down with the ship. Maybe we say science can cure all this, if we just put our minds to it. Maybe we say, it's signs from the heavens. Maybe we change our habits. And maybe there are no habits that need changing. And maybe this isn't any problem that needs fixing.

Cities rise. Cities fall. That's just the way it is.

Well, for that matter, planets form. Planets die. No big deal.

Maybe we don't think large enough. Think geological time. Astronomical time. It's just a question of scale. In la long duree none of this really matters at all, does it?

Okay, so this sounds just like another bummer post from another bummer pessimist. But that's not what I intend here. The cosmic view might really be a thing of beauty. We step back and watch the choreography and ballet of it all.

I mean, what else is there to do with our gift of human consciousness?

And the insight of 5,000 anthropologists, (or however many there might have been), that we collectively might have on every human problem in every corner of the world, does not really help us when the water's going down.

The wisdom of New Orleans is a very matter-of-fact, "I just deal with it. Baby."

So, yeah. New Orleans entranced me. Again. And what all did I do with it? Well, what do you think I did with it? I took notes. After all, I'm just an anthropologist. Baby.

the tzaddik sells his daughter

Jerusalem, 1961

The tzaddik, as we know, was a great collector of Judaica: manuscripts, ceremonial artifacts, and ancient pieces of junk. For him, every single fragment was precious and worthy of preserving. Each broken piece of something had matching pieces yet to be discovered. Every object had a story that had to be uncovered.

If the Holy One, Blessed Be He created the world by separating all its parts — light from dark, and earth from sky ... — it was the tzaddik's job to put it all back together again. But you already knew this.

He took Malkah with him on many of his adventures. Up the Motherlode, looking for cemeteries (he collected cemeteries, but only if they were Jewish). They drove up and down the mountains searching out each and every single one. The tzaddik would then find a donor who would help purchase the rundown little plot of land and broken stones, and bring it back into a state of preservation. He taught Malkah to decipher the gravestones when she was about eight or nine.

But in Jerusalem, treasures were boundless. Either that, or they were fakes. He always seemed to know the difference. He would wander through the tiny streets (of west Jerusalem — the city was divided at that time) until he turned at last in through an open door. He'd find a grungy little stall, and look through absolutely everything with equal deliberation.

Every thing has a story.

And he was a great storyteller once he figured out the tale. The other thing that gave him pleasure, was giving away the pieces of junk. Once he unearthed the secret of an object, the next step was to find its home. There was always someone — or some institution — whose story it was. It was for them to preserve the thing and keep it safe.

He always assumed that once each object had found its rightful place in the world, that it would be honored. That others would treasure it as he did.

He was the most unmaterialistic materialist the world had ever seen. Of course. A lamed-vavnik, putting the universe of separation back in order, one piece at a time.

So. They turned down a cobbled alley, and there was this dirty little stall. And sitting in the dirty little stall was a dirty little man. An old and toothless man, wearing what looked to Malkah like rags inside the ragged stall. The shop was dark before her eyes adjusted. It only had one lightbulb hanging down.

There was a mournful horn playing in the distance, from somewhere further down the cobbled lane. It pervaded the very marrow of the stone walls all around.

Can you hear that sound?

The dirty, old shopkeeper was sitting cross-legged upon more piled up rags upon the cold stone floor. A woven blanket maybe. It was too dark to see. The tzaddik and his daughter sat cross-legged on the other side. There didn't seem to be much more room in the shop than that. Most of the light streamed in from the outside, and so they sat as near the doorway as they could. The shuttered doors of the shop were painted that blue — you know. Evil eye blue. The blue of protection.

The tzaddik's eyes were filled with equanimity. But Malkah knew he wasn't walking out of that shop without the crumbling manuscript now in his hand. The shopkeeper knew the same. He got up and disappeared into the darkness of the back of the shop.

The tzaddik didn't lift his head from deciphering the text below, even when the shopkeeper returned with the steamy little glasses of burning hot tea. The tiny glasses were old; the painted floral decoration mostly faded.

The shopkeeper eyed Malkah hungrily and with a wave of his hand insisted that she drink. She took a tiny burble and was struck by a syrupy jolt. Her body shuddered. There was nowhere to spit it out and she was forced to swallow.

The hours passed. More rounds of tea. The horn began another mournful tune. The haggling went on for hours. The grubby shopkeeper kept glancing at the tzaddik's daughter.

"I have a son," he said at last.

"Mazal tov!" proclaimed the tzaddik. "A blessing on your house."

"He and your daughter would make a pretty pair."

The tzaddik turned to another page in the crumbling folio sheets. He grunted.

"You could take my son with you," the old man said. "To Amrika."

"He could use an education," said the tzaddik.

"An education, yes!" the shopkeeper said, and started wrapping up the manuscript in newspaper, and tying it with brown twine.

A filthy boy just Malkah's age stepped into the shop, as if by magic. He had dark vacant eyes, huge teeth and sunken cheeks. His clothes were as tattered as his father's.

"An education," repeated the tzaddik.

"A shittach," said the shopkeeper.

The boy giggled, but with lack of comprehension. He cleared the teapot and the little glasses and off he ran. Malkah noticed that he was barefooted. As if he'd never worn a pair of shoes.

The tzaddik rose. The shopkeeper rose, kissed the tzaddik's right hand, and thrust the newspaper wrapped packet into the tzaddik's left. Malkah rose. The shopkeeper patted her on the head.

"An education," he repeated, looking the tzaddik in the eyes. The tzaddik grunted.

When they had left, Malkah was fuming. She had just turned thirteen.

"That's how it's done," the tzaddik said.

And he tucked the treasure under his arm and they walked on down the cobbled lane. Another piece of the cosmic puzzle was returning to its rightful home.

You could hear the horn finishing off its last five notes. Triumphal affirmations, finding their strength and hitting their stride.

birthing and deathing

Birthing was easy. Well, I mean, it wasn't easy easy. But it was easy. Pregnancy was easy. There was a time limit to pregnancy and birthing, and it's pretty fixed and universal. This is how the body works in that regard. Expect this. Breathe like that. Push now. Baby. And there were a million books to read. Granted that pregnancy and childbirth don't always go by the book, no matter which book you're reading. But for the most part, humans have this one pretty much down.

Deathing isn't like that. It can be a poof! you're gone kind of death. Or a lingering on in diminishing capacity for years or even decades. Or it can be treatments. Or not treatments. 'Procedures.' Amputations. Meds, and more meds. Hospital visits or hospital beds. Incontinence. Dementia or delusion. Caregivers. No caregivers. Point is, it could be anything, anything at all — and last for a very long time.

It's that Dylan song, that lyric:

he not busy born is busy dying

Which we used to quote smugly looking at our elders. They were busy dying. We were busy living.

At a certain point, I realized that I was busy dying. I think it was when some financial rep came walking into my office (and every office on our floor, building, and likely the entire campus), trying to hook me on planning for my retirement.

I mean, was that some kind of joke?

Busy-being-born people don't plan for their retirements. They're too busy being in the present to be inside that future.

But I did it. I learned about IRAs and TSAs and deferred taxation, and all that shit. And I came to care about it.

And then I started budgeting my paycheck each month, and my expenses each quarter, and my obligations each year.

And then it was long term care insurance. One thing after another...

You get the point. I became one of those older people busy dying. And truth be told, I thought it was kinda fun.

Thinking about the financial part of living and dying, I realize, is one big reaction formation. Yes, the psychoanalysts have a word for this. But it's more than this. van Gennep, in his classic work, Rites of Passage, analyzes both the structure and function of life cycle rituals.

Rites of passage, he says, ritualize the major transitions of our physical being, from birth to death (or cycles of being) — and we take comfort in this. He covers many of the functions of ritual in this regard, including, for example:

public acknowledgement of the transition: Here, the community essentially proclaims that a shift is made, whether or not you feel that you've made the transition at all. Thus, suddenly you may be declared 'a man' or 'a woman' even if it's not at all what you feel. After this point, everyone in the community will treat you as this thing they claim you are.

public acknowledgement of expected shifts in behavior: And once the community declares you man or woman, or married, or widowed, or dead or alive — you are expected to behave in keeping with the rules associated with that status. This can be a very big bummer.

relieving anxiety regarding the life cycle change by transferring the anxiety to performing the perfect ritual: This one is why people make such a fuss over weddings. If you focus a year or two planning the perfect wedding, you don't really have to think much about what being married is all about. Likewise, if you focus on having the perfect birthing experience, you're probably not thinking about what it's gonna be like taking care of that kid for the rest of your life.

Futzing around figuring out retirement finances falls into this last category. Moving numbers around (at least in your head, if there are none in your account) is the great distraction from thinking about this latter end of the life cycle. We don't have to think about what it's really like to get ill or old or frail.

And then our parents start falling into that stage. And all our friends' parents do as well. And thinking about IRAs and retirement isn't the same as dealing with dementia or incontinence or frailty or simply not being recognized anymore. And, unlike the general incompetencies of infants, we know that the older generation (and eventually we ourselves) are not gonna just outgrow it. It's gonna get worse and worse and worse.

Being busy dying turns out to be an opportunity of sorts. An exercise in humility. Patience. Paying attention. And (for many) forming a strong personal relationship with their maker. Learning something new about yourself and the people you care about. I know this sounds like an awful lot of platitudes. I'm just trying to apologize here for the contempt I felt in my youth for anyone who spent an iota of time thinking 'bout the busy-dying end of things. This may well have been the pervasive attitude of my generation.

I realize I've conflated a number of different issues here, but the timing seems to go together: the death and dying of our elders, preparation for our own elder years, and thinking about our own death and dying. These, clearly, are not the same — but they all fit that concern with being 'busy' dying. And the rites of passage to be performed seem to include a mountain of harrowing paperwork to focus on in order to keep our minds off the real stuff: feeling it.

So. Birthing was easy. Raising kids was easy. This isn't easy. And I think this is why some of the older folk I know begin obsessing about grandchildren. Or a new puppy, or something. Focusing on the continuity from one generation to the next, and their birthdays, and their rituals, is another way to not be present with the hard transitions of the moment.

So here's the plan. Being present. To this moment. To this stage, whatever it brings. Not deflecting. No new puppies. Doing this as well as can be done.

Not sure what that's supposed to look like. Haven't read a single book on the subject. I think it's just about paying attention. Could be wrong. And could be fun.

of gummy-worms and caterpillar tales

I have two very strong images in my head from when Precious Daughter was a wild young thing of maybe two-ish. Actually, there are more images of course, but these two have been haunting me lately. They remain vivid without photographic reminders of these little moments.

Scene One, which is the earlier Kodak moment of the two, took place around the corner at the produce market. You know the kind: the one with the bins and the little shovel to scoop out real live unpackaged foods. I had Precious Daughter in the stroller, having run down the hill with her, just for fun, on a jaunt that was just something fun to do together. We were at the bins. Guess I was taking way too long trying to decide between bulk orzo and bulk bulghur (the kids loving each of them equally), when I looked down at my too quiet daughter.

The little monster had one hand holding a lower bin open, and the other hand was shoveling fists full of gummy-worms into her gaping maw as fast as it could. Gummy-worms were hanging out at all angles — she was right out of a classic horror movie playing both sides of the equation: Faye Raye and King Kong both squeezing in to possess the same little daughter at once.

Scene Two, Asilomar. Not long after the above. Not quite monarch butterfly season. The caterpillars were crawling over everything in sight in the little wooded garden between the lodge, the dining hall, and the trail to the sea. Precious Daughter is free to run, with no vehicles to worry about running her down. She picks up some crunchy leaves and squeezes them into bits, watching with wonder as they take off on the wind. She reaches down for another handful, and squeezes — but this handful squishes... A handful of caterpillars, oozing out between her fingers. Their life extinguished before she knew they were alive. Her mother running in horror to intervene before they reach her mouth. But it's too late to save a life.

Is this how we learn about life and death? Note my lack of horror for the leaves!

Was there any difference for her between the life and death of gummy-worms, caterpillars and crunchy leaves? Is the intervention that tells us cease and desist with caterpillars qualitatively different enough from cease and desist with gummy-worms to get the point across? As I recall, it took some fancy footwork to explain the difference between the two. To a two year old, are gummy-worms less alive than caterpillars? Is the taking of life something we do or don't outgrow? Or just the natural order?

"From the war of nature," Darwin wrote in his conclusion to The Origin of Species, "from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely the production of higher animals, directly follows."

And just how clear is it that a mouth full of gummy-worms is not good for you, while a mouth full of caterpillars is not good for them? Especially when your taste buds do not concur.

Okay, you may be thinking, isn't two a little late for the oral phase, anyway? This would be a distraction, for to tell the truth, these events may well have been a full year earlier. I don't keep track of time that well. The point remains:

How do we learn that life is precious?

How do we learn that gummy-worms can kill you? Or that caterpillars are a whole lot more healthy for us, in point of fact.

It's not just the choking thing with shoveling gummy-worms down so fast. Not just the high-fructose corn syrup that's out to get us. No, in addition to all that, it's that gummy-worms were linked to BSE and Mad Cow Disease at the time of my daughter's adventures in oral pleasures. Though, all this is a sidebar to the larger issue.

I've always felt I had some unfinished business with the gummy-worms and caterpillars. And I think I finally know what it is.

As E has written a kaddish to all the creatures she has eaten, I offer that as well, and raise you five: A kaddish for the things my kids in glee might well have gobbled; or crushed between curious fingers, toes or mouth; or tread upon with crunching sounds; or put inside a baggie filled with salt, or thrown over a fence to give the neighbors ... all this and more — bad mothering — or things we take for granted. Not really an apology, but an honoring of all things gone as a result of actions or inaction. Take on the world of pain and inequality — no, I will not go that far.

I do not here take on all misadventure, nor claim it as my own. But whether thinking or not thinking, they cannot be undone.

of gummy-worms and larger creatures

Michael Pollan has been eloquent in his appeal that we change our eating and growing habits. He sums it all up in seven syllables — not quite a koan, nor haiku either, but nevertheless giving off the impression of a wise and ancient teaching:

eat food
not too much
mostly plants

A modest proposal from a modest man.

So why does it sound so radical here in Amrika?

On the tzaddik's yahrtzeit I stopped eating animals. It was a very long time coming. I can hear my friends on both sides of the aisle berating me over it. The veg-folk for having it take so long, and the meat-folk for having let go one of the great tasty pleasures of life. The fact is, I love the taste of meat. But I can't stand the word anymore.

I think I became a vegetarian because of the word 'meat'. I finally heard it. Just that, and nothing more.

meat

It's a word that bothered me very suddenly, listening to an interview on public radio with Jonathan Safran Foer. His new book is entitled Eating Animals. I had just shown Rouch's award-winning film, Les Maitres Fous, to my night class, and more than any other part of the film, students react to the slaughter, boiling and eating of a sweet medium sized short-haired trusting dog. I've seen the film hundreds of times and it gets me every time. I can't get used to it.

But they also sacrifice a chicken and a lamb or a goat as well. Why is it no one even mentions those? And they break raw eggs upon the Hauka altar of the 'governor's palace.' How come that doesn't bother anyone either? For that, too, is wasted life.

I think it's because we think of chicken, lamb, and goat as meat. And meat is something that we eat.

But Foer's book isn't called Eating Meat — which would make almost any potential reader defensive and oppositional instantly. The title of Foer's book is Eating Animals, and that's something altogether different. When you put it that way, it's something we really don't want to do.

That's the dog in the Rouch's film — an animal, not meat — and why eating dog is so horrific and unwatchable. We just don't think of a dog as meat.

It sounds like Foer is stating the obvious here. He doesn't push the point. But I'd like to push it here. Language matters.

Pollan and Foer share this facility for hard-hitting simplicity in their writing. They're both reasonable and not fanatics. They both are okay with folks who eat meat. Just not too much. Foer's soft sell on the radio, I guess just got to me when combined with having just watched the dog sacrifice for the umpteenth time.

I had no problem eating meat.

I had a big problem eating animals.

So. Is this about morality, ethics or ecology? Arguments I've been reading since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Nope. It was just about the power of words.

Words, like music, can have this awful power over us that is not quite rational, not quite irrational. We are moved beyond reason. We use words to come up with a reason for our reason. And if we commit to them, we are transformed.

Sure, I do feel different. I've had a belly ache for a month, to tell the truth. I don't think I was designed at all for not eating animals. Maybe I'm doing it all wrong. But I'm gonna hold the course and see how it goes. Not dogmatically (excuse the terrible pun here). No. If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. But for the first time, it feels right even if it feels awful.

Where do the gummy-worms fit in here. They do fit in, I'll give you that, but yes, another time. For once again it's later than I'd like, and my eyes are dry and closing. I've listened to Erin's kaddish tonight and it took me to the Siberian steppe, with only a single tree on the horizon, an ironwood. And there were nomads there, with their sheep and goats. Beloved animals. But over the fire in the fire pit: nothing but meat.

And I hear nothing, nothing but the kaddish.

we dying dogs

Sometimes we just slow down and stop. And that's it. We're done.

That's what happened today at Funston, heading back from the cliffside trail. This woman's dogs were going just nuts as she tried to protect one between her legs who was just plain done. It was like she was paralyzed there, not paying attention to the growing chaos around her. Six or seven of the younger dogs just didn't give a shit that their elder was ready to go.

The expression came to mind: to be on your last legs. This old dog had only three. And he wasn't going to use any of them. His head was lying there in the sand. The phrase felt so literal, and I wondered really what it would feel like to be ready to just plain stop, and have no volition to ever get up again.

Just before he died, the biofather told me a story. I had asked him if he remembered anything about me from when I was little. He got this glowing, glorious look on his face.

"One story, yes!" he said. He came back to life with this memory. He was no longer an elderly man in a wheelchair with limbs cut off from the diabetes, and scars from his cardiac bypass. He was young and authoritative and in control again.

"You were very little," he began. "You were very sick. Your mother called me and begged me for money to pay for the medicine you needed. And formula or something. She needed food for you."

He had this enormous smile on his face, as he paused. I had always dreamed of him as a knight in shining armor who would one day come rescue me. But I had never heard this story before.

"And I turned her down. I never gave her money," he said proudly. And this hero's light came into his eyes. He sat up a little straighter in his wheelchair, so proud of himself.

"After all," he said dramatically, "you don't feed a dying dog."

And he looked me in the eye and grinned his winning grin, having concluded his victorious tale.

And I sat there staring at him. I mean, what can you say to that?

And I thought about his tale as I stared into the eyes of the dying dog on the cliff today. The one who was done, who was really ready to go. And I wondered about that baby in my mother's arms. Wondered if that child had felt the same or not. Ready to be done. Ready to move on. The light going out of her eyes.

Dunno. But she was a very melancholy child, the grown-ups said.

I do think it possible that some of the light in her eyes winked out that day. And a bit more, I think, winked out upon hearing the old bastard's tale. But the light was replaced, I think, by something maybe tougher. Resilience, maybe. Autonomy, for sure. An I'll-take-care-of-myself, thank you. Somewhere along the way, if it was trust that was extinguished, it was self-preservation that ignited instead. And some kind of fortitude (defined here as being a stubborn, obstinate chayah), I think, replaced it.

Lights on, lights off. I look at that dog lying there. He, in slow motion. The pups speeding around him, jumping, chomping at each others' necks and ears. He doesn't intervene. He doesn't play top dog, the way he did a week ago, a month ago. He's not quite there anymore, hovering between this world and the world to come. They slow down, and they just plain stop.

It's only humans who drag out the process with advance directives and life-prolonging measures.

I watch the dogs at the Fort or in my arms or at their home. And they tell us so clearly when they're on their last legs. So clearly, I'm just not getting up again. They close their eyes. They're often miraculously not in pain. They're just ready to go.

A kaddish for them, for us — we dying dogs.

a kaddish for Caprica

Something was bound to go wrong on the Tzaddik's first Yahrtzeit.

It was a day I had hoped to bring my mother to the cemetery for the first time — for she herself had been too gravely ill to understand at the time that he had actually died. In the next room. In her house. Though when I told her that day, not knowing if she understood, she suddenly awoke out of her brain damage for the very first time. Her mind began to struggle back to life.

But this year too, the Tzaddik's wife was too ill to be brought to his still unmarked grave.

I'd controlled the tears all day just waiting to unleash them at the right time, the right place. And goddamn it, I still wanted to visit my father's grave, despite it getting dark already, despite it being rush hour by the time I was leaving Berkeley. I got lost, of course. Got hung up in a wrong lane, and ended up heading for Marin instead of wherever it was I was supposed to be. And I started falling into this insanity: Does he mind? Is he upset? Disappointed? Did he expect it? Doesn't he deserve better than this? How could I leave him there alone? Again. Still. Unmarked. All I wanted to do was something completely out of character: throw myself on his grassy mound (if I could even find it) and wail.

Impressions of Irene Pappas as Elektra: I wanted to pour libations upon his unmarked grave. I was born for this role.

It was now pitch black outside. The cemetery, even if I could find it, was already closed.

The Tzaddik lay there patiently, behind those enormous iron gates, alone in his allocated spot — gypped again out of his due. But you know how the tzaddikim are. The lamed-vavniks. They're a very patient lot. They're saints. Literally.

I crawled across the bridge. It took hours. Bumper to bumper. It was a Tuesday. I had worked myself into a raving lunatic, at least on the inside. Started focusing on not cracking up the car, instead.

I thought, okay, I'll go home and wallow in Caprica for a while. Not that Caprica would (or could) lift my spirits.

Caprica was killing off good characters left and right. Bummer. Didn't they have something better to do? And the Adamas — except for Sam — were a whiney lot.

Still stuck in traffic here. With time to think about the Caprican/BSG mystery that bothers me the most. The one I think no one else cares about.

Adama.

For Adama, of course, means earth in Hebrew. Earth.

I mean, did they do that on purpose? I mean, they must have, right?

And throughout BSG I expected this to come up. But no, it never did. Adama searching for Earth. A destroyed Adama, finding a destroyed Earth. A renewed Adama finding a renewed Earth. Adama naming Earth 'Earth.'

And nobody saying a word about it.

So, of course I figured it would have to come up in Caprica. But these Adamas were a snivvely, sorry lot. And why wouldn't they be? Their own land had been heavily colonized (in the old sense of the word) and exploited. This is all so terribly biblical...

And stuck in traffic, contemplating BSG puzzles, and Caprican potentials, my mind began to settle a bit.

At home, for some reason Caprica had not recorded.

Had I screwed something up? Where was my fix on this awful day? Eventually, I looked online to see if it had been preempted. Tuesday night Caprica just wasn't as fun as Friday night Caprica (or BSG). But shit! It was gone. Just frakking gone.

Caprica died shooting self in foot.

I mean, think about it. The post-apocalyptic BSG had had rough times, but an awful lot to laugh about as well. And here was pre-terminal hedonistic Caprica with nothing but angst, desperation and turmoil everywhere you turn. The only character having even a smidgen of fun was the PhD candidate in Graystone's lab — so yah, why not just blow him away in a careless random moment of meaninglessness?

Was there nothing better to do than gratuitously blow away good characters just to what? Wonder who's gonna get axed the following week? Poor strategy.

Rh thinks Caprica got cancelled because it was too queer-friendly. Do you think the show lost viewers on moral grounds? I mean the whole panorama was right out of Ibn Khaldun: Permissiveness gives way to its own destruction...

I didn't cry for Caprica — although my tears had been waiting all day for some good excuse to let loose. No, I didn't cry — I got mad instead. All that great potential — wasted!

As far as I'm concerned, I'd have been just fine if they'd taken the whole cast, one by one, and locked them into those robotic Cylon bodies. Yearning for another crack at resurrection.

David Eick and company aren't crying either, 'cause they too have resurrection in mind. Another spin-off of BSG. This one tentatively called, Battlestar Gallactica: Blood and Chrome. This one is to take place when Adama is in his early 20s — around forty years before the fall.

Can I say for the record: blech.

I guess the problem wasn't so much morality dissonances but that boys just weren't getting their blow-em-up spaceship fix. And I'm sure the costs/benefits analysis concurs. Blowing up shit is literally more bang for the buck.

I still haven't gone back to the cemetery. But it seems to me that each day brings another reason to pour a libation upon a Tzaddik's grave.

When I finally do go, I'm going to tell my dad all about Adama, as he lies there underneath. He'll have a good chuckle about it. And because he can perform miracles, I'm hoping to see the Earth move when I'm there.

If you read of any earthquakes on that day, just know it's the Tzaddik having a little giggle over Adama — and under adama, too.