Tokyo Drift

When my friends learn I'm in Japan, their first reaction is "great!"-- followed usually by "um, why?" I know what they mean by this, as in "why now?" or "are you there on business?" Unfortunately, I have no such excuse. One of my books, Empire of Ashes, was translated and published in Japan a decade ago. Whether it sold or anybody read it is a mystery to me. But that's not the reason I'm here.

Interest in Japan-for-its-own-sake is harder to justify today than it was a generation ago. Back then, it was the Land of the Rising Sun that was the focus of American anxiety, as Japanese "export champions" like Toyota, Sony and Fugitsu stood poised to bury their American competitors. In the 1980's and early '90's, it was widely expected that the Japanese economy would leapfrog the U.S. both in size and clout, with America reduced to nothing more than a colony for natural resources like coal, lumber, grain, and penurious blondes for Japan's pleasure sector. (See the 1993 Sean Connery movie Rising Sun for more on that. Or on second thought, maybe don't...) On TV, we watched Richard Chamberlain in Shogun. If America had a future, it looked increasingly Asian in character, as famously depicted in Blade Runner. Smart parents prepared their children to serve their new overlords by teaching them Japanese. 

Obviously, stuff didn't work out as expected. As Japan sputtered, and dominant American tech companies "disrupted" the world economy, nipponophobia receded -- to be replaced in due course by anxiety over the rise of China. Time will tell if the latter is any more of a mirage. (Spoiler alert: it probably isn't, but the West will change China far more than China will change us.) Our political debates rarely hinge now on what we can learn from Japan, and those prep classes have long since been replaced by sleep-away immersion camps in Mandarin. Being interested in Japan therefore has the feel of arriving at a party that broke up twenty years ago.

I can't quit the place so easily. Part of this must lie in my own experience as a person-of-a-certain-age, with Japan looming larger my rear view mirror than it does through the our collective windshield. Men of my generation will always be a bit like Blade Runner's Rick Deckard, rumpily out of place and looking askance at his Asian future as he wrestles with his bowl of udon.

But in another sense, Japan is even more relevant now than it was as the locus of chatter over superpower rivalry. The Japanese economy stumbled, expectations had to be reduced--and there lies the real lesson. For in a future where efficiency will be as valuable much as consumption, where making the most out of a smaller footprint will bear the greater rewards, Japan will be more relevant than ever. If I am to be watched over in my old age by a domestic robot, my future will arrive first in Japan. If my daughter or granddaughter loses all interest in marriage or childrearing, she will be more like her Japanese sisters already are. America's Great West Coast tsunami of 2037, caused by an earthquake combined with sea-level rise, already happened in Japan back in 2011. If my great-grandchildren own a condo on Mars, that off-world pied-à-terre will likely include elements of compact, highly-refined Japanese design, not Chinese or American glitz.

Traveling to Japan, therefore, is a little like time-traveling to an era I'll barely see, if at all. Though this isn't a business trip, I can imagine no more important business.

© 2015 Nicholas Nicastro

Snapshot: Cape of Good Hope, September, 2001

Not exactly the southernmost point of the continent of Africa--but close enough. 

After many days of observing African Wild Cats at the Pretoria Zoo, I took a short trip to Cape Town. This is truly great city in a spectacular setting. The day-trip down to the Cape shouldn't be missed, as visitors are sure to see knockout scenery, abundant wildlife, and lots of oddly beautiful Cape flora.

I've been plotting how to get back ever since.

The meeting place of two oceans...sort of.

The obligatory trophy shot. In the rocks behind me were lots of "rock rabbits", a peculiar rodent-like creature that is actually more closely related to elephants than rabbits. They're everywhere in this area.

Jackass penguins at Fish Hoek.

View from Table Mount toward the Cape.

© 2015 Nicholas Nicastro

Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

An angel rolls up the Heavens.

Americans come from the most religious nation in the West, but they rarely see much church art at home. A tour in virtually any European country will usually include more ecclesiastical masterpieces than the typical American will ever be capable of appreciating. Meanwhile, native Western Europeans are (by and large) among the planet’s least religious people, yet they live amidst a stupendous patrimony of religious art. When Americans tour churches in a place like Italy, it's a case of the eagerly ignorant confronting the knowingly indifferent.

     After many trips around Europe, this American has the luxury to (usually) give the local cathedral or convent a pass. Life’s too short to take in another altar screen, another shoal of putti massing in a narthex. I make exception for truly old stuff, however—the paleo-Christian mosaics and paintings that form the bridge between the ancient world and the medieval West.  That interest brought me this week to the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, on the island of Torcello near Venice.

     The largely 11^th century church is a survivor from a time when it wasn’t so clear which of the islands in the Venetian lagoon would come to dominate the region. The mosaics in the apse, including the figure of the Virgin Mary standing in solitary majesty in a field of gold, are probably the work of Byzantine masters. Depictions of the Crucifixion, the Harrowing of Hell, and the Last Judgment are placed on the forty foot-high west wall, presumably so worshippers would be reminded of their possible fates in eternity before trudging home.

     Though cartoony and ingenuous compared to Renaissance or Baroque treatments, the mosaics have an undeniable power—as if in the grip of their fervor, the artists had no time for fussing over draperies and musculatures and other aspects of outward appearance. The metallic backgrounds only increase the impact on the modern eye, which senses electricity coursing through those patinated swaths.

     But my attention was drawn this time to a particular panel in the Last Judgment. Here an angel, depicted entirely in shades of gold and white, is literally rolling up a scroll of stars. This apocalyptic image seems to be inspired by a passage in the Bible: Isaiah 34.4 (“And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree.”) This was echoed later in Revelation 6.14 (“And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.”) In other words, so great is the power of the Lord, that at the time of His final dispensation even the things that seem most permanent in this world—the stars, the mountains—will be revealed to be as flimsy as stage props.

     Of course, to someone educated in a scientific age, the notion of the totality of the universe being “rolled up” by our moral failures is more than a little absurd. The stars, after all, have been here a lot longer than our tiny planet, much less humans and their religions. Taken uncharitably, we might accuse our ancestors not only of ignorance (which is excusable) but arrogance in their presumption that who-smite-whom and who-slept-with-whom’s-wife should be matters of galactic importance. Indeed, this was criticism that far predates modernity. The arrogance of Christianity and Judaism, in believing that any self-respecting deity would concern Itself with for creatures so recent, so cosmically insignificant as humans, was observed by Roman-era critics, such as Celsus and Porphyry.

     Yet however absurd it seems, this attitude is far from dead. It lives on in evangelical America. Millions nodded in agreement when, in 2009, U.S. Congressman John Shimkus (R-Illinois) denied climate change thusly:

 “I believe that is the infallible word of God, and that's the way it is going to be for his creation…the earth will end only when God declares it’s time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood…”

     In other words, the laws of thermodynamics that underlie global climate change are like the stars in Isaiah 34.4—mere stage props to be rolled up and put away at the whim of the Great Director.

     And it was there again in the notorious evolution vs. creationism debate between Bill Nye “the Science Guy” and Ken Ham, founder of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. When Nye cited empirical evidence that the earth couldn’t possibly be a mere 6000 years old (that is, evidence from geology and biology), Ham responded by making a distinction between “observational science”, the kind of stuff Nye was talking about, and “historical science”, or the way the universe may have worked in the past. According to Ham, while it may clearly be impossible for the Rocky Mountains to have formed in a few years according to observational science, that doesn’t necessarily mean the laws of physics weren’t different 6000 years ago. Nye’s got his science, and Ham’s got his book. I say tomayto, you say tomahto. Let’s call the whole thing off.

     Of course, Ham’s distinction is nonsense. Scientific laws are acknowledged as laws because they explain not only what we can directly observe, but what we can infer indirectly about the past. Laws that change over time aren’t really laws at all. Imagine how all science would grind to a halt if any empirical result applied only at the very moment they were found, and only at that moment. (There is a flavor of philosophical skepticism that suggests this very thing, but Ken Ham is no Humean skeptic.)

     But Ham’s Biblical literalism is really the Shimkus doctrine again: “observational science”, like the veil of stars, is mere appearance, subject to being “rolled out” after the Creation just as it might be “rolled up” at the End. The message is supposed to be Good News—how great is the power and the glory of God. But the meaning is “what a piece of work is Man”…and not always in a good way.

© 2014 Nicholas Nicastro

Hot Climate, Cool Reception

The view over Charleston harbor from the Edmonston-Alston House is uncertain.

Like most visitors, I was impressed on my first trip to Charleston, SC. Where many cities have historic districts, whole swaths of Charleston feel transported from its golden age of antebellum glory. Mansions, columned and porticoed, line-up sidewise along leafy streets, gleaming with fresh paint jobs in pastel, sky-blue, and buff. Since Hurricane Hugo in 1989, restoration has transformed the place. Locals like to say it hasn't looked this good since 1861---when the Civil War began at Fort Sumter, literally on Charleston's doorstep.

According to our guide with Palmetto Carriage Tours, one of the ongoing threats to Charleston's historic neighborhoods is flooding after heavy rains. As many as a dozen times a year, these venerable streets—lying as they do mere inches from sea level—are inundated by a foot or more of water with nowhere to drain. Global climate change will only make this problem worse, as increased warming of the atmosphere will both raise sea level and increase the frequency of violent storms. Considering how much Charleston's appeal (and tourist economy) depends on its historic neighborhoods, you'd think such risks would be matters of wide public concern.

You'd think so—but you'd be wrong. For South Carolina is one of the reddest of red states, where many folks take a dim view of climate change "alarmists". Case in point: the situation at Charleston's own (and quite fine) South Carolina Aquarium. As one of the city's prime educational and scientific institutions, the Aquarium will introduce you not only to a variety of aquatic species, but many birds, reptiles, amphibians, and even (on temporary exhibit) some raucous ringtail lemurs. Along with the fun, it does a good job teaching visitors about the problems of shrinking biodiversity, habitat loss, pollution, etc. But of climate change—arguably the single biggest environmental challenge facing the Carolina Low Country in the coming decades—you'll learn approximately zilch.

Perhaps solely out of perversity, I asked some of the docents about this. Their response was like that of a man crawling through the desert who hopes the oasis ahead isn't a mirage. Wary at first, they seemed to wait until it was clear that my interest wasn't a feint—and then granted that talk of global warming, alas, draws too many emotional complaints. "We don't want to upset people here," said one of them. To the obvious reply, that they'll be upset more by surging storm-water flooding their homes, the docent could only shrug. "We're happy to talk to them about it…" he said, making it clear that the onus is on the visitor to seek out the information the Aquarium should freely provide. That's clearly not the attitude it takes on certain other issues, like their ongoing sea turtle rescue program.

To be fair, all three docents I spoke to were perfectly aware that the reality of global climate change is no more a matter of serious debate than the existence of gravity. All of them welcomed my criticism, and looked forward to citing them to their supervisors. Yet that's where we are in large swaths of this country: many of our educational institutions, where the science, not the politics, should drive discourse, are simply afraid to acknowledge scientific fact.

It would be easy for an outsider like myself simply to tell the South Carolina Aquarium to be more like a vertebrate on the issue of climate change, and less like a jellyfish. Public reaction might be emotional, but the stakes in a place like Charleston are high. As Neil deGrasse Tyson has remarked, some things in life are "true whether you believe in them or not." And the truth is simple: unless something is done, sometime in the next generation much of that tender and expensive restoration in the city's historic core will go for naught, because it will be under water.

It's easy to say, but harder to do. Better to start right away.

© 2014 Nicholas Nicastro

Postscript: Here's a link to a report on the debate over climate change in Charleston.

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/the-front-lines-of-climate-change-charlestons-struggle-16934

The Lost Land of the Lost

The Hall of Late Dinosaurs, circa 1958

The Museum of Natural History in New York recently placed their image collections online. Anybody who grew up in and around the region should recognize this picture -- AMNH's Late Dinosaur Hall, circa 1958. Generations of schoolkids, including children of countless immigrants (and a Brooklyn kid named Carl Sagan) got their first in-person glimpses of dinosaurs in this room. In its own way, it's a place where history happened.

Visitor with allosaur, 1959. Note the contemporary "Guide-a-Phone."

By 1995 the dinosaur halls were completely renovated. Instead of being presented chronologically (dinosaurs living at the same time), they were organized cladistically, in terms of evolutionary relationships. While specialists prefer the latter, I miss the old arrangement because it offered an idea of the creatures' living context. T. Rex used to battle Triceratops, and we saw them displayed together. The new arrangement is too abstract for most people--and it has too many video screens, distracting visitors from the fossils themselves.

Twins from The Shining with Brontosaurus, 1959

© 2014 Nicholas Nicastro

In Front of Them All

Still in South Korea

Dennis Rodman and I have a few things in common, but I’ll admit to only one of them: we both have spent time in North Korea.

My visit was brief—just one minute. It was at Panmunjeom, in the so-called Joint Security Area where the Republic of Korea (ROK, the south) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, the north) have gone eyeball-to-eyeball since 1953. A conference room (the “Military Armistice Commission Conference Room”) was built right on the line between two sides, half formally within the territories of each, to accommodate their very rare discussions. DMZ tourists can stroll around the felt-covered table on the armistice line, and be formally subject to the authority of Kim Jong-Un.

As political fictions go, my trip to the DPRK could have been more convincing. The conference room itself looks like the Cold War artifact it is—except for the UN sky blue paint-job outside and inside, which makes it seem vaguely like a pre-school. No doubt to discourage defections, the North Koreans rarely post their soldiers inside the building anymore. Instead, they’ve been known to peep in the windows from time to time, ogling whatever VIPs might have dropped in. Two ROK soldiers are usually inside, incongruously wearing shades (“designed to present an intimidating appearance”), standing in “modified tae kwon do postures”. Though they might be designed to be intimidating, the ROK guys I saw were hardly physical specimens. “Lean and mean” would be a generous way of describing them. The only action they’ve seen recently, according to our US Army guide, was to “jack up” a Japanese tourist who made the mistake of stepping behind a guard’s back. “It was the funniest thing I ever saw,” the American said, not long after he complained that his tour in the DMZ was “mind-numbingly dull”.

When it comes to living on the most heavily militarized border in the world, maybe a dull day is a good day. Things seem to be getting more interesting for a different reason, though, as South Korea seems determined to make the DMZ into a complete tourist experience. We saw busloads of visitors, in numbers worthy of high summer in Disney World, at such dubious landmarks as “The Third Infiltration Tunnel” (an invasion route from the North that was discovered before completion), and “The 1976 Ax Murder Site” (where a gang of North Koreans murdered two Americans with hatchets). The new train station at Dorasan was celebrated in 2002 as the first link in the chain of reunification, but the rail connection to Pyongyang never went through. Now tourists pay 500 won (about 50 cents) for the privilege of standing on the platform to watch mostly empty trains go a few miles, to the Kaesong Industrial Complex, and no farther.

Maybe all this is hard for Americans to understand because we have no comparable landmarks. The DMZ isn’t a battlefield in a war won and lost long ago, like Gettysburg; the conflict has simply gone on ever since, by other means. Between paranoia in the North and reunification fantasies in the South, there doesn’t seem to be much room for quiet reflection, for drawing lessons from the nightmare of history.

            The tourist materials boast that the DMZ, so long undeveloped, is now a paradise for wildlife. We have to take their word for it: the Zone still represents the world’s largest mine field, so there won’t be any eco-tourism in it soon. “Yes, animals get blown up sometimes,” says our guide, anticipating my question without any outward awareness of its absurdity, of deer tripping on land mines. In the new DMZ, maybe that’s a missed opportunity—they can offer not just wildlife-watching, but wildlife-suicide-watching. 

© 2013 Nicholas Nicastro

Snapshot: Egypt, December, 2000

The Corniche outside the Temple of Luxor.

Back on the west bank. Impressions of rural Egypt: riders astride donkeys with loads of reeds splayed four feet out on either side; women draped in either black or in red; beautiful children with eyes buzzing with flies as they try to sell homemade dolls to tourists; water buffalo looking like wide-hoofed creatures from some other planet; young cops and soldiers with automatic weapons and leather cases for additional clips; ibises like gulls, swarming over canals layered with garbage; the river flowing out of the heart of Africa, slow and oily, mounted by palatial tourist cruisers and feluccas; rusty tram tracks from the old sugar cane processors; old kaftaned men sitting on kitchen chairs in front of the open mosque.

Egypt is supposed to be static, but it's changed even from Flaubert's time. Judging from the paintings in the tombs of the artisans, both sensuality and sexual equality were once known in the valley. Now, with modern Islam, whole dimensions of erotic possibility seem shut off, like an Aswan Dam of the spirit. This is a very conservative country (not counting national disasters like Afghanistan) which would probably have struck the old Egyptians as strange. They might also have resented the general air of obsequiousness around foreign cash. Now, unlike in antiquity, Egypt is a country of prudes and panhandlers.

Football in the Sahara.

Today we crossed the Nile again (near Aswan) to visit the Monastery of St. Simeon. This is a 7th century stone and mudbrick structure set over a wadi a few thousand feet west of the riverfront. Stepping off the boat, we were greeted by more than a dozen camel jockeys; the place was much like a paddock, but the camels appealed to me more this time. Their croaking roar seemed somehow cute. 

The Monastery was not the desolate museum I imagined. It is still a working church—there were more than a hundred worshippers there, under the canopies in the ruined old chapel, hearing and repeating the liturgy in old Coptic. The Christian population of Aswan—largely Nubian, it seems—also picnics in the compound after the services. I wondered if this had something to do with Ramadan (no food consumed by the Muslim majority during daylight), but no one could answer the question while we were there. Sitting up on the mud-brick rampart (in that climate, still well preserved after a 12th century renovation, I watched a bunch of boys play soccer on the edge of an immensity of desert.

The Bent Pyramid at Dahshur. The tiny figures are Maryanne and our driver.

The best monuments are barely on the established tours. The pyramids at Dahshur are older than the ones at Giza, and almost as big. They are farther out of Cairo, and thus approximate in their solitude what the Giza pyramids were supposed to be—lonely tombs, not suburban tourist attractions. The Bent Pyramid is especially evocative in its irregularity. It is a gigantic work of improvisation now frozen on the limestone sands. It has much of its casing intact, again evoking the Giza pyramids better than they do themselves. The quality of the silence there—despite the nearby presence of an Army base—is deeply satisfying. This is real antiquity, but without the pretention to ancient wisdom. For there's nothing very wise about suddenly altering the angle of a pyramid in mid-construction because the builders realized they made a mistake. Instead, it evokes the ancient Egyptians as real people grappling with practical problems. There is more human dignity in that change of angle than in a thousand Karnaks.

Text and photos © 2013 Nicholas Nicastro