Life in Sepia

I went into an antique store in Carrboro the other day, not looking for anything in particular, but just to browse. I don’t frequent antique stores, because, frankly, I don’t generally like old things. But, every once in awhile, I’ll pop into such an establishment, mostly in the hopes of finding a really good deal on something unique. To be honest, I hope to find an Antique Road Show caliber priceless work of art, which I could score for a nickel. No such luck this time around. This particular store was the size of a small closet, did not have any art, and was populated mostly by porcelain china - not something in which I have interest. I did a quick loop around, said hello to the merchant, and was walking out the door when a tin full of photographs caught my eye.


One of the first photographs I saw was of this fellow. I looked at the back of the photo for context clues – who he was, where he was, what town he was in, what year the photo was taken, etc. However, all I found was the curly cursive of a woman’s hand which read “Daddy at work.” It was not immediately clear to me what daddy did for work, however. On one hand, he appears to be wearing a white collar of a modern day Catholic priest, so that was certainly an option. However, it was a very old photo, and it was certainly possible that everyone wore big white collars to work back then. I tried to make out some of the book titles on his desk for clues, but to no avail.

Still, I was taken in by the photograph. I certainly like black and white photography and this particular photo had a unique sepia tonality that appealed to me aesthetically. Oddly though, what really drew me in was that I found myself identifying with the man in the photograph. Was he a lawyer? A writer perhaps? I have this silly dream of one day having a really sweet library with leather bound books. I suppose I always placed myself in a scene like this. Strange. I needed to find out more about this guy, so I kept leafing through the photos.


Here is our protagonist in a group photo, again sporting his big white collar. Apparently, he was quite the hit with the ladies! We also get our first glimpse of the family dog – an Irish Setter.

Here is his wife, presumably, teaching the dog to shake. I take it that she is the woman whose handwriting appears on the back of some of these photos.
On the back of this photo are the words “Mother and Dad.” You will note how men’s fashions have remained completely unchanged for quite some time. I’ve never, in my lifetime, encountered anyone wearing her outfit, however. He has a distinct jaw line and big ears. She has bags under her eyes. But notice the way she leans towards her husband. They have been married a long time, I suspect, but still, if you glance at it quickly, you may mistakenly think they were holding hands. I think that’s neat.

It occurs to me that this family is quite wealthy. From some of the other photos I gathered that this family goes on vacation quite a bit and it appears that they even had several horses. Also, a lot of these photos are candid snapshots, taken at a time when only those in the aristocracy would have had cameras. Plus, they had an automobile! A convertible no less! Check out the fashionable headwear. The guy in the back is wearing a leather Indiana Jones hat, while the driver is ready for safari. Notice any other clues in the photo? Take a closer look.



Find it? New York license plates. That’s a big clue. Also, it gives you the year: 1919, suggesting that license plates used to be issued yearly and proving that these photos are nearly a hundred years old. We’re getting somewhere now.


Here is some extended family, perhaps. You’ll again notice the varied headgear. It appears to me that the guy to the left is expressing some concern that the camera may steal his soul, while the little boy appears in desperate need of an outhouse. I would also like to point out the dirt road, the high socks, and the older boy’s kerchief. Sharp.

This house features prominently in many of the photos. I take it to be their residence. The two-tiered wrap-around deck is pretty neat. Also, the type of trees will remind us that we’re in New York, where deciduous trees dominate, as opposed to this part of North Carolina, where evergreens have run amuck.

Here’s another photo of a house. I’m not sure if it’s the same house as the previous photo, only from the rear and after Autumn. They do both have twin chimneys and two-tiered wrap-around porches though. Here’s the best clue so far though: on the back are the words “Taken November 10, '19 Peekskill, NY"

Here’s the strange part. I’m in an antique store in Carrboro, North Carolina looking at these photos taken in Peekskill, NY. According to google maps, that is a distance of 556 miles, which, by modern conveniences, it would take an approximate 9 hours and 23 minutes to traverse. I have no idea how long it would take by the standard of 1919, nor can I fathom a guess as to how these photos ended up so far from home. However, you may remember that I, too, grew up in New York, only a 30 minute drive from the scene of this photo! Not only that, but some of my high school friends lived in Peekskill, so I would often go up there to hang out and rouse rabble. I knew I felt a strange connection with our protagonist. We’re practically neighbors, though admittedly 100 years removed.

Here’s the final picture I’ll leave you with. It’s the latest one I could find. It has a stamp from the Westchester Photo Finishing Company dated May 8, 1942. On the back is written “Bernard, Bobby, and Richard.” The boys are all grown up, and the young contemplative Bernard from photos previous is now a proud papa, his face lightly weathered by time.

One more note of interest. I found a pair of photo jackets belonging to two separate now-defunct photo studios in Kingston, NY - Pennington Studio and Safford & Scudder. My guess is that "Safford" is John Milton Safford and "Scudder" is Robert Scudder Newton, each prominent medical doctors from Ohio that moved to New York in the late 1800's and co-wrote a rather famous work "A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of Women." Admittedly, I have no guess as to why their names were used for a photo studio.

Finally, one of the sleeves carried the slogan “Pictures taken NOW will be priceless 25 years from now.” I found that pretty ironic because nearly 100 years later, they sat in a tin box with a sign that read “Photos: 50 cents each!” And that was before the merchant took a liking to me and told me she’d sell them to me at half price! Considering that the photos cost 6 cents a piece to develop back in 1919, and factoring inflation, I’d say I made out like a bandit at 25 cents each.

Oh, I also got a last name off the sleeve – Chappell. Bernard Chappell is the man in the photo.

This whole episode reminds me of a Jack Gilbert poem entitled “Relative Pitch,” in which a man stumbles upon a ruined mansion in Virginia. He tries to imagine the way the house used to be and restores it, wondering if he “discovered maybe the kind of life the house was.” He concluded, “Strangers leave us poems to tell of those they loved, how the heart broke, to whisper of the religion upstairs in the dark, sometimes in the parlor amid blazing sunlight, under trees with rain coming down in August on the bare, unaccustomed bodies.”

And other times, it seems, the poems that strangers leave us are in sepia.

Games of Redeeming Features

I try not to write about sports on this blog, but circumstances have dictated that I take up the pen in defense of my beloved New York Metropolitans in the form of an open letter to fellow New York Mets fans, and the New York and National media, respectively, and anyone else who will listen.

Dear Friends,

I have been a rabid Mets fans as long as I can remember. I have rejoiced in the 100 win seasons of the mid-1980’s and I have suffered through the 100 loss seasons of the 1990’s. I witnessed the absurdity of Bobby Valentine’s fake moustache, the rain delay hijinks of Robin Ventura, and the infamous career of he-who-shall-remain-unnamed but, if named, whose name would rhyme with Barmando Aenitez. I sat in my college dorm room in Boston and watched Kenny Rogers walk Andruw Jones with the bases loaded to end the NLCS. I was among the 55,000 that nearly brought Shea Stadium crumbling to the ground from the sheer elation we collectively expressed when Endy Chavez performed a miracle, and I rode the #7 back to Manhattan in stunned silence after Adam Wainwright’s curveball extinguished all of our hope. I can do the Teufel shuffle. When I pitched my eighth grade team to a championship, I threw my mitt skyward, just like Jesse Orosco. My favorite color is orange. I love baseball and I remained true to my team through good times and bad.

Right now, we’re going through a bad time. The Mets have lost 6 out of the last 7 games in crushing fashion. What was once a comfortable 7 game lead with just 17 games to play has dwindled down to a skinny game-and-one-half lead with 10 left to play. No team in the great history of the game has ever blown a lead as big as 7 games this late in the season, and the Mets are dangerously close to “accomplishing” that without precedent. The fallout has been that many people in the New York media, but especially the fans, have gotten caught up in pointing the finger of blame at anyone and everyone surrounding the organization – the general manager, the pitchers, the batters, the fielders, those too injured to do any of the above, and especially the manager. I suspect that a great many have even jumped off this sinking ship entirely. However, it is the blood lust in the voices and words of those that have remained that have troubled me the most. The majority of Mets fans, or perhaps only the loudest, has begun to speak of their team with utter contempt. Allow me to dissent.

Baseball is a long game, played over a long season, played over the course of a long career, and it’s a game at which you are only marginally more likely to succeed than fail, if even that. That is, relative to other sports, baseball is, by definition, wrought with an incredible amount of failure: a hall of fame batter fails to get a hit 70% of the time; a hall of fame pitcher gives up a run every three innings; a great team still loses around 40% of the time. Yet, it is in the very face of this failure that baseball presents an opportunity for success. As Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Murphy always used to remind the listener, “Baseball is a game of redeeming features.” If you make an error in the field, you may get to bat in the bottom half of the inning to win the game. If you make a bad pitch, you may get a chance to get the next guy. If you lose today, there’s always tomorrow. If you don’t do well tomorrow, there’s always next year. But everyone, EVERYONE, will get a chance to both fail and succeed. It is the very nature of the game.

My fellow Mets fans that are ready to string up this player or executive in a public square are losing sight of this fact. And with it, they are also losing their ability to enjoy the game. When you cease to view baseball through the specter of redemption, you lose the ability both to deal with loss (e.g., Cubs fans) and appreciate victory (e.g., Braves fans). For those, I suggest you watch football instead, where the great majority of the plays result in positive yardage and a great team can win 90-100% of their games. But that is not baseball. Every baseball team goes through stretches where no one can do anything right, seemingly. And the team and its fans just need to weather that. Earl Weaver, long time manager for the Baltimore Orioles, when faced with the prospect of putting in a pinch hitter that was 10 for his last 20 versus another hitter who was 0 for his last 20, was reputed to have said that one would be better off using the less successful of the two, because “he was due.” That hope, even in the face of all evidence to the contrary, is what makes baseball unique and, to me, what keeps the game enjoyable. In what other sport could one make such a brazen claim?

Point is, the New York Mets, and each of the individual players that have been stinking it up as of late, will get a chance to redeem themselves. Whether or not they will remains to be seen, but it is guaranteed that they will at least have a chance. It begins tonight when Pedro Martinez, who himself is trying to comeback from a career threatening injury, takes the hill. Mets fans, please channel some positive energy in the direction of Miami tonight, for, if nothing else, being a sports fan gives you the opportunity to be hopeful. Being a baseball fan, in particular, lets you witness redemption.

With that said, Let’s Go Mets!

Neat German Ad

It's worth watching twice.

Brett Dennen

Last night, I went to see a Brett Dennen concert at the Cat’s Cradle. Here’s all you need to know about how cool Brett Dennen is. Earlier that afternoon, he did a free show in support of the local independent music store, at which he relied almost exclusively on requests from the audience. That’s pretty neat in itself. But in addition to that, immediately preceding the late show, he set up on the sidewalk and played for people waiting in line. Few things in life beat good, free, spontaneous music.

When he was taking requests at the early show, I asked him to play the song “Someday,” an upbeat-toe-tapper off his latest album, which includes the lyrics, “I may be weary but I am not weak/I can sing a song of suffering/Baby, a song unsung is dancing on the tip of your tongue/My salvation's ahead of me/I can feel it calling me/I know that I/I know that I will be ready.” You can see why I would request such a song. It’s right up my alley! Well, he looks me right in the eye and says, “Aw man, are you sure you want to hear that one?” Assuming that he’s looking for a little encouragement, I give him an emphatic head nod, as if to say, “Heck yeah, man! I love that song! I love you! Heck, I love love, man!” I mean, it was just a head nod, but that’s what I was trying to communicate; and he’s a hippy: he’d understand my vibe.

Having received my vote of affirmation, he then turns to the audience and says, “Shoot! OK, here’s the deal.” At this point, I start mentally back-peddling. Oh no, I think, I laid it on too thick. I should have left out the part of the head nod that was about loving love. A simple, Heck-yeah-head-nod would have been plenty, considering the circumstances. I seemed way too eager. Poor form. And, really, do I even love love? I mean, I like love, I want to spend time with and get to know love, but was I being honest when I blurted out that I love it? I got a little caught up in the moment. I start doing my more understated “Heck yeah! I like love.” head nod, but it’s too late, for he’s already re-directed his attention to the audience. “Ok. Well, I recorded that song, but wanted to leave it off the album, because I didn’t really think it fit with the rest of the songs. But, the producers [read: “suits”] wanted it on there, so, well, that’s why it’s on.” At this point, if I were able to un-request it, and put in a new request for any other song on the album, or perhaps if I was able to simply pass my turn on to the girl next to me, I would have done so. However, that wasn’t an option. I didn’t know how to communicate any of those ideas via head nod, and I wasn’t about to try to talk over him, for I had ruined his show enough as it was. No, I was married to my choice, and so was he. As he tried to remember how the song began, he said, “I’m not sure I’ve ever played this live before.”

What this all amounts to is that my one speaking line in the TV show was immediately followed by the sound effect, “Wah! Wah!” after which the audience gasps in disbelief. Momentary embarrassment aside, I don’t regret having asked for the song. After all, it provided some timely comic relief, as a whole record store was given the opportunity to laugh... at me. But that seems a fair price to pay in exchange for the song you want to hear, I suppose. In the end, he played it really well and the audience cheered louder after that song than any of the others. Much appreciated. The late show, with the full band, and without requests, was even better. It was a great day for music.

However, I am left with the uneasy sense that in the eternal struggle between fledgling artist and suit-and-tie-corporate-record-label, I’m (apparently) siding with the man. Yikes.

Here's one of his songs from the Album "So Much More," which I highly recommend. The lyrics to this song in particular are phenomenal, but the CD is great from top to bottom. (I couldn't find an 'official video,' so this will have to do.)



Go check out Brett Dennen’s music and go see him when he comes to a town near you! Just remember what not to ask for.

More on Religion/War

Dancing Monkeys, Redux

A few days ago, I put up a video about dancing monkeys. To me, it was a great example of satire. The purpose of satire is to use irony and sarcasm to expose human folly and vice. While the goal may be similar to that belonging to other modes of speech, we generally permit this genre of social commentary more leeway than, say, a political debate. Perhaps it can be argued that our desire to harshly criticize a particular work is inversely proportional to that work’s entertainment value. Because satire tends to amuse, we tend to be less critical towards it. This is why, I suspect, that comedians and satiricists, can get away with so much.

Take, for instance, Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” written back in 1729. Swift comes up with a rather clever solution to abate the poverty, homelessness, vagrancy, panhandling, and general hopelessness that plagues the city of Dublin’s lower class. He proposes that the poor be permitted to sell their babies to the rich. Such a solution would not only serve to unburden impoverished mothers and provide them with disposable income, but it would, at the same time, be to the public benefit of the rich, for, as Swift notes, citing an American with direct knowledge in such matters, “a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.” And while the audience is captivated by his analysis of the economic benefits of infanticide and cannibalism, Swift slyly exposes the injustices of the tenant-landlord system, addresses the import-export imbalance, discusses the prevalence of abortion in the slums, and shines light on the radical indifference the rich have for the poor. It’s a truly brilliant essay, delivered in a style of speech that permitted him to discuss issues that he would not have otherwise been able to.

I believe the monkey video is of a similar vein. While it makes some bold, eye-catching metaphysical claims – humans are insignificant in the grand scheme of things and God, at least as far as humans conceive him, does not exist – the video’s overall purpose is focused right here on earth, where human vice and folly have run amuck. For instance, he notes the fruits of human “potential” and “cleverness” – fiber optic technology, pyramids, sky-scrapers, phantom jets, the Great Wall of China, and an American flag on the moon – have done little or anything to cure humanities’ true maladies – unhappiness, hatred, racism, religious intolerance, loneliness, and war. Indeed, our continued focus on the trivial – taller buildings, faster modes of transport, longer walls, bigger pyramids, American Idol – only serves to distract us from the reality of our situation. Moreover, the greatest opiate of all, that which allows humans to sleep peacefully at night in the face of all our follies, is the Ptolemaic notion that the entire universe was made for the inhabitants of a tiny blue rock circling a tiny star in a tiny solar system in a tiny galaxy, as though it lay at the metaphysical center of The Grand Plan, the notion that, at the end of the day, despite our countless missteps, and continual denial thereof, a benign force will set things right eventually, and we are, therefore, justified in whatever we do.

What is not immediately obvious, however, is that such a suggestion is not anti-religious, nor is it anti-god, per se. It is, however, a stinging criticism of the way in which modern religions have come to understand their gods and humanity’s place in the universe. Of course, there is no reason to believe that the way that we do religion is the only way it can be done. It is at least possible that humans can conceive of a God, the worship of which would promote peace and understanding, tolerance and acceptance. The question is, do religions today advance these goals? Or, do they, more often than not, lead to dirision, hatred, and eventually war?

One of my best friends from high school, who is an atheist, once made a similar argument that religions cause wars, which, I, at the time, strongly opposed. I countered that to the extent that religion is a factor in war, it is likely more of a post-facto justification given by governments to curry support for a war that they already deemed tactically necessary; but also, if religion did not exist as such a justification, governments would drum up some other one. But the video made me question my original stance and I wondered if I could find any evidence for-or-against the proposition that religion still causes wars, even in civilized, educated modernity. I decided to do a little research, but immediately ran into some methodological problems. What exactly constitutes a war? What should be the threshold for ‘significant’? Should I consider the religion of the government in power or the religion of the majority of a country’s citizens? But most problematically, I had no way to ascertain the single proximate cause of any war.

Having noted some methodological problems, I will nevertheless push forward and consider US armed conflicts from 1950 onwards. According to this website, there have been 13 battles matching that description. One was against a predominantly Jewish country, two were against predominantly Buddhist countries, four were against predominantly Christian countries, and 6 were/are against predominantly Muslim countries. Using that method of counting, it seems that the US is quite democratic in choosing which religions to battle against. We may even be tempted to conclude that religion is not a factor at all.

However, I quickly realized that each of the “conflicts” against Christian countries seemed to be more of the peace-keeping variety, as opposed to the war-waging variety. This fact is borne out in the number of US casualties, which, in terms of the four conflicts in Christian countries, numbered 27, 6, 19, and 23. That is to say, in the past 57 years, the US has lost a total of 75 soldiers in battles in four separate Christian countries. (The Israelis claimed nearly half as many soldiers when they mistakenly bombed an allied US navy vessel in 1967, which accounted for 33 deaths, and the only US-Israeli “conflict,” and for which, mind you, there was no US retaliation.) In contrast, battles on Muslim soil have taken over 4,500 soldiers and counting. Battles on Buddhist soil have claimed over 14,000 soldiers. And, if we are counting dollars spent, rather than lives lost, which would then include the Cold War against the atheistic USSR, then this ceases to be a comparison at all, as Christian conflicts are dwarfed effectively into non-existence. Determining causality of a war is admittedly beyond my expertise, but it appears to me that if someone wanted to make the argument that religious difference strongly correlated with the number of lives lost or the number of dollars spent in US armed conflicts since 1950, then it appears that they would have plenty of fodder on which to base their argument.

Indeed, the notion that religiosity and bellicosity are strongly correlated is not a new one. Way back when, Plato suggested that society should actively encourage a vision of a blissful afterlife, for such a conception allows citizens to be fearless in the face of death, which, consequently, makes them good soldiers. Of course, this Platonic ideal can be taken too far and has often resulted in the senseless loss of lives of both soldiers and civilians for reasons and by tactics that no rightly-conceived god (seemingly) could ever justify.

Finally, I would like to address two points that Nathan raised in his comment on the video. First, as to the video’s internal consistency, my reading of the video is that it is, indeed, consistent. Where it mentions human potential, I do not think it is with reference to a transcendent moral standard. Rather, I think he is referring to human potential with sarcasm. The word potential is punctuated with the picture of an American flag on the moon, as if to say, so what? Even our greatest achievement (arguably) still amounts to nothing! In that sense, I think the video is consistently non-transcendent. Of course, if the author was not being sarcastic when he talks about human “potential” and “cleverness,” then Nathan would be correct in his criticism. I suppose it depends on how you read it. Secondly, as to the point of whether a Nihilist can rightly claim to be the only possessor of Truth, the answer is yes, precisely because a Nihilist doesn’t believe anyone is in any better position to judge Truth. Therefore, Nietzsche can say whatever he wants, but he is a monkey, too, as the video admits, and so is Ernest Cline. If nothing else, Nihilists are rather even-handed that way. Everyone’s a fool, even the one calling everyone a fool.

Lastly, when I put up the video, I did not realize that some people may be offended at the suggestion that all gods were made up. If you are a Nihilist, you probably agree with the statement. If you are an Absolutist who thinks that your God is the only true God, then you should at least see the partial truth in the claim, as it applies to everyone but you. And finally, if you are a Relativist, who thinks that everyone is seeing different aspects of the same God, then you likely have room in your heart even for those who see an absence of god, and, besides, you are likely not easily offended, you granola-eating hippie. Just kidding. You know I love you all and did not mean anyone individually any offense. Such things are meant to provoke thought rather than offense. My apologies to those who received it otherwise. Now, who wants a baby?

Dance Monkeys