Tag Archives: Yale

Remember Cawnpore, A Memoir of the Opium War–Chapter III (A Prodigious Amount of Ganja and Charas Is Ingested)

Posted on by under Novels, Remember Cawnpore

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Christopher and I drove in silence along the outskirts of several massive estates. Most of them were owned by men whose ancestors had profited from an amnesty granted in 1801 to European officers who’d previously helped to drill and even command contingents of Marathas. These Hindoo warriors were once the vassals of the Moslem emperor of the Moguls, whose dynasty had ostensibly ruled India in one form or another since the fifteenth century. For all intents and purposes, however, the Marathas had formed their own independent fighting forces for centuries in Northern India, and the agents of the East India Company effectively employed them as pawns against the forces of the collapsing Mogul Empire. As they did so, the British gradually assembled an empire of their own from the wreckage of aboriginal princely states.

But all that was a long time ago. By 1857, the Maratha name inspired more ridicule than awe among the British. Their last king, Bajee Rao, had been humiliated against the Company in battle and ended his days reduced to living on a pension in a gaudy palace in Bithoor, just outside of Cawnpore. This monthly allowance was suspended upon his death. His adopted son and successor, the Nana Sahib, was a notorious local character who spent his days holding picnics on his estate and his evenings pleading for British solicitors’ advice on how the defunct pension might be transferred to himself. That is almost all that I knew of him at the time beyond tales of his obesity, poor complexion, and modest talent at snookers. I would never have guessed at the fellow’s future notoriety.

Christopher and I presently smoked a great mound of charas, ganja, and tobacco mixed together in the mouth of a chillum. Then we said nothing for about an hour. I told myself that the intoxicants made us reticent. Finally, Christopher had the courage to lean over and address me in his drawling American accent.

“Did you miss me?”

“Christ, don’t be an idiot.”

Silence.

“So, Maxim, what brings you back to the Highlands?”

“My love of the land.”

“What a romantic answer.”

“I was obviously being sarcastic. After all I’ve been through, I could care less about this place.”

“Are you honestly telling me that the District means nothing to you?”

“No. And it’s so scalding hot this time of year that you literally can’t step out of doors between eleven and six without risking sun poisoning. Europeans should never have settled here. We don’t belong.”

“But didn’t you tell me that you’d go camping with your father in the fields around the Ganges when you were a little boy?”

“What has that got to do with anything?”

“You used to describe those stories so poetically to me, your memories are proof that you’re lying to me now about your indifference to India. I remember camping trips with my own father on the cliffs around New Haven. I’ll love Connecticut until I die, just as I do the Highlands. And I know that you feel the same way about this place.”

“That’s what you think.”

“Well, I don’t care what you say. This is a fine country, fit for indigo and poppies. And there’s a kind of timelessness here.”

“Nothing is more impermanent than the land, Christopher. The river shifts. The ryots come and go. And honestly, this is an ugly place. Completely mundane. There’s no drama in the landscape – nothing but blood red plains. Trust me. I’ve seen mountains—real mountains. Nothing in India can compare.”

“I’ll have you know that the piddling hills of Scotland—”

“You’ve never even been to Scotland.”

“…that the piddling hills of Scotland are nothing compared to the Himalayas.”

“Which are far away from here, and which you have similarly never seen.”

“It doesn’t matter whether or not I’ve seen them, fool. They’re physically located in India, and proof that what you just said was wrong.”

“Excuse me?”

“Didn’t you just tell me that nothing in India can compare to the mountains you’ve seen in Scotland?”

“Yes, but when I used the word India, I meant this specific area of the country, and not the whole geographical region in general.”

“What were we talking about? I don’t remember.”

“I don’t remember either. It’s a good opportunity to change the subject. Heard any infectious parlor songs lately?”

“It’s not my funeral, but you have to admit that you have the taste in music of a coot.”

“I don’t give a hooter,” I said, mocking his dialect. “There’s great beauty to parlor music, and I’m not ashamed that I love it. For example, that song you greeted me with-”

“O ye’ll tak’ the high road, and I’ll tak’ the low road!” he threatened.

“Shut up. But yes, that song, Loch Lomond…it has special meaning. I mean, there’s an entire history associated with its lyrics.”

“It’s high-falutin, is it?”

I yawned and stretched my arms.

“You could say that, yes. The song’s about two soldiers in the army of Bonnie Prince Charlie.”

“What the hell sort of name is Bonnie Prince Charlie?”

“A pretty bad one. Anyway, he had a claim to the throne of England. And these two soldiers in his army… they were captured by the English and locked in Carlisle Castle. One of them was going to be executed—going to take the low road…and the other one was going to be released and travel on the high road back to Scotland.”

“Or visa versa. The high road could also be a symbol for Heaven, couldn’t it?”

“No, Christopher. The high road isn’t symbolic of anything. It’s as mundane as Purgatory.”

“Is mundane your new favorite word? Tell me, who are you to have the final say on the interpretation of the lyrics?”

“Stop trying to pick arguments with me. The point is, the song is a monument to the love between best friends.”

“How can you compare it to anything by, say, Verdi?  It’s trash by comparison, sentimental trash fit for wakes and funerals. You English-”

“I’m Scotch.”

“Whatever you are, you have embarrassingly bad taste. Parlor-tunes are nauseating treacle as far as I’m concerned. Songs like What Is Home Without a Mother? are nothing but slime.”

“And what’s so wonderful about Verdi other than the fact that he’s Italian?”

“Are you joking? He’s passionate, he’s larger than life, he’s…damn it, he’s modern.”

I looked solemnly at Christopher for a moment and tried to break the silence by farting. My intestines obliged with such a ludicrously high pitched peep, however, that we both began to laugh uncontrollably. He repaid me with a loud,

“Libiamo, libiamo ne’ lieti calici che la belleza infiora!”

“Admit that you only praise Verdi because you’re an Italian yourself! Your grandparents were from Ischia, weren’t they?”

“Balls! Verdi is beautiful everywhere, to everyone. Besides, I’m not Italian. I was born in Connecticut, just like my mother was. And my grandparents were only Italian on my father’s side of the family, just as you’re only English on yours.”

“Scotch! And you’re wrong—my mother was only a Nagar Brahmin on Ayah Rupee’s side of the family. I’m…I’m but a quarter native.”

“God, what difference does it make? And incidentally, Maxim, today’s Italy-” he paused for a moment, licking his lips. Then, he began to speak again with increased conviction. “Today’s Italy is literally fighting for its independence, for its birthright. Verdi’s music is like the voice of the national spirit raised in song… and your Scottish ditty is all about dying for the sake of monarchy.”

“Wrong. As I said, the song is about the love between two soldiers who’ll never see each other again. As to whether or not it captures a national ethos…”

“What a big word!  Greek, is it?”

“The song is exquisitely beautiful, moron. Its politics are incidental.”

“Politics are never incidental when it comes to art. I’ll have you know that when Verdi composed Rigoletto, he and Francesco Maria Piave-”

“Who?”

“He was Verdi’s lyricist. They actually had to fight against the Austrian Board of Censors to have their opera published.”

Christopher grunted and nodded his head in a self-satisfied sort of way. I looked at him quizzically.

“Why are you talking about the Austrian Board of Censors?” I had literally forgotten.

“Verdi and his friend fought the Board of Censors to produce Rigoletto,” he repeated. “It took real grit to do that.”

“So what?”

“In other words, it wasn’t anonymous folk music that they created. It was something greater than that—something defiant and patriotic.”

“And?”

“And nothing. That’s it!”

“You can’t possibly be arguing that it’s really the context of a piece’s creation that makes it beautiful, and not the thing itself, can you? After all, an objective audience would be deaf and dumb to all of those kinds of issues.”

“No, idiot. You’re setting up a straw man. Even with no knowledge of a piece’s history at all, it can still be inherently impressive to the ear. Especially in the case of Verdi.”

“If you can call screaming sopranos impressive.”

“Don’t be ignorant. What I’m trying to explain to you is that politics is only part of what makes opera beautiful. But that part is vital. We’re living in a new age, Maxim. Empires are dying, and nations are being born.”

“This all sounds very subversive.”

“And you sound like a civil servant. I forgot how puritanical you get when you’re losing a debate.”

“I am not losing a debate. I’m not even arguing with you! We were just having a friendly talk about the merits of different types of music, weren’t we? And I believe you were making the ludicrous argument that politics have something… have anything to do with aesthetic judgments…”

“I’m sorry, but the conversation has advanced beyond that. Now, you have to admit that like it or not, I’m right about what the future will be like. Think about it, Maxim, the birth of whole new states… at the hands of everyone from the carbonari of Italy to the sepoys of India.”

“Utter nonsense.”

“Viva Italia, Viva India!”

I remember that a flock of parrots flew overhead when he said that.

“Spare me your platitudes,” I ventured over the sound of their flapping wings. “There’s no comparison between Italy and India. Even if the mutineers drove every European out of this place, it would quickly be Moslem versus Hindoo versus Sikh in this country. Since the days of Alexander and Porus, India has only existed in the Western imagination. Everybody knows that religion is stronger than anything else when it comes to peoples’ loyalties here, and certainly more influential than national politics of any sort.”

“Then why are the Musselmen and Hindoos cooperating with each other so eagerly in this present revolution?”

“It’s a mutiny, not a revolution.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Proper perspective. Besides, do you see many Sikhs joining against us? Trust me, so long as nothing but the commercial interests of the British Empire unite the people of this place, independence is inconceivable.”

“Incidentally, that ridiculous line about Alexander and Porus and the Western imagination…did you steal it from someone?”

“I did not. Attribute my eloquence to the charas.”

“I never denied that you could be a proper wise-ass, on occasion.”

He breathed deeply before continuing to speak.

“You’ve been away for five years,” he finally said, “and have chosen a hell of a time to come back.”

“Well, there’s a reason I’m back,” I answered mysteriously. “I have important news… and I need money.”

He laughed in my face when I said that.

“I see that you’re still perfectly selfish, Maxim. Are you oblivious to what’s happening around you? If the mutiny spreads here, it’s Armageddon.”

“Well, when Armageddon looms, perhaps perfectly selfish people might be useful blokes to have around.”

“Alright, alright. At least you didn’t lie and say you were coming home to rescue us! Now, enough bullshit. Where were you all this time, and why are you dressed like some ragamuffin out of Oliver Twist?”

I remember that he didn’t lift his voice on the final syllable of the sentence, so that it took a moment for me to realize that he was even asking a question. When I did, I cleared my throat before saying,

“I was filibustering with Billy Walker in Nicaragua.”

“Some pumpkins,” he said dismissively, making no pretense of believing me. Then he repeated “A hell of a time to come back,” and focused his gaze on the horizon. “Do you remember when we were kids and would dream about sailing the Nereid all the way to Corea?”

“I think about it every night.”

“We were pretty naïve then.”

“Were we?”

We were silent for a long time again. Finally, to irritate him, I asked,

“Are you angry that I didn’t say goodbye to you before I left?”

“Not at all. After all, you left a note. To this day, I treasure it as a valued snot-rag.”

He contorted his mouth into a sort of half-smile, and the conversation ended at that. There were times when I felt like punching him in the face and shattering his porcelain features, offset by what can only be described as an elegantly receding hairline, hidden at the moment under a pith helmet. His was not that messy sort of baldness that starts on the top of the head and ravages the scalp in increasingly destructive concentric circles. No, it was Julius Caesar’s type—the sort that vain men try to conceal by maneuvering their dying bangs. I told myself to poke fun at Christopher for being a bald son of a bitch.

He’d reminded a disinherited and broken man of his passion for all he’d lost, and he brought up too, as if off-handedly, the topic of his polluted blood—the causa causarum of his every misfortune. It was all done subtly enough, but sure as hell, I believed then that he was trying to cause me excruciating pain, as I had once caused him. But then again, perhaps I was wrong. I still don’t know.

A Few Translations of Catullus

Posted on by under Journal, Poetry

Catull_Sirmione

Here are some of my translations of the Roman poet Catullus.

***

3

Venus, Cupids, beat your heads,

My girl’s little bird is dead!

It was her favorite pet and prize,

She loved it more than her own eyes.

A sweeter bird than any other,

It knew her like it knew its mother.

It learned to stay upon her knee,

And leapt about so happily.

For her alone it sang quite well,

But now it makes a trip to hell,

To that abode of no return.

Oh God of Death, horrid and stern!

You stole the little beast from me,

The sweetest pet in history,

It was so cute it was absurd,

Oh evil deed, poor little bird!

Now because you’re lying dead,

My girls eyes have both turned red.

***

5

Lesbia, let’s love and live,

And not a fuck for gossip give.

Suns can die and then revive,

But we poor beings who are alive,

When once expires our little light,

Must all sleep through one endless night.

Kiss me one thousand one hundred times,

Then do it again, force the total to climb.

Kiss me one thousand one hundred times more,

Then do it again, so the number will soar.

Then let’s just agree to mix up and lose count,

Lest we or the jealous should know the amount.

***

7

Lesbia asks a question that’s tough:

how many kisses of hers are enough?

How about the number of grains of sand,

In Libya, medicinal-herb bearing land,

Where Jupiter’s oracle sweats and spouts doom,

And old king Battus built his tomb,

Or the number of stars in the silence of night,

Those voyeurs who peak at affairs before light?

Something like that, I believe, would suffice,

For your lovesick Catullus, upon the advice

That it’s best for the sum total never to lag,

So that snoops cannot count them, or evil tongues wag.

***

8

Wretched Catullus, do not be a fool—

Love burgeons and wanes, an unvarying rule.

Bright suns once shone in the heavens for you

When you echoed your woman in all that she’d do,

No lover was ever so truly adored,

Ere wit fell to silence, before she grew bored,

When you and your lover devoured each hour,

Blazing suns, truly, supplied you their power.

Now she doesn’t want you—you must be a man,

Don’t live as a wretch, nor pursue where she ran.

With a firm mind, endure—this must be your plan.

Now Catullus is firm—goodbye to my soul.

I’ll inquire no more, indifference my goal.

Perhaps you will weep, no man’s prospect or wife,

Poor woman, poor wretch, what remains of your life?

Whom will you kiss? Whose lips will you bite?

Don’t ask, old Catullus. Endure the dead light.

***

93

Julius Caesar, I won’t kiss your ass,

And don’t give a damn if you have any class.

***

85

I hate and I love. How is this possible? I’m at a loss.

But I feel it happen, and am nailed to a cross.

***

59

Rufa of Bologna and Rufulus screw.

She’s the wife of Menenus, often whom you

catch snatching her dinners from pyres of the dead,

chasing up all fallen pieces of bread.

The unshaven cremator soon beats her head.

***

50

It was last night, Licinius, we shared some special time

extemporizing verses and then dueling point for rhyme.

Agreeing to unleash our wits, we scribbled out each line

repaying any interest with our jokes and drinks of wine.

And then last night, Licinius, I went home set alight

By hunger not for food but for your sarcasm and bite.

Starving for the kiss of sleep, my soul succumbed to fury.

I writhed under my bed sheets. I lay awake with worry.

I couldn’t wait for daylight and that blessed hour when

I’d see you face to face, and we could share good times again.

And sprawled out on my couch half dead, with all work set aside,

I wrote this poem for you in hopes you’d pity broken pride.

Now don’t deny me what I want, o apple of my eye,

or the cruel goddess Nemesis might curse you by and by.

She’s quite a bitchy enemy, and so you’d best beware—

Think twice before you shake your head in answer to this prayer.

***

51

Like a god or more, he glistens,

Since he sits there, stares, and listens

As you laugh, which spells for me

Paralysis and misery.

I saw you once. I had no choice.

My tongue was tied. I lost my voice.

I closed my eyes in lust and yearning.

Mute and dumb, my body burning.

Boredom, Catullus, for you is a pain,

Making you writhe and fidget in vain.

Such boredom has proven the ruin of things:

Glorious cities, and many great kings.

***

109 & 70

You promise, my life, that now and forever

This same joyous love will keep us together.

Sweet gods, I pray that her promise is true:

Grant that she’ll mean it in all that she’ll do,

That this bond be lifelong and held without end,

Not just with my lover, but my sacred friend.

She says that she’d take me before even Zeus

To be her betrothed, but her meaning is loose.

All a girl says to a lover who craves,

Write on the wind and commit to the waves.

 

Putting My Whole Life on Instagram for a Year

Posted on by under Journal

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I’ve decided to document a year of my life on Instagram. After joining the platform a couple of weeks ago, it struck me that it had a great capacity for narrative storytelling that was seemingly underutilized by the majority of its patrons. Untold numbers of amazing photographers posted images of great beauty to the site, but there was scarcely ever a clear chronological narrative to anyone’s portfolio. I considered the fact that this was a shame; if art is an imitation of life, then a photo-journal of a whole year’s worth of experiences would seem to be a project well worth undertaking. At the same time, it seemed like a cool and interesting challenge to learn a new art form and craft what would essentially amount to a comic-book version of my daily adventures, for what they’re worth. And when the year was up, I figured that I would have constructed an incomparable monument to a little slice of my personal history to which I could return forever.

To be honest, by most accounts, my life these days is pretty boring. It involves teaching a class at Fairfield, composing a novel, blogging, and preparing my dissertation; the imaginary and historical worlds that I type about are much more interesting than the banal comings and goings of my reality as a writer. I’ve learned that the most beautiful frames of my existence can be manifested as a stream of selfies, snapshots of cats, portraits of food, images of the changing seasons, and various pictures of the people and architecture of New Haven. I’m sure talented photographers with more exciting existences than mine would be truly enthralling to follow, but to flatter myself, even in the case of my humdrum life and in the thematic shadow of my incompetence and inexperience as a cameraman armed with nothing but his iPhone, you can’t help but be at least somewhat interested by someone when you see the world through their eyes for a while, and learn to understand what they consider to be beautiful.

In many ways, Instagram is a perfect platform for a project like this—strangers meet there every day to laud each other’s photos in glowing terms, and it’s possible to build a large and enthusiastic audience of followers from around the world relatively quickly. At the same time, though, most Instagram users are on the hunt for rapid beauty and the swift consumption of photographs rather than the musings of a verbose stranger whose life they can study in detail. My captions are too long, and because I’m trying to utilize several photos a day to explain an unfolding narrative, not all of my pictures are as beautiful as they might be. I have likely alienated some of my friends on the site by my oversharing—I understand that they want to see pictures of Fiji and sundry cute things, and are not too interested in my eating Fruit Loops and heading off to the library.

Still, I persist. Since joining Instagram, my vantage point on mundane reality has been transformed. I’ve come to appreciate that all around me at any given time, there is a great deal of beauty and interest if I’m only alert enough to be sensitive to it. A butterfly or squirrel passing by can be interpreted as a game of tag; a long wait at a coffee shop can be seen as an opportunity to take a close look at the bouquet on the counter. I’m inspired to visit art galleries and parks and friends in other cities so that I can have more diverse photos on my account; incidentally, this also brings greater interest to my daily life. I suddenly have a reason to go to Mystic Seaport, and plan a trip to Newport.

At the same time, Instagram creates pressure on me to do my work, because I feel like I’m performing for an audience. My experiment has transformed what proved to be a terrible month into something a little bit more beautiful. Most of my friends have graduated, and I’m less well known on the debate circuit than I used to be; these days, when I announce a new blog post on Facebook, I’ll be lucky to receive one or two likes. But on Instagram, a cute picture of Mousepud is sure to get dozens of reactions. I don’t have many followers, but those who have stuck by my page seem sincerely supportive and friendly. In many ways, I now have a Greek chorus following me around all day. It’s extraordinary.

On the train to work today, I kept looking out the window trying to find things to shoot. Just after we left Bridgeport, I saw a herd of elephants. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There were five or six of them in what seemed to be a penned-in parking lot. We passed by so quickly, I didn’t have time to take a picture. Yet no one else seemed to see the elephants but me. Nobody was even looking. There was the difference.

***

(My account name on Instagram is spqrkimel.)

The Untold History of the United States–A Review of a Question and Answer with Oliver Stone

Posted on by under Journal

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I met Oliver Stone tonight. He was at Yale to promote a documentary and book he created about twentieth century American history: “The Untold History of the United States.” He showed us an hour long episode from the documentary. It lambasted Truman, calling him one of the worst Presidents in American history. Stone particularly blasts Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan (pardon the unfortunate pun there). Stone suggests that the bombings were unnecessary to a peaceful resolution of the war. “The conflict was about to end anyway.” Had Truman only behaved more diplomatically and allowed the USSR to invade Japan, says Stone, there would never have been a Cold War. The nuclear arms race would never have begun. As proof of this idea, he cites Curtis LeMay’s declaration that the atomic bomb had “nothing” to do with ending the war. If “Bombs Away LeMay” said this, Stone reasons, it must be true. He blames Truman for almost singlehandedly derailing the course of twentieth century history, which would have been much better served had he never become President.

Now, I TF’ed a course at Yale last semester on the military history of the West since 1500, and I disagreed with a great deal of the documentary. I didn’t know where to begin when I raised my hand to ask a question of Stone and his colleague. I finally settled on a two part query: “What do you think of the idea of detonating the atomic bomb off the coast of Japan instead of over Hiroshima?” and “what about the idea that the existence of nuclear bombs and mutually assured destruction essentially prevented us from fighting World War Three?” Their answer to the first question was that an experimental use of the bomb might have been an inspired idea that would have helped to intimidate the Japanese into immediate surrender; their answer to the second question was that nuclear bombs made the USSR unnecessarily antagonistic toward the US. Instead, Truman and Stalin could have cooperated on creating a “common man’s century instead of an American century.” At one point, Stone and his colleague literally encouraged the students in the audience to form a revolutionary vanguard. I couldn’t believe my ears—the filmmakers were advocating no less than an alternate version of American history in which the USA became communist.

I would have loved to have said that the reason Curtis LeMay claimed the atomic bomb had nothing to do with ending the war was that he wanted his squads of bombers to get all the credit for that feat. He’d been working for years on fire-bombing Japanese cities, and hoped to claim the glory of the unconditional surrender for himself. And I don’t understand how Stone can simultaneously say that the dropping of the bomb had no effect on ending World War Two, but at the same time that merely detonating an explosive off the coast would have browbeaten the Japanese into surrender. Isn’t this an implicit admission of the fact that the bombs had psychological effects pivotal to ending the war? In fact, the Japanese fought onward until a second bomb was dropped. Do the filmmakers seriously believe that an invasion of the home islands wouldn’t have resulted in millions of lives lost? Or that the Stalinist USSR would have been the best protector of post-war Japan? The documentary said nothing about Stalinist atrocities—the Soviets were largely portrayed as innocent bystanders looking on in horror at Truman’s machinations. Do the filmmakers understand what Stalinist Russia was like? Do they really believe that there would not have been an arms race if the atomic bomb weren’t created in the mid 1940s?

Someone in the audience kept wheezing all night long so loudly that I thought he was going to die—people almost called an ambulance. The old man sitting next to me kept yelling out commentary during the movie like the old men who sit in the theater box on the Muppet Show; I thought it was hilarious. One high school girl asked the filmmaker if he recommended students become “spies” as a patriotic way to help America; Stone almost burst out laughing, and so did I. When it was all over, I talked with some lingerers in the audience, who whispered to me that they thought the film might have been oversimplifying the situation unfairly vis a vis Truman. I agreed. The documentary’s insistence that Truman might have ended the war earlier had he agreed to maintain the office of Japanese emperor rather than call for unconditional surrender was intriguing, though. And it can’t be denied that over the years, Truman consistently gave greater and greater estimates for how many lives the bombs saved, beginning by claiming that they preserved thousands of soldiers, but then raising the total over the years until the sum reached millions.

Eventually, I met Stone face to face at the front of the room. I wanted to ask for a selfie, but was too shy. Instead, I told him I loved Alexander. He told me I should see the 6 hour director’s cut. Then I lied and said it was a shame he never directed I, Claudius. He said, “that has already been directed.” I hugely respected that answer. We shook hands, and went our separate ways.

Talking to Air (A Rap of Jesus on the Cross)

Posted on by under Music, Poetry

Check out 2:19–2:25–it’s awesome. If it wasn’t for this little miracle caught on film, I probably would have deleted the video.

I wrote this rap in 2012 but only got around to shooting it this summer in Jerusalem. I shot it on my cousin’s Go Pro camera and filmed it in and around the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which is the site of the crucifixion and the tomb of Jesus. The lyrics are mine, but I found the music on youtube and downloaded it to Audacity; unfortunately, the link to the original soundtrack is now dead, and I don’t know whom to thank for the beat. I’ve been writing songs for a long time, but until now, how only shared them with a few close friends and relatives.

***

Lord, hear my prayer,
Prove that you’re there.
Lord, hear my prayer,
I’m talking to air.

It’s not such good news.
To be King of the Jews,
And revel with devils
Predestined to lose.
I once was the muse
Of an impious ruse,
A sinister rebel,
Or so I’m accused.
Pelted with pebbles
And curses and boos,
This is an end
No messiah would choose.

Lord, hear my prayer,
Prove that you’re there.
Lord, hear my prayer,
I’m talking to air.

Dragged to the court, my defense wasn’t wordy.
And now I am strangled and beaten and dirty,
Nailed alive on a cross that’s unsturdy,
And dying a virgin at barely age thirty.

I feel like I’m dreaming.
I’m shaking; I’m screaming.
I’m not very proud
To be sobbing so loud
And throbbing in anguish
In front of the crowd.
But at least there’s the fact
that this hillside is packed
To see my last act
As I squirm and react.
But the rabble is crude,
And their babble is lewd.
And to top it all off
I’m ashamed to be nude.

I feel myself dying.
My mother is crying.
I swear it’s all right,
But she knows that I’m lying.
Praying won’t help,
But she can’t help but trying.

Lord, hear my prayer,
Prove that you’re there.
Lord, hear my prayer,
I’m talking to air.

I say all the Psalms.
I can’t feel my palms.
I can’t move my fingers.
A burning pain lingers.
My quaking lungs quiver,
and shaking feet shiver.
In one gruesome dither
I puke up my liver.
Oh God, to return to the green Jordan River!

The man to my right
Wants to start up a fight.
In a voice hoarse but lyrical
Being satirical,
Says, do a miracle.
It’s not so empirical.

When will this pass?
How long will it last?

The man to my left,
Who was sentenced for theft,
In a voice that’s mysterious,
Not deleterious.
Likely delirious,
Says I’m imperious,
He can’t be serious.
I don’t believe
All they say I achieved.
So there is no reprieve.

Lord, hear my prayer,
Prove that you’re there.
Lord, hear my prayer,
I’m talking to air.

I stare at the sun in an act of defiance.
Its unbearable glare makes me wince in compliance.

Oh God, hear my cry!
Oh when will I die!

I thrash my head against the cross,
but consciousness still isn’t lost.
Sweat is flowing, flesh is torn,
Gore pours from the crown of thorns.
At least it doesn’t bother me
To never know who fathered me,
Now he won’t feel any pain
Or have to see me croak in vain.

Now the pungent stench is shameful.
Every breath is drawn and painful.
Heartbeat plunging ever lower,
Broken coughs are getting slower.

Then although my faith resists,
I start to doubt that God exists.

“Eli lama sabachthani?”

I close my eyes, and then I see
That now the devil’s run amok.
And I’ve run out of all my luck.
And with the dying breath I suck.
Before I die, I whisper…

Using Math to Explore the Fall of the Roman Empire

Posted on by under History

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I am firmly committed to the idea that there is great value in exploring change over time in Roman history using mathematical models. Since antiquity itself, scholars have debated broad questions concerning the forces responsible for the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.  But in the status quo, fundamental elements of the debate seem relegated to the realm of the pseudo-scientific, since it seems impossible to either confirm or deny broad claims such as “barbarian pressure along the frontier was more responsible for the ultimate decline of Roman civilization than the long-term effects of civil war.” In fact, historians making precisely opposite claims can point to compelling data from archaeological and literary records to bolster their hypotheses. Preferring one explanation over another sometimes becomes a matter of personal taste or academic politics rather than an empirical exercise, which is only exacerbated by the fact that so much information from the ancient world itself is lacking. The fact that medievalists and classicists often interpret and answer major questions about antiquity and the early Middle Ages so differently is the clearest indication of this trend. Indeed, in the tradition of certain historians like Irene Barbiera and Gianpiero Dalla-Zuanna, some have even gone so far as to question whether the very disintegration of the Roman Empire should be interpreted as a fundamentally regressive phenomenon at all, with historians of the Early Middle Ages increasingly challenging simplistic models of decline and fall.

How can all of these narratives be reconciled, let alone evaluated against each other in an objective context?

Originally, I hoped to engage in a novel approach to these questions, making use of tools traditionally employed in fields outside of the Classics. Imagine we were looking at a map of the Roman Empire, divided into many quadrants.

These are the elements that would be tracked:

1) the locations of iron deposits and other natural resources that can be pinned down with a fair degree of accuracy, including the locations of major mines (these are, of course, static)

2) the locations of where the Roman emperor was declared, and where he was physically during each month of his reign, which can be tracked with great accuracy over several centuries

3) The locations of recorded battles

4) the locations of the Roman legions themselves; their movement can be crudely mapped out over the course of five centuries

5) the location of the city of Rome itself, major roads, and other geographical features (Mediterranean sea and the Rhine-Danube frontier)

I tentatively hypothesize that times of plague, rebellion, and civil war should show statistically significant changes in the relationships between the static and dynamic data sets as such periods would lend themselves to efforts to seize control of local mineral deposits and resource-distribution-centers.  By contrast, in times of relative internal stability, the Rhine-Danube frontier is more likely to attract dynamic movement in response to external pressure along the borders. Permanent changes in spatial relationships can suggest watershed moments in Roman history.

The upshot of all this is that using the right mathematical tools, the relationship between these variables can be systematically evaluated, and we can investigate what various causal forces (internal or external) seem to have been responsible for violence at different points in time. For example, considering a specific span of time, do major battles and troop movements statistically clump along the Rhine-Danube frontier, or do things like the locations of local resources and the physical location of men proclaimed the Roman emperor play weightier role as a source of attraction? The former would suggest the long term influence of external pressures during this era, and the latter internal dynamics. At the same time, do relationships among major variables change after major events in Roman history such as the advent of the Antonine Plague, the establishment of a new capital, or the rise of Christianity? What is statistically likelier to attract battles at any given point in time—cities, mineral deposits, or geographical features along the border? The answer to this question reveals something fundamental about the texture of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.

Once all of this work was done for the Roman Empire itself, it would be fascinating to employ similar methods to explore Mediterranean history in the period of the Republic, when I predict that the major causal networks determining troop movements would be quite different, perhaps oriented more around features of the Mediterranean coastline and the locations of major mineral deposits as opposed to the case of the Empire, when unity was achieved and the focus turned to defense rather than offense. If the data were compared to information from Han China, I hypothesize that the “particles” representing armies and battles would move synchronously across the continent at certain times in response to pan-Eurasian forces such as plague, the spread of technologies, and the movement of barbarian tribes. This would provide strong support for the idea of macrohistorical forces at work in determining causal outcomes in history.

Nevertheless, after a great deal of soul searching and wavering, I have decided to focus my dissertation on orgiastic display, violence, and politics. There were several reasons for this.

  1. As I said above, I think that exploring change over time in Roman history using mathematical models would be incredibly interesting. However, because the nature of my work in this field is experimental, I am worried that the success of my dissertation would be largely contingent on whether or not my mathematical hypotheses in fact bore fruit. I can’t guarantee anything of the sort, however, until I actually examine the data. It may be that mineral deposits attract battles, for example, or it may not be. It might be the case that Han and Roman data line up nicely, but again, there is nothing to guarantee this.
  2. Writing the quantitative dissertation might have alienated me in the eyes of others in the field and on the job market. The topic seems iconoclastic, to say the least, and I think that there would exist great skepticism about my new methodology. At first glance, my idea seems simultaneously too traditional and too futuristic. Because it seems to touch upon universalizing schematizations about the nature of historical change and is focused on military history and troop movement, it seems like a throwback; at the same time, because it deals with mathematical regressions and computer modelling, it seems too out there.
  3. I would prefer to leave the option open to me of co-authoring a tight, focused article using quantitative methods with colleagues who are already familiar with the available software so that we could learn and work together on the project; by contrast, I think that the dissertation should necessarily involve strictly independent research. At this point, guaranteeing that I could master the mapping software quickly enough to write a great dissertation seemed too risky a prospect.
  4. The dissertation should be immersed in and enriched by existing discourse on the subject, making a specific informed contribution to an ongoing conversation. However, there is in fact very little existing discourse on the mathematical relationships between the locations of battles, emperors, and geographic features/natural resources and the significance of these changing correlations over time. If I did something like make the dissertation a broader study of “decline and change” in Roman history and relegated the quantitative methods to an appendix, it would be a shame—the quantitative methods require a great deal of work, and probably deserve to shine in their own paper.

Ultimately, staking the entire dissertation on something so novel seemed riskier to me than utilizing my quantitative methods in a separate project.

All Was For the Best

Posted on by under Journal, Philosophy

Writing

I woke up early today to have brunch at a pizza parlor with an old friend from the debate circuit who now teaches philosophy at Yale. We talked about Leibniz’s theory that this is the “best of all possible worlds.” I’d assigned Candide to my class at Fairfield, and was interested in discussing the way that Voltaire parodied Leibniz’s optimism in the person of Dr Pangloss, who is basically portrayed as a nincompoop. It seemed to me that Voltaire was being unfair to Leibniz by constantly misinterpreting his philosophy to imply that just because this might be the best of all possible worlds, it must necessarily follow that this is the best of all possible worlds for each individual person.

Now, I’ve never actually read Leibniz, but I told my friend that I imagined the philosopher’s argument must have been that if God is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient, then nothing would preclude Him from creating the best world possible—only this state of affairs would be in harmony with his knowledge of the Good, his love of the Good, and his ability to bring about the Good. I also guessed that Leibniz argued that the Good might stand beyond human reason, so that turns of events which seem unjust to mere mortals might ultimately be bound up in a nexus serving a higher purpose—for example, it is tragic that humans die of disease from an individual perspective, but the urge to triumph over illness inspires medical advances, which enhance happiness in the long term, etc. As Voltaire himself suggests in Candide, our knowledge of God’s purposes might ultimately be akin to rats’ awareness of the intentions of the sailors on the ships on which they travel.

My friend explained to me that Leibniz’s argument was actually that given a Newtonian idea of absolute space, there must be some sufficient reason that the universe is located where it is and arranged the way it is rather than, say, in another permutation five meters to the left; this reason, Leibniz concluded, must be bound to God’s arranging matters for “the best.” But as my friend wisely pointed out, perhaps Leibniz was wrong to assume that this is the best of all possible worlds—for example, it might be that God operates according to the principle that all universes in which net Good outweighs net Bad should be allowed to exist, though all of them are technically imperfect. Then my friend and I talked about the implications of quantum physics on these kinds of questions, especially the theory that there might be “multiple worlds.” After that, we discussed his dog for a while, and recipes for eggplant Parmesan.

Then I taught Roman history and Latin to a group of ten home schoolers. It went very well; the students had so much fun, one of them threw his pencil across the room in triumph after winning a game that I’d invented, nearly impaling one of his classmates. After two and a half hours, I left the class and walked toward the library to return a microphone that I’d used to record some new raps earlier this week. On the way, I met Patricia, an elderly woman who panhandles on York Street. She asked me to help her cross the street and to walk her to her house. She often asks passersby to hold her hand and accompany her down the block; she is very frail, and moves quite slowly. I always say yes to her, because I imagine that this awkward ritual is one of her only opportunities to enjoy physical contact with other human beings. The last time I took a walk with her, she told me, “I wish that the Lord would take me. I mean it. I have no friends, and no one loves me. I bring no happiness to anyone, and I am always in pain. I wish that the Lord would take me.” I didn’t know what to say to her when she told me that, but the memory of her quavering voice still haunts me. Today, though, she seemed in better spirits, and talked enthusiastically about the weather. We usually talk about the weather on these walks.

Suddenly, I realized that I was no longer holding the briefcase containing the microphone. I scrambled back to the classroom, then to the pizza parlor, and then back to the classroom again. The people at the Lost and Found were most unhelpful (though I appreciated that the secretary had a basket of candy necklaces on hand for visitors to enjoy; I hadn’t eaten one of those in ages, and stole about three of them and a couple of lollipops when she wasn’t looking.) I assumed all was lost, and Emailed the library offering to pay for the vanished microphone. Then I rushed to a lecture on climate change in the Roman Empire, thinking more about the several hundred dollars I’d now have to pay to replace the microphone rather than the details of the lecture. When it was all over, I met with a statistics professor and talked about my proposed methodology for examining the fall of the Roman Empire using mathematical models. He suggested that I would be better served by talking to experts in mapping software.

By this time, it was eight at night. As I walked home, I passed a heavyset African American woman on the street in her late forties. She was crumpled on the steps of an apartment building and sobbing very loudly. Everybody was ignoring her. I asked her what was wrong, and she explained to me that her husband had run off with her daughter, taking all of her money. She didn’t even have enough cash for a train ticket back to her home town. No one would help her, she said; everyone was laughing at her. I gave her a hug and all the money I had in my wallet. She began to thank God, and we hugged again. I turned to leave, but she stopped me with her hand. “Why is life so hard?” she asked me, as if she were expecting an answer. I looked at her sadly, but she insisted more loudly, “Why are people so mean to each other? Why is life so hard? I want to know.”

“I think that most people in the world have experienced disappointment in life and are unhappy,” I said. “They’re too focused on their own problems to remember to be kind. But there is kindness in the universe. Remember that.” She pressed my hand as if I’d said something meaningful, and then we parted. I’d never see her again in my life, I thought.

When I got home, I saw an Email from the library in my Inbox. It explained that the camera had been found on the street by a police officer and returned to the stacks. The librarian asked how it got  there, explaining that the university takes “negligent misuse” of its rented equipment seriously. I thought hard about the situation for a few minutes, and then I realized what had to have happened. I must have absent-mindedly placed the briefcase on the street when I helped Patricia cross the road earlier in the day. What an embarrassing lapse of judgment. But I guess I lucked out this time. All was for the best.

Let the Games Begin

Posted on by under Journal

On earth as it is on 1:11, October 8, 2014, I’m a fifth year graduate student at Yale finishing up his PhD in Roman history. Until last year, I was going to write a dissertation explaining how the Roman Empire fell involving a lot of math. But then, I realized that this aspiration would prove to be difficult, considering that I actually know very little about math. I had no experience with statistics or mapping software; to make matters worse, if my experimental approach failed, it might have imperiled my finishing the doctorate. So I decided to scrap that plan for the moment and stick to writing about what I know best: Roman orgies.

You see, I’d done some intensive work involving orgies as an undergraduate at Harvard. My thesis was even called “Sex and the Eternal City.” My opinions on the topic have evolved since I was a senior in college. I now have some unique insights into the subject. All joking aside, the topic is actually fascinating, and the secrets of the Roman orgy may hold clues that provide insight into some of the most abiding mysteries in Roman history. I’m embarrassed to say that my old paper was little more than a regurgitation of the scholarly consensus on the subject. My dissertation will be something very different, though. Beyond my work on ancient Rome, I teach classes  as an adjunct professor,  coach the Yale Debate Association, and write novels, raps, and ESL curricular materials. I just finished writing a novel about Israel, where I was born, and am trying to get it published; it culminates in a hunger strike on the Temple Mount, and the rise of a Palestinian Gandhi. I’m also about to start a transhumanist society at Yale. In my spare time, I watch a lot of MTV.

I’ve been meaning to start a new blog for a long time now, but I hesitated for several years to do so. As you can tell from the previous paragraphs, I have a lot on my plate. More fundamentally, I’m very shy about sharing my work, and am pretty cowardly in the face of criticism. Most of my writing is done in private, and often only for the consumption of a few close people. For example, only a handful of friends have seen the rap I filmed this summer in Jerusalem, and virtually no one has seen much work on my dissertation on Roman orgies (including, I’m afraid, my dissertation committee…)

But as the end of my career as a graduate students looms ever larger, I think that having a central place to consolidate my efforts, to say nothing of an audience to see what I do, will inspire me to write with greater discipline and enthusiasm. And who knows—I might even make some new friends here.

Let the games begin.