Sunday morning in Vicksburg we stopped for donuts at Donut Palace before we toured the National Battlefield. Donut Palace is a pretty basic donut shop, clean and well lighted, without pretensions or flourishes, and it seemed to have a reasonably steady stream of customers. The other donut shop in Vicksburg, Divine Donuts, was closed on Sunday morning, because the Divine always rests on Sunday.
I had a pretty involved conversation with two customers. Mississippi accents are richer than most, and theirs were money. They had stopped for donuts on the start of a seven-hour road trip to Throckmorton, Texas. I blurted out that Throckmorton was my home town, thought better of the exaggeration, and tried to explain that it was within my home territory. Throckmorton was a bout 70 miles from where I grew up in Vernon, and about 30 miles from where my mother grew up in Seymour. In those parts, that’s nearby.
We had a nice conversation about hunting quail and dove, and I wanted to ask them if they knew a nearby farm pond to fish but I didn’t. It was cold, and even at a farm pond the fishing would be hard, and secretly I didn’t want this to be my last trip to Mississippi. As for Throckmorton, Texas, it was named after James Webb Throckmorton, who was born in Tennessee, and in 1861 had supported Sam Houston’s attempt to keep Texas in the Union. He was one of six Texas secession convention delegates who voted against secession. He then enlisted in the Confederate army, ultimately serving as brigadier general of something or other which was not the army, and late in the War as the Confederate commissioner to the Indians.
Texas was a recalcitrant Reconstruction state, and Throckmorton was the recalcitrant first Reconstruction governor. He repudiated the 14th Amendment because Texans, meaning white Texans, didn’t like it, which meant that he refused to protect freedmen or Freedmen’s Bureau agents. He was removed from office by Phillip Sheridan. Throckmorton the City is the County seat of Throckmorton the County, but I reckon they weren’t named for Throckmorton’s dubious accomplishments but because of the sheer poetry of the name. Throckmorton. Doesn’t that just roll off the tongue? I figure his constitutional analysis was a fluke and he was the last Texan ever who thought that the 14th Amendment didn’t apply.
After the two guys Going to Texas had Gone to Texas, I asked the donut shop owners if they were Cambodian. They were, and had close ties to Texas donut shops. That means that Cambodian ownership of donut shops has now spread out of Houston through Louisiana into Mississippi. There were some other earlier minor migrations into Mississippi. Chinese immigrants arrived during Reconstruction, and there are Chinese restaurants here and there. Tamales came with cotton workers brought in from Mexico after the turn of the last century, and are a favorite of the Delta. Donut Palace was selling the sausage rolls that Texas donut shops call kolaches, and they sold that greatest of Cambodian donut shop inventions, the Czech-Cajun-Cambodian boudin kolache. Their boudin came from Beaumont. It was delicious.
Cambodian donut shops are family affairs, and the owners were charming. I mentioned to them that I had heard that Dallas donut shop owners were often Koreans, and they said yes, and that the Koreans worked very hard and even slept in their shops. They said that one Korean would often run a shop alone, and that they knew a Korean who had two shops that he ran himself. I couldn’t figure how that worked, and I didn’t ask, but it wore me out just thinking about it.
* * *
Yesterday we drove to Sattler to fish the Guadalupe. It was only the second time we’d been to the Guadalupe this year. It was crowded, and nobody we talked to was catching anything, including a guide and his clients in a raft. It was TroutFest again, and the same guys with beards were there again this year. Before we fished we ate lunch at The Real Pit Barbecue in Sattler, and in honor of the first Astros spring training game I had a Frito pie. Frito pie is Texan/New Mexican, consisting of chili spooned onto Fritos, sometimes in a sliced open single serving sack, and garnished with cheese and onion. Being a combination of salt, spice, beef, and fat they are delicious, and because I explained to the lady at the counter that the Astros’ season depended on my eating a Frito pie–I’m mildly superstitious about baseball (but oddly never about fishing), she, being an Astros fan, made me an excellent pie. The chili had beans, or at least there were beans added, but I didn’t complain. I’m no Pythagorean.
When we finally got into the water I spent most of my time untangling line or re-rigging and wondering how I could get my tippet, nippers, weights, forceps, sunglasses, readers, camera, wading stick, net, and flies ready to hand. I used to wear a vest, and then tried a different vest, and am currently using a sling pack. I’ve used satchels and hip belts and lanyards and chest packs, and they all have their problems, but yesterday was a real mess. It was that day when everything was always wrong. At one point I sat down on a limestone ledge and took everything off and started over. I also had to unwrap the fly line that had somehow twisted 20-odd times around my net.
Maybe I need a pack. I’ve never tried a pack.
Late in the day I caught a small trout on a red and black size 16 zebra midge under a bead head under some weight under a bobber, then hooked a nicer fish that flipped off the hook after a couple of jumps. I figure I need to eat a Frito pie every time I fish the Guadalupe. Not that I’m superstitious.
I took my board shorts to Hawaii. I’ve had a pair for more than a decade, but before Hawaii I’d worn them only once to a charity gala, along with a tuxedo shirt and jacket and a bow tie with little palm trees. The fundraiser was formal but Hawaiian-themed. In Hawaii I wore them wade fishing and Kris made fun of them, even though I thought them dashing. Maybe she was making fun of my skinny white legs. The board shorts will be at Goodwill soon.
We both took 9 wt. rods, Kris took an Orvis HD3 and I took a Loomis Asquith, our Christmas presents to each other. I liked mine better. The Asquith is nigh on to perfect, but I need to use the H3 a bit to get used to it. They had different lines, too, and I may have cast the Rio line better than the Orvis. No one was injured by my casting.
I took a pair of Patagonia flats boots, the neoprene kind Patagonia doesn’t make anymore. I’d read that coral was a problem on the flats, and that heavy boots were needed. The Patagonias aren’t really heavy, but I didn’t have any problems other than sand in the boot, even around the volcanic rock. The bigger problem was that there was no way to tie them to the roof of the rent car, and they didn’t dry before we had to pack. Do you know how hard it is anymore to find a newspaper to stuff into your booties?
The rental car was a Subaru with adaptive cruise control. I’d never used adaptive cruise control, and didn’t know the car had it. It also had lane drift correction. That’s some startling stuff when you don’t expect it.
Where We Stayed
We stayed three nights in an Airbnb. I had tried to book Airbnbs before, but it never worked out. We were in a 15th floor apartment in an older apartment tower, and the tower showed its age, but it was central, within walking distance of Waikiki shopping, and cheaper than any of the Waikiki hotels. I gave them a sterling review, and they gave me a sterling review, and I doubt that either of us were exactly misleading the public or exactly telling the truth. We weren’t in the apartment much, and the coffee pot worked. The sheets were clean.
I’m guessing that a lot of Hawaii is a resort economy, which means a lot of folk scraping by on service jobs, and things are expensive. According to Jake the guide Airbnbs pull a lot of available housing off the market, and drive up the cost of what’s left.
Honolulu from Diamond Head
We spent one night at the Turtle Bay Resort because I wanted to see the north side of O’ahu. There were fashion models hanging out in the coffee shop, at least I guessed they were fashion models: they were young, thin, remarkably tall, pretty, and armed with a photographer. There were C.F. Martin ukuleles in the gift shop, and bad karaoke in the bar. There was a nice weight room and huge breakers. We weren’t there long enough for any resort activities, but sitting on the balcony playing the guitar and drinking coffee and watching the breakers was worth the effort. There was no free coffee in the lobby. I am immensely fond of free morning coffee in lobbies, but if I’d had free coffee I would have missed the fashion models.
Our final night we stayed at the Best Western Palace Hotel Honolulu, because we wanted to stay near the airport. We dropped the rental car that afternoon, took an Uber to dinner, and the next morning used the airport shuttle. It’s a plan that works well, unless the hotel is the Best Western Palace Hotel Honolulu. It’s tucked in at the edge of a grimy bit of freeway, has itself seen better days, and for the first time I recall I pulled back the covers and checked the bed for bedbugs. It was fine for the night before an early flight, and convenient, but next time I suspect I’ll pass. There were no bedbugs.
Where We Ate
We ate dinner the first night at Alan Wong’s, which is famous. It’s the granddaddy, and The Obamas Ate Here. Our waiter had learned his trade watching Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and things could have gone better. I’m sure it’s ok most nights, but I didn’t like the food much, and they lost us in the shuffle. Kris gave them one star on Yelp! I guess people only do Yelp! reviews when they own the place or they’re angry.
The Pig and the Lady
Waikiki shopping is like shopping Rodeo Drive, or the Miracle Mile, or Fifth Avenue, with all the high-end retail anyone could ever need. We ate dinner at a place called Roy’s Waikiki. It was very popular and perfectly decent and I greatly admired the lips of the Australian woman next to us at the bar, which were immense and must have been made, literally, for Waikiki. There were other parts of her that looked manufactured as well. If you’re going to eat in Waikiki Roy’s is fine, though it’s not a place that looks like a Hank’s, or a Joe’s, or a Roy’s. I liked the tuna poke appetizer. Maybe if you go there the Australian woman will still be at the bar and you too can be amazed at the size of those lips.
The two hottest places in Honolulu are The Pig and the Lady, which was spectacular and my favorite, and Senia, which was Kris’s favorite and spectacular. They’re next door to each other in the old Chinatown, which pre-WWII was the place for sailors to go for tattoos, liquor, and sexual shenanigans and is apparently now the place to go for cheap rent and leis. The Obamas had dinner at The Pig and the Lady the week before, which if I didn’t like the Obamas would make an amusing joke. I do like the Obamas though, and I liked The Pig and the Lady. Those two places made up for Alan Wong’s.
At the Rainbow Drive-in Kris ordered for us and I got the plate dinner, but with fish, beef, and chicken on a single plate, plus chili covering the side of rice (but not the side of macaroni and cheese). It was delicious, all of it. We ate tuna poke at a random sushi place in a strip center (which I’d never have done in Houston). As for baked goods, the Coco Puffs at Liliha Bakery are obligatory, plus I had the Full Hawaiian Breakfast with Spam, rice, and fried bananas. I have a secret and long-standing fondness for Spam, Salt! Fat! Pork!, so I am one with the Islands.
Liliana Bakery
The malassadas at Leonard’s Bakery are the very thing, and if you order enough of them they come in a pink box. Get the one stuffed with guava jelly, and the one with the cinnamon and salt, and the rest of them.
Malasadas
I had the Obama shaved ice at Waiola Shave Ice, then ate the rest of Kris’s shaved ice which was some other set of flavors. It was healthy. It was fruit.
There may not be an Obama statue in Hawaii, but they sure let you know where the Obamas eat.
Where We Went That Didn’t Involve Fishing
The National Park Service and the Navy are keeping the Pearl Harbor monument open during the government shut-down with private donations. The Arizona Memorial is closed, not because of the shut-down but because it needs repairs, so we didn’t get to see my cousin’s name in the list of the dead: Houston O’Neal Thomas, age 20, coxswain. He was a bit older than my father, and I suppose they must have grown up together. He was a child. I suppose he had no notions of war. I hope his death was sudden and painless.
We toured the Ilioni Palace, which was the last royal residence of the last king, King David Kalakaua, and then the last queen of Hawaii. Queen Liliuokalani. The conspirators wanted immediate annexation of Hawaii into the States, but President Cleveland refused, and sent a delegation to explore restoration of the monarchy. When asked, Liliuokalani sensibly said she planned to cut off the conspirators’ heads. Her answer derailed restoration, but she was, after all, a queen, and off with their heads is always a queenly answer. Hawaii was later annexed by President Cleveland’s successor (technically his second successor), William McKinley. The palace (which is modest as royal palaces go), is a monument to regret at the loss of sovereignty.
The Bishop Museum is also a bit of a monument to the monarchy, but it’s very fine, and probably the best collection of Polynesian artifacts in the world.
We climbed Diamond Head. There was some guy jogging up and down the path carrying a boom box blasting 80s music. Somebody should import ear pods to Hawaii.
Where We Didn’t Go
We didn’t see any of the other islands. We didn’t snorkel, so I still haven’t. We didn’t surf, and I never will, particularly since I’m getting rid of my board shorts.
We didn’t eat poi at Helena’s Hawaiian. I’m not certain that Helena’s Hawaiian is ever actually open. It was closed all day Sunday and Monday and even on days it claimed to be open it closed by 7:30.
We didn’t see hula, though I did buy a reprint of a book first published in 1907 about the songs of the hula. We didn’t attend a luau. We didn’t visit a ukulele factory. We didn’t feed the mongoose, though I saw it.
We didn’t see the Honolulu Museum of Art, and we never walked on Waikiki Beach. We didn’t eat shrimp out of a food truck. Luckily we get to go back.
I didn’t buy a Panama hat from Newt at the Royal, so I’m glad I’m going back. It’s startling to realize that with a Panama hat, a cigar, and a goatee I could pass for a planter, or at least Colonel Sanders. They’re a bit fine to use as fishing hats.
Newt at the Royal Hawaiian.
Playlist
Hawaiian music is everywhere, everywhere. Maybe it’s just atmosphere, or maybe it’s pride and love. It can get cloying, but in reasonable doses it’s beautiful.
Unlike prior trips where I’ve depended on my own music collection with some supplemental purchases, I owned no Hawaiian music. I finally subscribed to Apple Music. It’s miraculous. I was able to download a perfectly respectable list of Hawaiian musicians.
Israel Kamakawiwoʻole. A half dozen years ago Israel Kamakawiwoʻole’s cover of Somewhere Over the Rainbowwas all over the internet. He was a monstrous man, a man the size of a Sumo, and he was playing a tiny instrument and singing sweetly. He also did a cover of Take me Home Country Roads that doesn’t once mention West Virginia. I’m not sure that’s legal, but he was a bit of a rebel: he was a sovereignty activist.
Mark Keali’i Ho’omalu and Kamehameha Schools Children’s Chorus, Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride, from Lilo & Stitch. Lilo & Stitch may be the strangest Disney movie ever made. I can’t describe the plot but trust me, it is . . . strange. And this is a fun song.
Elvis Presley, Hawaiian Wedding Song and Blue Hawaii. Elvis fits the jet-fed Hawaii. There’s also a very fine version of Blue Hawaii by the famous Hawaiian musician, Willie Nelson.
Keola Beamer and Kapono Beamer, Honolulu City Lights. This is a 70s album, and it sounds it. It is much loved, but they probably made records that carried the dated date less heavily.
Ry Cooder, Chicken Skin Music. In 1970 Ry Cooder made an album that probably still baffles folk. Chicken skin music is apparently a Hawaiian description of music so good that it brings goose bumps. The album features the great Norteno accordianist, Flaco Jimenez, and the great Hawaiian slack key guitarist, Gabby Pahinui. There is a cover of Irene Goodnight, and a cover of Stand by Me. The most Hawaiian song on the album, Hank Snow’s Yellow Roses, was as far from Hawaii as Tennessee, but it manages to sound like both.
Don Ho, Tiny Bubbles and Pearly Shells. I am of an age that remembers Don Ho. They are likable songs.
Gabby Pahinui. Of all of the Hawaiian musicians, Gabby Pahinui (1921-1980) is the one guy everyone should know. Gabby Pahinui is B.B. King or Ty Cobb. Ok, I’m mixing metaphors, but in his place, in his time, he was the distillation. He was a drinking man, but in the introduction of Iz’s Somewhere Over the Rainbow Iz announces “This is for Gabby.” It is Gabby who Ry Cooder included on Chicken Skin Music. It is lovely stuff
Na Leo Pilimehana, Local Boys and Waikiki. Na Leo Pilimehana is the girl group, and if the Beach Boys had been three Hawaiian women they would have recorded Local Boys. I sang Waikiki to myself for days. Sometimes I might have sung it out loud.
Steel Guitar Rag. It’s the song that stateside crystalized the popularization of Hawaiian slide guitar. There are versions by Bob Wills, Merle Travis, Les Paul, and John Fahey.
Louis Armstrong, To You, Sweetheart, Aloha. There’s also an album by Andy Williams.
I guess Jack Johnson is the most famous contemporary musician from Hawaii. He was a competitive surfer but was injured, so he became a popular singer and guitarist. It’s hard to see how the boy ever got a date. It’s likable, amd it incorporates the sounds of Hawaiian music: sweet guitars, ukuleles.
Ka’au Crater Boys, Guava Jelly. Motown meets Honolulu. “Ooh baby, here I am, come rub upon my belly like guava jelly.” That goes on to my road trip list.
Jake Shimabukuro, As My Guitar Gently Weeps. I think Shimabukuro may have single-handedly resurrected the ukulele.
Nathan Aweau, Akaka Falls.
The Brothers Cazimero, Home in the Islands.
Hawaiian Style Band, Let’s Talk Story. This one’s something of an ear worm.
Ho’ai Kane, Kona Red.
To get ready to go we watched a lot of the new Hawaii Five-0, and it’s addictive. I’m going to have trouble quitting.
For guitar music I worked on the Allemande movement to Duarte’s transcription of Bach’s first Cello Suite. I’ve worked on it off and on for years, and still can’t remember where the bass notes go.
I watched a Facebook riot last week. I’ve seen internet kerfuffles before, and participated in a few: for years I’ve argued with Astros fanatics about first draft-pick Chris Burke’s place in the majors, the statistical value of OPS, and whether it’s important that as a catcher Brad Ausmus didn’t hit. Trust me on this. Fly fishing brouhahas are mild.
Lenny Bee started things off:
Notwithstanding Mr. Bee’s ambiguity, all of the 222 comments that followed assumed that the insanity referred to was the use of the Nippers by others, not that Mr. Bee was insane for not using the Nippers. The comments ranged from the practical (they cut 40 lb. leader like butter), to the sentimental (my wife gave them to me and I’m fond of both them and my wife–thanks Kris), to the manly (I use my teeth). There was plenty of righteousness, plenty of dismissal, some irony, some sarcasm, some frivolity, and finally, late in the day, one of my favorite internet arguments: “that’s stupid”/”no that’s stupid”/”you didn’t understand what I said you’re stupid”/”I did understand it and I’ve got a screenshot of it right here and you’re stupid.” Brilliant.
Of course Mr. Bee was being disingenuous. He actually had no doubt as to what drove the market for $85 Nippers: insanity. He says it right there, and I’ve got a screenshot to prove it! Ok, maybe he didn’t really think Nipper users insane, not clinically anyway, but there’s certainly the implication that anyone willing to pay for Abel Nippers is mentally deficient.
Other than teeth, the most popular argument against Abel involved nail clippers:
I’m assuming that nail clipper advocates aren’t using the costly but decorative “Fashion Clippers” on the left, and that they aren’t arguing that nail clippers are as aesthetically pleasing as Abel Nippers (notwithstanding their status as beauty tools). Compare the above photo of nail clippers to the photo of Abel Nippers below:
Theo Van Doesburg, Composition VIII (The Cow), 1918, oil on canvass, 14 3/4 x 25″, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Ok, not really. I’m lying. Those aren’t Abel Nippers. That’s an early modernist painting by Theo Van Doesburg. The pro-clipper argument is that cheap nail clippers function as well as Nippers, but I’ll concede the question of function. What I won’t concede is that Abel Nippers aren’t a good bit prettier than nail clippers, and that aesthetic pleasure can’t be its own reward. Nail clippers aren’t pretty.
There may be an ethical argument about spending $85 dollars on something as useless as Nippers, but I own fly rods, and I assume Mr. Bee owns fly rods as well, so it’s hard to argue the ethical virtues of frugality. Plus the economic argument runs both ways. I’ll stick to aesthetics.
Functionality
Ok, I lied again. A couple of thoughts on functionality. Able Nippers cut bigger stuff better, and that’s useful for saltwater, as is their aluminum construction. Cheap clippers rust. Besides that the lever on clippers would drive me nuts. I’d have dropped a good dozen rusty nail clippers into the bay fiddling with that lever.
As for using teeth, my teeth apparently gap at just the point they need to meet to cut leader. I can’t seem to cut 5x leader with my teeth, and I wouldn’t cut 16 lb. leader with my teeth if I could. I can’t whistle or roll my tongue either. Plus, if you cut leader with your teeth, your dentist is going to hate you. Who needs that?
Now on to aesthetics.
Abel Nippers and the Ancient Greeks.
Ancient Greek philosophers didn’t concern themselves overly much with questions of aesthetics, and the word hadn’t been invented yet anyway. They were worried about more pressing matters, like from whence is substance derived, and should we eat beans? Aesthetics were considered though, and the discussion generally followed three schools of thought.
Ancient Greek, Fish Plate, 350/330 BC, Campania, Italy, terra cotta red figure technique, The Art Institute of Chicago.
(1) Proportionality. The notion that beauty is derived from proper proportions is peculiarly sculptural and architectural: a head should be X, the forearm Y, and the torso X+Y-1. Notwithstanding its mechanical basis, there’s something intuitive to the notion of proportionality. An Abel Nipper that isn’t proportional to the human thumb and forefinger, that’s too tiny or too large, wouldn’t have much appeal. The same thing could be said though for a pair of fingernail clippers, so proportionality is ultimately a dead end. It can be admired, it can be necessary, but it’s not, in and of itself, the source of beauty, or even necessary for beauty. An El Greco is beautiful notwithstanding its figures’ proportions. A proportional statue of an old fat guy is still a proportional statue of an old fat guy. I know. I own a mirror.
It is fitting that proportionality held peculiar appeal for the Pythagoreans, what with their focus on the ontological significance of numbers. It was the Pythagoreans who first noted the proportional mathematics of music, and anyone who has to study music theory is still cursed by all those damned numbers.
Ancient Greek, Fish Plate, 400/370 BC, Athens, terra cotta red figure technique, The Art Institute of Chicago.
(2) Functionality. That beauty is derived from an objects’ appropriate function is peculiarly appealing. Abel Nippers are suited to their function, so they’re beautiful. But the notion that beauty is purpose-driven runs counter to our modern notions of art. Art doesn’t exist to carry out a function, it’s not a car bumper, or a sewing machine, or a banana slicer, it exists for its own aesthetic purpose. Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, for instance, is decidedly removed from function. Decorative art may serve function, but high art is concept. And while our notions of high art are often absurd–as evidenced by said Fountain–there’s really no denying that aesthetic appeal can be derived from stuff that’s completely functionless. Just note Mr. Van Doesburg’s colored planes above.
Of course the argument for nail clippers is at least in part functional, and elevates functionality above aesthetics.
Ancient Greek, Fish Plate, 350/325 BC, Campania, Italy, terra cotta red figure technique, The Art Institute of Chicago.
(3) Formalism. Now I’m going all Plato on you. For the formalist, beauty exists as an ideal form, and an object derives it’s beauty from its proximity to the ideal. Notwithstanding its lack of proportion and its lack of functionality, a lump of gold can be beautiful because of its proximity to the ideal.
I’ve always found Plato’s formalism strangely alien, but when you think about it it’s really not. Truth is beauty, beauty truth. Beauty is something possessed by the object, a sunset, a mountain stream, a lump of gold, independent of the observer. For the observer, it is his awareness that allows him to perceive the beauty that independently exists. Plato’s forms are only an explanation for that independence of beauty. For the artist, mimesis (the Greek’s word, not mine) of the beauty of the natural world enables creation of something beautiful because it derives its beauty from that which it mimics. For the observer, awareness enables perception of beauty that independently exists.
Consider Henry David Thoreau, who possesses among other virtues and failings a decidedly Platonic streak. He goes to the woods to rid himself of daily intrusive quibbles, among other reasons because those quibbles block his perception of the Independent Beauty of Nature. At least part of Mr. Bee’s rejection of Nippers may be that they’re an intrusive and unnecessary sideshow that hampers his perception of the real source of beauty, and that he demands simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. I would only note that Mr. Thoreau did not remove himself far enough into the woods to leave behind his mother’s baked goods, or to keep her from doing his laundry, and that one suspects he well knew that not all sideshows are worth abandoning.
If you’re interested, there’s a good introduction to Greek aesthetics here: https://www.iep.utm.edu/anc-aest/
Attributed to Iran, Kashan, Bowl with Central Fish Motif, 13 C., stone paste, incised and polychrome painted under glaze, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Abel Nippers and the Moderns.
The modern inquiry into the philosophical basis for aesthetics begins in the 18th century, and Immanuel Kant is usually considered its progenitor. I hope that terrifies you. Whenever one starts with Kant, things get complicated fast, and aesthetics is no different.
Briefly (and maybe even erroneously–I’m not vouching for my understanding of these things), Kant’s notion of aesthetic beauty is that beauty exists in nature independent of the observer. The perception of that beauty is the disinterested aesthetic judgment of the observer. It is disinterested in that we perceive the beauty inherent in the beautiful, not because we create its beauty because of our perception. Did I mention that Kant complicates things fast? To say it differently, like Plato Kant finds beauty objective rather than subjective, and the perception of beauty is driven by the fineness of the observer’s aesthetic judgment.
Pierre van Boucle, Flemish, Still Life with Carp and Pike, 1652, oil on canvas, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Clive Bell, brother-in-law of Virginia Woolf, art critic, and all-around reprehensible human being, in his thoroughly Kantian Aesthetic Hypothesis, speaks of how Art, the combination of line and color comprising significant form, provokes the aesthetic emotion among those capable of aesthetic experience. It is the provoked emotion that allows us to recognize Art. Of course for Bell the aesthetic emotion is subjective, and there are a lot of other emotions, fear, love, awe, or whatnot, but the aesthetic emotion is separate and apart, arguably altogether finer, than all that other stuff. Assuming that the Abel Nipper is Art, Mr. Bee’s rejection of the Nipper, his rejection of the aesthetic emotion triggered by the Nipper, is a failure not of the Nipper but of his own aesthetic temperament. If his aesthetic temperament was properly acute, he would not need to own or use the Nipper to have the aesthetic experience: he would perceive the Art of the Nipper.
Of course if you live in the modern world you know where this is going: beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Francisco de Goya, Spanish, Still Life with Golden Bream, 1806-1812, oil on canvas, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
The modern notions of aesthetic intention speak not to the quality of the object, but to the quality of the attention paid to the object. The object could be a painting, it could be sport, particularly baseball, it could be a hobby, it could be Nippers. The aesthetic attention paid to the object–let’s say in this case fly fishing–could be enhanced by the aesthetic attention paid another object, the appeal of a reel or a rod, the beauty of Nippers, depending on the observer. For me my Abel satin blue Nippers become a sort of touchstone: I think they’re pretty, my wife gave them to me and I’m fond of the gift and more than fond of the giver, they are part of my usual gear that I enjoy using. They don’t detract from my overall attention to fly fishing, they enhance it. Am I insane for my Nipper fondness?
Well of course I am, and I also have two Abel reels.
Few things have messed with my head longer than True Grit, beginning with the 1969 movie starring John Wayne. I own a copy of the book, but I didn’t read it until we started planning our trip to Oklahoma. In 1969 I wouldn’t have imagined that the book was anything better than a Louis L’Amour novel. Of course then I couldn’t think of many things better than a Louis L’Amour novel. I might still like Louis L’Amour if I still read him, but I’ll save that for North Dakota.
The problem with the John Wayne movie was that the geography was all wrong, and at thirteen I knew it. Everyone knows the plot. Fourteen year-old Mattie Ross enlists one-eyed Marshall Rooster Cogburn to go with her into Indian Territory to bring her father’s murderer to justice. Mattie picks Cogburn because she believes him to be a man of true grit. Comparing myself to Mattie and Rooster, I knew that I didn’t know much about grit, but what I did know was the geography of the movie. I knew Indian Territory was Oklahoma, and I had been in and and out of Oklahoma all my life. I knew the movie landscape was southwestern Colorado, and we went to southwestern Colorado and New Mexico from time to time for vacations. One didn’t get on a horse in Fort Smith, Arkansas, cross a river, and end up in Ouray, Colorado.
I couldn’t believe that the moviemakers could be so stupid (at best) or dishonest (at worst). I even cobbled together an explanation: the Indian Territory of 1870s Oklahoma was bigger than current-day Oklahoma, and the San Juan National Forest was within its borders. That was wrong of course, but it never occurred to me that the moviemakers picked their locale because southwestern Colorado is prettier than northeastern Oklahoma, no slight at all to northeastern Oklahoma. Southwestern Colorado is prettier than just about anyplace.
The Coen Brothers version of the movie is impossibly true to the book, and its tone and language are altogether artier than the John Wayne version. The Coen Brothers version stars a brilliant 13-year old girl, not a 22-year old. It stars the Dude, not the Duke. But it also makes its nod to the original, and for me in the most confusing way possible: by filming in the same landscape. The Coen’s choice messed with my head anew, even though by then I had realized that it was a matter of artistic choice, not reality.
So I finally read the novel, and now it’s joined together with the movies to mess with my head.
Take, for instance, LaBoeuf. A part of me says that of course there is a Texan in this novel, just as there is a Texan in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. If you’re going to write a novel about bravery, you surely do need a Texan companion to prove the act is not only brave, but extraordinarily brave. Matt Damon’s LaBoeuf (pronounced Lebeef) is excellent. In the original movie, however, Glenn Campbell (who was the very thing in his day, and who played guitar on Pet Sounds) is almost unbearably stilted. Did he know it? Is he such a bad actor? Was this art? I doubt it was purposeful, and then I doubt my doubts. It’s hard to understand such horrible acting.
Then there is the comedy. True Grit and Portis’s other novels are considered some of our best under-the-radar stuff. And the book and the movies are set in a real world with a real history. There was a hanging Judge Parker, and the incursions by Parker’s marshals into Indian Territory began the end of Indian Nation sovereignty. Portis gets his history right. Everybody thinks the novel is brilliant, and it is.
And everybody thinks the novel is comic.
I don’t really get it. Maybe to somebody who thinks southwestern Colorado is northeastern Oklahoma the novel is comic. I listen to Mattie Ross’s narration, fine as Portis has made it, and I hear a mildly exaggerated version of my aunts talking. I watch Rooster Cogburn (who rode with Quantrill), and I see the righteous and the unrighteous, the just and the unjust, and the line is crossed back and forth from day to day, from moment to moment. Rooster Cogburn and Mattie Ross are forces in both opposition and harmony: unconscious Presbyterian rigidity and riding with Quantrill. Is Mattie comic? It’s a comedy that is hard to pinpoint. Mattie doesn’t tell jokes. She isn’t amusing or witty. This isn’t a book of pratfalls, and it’s not picaresque like, say, Little Big Man. It is comic only in how Mattie’s uncompromising force collides with the world and overwhelms it. Maybe it is only the exaggeration (and in my mind the very slight exaggeration) that is funny.
So 50 years after I first watched John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn in a southwestern single screen theater on a little town square I’m still wrestling with True Grit.
* * *
I’ve been preparing for Friday’s trip to Broken Bow. It’s 30 degrees outside, and I hope it warms up just a bit in the frigid north of Oklahoma where it’s even colder. When we went to Wisconsin in September the guide required studless wading boots to protect his boat, and I had dutifully removed our studs and put them away where I wouldn’t lose them. Then I promptly lost them.
In Oregon we’d waded with Patagonia River Crampons, and they worked great, so if I didn’t find the studs I wouldn’t necessarily need to replace them. Studs aren’t much. They’re short sheet metal screws that screw into the bottom of boots, but once they’re labeled with a brand name at a fly shop they get a bit pricey. Maybe they’re tungsten or aluminum or gold or some such. Since we don’t use felt-soled boots anymore, studs are the minimum needed to keep your footing on slick rock.
The older I get, the more I worry about falls in rivers, and along with studs I now use a wading staff. I’m a wobbly tripod in the watter, and in a few years I may drop the fly rod altogether and just carry two wading staffs. If a fish comes along I’ll point at it. The staff I use is a Folstaff, a shock-corded tent pole that with a bit of a shake snaps together at five joints. Putting it away is sometimes a bit of a struggle, and the first few times a joint got stuck I used a vice and some vice clamps to separate the sections. I’ve discovered over time that with a bit of wiggling the joints separate well enough, though not altogether easily, and having the separated sections get away from you and snap back together is almost as annoying and as common as a good tangled leader.
I like my staff, with its collected scrapes and darkened cork handle, but largely because of the separation anxiety I found myself on Saturday eyeing a new Fishpond staff at the shop. It extended like a photographer’s tripod. I imagined that it wouldn’t take desperate measures to put it away, but that it also wouldn’t extend with that satisfying snap.
Meanwhile Kris looked for the studs and didn’t find them either, but she reminded me that I’d put them in a plastic bag, not a box. This morning I went right to them and they’re back in the boots. Now I’d just like a bit warmer weather, and we do need to clean our boots.
