I bought a touristy Paddington Bear tee at Paddington station since I was caught the train to Charlbury there. I am resigned to claiming [panda]beardom instead of trying to keep off weight. Oh and I forgot to pack tees... packing for 3 different climate/weather conditions is trying.


I am in the Cotswolds - very nice and hushed here what with Rebekah Brooks somewhere near by if she isn't in prison yet. And Belinda thought she saw Samantha Cameron (it's her hubby's constituency and they have a home here too somewhere) at the Queen Mother Trophy game we went to today. The sun came out nicely. How manicured and carefully tended England is. It only makes me sad for my country.


Anyway, the Cirencester Park Polo Club may actually send their team next year for the CCC. Yes, I think the CC Tournament need a Cup. Maybe wooden like the Queen Mother trophy. What English cheek. Must be the brothers' doing when they decided to award this for their gran.

LONDON July 6: Lovely time with Judith and Kat over 6 different English pies at Fuller's. And stilton and port to finish up. I like English food and I don't care what anyone says. And of course their beer. I had London Pride, fittingly. Mick Jagger is on in the background. He sounds a little different in London somehow, singing about Knightsbridge and all. Which is round the corner from here I think.


Kat thinks she might take it on when she leaves the BBC. I think it should be her story then. After all it was her ancestors, just one generation removed, who killed and got killed by mine as described in the idea I have. I told her it has to be a lighthearted look at some really blood thirsty behavior - shoot in London in November, prep in Jan (and then take the team with Judith, Belinda and Jeremy in the Spring. Judith says there's a Michael somewhere there who she has not met who is reputedly the family genealogist. And not to forget David and that Billy Bunter-ish cousin.


Judith and I talk about other things. She is a sixties person, and I like her. I think we share the same worldview and quite down to earth despite two interesting and famous lineages. Then Kat and I turn to each other. I say, I have been thinking...So have I, she says, with a knowing look.


We may be on to something.

REMEMBERING LONI DING

I was very new in the country, very new at The Asia Society, when Loni gave me an eloquent hour long talk on the phone (our first of many conversations) on Asian Americans and the civil rights movement. And what she expected me to do in my new position. It was a lesson I never forgot.

Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

THOUGHTS ON HOME VIDEOS as i like to say, the undocumented life is not worth examining...  

1) every document requires a method or technology of transmission - voice, paper, vcrs, computer etc.  

2) nowadays these technologies change much more rapidly and are controlled by a few companies.  

3) today's documentation technologies are not universal or flexible. one can see a photo album made by his father but his son will not be able to watch dvd he has made. and so on.  

4) today, besides loss of memory, plain simple loss or lack of closet space, we have to deal with obsolescence, often inbuilt by companies.  

5) i have lots of digital tapes i have not put on discs or on a hard drive. discs have even shorter life spans i am told. and hard drives tend to fill up.  

6) i now shoot on flip. i shoot less and am more disciplined i find. plus i edit right away instead of storing footage. more watchable by the hapless folks i victimize with my films. drawback: can't do very long takes or films. not a drawback for my audience i imagine.  

7) i store on the web for easy and portable retrieval. assuming one always has hispeed access. i use youtube. being limited to 10 min has plusses and minusses as above. i used to store longer pieces on google video but that's not around anymore. one could also make them private and not public there. i use facebook too.  

8) with google video, i am thinking whatever format i upload with, i can download using whichever google has updated its video format with. free upgrade so to speak.  

all fine as long as google is around. but one needs to keep those photo albums too.  

i dont know what happens after google and facebook die.  

maybe the stars go out.  

one by one.

TWENTY YEARS AFTER THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL:

Francis Fukuyama's “the end of history” is so deliciously counter-intuitive, it deserves some sort of award for advertising and copy-writing for whoever came up with it, whether Fukuyama himself or his editor, book designer or marketer.

If it means "the disappearance of any enduring, existential threat to liberal democracy and free-market capitalism" (since I have not read the book) it sounds like it is at the other end of the spectrum from Mao's response to Kissinger when the latter asked what he thought of the French Revolution: "It is too early to tell."

While I am not enough of a seer, or lack the intellectual strength, or hubris as you will, to play academic "what-if" parlor games, one thought did strike me when I was visiting China in 2003 at the height of Dubya-Rove rule in the US. And that is that China had the model for Rove's then dream for a permanent Republican Party majority for all eternity, was it?

The Chinese model is One Political Party and Unbridled Capitalist Economy with Kickbacks to Said Political Party. I don't know if it falls within the Fukuyaman human-society-in-amber-for-all-perpetuity model but it was working well, and there was little of Liberal Democracy that I noticed there. And the party was "Communist". Ah, irony.

It brings to mind Ralph Nader explaining to his father he was working to establish a Third Party, and the old codger shot back that he would be happy to see a Second. Ah, Dads.

baseball is like modern dance - an arena of men running around in tights.

The Dems posted losses this week and the results are fascinating. Not so much on the Republican side which is basically how to get enough zombies off their couches to vote for the Rich. But fascinating for what is means for the Democrats and for the US in general.

To me, one aspect is that the results once again indicate the destruction of and the inability of the Dems to resurrect the alliance of youth, middle-to-low-incomes, ethnic and sexual minorities, women, labor, greens and immigrants that is the natural base of the Democrats.

In choosing between Obama and Hillary, the Dems chose a reassuring billboard ad over a bulkier, balkier resume. This effectively replaced the traditional alliance with a Weberian charismatic leadership model that is traditionally associated with less developed countries, but with an American flavor of messianic religiosity. Therefore Larry Sabato makes a good point when he asks if the 08 victory came with the turnout of Obamacrats who cared little about the Democrat party. Their cult is an American one, worshipping at the altar of Youth, Laptops and the Cool.

In America, for better or for worse, Obama has become the new black.

This right-wing assault on Obama's heathcare has got to be stopped.

Astroturf can only be countered by grassroots action.

Too bad Obama can’t go to his supporters who got him elected because he’s betrayed their idealism enough times already.

So Obama should and ask Bill, Hil and Howard to go to the Obamans and set up the meetings and a cyber campaign. Al would be good too. It would be a good political education for them.

Brush aside Rahm - this issue is too important.

Beth and I on our way to Hogwarts.

The policeman was a racist. Knowing the law, he tricked Gates into stepping outside so he COULD arrest him. He INTENDED to arrest Gates and set him up. So one cannot say Gates was arrested for “disorderly conduct”.

According the LA Times:



According to his police report, Sgt. James Crowley said the professor was "yelling very loud" and "accusing me of being a racist."

Complaining that the "acoustics of the kitchen" made it difficult to communicate, the officer said he "told Gates that I would speak with him outside."

Once on the front porch, the officer arrested Gates for being loud and abusive in the presence of several neighbors who had gathered on the sidewalk.>

Re: STANLEY FISH: GOD TALK 2, NYT 2009

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/god-talk-part-2/

As an atheist, I do not deny the existence of God. Reason tells me God exists.

There is a God(s) because we have created it. It describes and expresses a need that many human beings and societies have. Bertram Russell thought it a crutch. Sometimes when i am anxious, I read my horoscope. So I can relate.

God is a metaphor, as Joseph Campbell said. To me it is an abstract noun, like good.

I do not need God (one, or with just many arms) in my striving to be a good person. Nor do I need God to define what good is. What is morality but high intelligence? asked Julian Huxley. Reason is enough - and weighted with less cultural baggage.

I do not see the conflict between God/Belief and Science/Reason.

IT'S THE SOUTHEASTERN HIMALAYA FROM NOW ON!

Heard back from David Zurick: "The term "Southeastern Himalaya" is fine to describe the region you are working with. More specifically, the mountains you refer to are the "Naga Hills" and "Manipur Hills" in Manipur. They are northern extensions of the Arakan Mountains in Myanmar."

So I replied: " I was beginning to refer to the mountain ranges we speak of as the Evelyns in honor of my colleague Evelyn Knight at UK who first used the term Southeastern Himalaya in her search to help people situate the area in their mental geography.... It is one of the more exciting parts of the [DigitizeManipur] venture that we discover the need for new terminology and nomenclature as this grows into an exercise in re-mapping... Language and linguistics seem to be a major foundation in our venture and so does geography, before one gets into the usual suspects (and somewhat suspect, I suspect) fields
of history, sociology and politics."

"That people live longer only means that they feel they can remain kids longer: uncommitted to marriage, serious work, life itself." So thinks Joseph Epstein. I too better get a move on.

THE HUMP

OK so the Hump was flown from Ledo and not from Koirengei or Pallel.

But gotta hunch they were the ancillary airfields I have been calling them, even theugh I now learn they were manned by FDR's American Air Combat Corps.

But the Flying Tigers is a sticky tag so I will let it remain aloft for a bit. Maybe it has already since I started yammering about it in 2002.

If ideas are to stick, as the new book says. they have to be "simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, and story-containing." The Flying Tigers have them all, plus darned sexy.

I am semi-sticky after all. Ha.

I am petulant. I cannot find an essay by Milan Kundera on the web. So spoiled have I become; my demands knows no bounds.

The essay? "Prague: A Disappearing Poem" from a Granta I remember reading. (My serach engine did turn up the reference to 1985 but I want the actual essay dammit.) In it I remember an indelibe image Kindera conjures, an unforgettable metaphor, of a poem slowly disappearing as the page it is written on is set on fire.

This came to mind as I was talking to Evelyn yesterday. Told her the guy who torched the library has been assassinated.

I am planning a research trip for UK and NYPL, a proposal due this coming week. John says a Tibeto-Burman slash Foothills culture center such as the one Evelyn and I are dreaming of at UK would be fantastic, a first of its kind. (Not considering the not inconsiderable work of dharma bums that pass for Tibet studies.)

I told him Manipur is a center, a focal point , a node, an entry point. John wants to bring the library's conservator. I have asked Evelyn to think who might go from UK.

"A small nation can disappear, and it knows it,” said Milan Kundera. "To understand, we must compare."

In “The Knowledge Deficit”, E. D. Hirsch Jr. argues that “background knowledge,” knowledge not explicitly presented in a text, is essential to reading comprehension.

How true I have found this to be when I set out on my Manipur projects.

The utter void of background information is daunting, yet appealing in its challenge. For even if one were able to gather and provide the necessary information, why on earth would anyone devote his time to grasp that essential background knowledge? What incentive can one provide people to encourage them to devote and apply time and energy to a politically and culturally minor area that offers no career prospects whatsoever? And even then, how would one go about, and how long would it take, to build the necessary information critical mass, enough head of steam, before one can undertake effective action?

When there is little to build on, support must come from tangential, unrelated areas. Picture a mangrove tree. Perhaps other leveraging yet seemingly unconnected fields - baseball? digitization? - can provide the necessary impetus and interest for the acquisition of this knowledge.

Remapping is new connections to frame and create new knowledge.

So, imagine my happiness when Dave said today, over coffee at Café La Fortuna that he wants to make a short video based on asking Americans, with varying degrees of background knowledge, a simple query: "What is Manipur?”

Art can deliver in an instant what reams of paper take generations of scholarship and dissemination.

I could use this video in my work.

A guy in the NYT wrote today:

"There is an almost magical power in naming things. To give a person, an act or a group its name is to define it, assert a measure of control over how it is perceived. PAUL VITELLO

TWO PROPOSALS

I called Ima tonight to make sure she wasn't too unhappy and anxious about her new book. Finally got across the idea she can go ahead to make a mock-up with the low-res scans I left for her.

What jazzed her up even more was my suggestion that the Cheitharol Kumbaba be restarted. She will check with Pabung Khelchandra to see if I am right in thinking it was stopped in 1955. She will also meet with Leisemba - the historians must be his appointees and it matters less whether it is well written and more that it is his perpective. We are agreed in this. And that he should be given very definite, specific tasks as his issues are immense.

Also I suggested that Oja and she should get Leisemba to start the 3 loisangs again and to get the Pranalika registry back from Oja Kulachandra's son.

My reason for this, at least what I admit to? That when I conceptualize my international Manipur projects, I want the distinctive features so key to my framing to be in existence. Ima agreed it is perfectly fine to have a gap in the Scapegoat Chronicles, as in times of war. Rather this than nothing. It is so lame to say something wonderful is no longer around. Plus I'd rather my projects did more than mrely present and entertain. They must reactivate, contribute, change.

Maybe I will also get to be the Scapegoat after all! I didn't remind her of my idea about this that time we were driving back from Nabadwip in 2000.

She will write an article.

SOMETHING FROM THE RECENT PEN CONFERENCE...

Bernardo Atxaga
THE TALE OF THE HEDGEHOG

In his nest of dry leaves the hedgehog has woken
his mind so suddenly filled with all the words he knows.
Counting the verbs, more or less, they come to twenty-seven.

Later he thinks: The winter is over,
I am a hedgehog, Up fly two eagles, high up,
Snail, Worm, Insect, Spider, Frog,
which ponds or holes are you hiding in?
There is the river, This is my kingdom, I am hungry.

And he repeats: This is my kingdom, I am hungry,
Snail, Worm, Insect, Spider, Frog,
which ponds or holes are you hiding in?

However he remains still like a dry leaf, too,
because it is but midday and an old law
forbids him sun, sky and eagles.

But night comes, gone are the eagles; and the hedgehog,
Snail, Worm, Insect, Spider, Frog,
disregards the river and undertakes the steepness of the mountain,
as sure of his spines as a warrior
in Sparta or Corinth could have been of his shield;
and suddenly, he crosses the boundary
between the meadow and the new road
with a single step that takes him right into my and your time.
And given that his universal vocabulary has not been renewed
in the last seven thousand years,
he neither understands our car lights,
nor realises his forthcoming death.


Translated from the Basque by Amaia Gabantxo.

A NEW ARRANGEMENT

As usual, Mike made coffee for me. I complimented on her talents as a hostess. She graciously accepted my compliment. I cannot display a table with flair. How do they do these things?

Even as a child, I picked flowers from their natural and their not-so-natural arrangement in my parents' garden. Then I rearranged them in a vase. Gathered and displayed this way, the flowers took on a new beauty. And yet, one could still see in each the individual beauty that had drawn me into plucking it from its bed. The arrangement gave me a new, yet familiar, pleasure.

On the M66 crosstown bus over to Mike's today, I was thinking that my work these days has to do with rearranging. Perhaps a variation of remapping, I thought. For it was not merely showing my friends Manipur, but showing my Manipur, that was my intention during that wonderful, engendering field trip a year ago. But now it is more than that. I turned to Richard during the meeting and responded to his query about 24/7 security for our coaching program in November. The people will protect, I said. The leikais will protect, if we build our baseball project from the ground up. The same leikais, I say to Richard, that we discussed with Peter. And what I am urging Bidisha now to make the lynchpin of her public health model for us. The leikais are there and have been there all along. But now we will use them.

So, as with baseball, as with leikais, I will pick and choose what I like from my Manipur, to make a new arrangement.

Jim called in from Tokyo for the conference call. MLB International is on board. I must travel to Manipur soon.