Some Monastery Business in Oklahoma

Old-school singing

This weekend I went to my cousin's ordination ceremony, where he became a regular monk in the Monastery at Our Lady of Clear Creek. It was quite an intense ceremony because this is the real thing, a tradition of monks that has passed down from St. Benedict. A couple of fans were the only things that cooled the audience - not the monks - for three hours in intense heat and humidity; after the ceremony my great-aunt fainted! She soon recovered.

For those who don't know, my uncle went to France to become a monk himself over twenty-five years ago, and just a few years ago the monastery he was associated with, Fontgambault, opened a priory in Oklahoma and he followed.

Me, my dad, and my Uncle Roark

You'll notice Roark isn't wearing a black robe as the Benedictines are known to do - it was decided that because it was so hot, the monks could wear white on special occasions.

Nick, newly ordained, poses with family

I remember Fontgambault as a magical place, with beautiful gardens and an ancient church that just felt venerable. They are trying to create this same atmosphere in Oklahoma with another large church and monastery that will last for centuries. Below are pictures of what has been finished so far and what the finished product will look like.

Outside the crypt ("basement"), about three times my height

Inside the crypt, used as a church for Nick's ceremony

The finished product - only the very bottom level is finished

Yep, Kansas is boring

There's just no avoiding it. Kansas just doesn't have the sort of mind-boggling natural features that other states do. Except mind-bogglingly empty and flat expanses of nothing but farms and horizon. Kind of like this, but 3D:



The only natural monuments we seem to have are pretty poor excuses:



In my opinion, the only thing that saves us is this, one of the stranger monuments in Kansas:



This is from the "Garden of Eden" in Lucas, Kansas. The sculptor was a civil war vet who got creative in his 60's and began building some very interesting statues like the one above, depicting various attacks on various people, made out of concrete. He got procreative at 80, having two children with his 20 year old wife.

I visited all these places today, after staying at Scott Lake, which wasn't bad. I was able to get a camp site right next to the water, without any neighbors but the bullfrogs and fireflies.

It was nice until about 2 in the morning, when a bunch of drunken kids made a ruckus (I'm getting old, I know) nearby for about a half hour and woke me up.

This morning I awoke to another unpleasant surprise - my front left tire was completely flat. I found out later I had run over a nail the night before. Luckily a local mailman had an air compressor and plugs, and I was able to get back on the road without much trouble.

And so now I'm in Wichita, staying with my dad. This weekend I'm going to see my cousin initiated into a monastery, then I'll go to Lawrence next Monday...

Colorado Springs

Just about to leave Colorado Springs for Scott Lake State Park in Kansas. Cindy and I went to the Garden of the Gods this morning, and that was pretty impressive.


Yesterday we went on a hike in hills near Cindy's house, a hike with very impressive views.


Also, I really liked this tent for Cindy's cat, Spanky.

Trying to Catch Up

It's tough keeping up to date on a weblog! I've had so much other fun stuff to do, I haven't sat down and kept up with what is going on. Hopefully I'll be able to do that now.

After I left the Tetons, I spent the rest of the day driving through mostly boring Wyoming. The drive from Grand Teton to Rock Springs is nice, but after that it looks like western Kansas except with sage and horses and cows rather than grass and just cows.

I had a campsite selected for that night, but I took a wrong turn and ended up way off track, so I planned to find a hotel in Laramie. But Laramie (a podunk, crappy town if I ever saw one) was full of expensive hotels - they were having some kind of Western festival - so I decided to head on to Cheyenne. By this time it was getting dark, so I wasn't sure what I'd do. Luckily, though, I found a great campsite about 30 miles west of Cheyenne (can't remember the name, now).

This was a really lucky find. It was really spectacular scenery, with some of the most private campsites I've seen on this trip, and all for 10 bucks, the cheapest site yet. I met a neighbor who was camping out with his wife until they could move into their new house in Fort Collins, Colorado. They were an interesting couple, to say the least, and they had quite a set up up there in the hills west of Cheyenne.



On their recommendation, I took a hike around the area and climbed one of the rock outcroppings like that in the picture above. It was such a different outcome than I had expected.

I then went on to Colorado Springs, and I am now staying at my cousin Cindy's place there. We took a hike in the hills near her house, and I'll try to have those pictures tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'm off to Kansas (egads), where I'll stay a night near Monument Rocks, then Thursday I'll be in Wichita. Over so soon?

By the way, in an interesting reversal of fortune, a Japanese friend who was supposed to accompany me on this trip but had to back out is now a day ahead of me, in Topeka. She resolved the problem that was keeping her from leaving while I was still sick in Daly City, and she ended up renting a car for a drive across the US. We were even in Yellowstone at the same time without knowing it. So if you are in Lawrence tomorrow and see a Japanese woman in her mid to late twenties driving through town, say hi (she speaks English very well).

Grand Teton

Some of the Tetons

Looking back at these photos, I realize they can never come close to realizing the awe-inspiring sensation of actually being in these two parks. There is nothing like it. I have been to several beautiful places in the world, but there really is no comparison to be made between Yellowstone/Grand Tetons and anything else I have ever seen. I hope you will, if you haven't yet, go there some day. That said, here is the regular blog entry...

My last full day in Yellowstone/Grand Teton. It's hard to believe. I can't imagine being anywhere else in the world - Kansas especially will look flat and unremarkable.

This place is magic, like nothing else I've ever seen. Unlike Yosemite, the crowds don't completely destroy that magic. Without much effort, you can lose the crowds, and even when you do follow some trail to a waterfall or meadow, you don't feel like one of the herd. While of course it would be better if there were no roads at all, at least the size of the park allows for those roads to not completely overwhelm the park, like they do Yosemite.

Yeah, so there is a tiny bison in this picture...who cares! Look at that scenery!

It's in the car that you join the ranks of other visitors to the park, and I admit I spent way too much time myself in the car. Both parks are so big that unless you have a specific destination in mind, you have to go by car. Next time I really want to do some backcountry hiking, but for an overview, I am glad I had my car. Very hypocritical, yes, but I admit it.

I caught myself several times thinking "This is too good to be real." There are so many unbelievably majestic areas all crammed into to two national parks, it just doesn't seem believable that we can get so much of a good thing. It really is a treasure.

The second day I was in Yellowstone, I did the touristy thing (can't be helped), and the third I went on a couple of hikes. Near the camp I stayed in, Indian Creek (a picture is in the previous log), was a place called Sheepeater's Cliff (I think). Apparently the local Native Americans were found of eating bighorn sheep, and somehow this cliff was associated with them...

Sheepeater hike

It was a nice little warm-up hike, about 45 minutes there and back, but the hike I was looking forward to lay ahead.

I had decided on a back-country hike, one that in the guidebooks was described as a way to get away from the crowds - good and bad, as getting away from crowds means solitude, but it also means animals are more skittish and likely to attack. Still, solitude piqued my curiosity, so I decided to risk bodily harm (I'm exaggerating for effect, I wasn't really that worried).

I include some photos from this hike below. At one point, I did run into a group of pronghorns, and I actually was a little scared. They were skittish, and I was a little worried that the few male pronghorns might attack me to defend the herd, composed primarily of young and females. I didn't want to turn back, so I waited, slowly edging towards them, and they finally went further up the hill, though they did complain verbally.

The beginning of the hike

A secret meadow

Strangely threatening pronghorns

Yellowstone's "Hoodoos"

The next day I did a bit more touristy junk, then headed down to the Tetons. I wanted to get a campsite as soon as possible, so I landed in Lizard Creek which, like Indian Creek, is a very nice campsite but remains empty even on the weekend. It has a beautiful meadow just behind the campsites, and that is where I ate my dinner that night.

My backyard at Lizard Creek

After I found my campsite, I drove around a little bit to check out this new park, then listened to a ranger's class about mountain lions (apparently there are mountain lions in the Tetons and Yellowstone, though they are never mentioned in guidebooks).

The Tetons looking all mysterious

The next day it was rainy and I was grumpy. I wanted to move my campsite because Lizard Creek was just too far away, so I tried to get into South Jenny Lake, but that was filled within hours of check-out time, so I settled for Signal Mountain. Honestly, I wasn't that impressed with this one, though it had access to a very nice beach, where I took the picture that starts this article.

I trekked around Jenny lake, then, exhausted about half way (for some reason I had no energy that day), I took the conveniently located boat back to the parking lot.

I left the next day, regretting somewhat that I was leaving such a special place, but ready to move on to a new area.

Yellowstone

Mountains near the entrance to Yellowstone

A big day. I feel like I cheated, driving around all day, but I wanted to get a feel of the park, then choose a section to hike in tomorrow.

It's funny, though, even though I just drove around, doing the tourist "stop and shoot" technique Yellowstone seems to be famous for, I feel more satisfied in what I did today than anything in a long time.

I guess camping has a lot to do with it - there's a lot more to handle just to get your tent set up, make every meal, and pack up so that the bears don't come and attack your campsite (although, unlike Yosemite, you are allowed to keep your food in your car - thought that was a little strange).

Indian Creek, first Yellowstone camp.

I think also, though, it is the constantly changing scenery in Yellowstone - in one day, you are able to experience a huge variety of ecosystems, from alpine meadows to hydrothermal "wastelands" (I realize there is a great deal of life in these areas, but they look dead to me).

Thermal "wasteland"

I saw bison, elk and deer - though no predators so far, and no otters...


In case you've been wondering what I've been eating (and I know you have...), here's a sample. I'll have more pictures later - I need to keep moving so I can get a campsite tonight. (I'm actually posting this Mon. the 11th, on my way to Colorado).

Some weird vegetable/lentil/nori mix. Good, though

Beer and hot dogs. Can't do better

Montana is Beautiful

A Fun Sign Somewhere in Washington

After spending the night in a stupid hotel because I didn't get to the campsite I wanted in time, I made it to Montana yesterday, and was quite impressed by the scenery. There are some beautiful colors covering the soft-peaked mountains on either side of I-90. Unfortunately, I didn't get a good picture of the river flowing through the area, but here's a sample of the scenery.

Whooee!

I stayed at a campground a few miles from I-90, 30 miles from Bozeman, in a state park called Lewis and Clark Caverns. It was a beautiful setting, as the pictures below hopefully show. From here I'm off to spend a couple of days in Yellowstone. It's getting late, so I'm going to get on the road again.

July 4th in Portland

Should be leaving Portland today. I'm off to the next stage - coming to Portland was the easy part. From here I'll be on my own for 4-5 days. I'm headed to Montana first, I think, then I'll spend a day or two in Yellowstone.



It's been a lot of fun visiting Jake and the family. I really see now how much it takes to bring up a couple of kids - they take up every minute of the day. I don't know if I could do it.

Yesterday was July 4th, of course, and we went to the fair to ride some rides and watch fireworks. It was a really nice riverside view, and the fireworks were very good (very loud - Ellea and Aya were both crying).




I'm headed to Yellowstone, etc., over the next few days, so I probably won't be able to update this blog for a while, but when I do, I ought to have some pretty cool pictures. Until then...

A New Month, a New State

Today was less eventful. I just drove most of the day. 101 is certainly beautiful, as is Highway 5 north of Grant's Pass, but I didn't take any pictures. Photographs just don't do justice to the landscape. And besides, it's tough to take pictures when you are going 70 miles an hour (though I did do that once on a motorcycle with a disposable camera).

Most of the day I listened to Gene Wilder's book on tape Kiss Me Like a Stranger. I bought it mainly because it was $5 at Amoeba Records and I thought it might be interesting to hear about his life. I haven't finished it yet, though I'm almost done. It's fairly interesting, but I wouldn't have continued it were I not driving in a car with little else to do.

I got to Jake's house in Portland about 9 o'clock and was warmly greeted by his youngest daughter, Aya.

Goodbye San Francisco, Goodbye Fog

Instead of San Francisco, fog

Today was partly foggy.

I have been staying with my friend Amanda in Daly City, "Gateway to the Peninsula", a city just to the south of San Francisco. It's an ugly city, with not much going for it beyond the fact Amanda lives there (hi Amanda!) and it is, well, "Gateway to the Peninsula", as every freeway onramp is happy to tell me. And it's foggy - I had no idea. June 30th, and it is 70 degrees and completely foggy. Ridiculous.

I left the city at 2 pm, 3 hours later than planned, but at least I finally left. My head was in a fog from too much beer and very little sleep. I'm on my way to Lawrence, Kansas, to sponge off my parents for a while as I look for a job in Japan.

I took a few last pictures of Coit tower, my favorite SF landmark, and, biting my lip (I'd just had an emotional parting with Naoki, a Japanese friend staying in SF, and that brought my mood down a bit), I headed towards Golden Gate Bridge. I thought I'd say goodbye to the city from the other side of the bridge, in Marin, where on a clear day you can see the entire northern half of the city.

Having lived in the city for 5 and a half years, I should have known better.

As soon as I reached the bridge, I realized it was a typical SF day. Fog was covering the bridge, just as it had been covering Daly City most of the day and was just beginning to cover SF itself. Thus, no final pictures of the city, no goodbyes, except to fog.

So I left, went up Highway 1 along the coast. Here again, of course, everything was covered with fog. Quite haunting.

A rock soaks up the fog

I wandered through that for a while, until I realized it would take several days to travel up highway 1, then turned off to go to Highway 101 and take that up.

I ended the day just north of Leggett, California, at a medium-size campground called Standish-Hickey State Recreation park just off the highway. It was nice except for that one catch - it was on the highway, and I could hear semis barreling by all night long. But it was a very pretty campground, with trails leading off to the remarkably clear Eel River, and I wasn't complaining too much.

I didn't sleep well, though - it's been a while since I've camped.

I hiked down to the river the next morning and sat staring at it for about thirty minutes, thinking about San Francisco and the cat I left behind, Doris. Then I left, got back on Highway 101.

The Eel River

My camping outfit and Hickey Standish state park

From the Decadent Camper catalog, the camping espresso maker

Currently Reading Kafka on the Shore By Haruki Murakami

What a mix of emotions. I'm just about finished gutting my room of everything I've collected over the past 5 years here in SF and even before, and while I recognize a familiar feeling of freedom from (how's that for alliteration) previous moves, I'm also not liking the idea of leaving this city, my cat, my friends here, and a feeling almost but not quite near "home", to go off into the blue yonder. So half the time I feel like I'm crazy for leaving, the other half that I'm crazy for staying in one place for as long as I have. And who wouldn't be excited about a 2 week trip travelling across the western US camping and looking at pretty things? But then...

Thus my daily emotional ride. Two days from now I leave, and that'll be it. I guess.

Byron and the Tragic Hero

Currently Reading The Love Poems of Lord Byron : A Romantic's Passion By George Gordon Byron, David Stanford Burr

Not really reading _The love poems of Byron_ just thinking about Byron and romanticism.

Have to write a paper in the next week on Romanticism. I've spent the semester sitting in a room learning nothing about Romanticism, and now I get the pleasure of writing 15 pages on it. Great.

Since I was very young I've enjoyed Byron. He's got a certain bombast that has always appealed to me, and he uses words that just sink into me, unlike so many other poets. When I read him, I usually think that if I were a poet, those are the words I'd use.
But I really think his Manfred, the work we read in my Romanticism class, is pretty poor. It's bombastic fluff - all bombast, all striking images, with nothing to rest on. Of course there is the fairly unique "tortured villain/hero" that apparently is attributed to Byron, so it has that going for it, but beyond that it is fairly empty... I often felt that anyone could string a bunch of demonic images together for kicks and then laugh when people actually take them seriously. Surely no one can really take Manfred seriously as anything other than a prototype?

I've been reading Aristotle's poetics, and he makes the point that tragedy relies more on plot that it does on character, and I thought it might be interesting to compare that to the story of Manfred, where by far the emphasis is on characterization - by far. The plot moves forward only to point out some element of Manfred's character, and there is not a single event of any consequence other than his death at the end. If it were tragic, perhaps we would see the events leading up to Astarte's death?

How much of this is dependent on causation? Compare this with Oedipus. The plot is entirely based on an irony of causation, whereas in Manfred there is no causation at all - in fact causation has ended with Astarte's death, and from that moment (which we never see), Manfred goes through a series of scenes that have no effect on each other. Nothing he does makes the slightest difference.

This is quite different from the Oedipus story - although perhaps nothing he could do could stave off his realization of the truth, in the end it is his own actions that condemn him, unwittingly executed as those actions may be. Almost every utterance from beginning to end increases the irony, and thus the tragedy, of his revelation.

There are two chances for Manfred to "make a difference," one with the chamois hunter and the other the abbot. In the first, Manfred attempts to kill himself but is saved by the chamois hunter, and in two exchanges with the Abbot, that Abbot tries to save his soul.

Really, though, these are not scenes to forward plot or offer Manfred escape - in fact they are, like the scenes with the spirits, character-building scenes. They are chances for Manfred to show his indecision, his disgust with life cooped up in a human body, his unrepentance.

It is sort of interesting that Aristotle defines tragedy as plot-driven. I think it is true of at least Greek drama, and it makes an interesting point - maybe it is easier for us to identify with a character who is fairly broadly drawn? With a Manfred, who has very definite character traits, many of which are superhuman, it takes a bit of an intellectual wrench to really identify with him. We can only partially identify, and part of him will remain Manfred. So may be you could say when Oedipus gouges out his eyes, we gouge out our eyes, but when Manfred dies, only Manfred dies? What about Hamlet, I wonder?

Going along with this, Manfred always has a choice, a choice which he willfully disregards. Oedipus never has a choice, and that is the tragedy? But then again, if Oedipus has a character flaw that causes his downfall (which I'm not really sure of, at least that his flaw is commensurate with his downfall), Manfred does as well - a couple, willfulness and indecision. In that sense he is a tragic hero without a doubt. Hamlet? Hamlet certainly has character flaws, in fact his willfulness is almost as great as Manfred's.

I should give this up for now, especially because if I had readers on this page, they would certainly not have read this far...

Kurahashi Yumiko

Currently Reading The Woman With the Flying Head and Other Stories (Japanese Women Writing) By Yumiko Kurahashi, Kurahashi Yumiko, Atsuko Sakaki

The Kurahashi book above is somehow disturbing. I'm reading through it because I thought it might be a good way to end my Dark Romantic Japanese literature studies this semester.

Definitely worth reading, but some of the stories are just... disturbing. It makes me wonder if some of the stories in, say, the Konjaku monogatari were disturbing to their audience in this way. You take your average lay Japanese person at the end of the Heian period, tell them a story about a man carrying a box of penises and gouged eyeballs for a ghost, and I think you could compare the reaction with that of an international audience in the 1960's (or the early 2000's) reading about a boy and girl sharing a living being in order to commit incest. The difference is, of course, that Kurahashi invented this story, whereas the Konjaku Monogatari stories were supposed to be true.

Honestly, I think Kurahashi has more in common with the Konjaku and Nihonryouiki than does Akinari or Kyoka. While Kyoka and Akinari use their tales of the supernatural to immerse the reader in the luscious world of the past, Kurahashi is, like the two Heian collections, more concerned with the overall story and the implications than elegance and poetic imagery.

Still, disturbing.

Continuing JET...

Continuing from last time...

I really felt a sense of relief when I processed the JET news. Not so much that I probably won't go, but that now I'm forced to think about what I'm doing, whether this is the best thing.

Ah, well, I won't waste space thinking it out here. But it'd definitely be a good idea to look into other options. I want to go to Japan, I think I have to to improve my language skills, but there may be a better way than teaching a subject I'm not absolutely thrilled about.

More important than job prospects - literature!

I've been studying Japanese "gothic" literature, and I'm really wondering, when you get down to it, what is the draw? In both Japan and Europe, there was a "genre" we can now call gothic, or better, I think, "dark romanticism". Both center around two things: old, decaying civilizations succumbing to nature, and a deep sense of horror. They seem to go hand in hand in both European and Japanese DR, and I find that fascinating. Why is, for example, the snake woman of Akinari's 蛇性の婬 found in a decrepit building that destroyed by weathering? Since Walpole's Castle, the ancient castle has played its role in Gothic fiction in much the same way. But how do evil, antiquity, the natural, and the supernatural all intersect here?

Unfortunately, I don't know enough about the roots of Gothic literature in Europe, but I've read some of the sources and influences on Akinari and Kyoka in Japan, so I know that really the connection between evil and the supernatural was not new to them.

One of my favorite stories (admittedly because of its raunchiness) is the story of the man who runs into a woman's spirit on his way homewho asks him if he will carry a box to another town for her and deliver it to another woman who will be waiting on the bridge. Reluctantly he takes on the task, and then forgets to deliver the box, going straight home instead. His wife, thinking it is a gift for some lover her husband is keeping, looks in the box to find gouged-out eyes and chopped-off penises.

Not exactly gothic, but still fun. And it starts this idea of shocking the audience into thinking about what is going on. What do these two women want with gouged-out eyes and male parts?

And the interesting thing is neither the two spirit women (they aren't called spirits here, but they have spiritual powers, so I'll call them that) nor the husband are condemned for their parts in the whole business - it is the wife who is scolded for being jealous! It's okay to traffick in body parts and forget to do a favor, but jealousy is too much! Imagine what the wife thought when she saw these things in the box. What...what exactly does my husband do all day? Did I marry the wrong man here?

Well, didn't get very far...

Alternate

Just found out I'm an alternate for JET today. JET= a government sponsored program to bring English speakers from all over the world to Japan to work in elementary, junior, and high schools as English language teachers. Alternate = as of now, I won't go, but if someone that was chosen decides not to go, I may be chosen (there is a waiting list).

Not particularly inspiring. On the one hand, I'm not good enough for the "regular" program. On the other, I'm not outright rejected, so I can't just forget about it. I may have to wait until as late as August. And that sucks.

But it has made me think. Do I really want to teach English in Japan? I want to teach, yes, I want to be in Japan, but honestly I wonder if I want to be in the middle of nowhere, teaching a subject 95% of Japanese students could care less about and that, honestly, I'm not sure I would want to learn about. I'm not saying I don't - it could be good experience, and if I were in a good situation, it could be fantastic. But for 3 years, really, I have been looking to JET as a way to get to Japan, but when it really comes down to it, I'm not COMPLETELY certain it is what I want to do.

More later...

Intro and why fireflies and snow?

Quick introduction and explanation:

My name is Jesse Bethel, student living in San Francisco. I'm studying Japanese and Comparative Literature, and should graduate this summer.

Why fireflies and snow? It comes from a Japanese compound, 蛍雪, (keisetsu), which is made up of the Chinese characters for fireflies and snow. It refers to scholars before electricity (and apparently candles) reading by the light of fireflies reflected in the snow. It means diligence in studying, and I thought it was a nice image.

Waiting for the executioner to call... Tomorrow I should hear whether or not I will be going to Japan through the JET program. I have basically been betting my entire future on this one program, and I am really going to be thrown for a loop if I don't get in. Just have to wait until tomorrow.

I'm enrolled in a special study of Japanese Gothic literature this semester. I'm still getting my feet wet, though I'm over half way through the semester. But I've decided to do a research paper in another class about Gothic literature and Romanticism in English, so I'm going to get to do a little surreptitious comparison this semester. Nice how things like that work out.

Found out recently I've been chosen as "Comp. Lit. honoree" for this year's commencement. Had no idea I was being considered and I don't really know what that means, but happy to get it.

Well, that's it for now. I imagine things will get more exciting as time goes on.