Babel: The multilingual, multicultural online journal and community of arts and ideas

“Bees are dying everywhere but in cities …. The bees are speaking to us.”
- Olivier Darne

There are more than 300 known colonies in the French capital, up from about 250 five years ago, according to the National Beekeepers’ Association. Hives have appeared on the roof of the Opéra Garnier, on balconies and in parks.

Bees are thriving in cities because “flowers and plants are changed constantly and there aren’t pesticides,” said Moncelli, who co-owns the hotel with her husband, Pascal.

The success of a three-year-old French program to encourage beekeeping in cities, the largest such project in the world, is sparking hope of a revival among their country cousins. Global agriculture, valued at € 153 billion, or $214 billion, relies on pollination by bees, according to the French National Institute of Agricultural Research, or INRA.

As in the United States and in Britain, where bee colonies are dying, about 300,000 to 400,000 French hives have disappeared every year between 1995 and 2007, victims of pesticides, pollution and disease.

- International Herald Tribune: Link.

Via Technocrat.net.

~ Karl Jones

After traveling in Europe for two months, I was worried that I might come home to San Francisco and find it rather sad and small, and unlovely. I wondered how my homely little town–my village, really–could compare to Rome, London, Paris, or even Brussels.

And I arrived back at the end of summer, our season of fog and grey–the time of year when tourists, expecting California sunshine, wander around shivering in shorts and loud-print shirts. I feared being depressed by the grime, the relative lack of linguistic diversity–especially compared to polyglot Brussels, the lower quality food (still dreaming of Italy’s summer tomatoes and those Belgian speculoos cookies), and a dearth of fine leather goods.

And all these things are true–but San Francisco is a city with which I can’t help being in love. Like a truly multi-dimensional lover, San Francisco knows how to remind you what it was that made you fall in love in the first place: the views from Nob Hill (this morning, through a shroud of fog, I peaked down the hill and saw light shining off the Bay water, and hazed by fog the majestic rise of the Bay Bridge), the cool crisp sunlight, the lowing moan of fog horns in the night, and the people everywhere all mixed together–mixed couples, queer folks, gender-indeterminate people–different cultures and races and religions, all basically accepting one another, perhaps even delighting in each other’s difference.

I love my city full of Chinese grandmothers, Russian princesses, Italian politicians (Joe Alioto, Jr.–grandson of a former mayor, is running for City Supervisor), 4th and 5th generation San Franciscans, living in their little neighborhoods–just over the hill from one another.

And I am finding new reasons to love and be loved by my city, my village. Every day for four days I have gone out and run into at least two people I know. Today I had lunch with a 32 year old I first met when he was 11. My city is a village that grows as I grow, that lives and breathes with me.

~Wei Ming Dariotis

[lang_en]Do you have a favorite food in your hometown that you just can’t get–or doesn’t taste the same–when you travel?

I just got back to San Francisco after 2 months traveling in Europe, mostly living in Brussels, and I indulged myself in a Mission style chile relleno super burrito. The Mission District is a mostly Mexican and Latino neighborhood, famous for really great burritos, which, it is claimed, were invented here.

A chile relleno burrito involves taking a chile relleno (a large mild pepper, stuffed with jack cheese, egg-battered and deep fried or baked), covering it in a house-made tomato, onion and chile sauce, heating that up, then stuffing it into a large tortilla filled with your choice of beans, rice, and “the works”–guacamole, salsa, sour cream, cheese, and lettuce-and extra hot sauce, if you are me. Costs $6.95.

The burrito I found in Brussels didn’t quite measure up. And cost 11 Euros. Which is insane.

Then again, now that I’m back in SF, I will miss speculoos! (that peculiar, “ginger-bread-like” Belgian cookie). Maybe I just like saying “speculoos.” Nah–I enjoy eating them, too!

~Wei Ming Dariotis[/lang_en][lang_zh]Do you have a favorite food in your hometown that you just can’t get–or doesn’t taste the same–when you travel?

I just got back to San Francisco after 2 months traveling in Europe, mostly living in Brussels, and I indulged myself in a Mission style chile relleno super burrito. The Mission District is a mostly Mexican and Latino neighborhood, famous for really great burritos, which, it is claimed, were invented here.

A chile relleno burrito involves taking a chile relleno (a large mild pepper, stuffed with jack cheese, egg-battered and deep fried or baked), covering it in a house-made tomato, onion and chile sauce, heating that up, then stuffing it into a large tortilla filled with your choice of beans, rice, and “the works”–guacamole, salsa, sour cream, cheese, and lettuce-and extra hot sauce, if you are me. It costs $6.95.

The burrito I found in Brussels didn’t quite measure up. And cost 11 Euros. Which is insane.

Then again, now that I’m back in SF, I will miss speculoos! (that peculiar, “ginger-bread-like” Belgian cookie).  Maybe I just like saying “speculoos.” Nah–I enjoy eating them, too!

~Wei Ming Dariotis[/lang_zh]

[lang_en]I was encouraged to make my first post to the Tower of Babel blog an introduction, so here’s a little bit about me.  My name is Jim Rovira.  I’m currently an Assistant Professor of English at Tiffin University in Tiffin, Ohio.  My dissertation, which I successfully defended last April (graduated with my Ph.D. last May), is about William Blake and Soren Kierkegaard.  I am actively publishing in my field.  My most recent publication is a book review of a recent Blake study for undergraduates for College Literature, and I’m currently reading two books on reception studies of Jane Austen and Sir Walter Scott for my next review.  I will be presenting on William Blake at the upcoming International Conference on Romanticism this coming November.

I live here in Tiffin with my wife Sheridan and two youngest children, Penn and Grace, but have four older children from a previous marriage in the Central Florida area. They are almost all grown; my youngest from my first marriage is going to be a senior in High School this coming academic year.

I’m a displaced Californian.  I lived the first seventeen years of my life in Southern California (I have an essay published on the Tower of Babel website about growing up in So. Cal.), the next seventeen in Florida, the next five around the New Jersey/Pennsylvania area for graduate school, then back to Florida for four years to teach college in a full time, non-tenured position while I worked on my dissertation, and now to Ohio for my first Assistant Professor level job. You can get more details about me on LinkedIn.com and connect with me through jamesrovira (at) gmail (dot) com.

I hope to be posting here about the upcoming elections as I observe them happening in and around Ohio.  This, to me, involves writing a bit about Ohio –  I don’t think we can fully understand people’s attitudes without understanding the place where they live.  But the person writing needs to be understood as well: not just where that person lives, but where that person has lived.  What you need to understand about me is that until this last June I’ve lived 38 of my 43 years of life within twenty miles of either Disneyland or DisneyWorld.  So when my wife and I were driving from Tiffin to Fremont, watching mile after mile of corn, wheat, and soy fields, it made perfect sense that my wife would turn to me and say, “You’re going to lose your mind before I do.”

Maybe I already have![/lang_en]

[lang_en]July 5th, 2008 Brussels

My Brussel’s host, Alvilda, through some odd connection, was invited to the US Embassy’s “U.S. Independence Day 2008” part on Friday, July 4th. The invitation read:

Sam Fox

Ambassador of the United States of America to Belgium,

and

Christopher W. Murray

Charge d’Affaires of the U.S. Mission to the European Union

invite you

to celebrate the 232nd Anniversary of the Independence

Of the United States of America

The event was held at the Hilton Hotel on Boulevard de Waterloo, just a few blocks from where Alvilda works. The theme was Route 66, and instead of a red carpet there was a carpet made to look like asphalt divided by a broken white line. A couple had leant their Harley-Davidsons for the receiving line, while another had leant two red classic Mustangs that were parked outside the Hilton, on the sidewalk, during the event. We went to meet Americans, a task we immediately realized would be much more difficult than anticipated as we saw that the majority of guests were 60+ year old men in a variety of military uniforms—but almost none of them US. While Alvilda set about testing her knowledge of international military uniforms, I went to get us drinks (they were serving wine from Washington State, which was never on Route 66).

Alvilda told me in no uncertain terms that she was determined to leave the event with at least one new American friend, so I grabbed the first “American” looking person, who turned out to be “Richard” –newly appointed to work for the US delegation to the European Union (I put his name in quotes, because neither Alvilda nor I can actually remember his name. I do recall that he said he was from Ohio, or something). “Richard” informed us that the Charge d’Affaires was an interesting guy whose last posting had been Lebanon and had been in charge of evacuating 1500 Americans during the war last year (which I know about best through the episode of “No Reservations” in which Anthony Bourdain has gotten trapped there unexpectedly—um, I suppose this says something about how I should pay more attention to international news).

While the Charge d’Affaires was doing his introduction, he, like Sam Fox, the Ambassador, meant to invoke both patriotism for the United States and respect for the EU, particularly for Belgium and France (maybe because so many Belgians are Francophones?). He talked about the great gift of the French to the US of the Statue of Liberty. So then Charge d’Affaires said, “When our company…I mean “country”…was founded…” and I thought, did he really just say that? And I turned to “Richard” and Alvilda and asked, “Did he just say-“ and they both answered, “Yes. He said “Company.” Now “Richard” seemed a nice young man, earnest about his new position, so I was trying not to be a snarky left coast liberal, but there are only two interpretations of a slip like that: 1. He meant “company” as in the US is a transnational, global capital machine, i.e. “Halliburton” or 2. He meant “The Company” as in the Cold War nickname for the CIA. Which do you think it was?

When the National Anthem plays on the 4th of July, at a celebration hosted by the US Embassy, Americans should put their right hands over their hearts, and maybe even endeavor to sing along? For some reason, almost no one in the room was doing this, as Alvilda pointed out when it was done. Even, in fact, our US delegation to the EU guy—“Richard”—had failed to do so. Were we all just caught off guard? Was it awkward because we all had drinks in one hand and in the other little plates of either deconstructed guacamole/black beans in tortilla “cups” or beef carpaccio (not exactly Route 66 fare)? Or was our failure to demonstrate our patriotism due to some other factor? Or because we were conscious of being Americans in a foreign country? Regardless of its cause, we were both strangely disappointed by this lack.

And then we met a bunch of Belgian people, including a very nice young man (yeah, can’t remember his name either—I think by this time we were on our 3rd glass of free wine) who is married to a Turkish woman. He and Alvilda had an interesting discussion about the parallels between Female Genital Mutilation (the project she heads at her NGO) and male circumcision. His wife is pregnant, and they know they are having a boy. He feels that it is not his right, as a parent, to make this kind of decision about his child’s body. It is, we agreed, a larger issue of human rights.

Which brings me to the graffiti that is spray painted around our Brussels neighborhood. I keep seeing it at odd places, unexpectedly, and it keeps bringing me up short. It is Uncle Sam, in his classic, finger-pointing pose. Even simplified into a spray-painted graphic, he is undeniably recognizable. He looks angry, like you might be shirking your duty to enlist. But instead of the message underneath that we expect to see (“I Want You! For the US Army”) there is something unexpected. It just says,

“I Love You!”

Every time I read this I feel like I might—not cry exactly, but I feel full of—what? Terror, honor, pride, fear, glory? I feel like the Brussels sky—one moment I could be like one of these pregnant clouds, slowly unleashing a downpour, and then ceasing, suddenly, the sky then to break into too-warm sunshine. It all feels like too much. For Uncle Sam to say “I Love You!” invokes the threat of war, it invokes the “send me your huddled masses” sentiment of the Statue of Liberty” (and the anti-immigrant irony of all that), it invokes—for me–the multi-cultural love fest that is the Bay Area (a bit of homesickness?). We contain multitudes, we contradictory Americans.

“I Want/Love You!”

~Wei Ming Dariotis[/lang_en]

Alvilda was a little concerned that Ivana, her friend from her studies at Fletcher over a decade ago who now also lives in Brussels, and I might be two too many alpha females to get along well, but that worry proved unfounded. Ivana is Croatian, and like Alvilda, is interested in international social justice issues. I liked her immediately.

We spent Saturday shopping in Brussels, but mostly window shopping. After the swank shops of Avenue Louise, we wandered over towards the area of the Grand Place, first stopping to pay homage to the Mannekin Pis (Little Boy Peeing), a several hundred year old fountain, and much-beloved symbol of Brussels. We got lucky, as some kind of odd civic ceremony was taking place, lead by the Friends of Mannekin Pis. The statue was dressed up, though of course provisions are made to allow his stream to freely flow. A town from Northern Spain had sent Gigante figures and folk dancers, who were all posing for photos in front of Mannekin Pis, with much arranging and ordering around being done by grumpy older gentlemen wearing official green jackets, and the Friends’ characteristic ribbon of offocialdom, featuring a reproduction of Mannekin Pis dangling from a ribbon (remember, this is a statue of a pissing boy).

After this, Ivana wisely guided us towards a bar she remembered nearby. It had once been a theater and featured a heavenly quiet courtyard–ruled by the most magnficent black cat. I ordered my new favorite beer, Triple Karmeliet, which has complex flavors, including something that reminds me of the toasted rice flavor of hojicha. Alvilda had Chimay Blue, and Ivana a white wine.

We shared a cheese plate, all of which was cubes of gouda.

~Wei Ming Dariotis

On a whim today, after exploring the storybook cuteness of Brussel’s Grand Place (various winding cobblestone side streets, delightfully whimsical facades, etc.), I happened by the Royal Museums of the Beaux-Arts.

I was thinking more about eating lunch at the Museum Cafe than anything else, but I was drawn in by the Rubens Room. It is huge, the walls are almost oxblood red, and the paintings are truly magnificent.

Normally, I don’t go in much for religious focused art, but in this case, I was truly touched by the artistry of this Master. [I must say that the whole idea of artistic "Mastery" seems offensive to me in so many ways, but here, I must say, Rubens demonstrates a facility with his brush that can only be described as great ease--it is this that makes him seem a "Master" to me--a master of himself, say, rather than of some abstract ideal of the medium].

The “Pieta with St. Francis” is particularly affecting. At first, I was mainly interested in the girl wearing a lovely lavender silk dress (yes, I was looking at the fashion!) kneeling at Christ’s feet. She has apparently pulled the curved, dagger-like nails from his feet and is holding them like she might stab them into her own chest out of grief. The more I looked at this the more I became engaged with this figure–and she is the only one at eye level, so it makes sense that she brings you into the painting, she makes you want to understand the scene in this specific circumstance–rather than just the general myth of Christ being crucified.

Christ, despite having hung on the cross, looks solid and earthy. The Belgian artists of this period generally made their figures solid, almost monumental, but Rubens does it with a breathy kind of looseness that I find invigorating and simply, as I said above, “masterful.”

Years after Western Civ class, to finally see these pieces in person is quite–well, touching.

In another room I stumbled on to David’s “A Marat.” I’d always loved this painting in reproduction because of the vast empty space above Marat’s dead body in the bath. The simple planes seem to foreshadow those of more modern works that would be influenced by the treatment of space in Japanese block prints.

Seeing David’s work in person was enlightening because I’d never known before that he’d painted Marat as though his dead flesh barely contained a kind of light seeping through him, as though he was already transforming into a being of light and fire. More than Christ in Rubens’ painting, Marat looks like his body is barely containing the ineffable.

~Wei Ming Dariotis

“[Slums] are generating wealth the way cities have always done.”

Stewart Brand — lifelong activist, optimist, and gadfly — recently addressed the problem of urban poverty:

The mindset must shift from “city as problem to city as solution,” said Stewart Brand, president of the Long Now Foundation, which aims to raise awareness on solving long-term problems.

Historically, Brand said, squatter cities have always been areas of economic expansion; within them there is virtually no unemployment, and their inhabitants are constantly striving to lift themselves out of destitution, he said.

“[Slums] are generating wealth the way cities have always done,” Brand said.

- Lara Farrar for CNN (June 11, 2008 ): Link.

Stewart Brand @ Wikipedia: Link.

The Long Now Foundation: Link.

Flashback to 2003:
“Every third person will be a slum dweller within 30 years, UN agency warns.”

One in every three people in the world will live in slums within 30 years unless governments control unprecedented urban growth, according to a UN report. The largest study ever made of global urban conditions has found that 940 million people — almost one-sixth of the world’s population — already live in squalid, unhealthy areas, mostly without water, sanitation, public services or legal security.

The report, from the UN human settlements programme, UN-habitat, based in Nairobi, found that urban slums were growing faster than expected, and that the balance of global poverty was shifting rapidly from the countryside to cities.

- John Vidal @ The Guardian (October 4, 2003): Link.

~ Karl Jones