Literary gadfly Stephen Hartshorne writes about books that he finds at flea markets and rummage sales.

King's College Chapel, Cambridge

For all you lapsed church-goers out there, here’s a Sunday morning cyber service.

We begin with a tune that began life as a love song, we think, before Bernard of Clairvaux turned it into a hymn and the immortal J.S. Bach set it to music. Since it’s a beautiful tune and Bach recycled everything, he used it as a theme in the Christmas Oratorio. I know it as “Oh Sacred Head Sore Wounded,” but in another translation it’s “Oh Sacred Head Now Wounded.”

When I tried out for a musical at the Charles Playhouse in 1975, I took along my Groton School hymnal and sang that song. The theater types thought that was funny, but I got the part.

The play was called “Young Country” by Kippy Dewey and I played Samuel Adams. “We stamped out the stamp tax, trampled the tarriff, refuuuuused the revenuuuuues…”

Next we have the official hymn of the British Navy, “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.” Dedicated to my grandfather, Commodore Charles K. Dickson.

Next, “Abide With Me.” What more can I say? Written in 1847 by Henry Francis Lyte as he lay dying. “Abide with me; fast falls the eventide…”

Lastly, “I Come to the Garden Alone,” also known as “In the Garden.” Written by Charles Austin Miles in 1913. It’s about Mary Magdalene meeting Jesus on “the greatest morn in history.” Better have a hanky handy.

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My low-tech solution to the adapter problem

Travel writers will relate to this photo. Universal European electrical adapters are set up to accept many different inputs, so they tend to be loosey-goosey when it comes down to specific prongs from specific countries.

You would think that pressing the adapter in firmly would make it work, but often it turns out you have to press it in firmly and then let it out a little bit to make the light on your charger go on. Then if you can sit there and hold it, you’re fine. If you have to go somewhere, you need to look for a low-tech solution.

I had this problem in Vilnius, Lithania — one rockin town, let me tell you — and here’s how I dealt with it.

I

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John Ross, chief of the Cherokee, seven-eighths Scottish

I just sent a Facebook message to Bill Dwight, whom I have never met, but I was a great fan of his radio show, and I know he is a friend of Rachel Maddow. I’m hoping the Warren campaign can use this information:

Dear Bill,

Do you know any strategists in Elizabeth Warren’s campaign? I have some bits of information that, taken together, might help her campaign. First of all, membership in the Cherokee nation was never based on parentage. Sam Houston went there after his first marriage, about which we know nothing, and became a full-fledged member of the tribe.

The Cherokee chief who fought the Indian Relocation Act all the way to the US Supreme Court, and won, was a Scot named John Ross — one eighth Cherokee. Sadly, President Jackson ignored the court’s decision and gave the orders for the Trail of Tears. In Jackson’s defense, I can only say that there were lots of even nastier rednecks in government who had a solution to the ‘Cherokee Problem’ that didn’t involve relocation.

After the United States stole their ancestral lands, people of Cherokee ancestry were entitled to compensation, so now Cherokee ancestry has a monetary value, based on the Dawes Rolls, which are admittedly flawed, but they use them anyway because they’re all we have. Over the years it has also acquired a prestige value — it’s very cool to claim Cherokee ancestry — but historically the Cherokee tribe always had a policy of open membership.

Today you might hear someone speak of being one eighth or one sixteenth or one thirty-second Cherokee, but for thousands of years, parentage meant nothing to the Cherokee. If Elizabeth Warren is proud of one Cherokee ancestor, who can blame her. Will Rogers was proud of his Cherokee ancestry. America’s most famous cowboy was actually an Indian.

I had the opportunity to meet Chad Corntassle Smith, the principal chief of the Cherokee, and while he would probably be reluctant to get involved in a political campaign, I’m sure he would verify these historical facts, especially if he knew, as we do, that of the two candidates, Elizabeth Warren has a deeper commitment to the Cherokee concept of gadugi, ‘working together for the good of all.’

If this information could help make this a teaching moment for the citizens and voters of Massachusetts, that would make me a happy man.

Sincerely,

Stephen Hartshorne
Associate Editor
GoNOMAD.com
atnash@gmail.com

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The members of this Setu choir have performed for the Pope in Rome. They have been singing together for 48 years.

I’ve managed to make it back safe and sound from Estonia and Lithuania and am comfortably ensconced at my daughter Sarah’s house in Connecticut. Didn’t lose my passport, managed to keep my batteries charged, and made a few brief reports, but I could only scratch the surface. I have more than a thousand photos and enough material for a dozen stories. I don’t even know where to start.

But what comes immediately to mind is a moment in the Seto Lands of Estonia, where we met the people of a tiny minority called the Setu, whose name in Estonia means “not this and not that” because they speak the Estonian language and practice a version of the Russian Orthodox religion.

We met the members of a Setu choir who have been singing together for 48 years. They have performed in New York, Moscow, Paris, and many other places, and even sang for the Pope in Rome. It was like visiting Liverpool and being greeted by the Beatles.

But a press trip is not a vacation. Dining at gourmet restaurants and staying at five-star hotels may not sound like work, but it is, and if you do it right it’s hard work. Sometimes, visiting all these wonderful places and learning about their customs and their history, your mental memory card just gets full and you can’t seem to take in any more.

And I’m usually not the most popular guy on the trip because I’m something of a hermit at home and when I go to exciting places like Estonia I get worked up and ask a lot of questions about obscure points of history and culture. When we were served a delicious soup the Setus call ‘mouth glue’ — a bit like gazspacho with milk — my colleagues all urged me to have an extra helping.

So when we arrived, late in the evening, at the hunting lodge where we were staying, I felt as if my brain had short-circuited, and I looked longingly at my bed and was sore tempted to curl up with my book about the Thirty Years War.

But then I made a decision to turn the moment around, and with the help of five shots of hansa (Setu moonshine) I feasted and danced and sang with the Setu into the wee hours of the morning. Then I sweated out the hansa in a 200-degree sauna — much hotter than the ones we have in the States — and plunged happily into the icy waters of the pond. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences that you never forget. Thank you GoNOMAD!

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Tall Herman

After a seven-hour flight from New York to Helsinki and a 20-minute flight across the Gulf of Finland to Estonia, I’m now comfortably ensconced at the Schlossle Hotel in Talinn, the Estonian capital.

The first thing I discovered about my new Estonian friends is that they are savoring their new-found freedom. While the country was settled back in the 13th century, they were ruled, over the centuries, by the Danes, the Swedes, the Germans, and the Russians.

They gained their independence in 1918, but lost it when the Soviet Union invaded in 1940. Then it was Nazi Germany, then the Soviets again. In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, they became an independent republic, and boy are they glad! You would be too after half a century of oppression by the KGB.

They still have to endure the horrors of European socialism — you know, four weeks of vacation a year, 18 months of paid maternity leave, free medical care and free college tuition – but they’re bearing up well and they have one of the strongest economies in Europe.

Today we had a walking tour of the Old Town in Talinn, where we saw some of the fortifications that have protected the town from Baltic Sea raiders since 1229. The oldest tower is called Tall Herman, the widest is called Fat Margaret, and the weather vane atop the town hall is called Old Thomas.

Fat Margaret

The spire of the town hall

Old Thomas

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Robert Duvall as Arthur "Boo" Radley with Mary Badham as Mary Louise "Scout" Finch and Philip Alford as Jeremy Atticus "Jem" Finch

I watched “To Kill a Mockingbird” the other night. What a great book and what a great movie. Gregory Peck, what can you say? One of the greatest actors in the history of cinema, playing one of the greatest characters in the history of literature. But Mary Badham is magnificent too as Jean Louise “Scout” Finch.

I love the way the drama plays out viewed from the eyes of the children.

I had forgotten the way Scout singlehandedly dispels the lynch mob that has gathered around the jail. The sheriff is gone, and only Atticus Finch, unarmed, is between them and their prey. Scout and her brother Jem  (Jeremy Atticus Finch, played by Philip Alford) have disobeyed their father and are standing beside him.

“Hiya Mister Cunningham!” Scout says to one of the men. “Tell Walter I said, ‘Hey!’” Whether it’s because his son has been friends with the Finch children or because he now knows he’ll be recognized, Cunningham tells the other men to go home. This scene illustrates Harper Lee’s genius, neatly and dramatically summing up the power of humanity, in the person of a little girl.

Robert Duval as Arthur "Boo" Radley

And who could ever forget Robert Duval’s screen debut as Arthur “Boo” Radley, plunging a kitchen knife into the black heart of Bob Ewell, who sent an innocent man to his death to cover his own guilt and who attacked two little children.

And how do we view this epic struggle? Through the eyehole of a ham costume. Perfect! Lee’s genius again. Vladimir Nabokov wrote a very interesting essay about William Faulkner’s use of point of view, which is also brilliant, of course, but Lee, here, does him one better. An epic struggle between good, in the person of Boo Radley, and evil, in the person of Bob Ewell, viewed through the eyehole of a ham costume.

But like Margaret Mitchell (Gone With the Wind), she won the Pulitzer Prize and the book was a bestseller (academics really hate that!) so the book has never gained its rightful place in literature. It moved too many readers and inspired one of the greatest movies of all time!

I watched the movie with great interest, well knowing the plot, but taking in the details of Scout’s world, which is very like the world of my friend Walter Emmett Perry. His grandfather and namesake, after serving as a prosecuting officer at the Nuremburg Trials, prosecuted members of the Ku Klux Klan for castrating an innocent man, a black man, naturally.

He won convictions, amazingly enough, but the men were all pardoned by Alabama Governor George Wallace. But Perry kept going, and ultimately, he won.

This week I got a long letter in longhand from his grandson, who is currently incarcerated at the Ogdensburg Correctional Facility in Ogdensburg, NY.  Walter’s in the slammer for befriending some ungrateful preppy frat boys, and ultimately we hope they’ll get their due, but in the meantime he is bearing himself like the true philosopher he is and helping other inmates with their education.

He helps them write to all their baby mamas telling them not to visit, so they don’t have more than one baby mama show up at the same time, after a 12-hour bus ride from Brooklyn. Don’t you hate it when that happens?

Walter says he had some trouble learning to write longhand again. It’s hard! I tried! He worked on this letter for weeks, and I’m honored. He has some far-seeing ideas for improving our correctional system, and like his grandfather, he has a lot of grit. I expect great things.

In the meantime, I have made a contribution, in honor of Walter Emmett Perry, to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group that has actually bankrupted the Klan with their lawsuits. They still need your help. They’re still targeted by a lot of violent groups.

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I’ve written entries about several poems by Arthur T. Nash, and about his longer fragments. Here are two more of his poems:

A Breakfast Poem

What?
No muffins?

and another one:

Harvest Time in Days Gone By

Abundance
A barn dance

Ed Amethyst, author of The Power of Poetry

Ed Amethyst writes in his book, The Power of Poetry, “Nash has always been known for his quick, pithy works like his duck poems and of course ‘A Breakfast Poem,’ which has exactly as many words as its title. With ‘Harvest Time in Days Gone By,’ he pulls out all the stops and gives us a poem which is shorter than its own title. Just four words, but what punchy, evocative words they are, and the title is expressive, too.

“ He’s like a boxer who jumps in and delivers a quick jab and a right cross and really knocks you out, so to speak. Here is a poet who will not waste your time, and that’s important for a lot of people these days…”

Here are four of the duck poems that Amethyst is referring to. What the heck, they’re short:

Face Facts

Nobody cares if you see a duck where there isn’t one.
Nobody.

Untitled

When a great duck leader comes of age,
Many ducks flock to his standard.

Leda Sated

Did you get the license number
On that duck?

and the most famous duck poem:

Edgy

Ducks march around the periphery of consciousness
Where they know I cannot see them.
I don’t know what they have in mind.

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Aside from how He arrived and how He departed, the teachings of Jesus are uplifting. They show a way out of violence and despair. I do hope you will take the time to watch this video. It takes about half an hour and there’s a long boring introduction, but I think Daoud’s message is inspiring.

And I think it’s important to see images of the children of Palestine and hear their hopes and dreams. Mention Palestinians, and most Americans think of masked gunmen shooting unarmed athletes. Daoud and his family, like most Palestinians, had nothing to do with that. They were as shocked and disgusted as you or me.

And as the long boring introduction points out, it’s important to view the Tent of Nations outside the context of the intractable conflict, as an ongoing act of faith in the teachings of Jesus.

I think this video is important for all true friends of Israel. Just as Herschel Goldhirsch, later known as Harry Golden, told his friends and neighbors in North Carolina, politely but firmly, that racial segregation was wrong, we need to tell our Israeli allies that their treatment of the Palestinians is wrong, and that the only way they can remain a democratic nation is to make peace.

American Jews and friends of Israel are in the best position to do this — indeed nearly all the groups supporting Palestinian rights that I have met with are made up mostly of Israelis and American Jews — but we all have to do our part.

Most Americans hesitate to criticize Israel because of its precarious position. Until very recently it was the only real democracy in the Middle East, but it is the failure to make peace with the Palestinians that makes this position all the more precarious. Americans may wish not to take sides, but we have taken sides. We give more aid to Israel than any other country in the world. Just as we are part of the problem, we can be part of the solution.

America once had a president who could stand up to the government of Israel and make them abide by international law, but his name was Ike and that was a long time ago.

The Israeli-only highways, the checkpoints, the wall — they have to go. If Israel sets up a system with two layers of citizenship, it will go the way of South Africa. But don’t ask me. Ask Ariel Sharon. Well you can’t because he’s in a coma, or dead, depending on who you talk to, but he’s said as much in no uncertain terms. And any true friend of Israel will tell you the same.

Socrates asked, “Who is the true friend?” Not the one who praises all your words and actions, but the one who tells you the truth.

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They say that when you start out blogging you have a headful of ideas and you wind up writing about what you had for lunch. Well, today I had what I consider a significent lunch: homemade hummus.

I haven’t made hummus in many years, but it’s like riding a bicycle. And I had forgotten how much better homemade hummus tastes. And one does, if one is eating sensibly, resent paying four buck for a lousy little container.

I remember I experimented for years with chickpeas and tahini and garlic and lemon to make the hummus less dry. Olive oil didn’t work, tho that’s always a good idea. More lemon juice didn’t do the trick. What could possibly make the mixture less dry? I pondered the question night and day, and at last I found the answer: a little bit of water.

My delicious lunch of hmmus and rye bread is, as I suggested, part of a program of eating sensibly, but that really doesn’t do it justice. I’m savoring delicious food all day long, and I have parted ways with the kind of food that makes you hungrier than you were before.

So far I’ve lost 20 pounds, and I’m going to take off 20 more.

People don’t change without reasons, and my reasons were lit up plain as day — high blood sugar readings and a visit from my friend Bob, who lost the front half of his foot. The joke is diabetes makes you impotent, but you don’t notice because you’re going blind and they’re cutting off your extremeties — hahaha.

I realized I could avoid the whole deal by becoming a jock and exercising every day for more than an hour and by cutting out beer and pizza and eating sensibly.

So then you realize the whole economy is based on selling fat-sugar-carb crap and you see some sensible talks by people like Dr. Mark Hyman, who can get their message across in a minute, and you find a great coach like Marina Solovyov, and finally you knock off everything that has been hydrogenated or that contains high fructose corn syrup.

I actually cringe now when I see an adult hand a soda to a kid. I keep my mouth shut, but I cringe. And don’t think you’re doing any better with Orangina or ginger ale. Look at the label. Pepperidge Farm? Loaded with HFCS. Rye bread, pumpernickel — the number one ingredient is wheat flour! It’s got a super-gluten super-carb! Just what you need!

Then, if you read the data about pesticides, you wind up going organic whenever you can, and here in the Pioneer Valley, you’re in luck, thanks to folks like Dave Jackson at Enterprise Farms and Bill Hewitt at the Funny Farm.

Food as Medicine

For me, the process has been one of adding, rather than subtracting. I don’t feel like eating when I get up, but I do, oatmeal with ground flax seed and cinnamon and a banana and a kale-spinach apple-orange smoothie. Take your medicine, I tell myself. And these are foods that make you less hungry than you were before you ate them, unlike a cheeseburger or a roast beef sandwich that make you want three more just like it.

Then in the evening I have roasted brussels sprouts and carrots and salmon or pork or chicken roasted on a bed of grilled onions and peppers and mushrooms. With lots of garlic. In between I eat unsalted peanuts, black olives and almost-hard-boiled eggs. I’m never hungry and I’m losing about half a pound a day.

So there’s the story of my lunch, and that’s the last I’ll say about it, unless you’re interested. And of course I’ll keep you posted on my progress, but only in increments of five pounds or more.

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