Kit Stolz

How can someone so young write such a good dark novel?

My favorite interviewer of writers is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a writer herself: Michelle Huneven. She's written for countless different outlets, but these days is interviewing for the literary site The Millions.

This week she published an interview with a young novelist who wrote a book called The Gin Closet. Here's Michelle's introduction to the book and the author, Leslie Jamison:

I read and admired Leslie Jamison’s The Gin Closet when it first came out –and was immediately curious about its author: How could someone so young (Jamison was 26 at publication) write a book so lyrical, dark and knowing?

For more on the book, please read Michelle's interview. I doubt anyone could unveil it better, even the author herself. But for those curious about the title…

MH: One scene really haunts me. Stella [a young woman] goes to her aunt’s trailer in Nevada and sees the gin closet, her [elderly] aunt’s drinking room. It’s a terrible womb-tomb place, bottles, flies, a turkey carcass of all things, a stool in the corner—truly the nightmare version of a tuffet. Appalling! But the next thing you know, Stella and Tilly are drinking together. Reading along, I was thinking: No! Don’t do it, Stella–you’re giving too much ground! I knew she wanted to help her aunt and bring her back into the family. While I never thought she had a chance of succeeding, I really didn’t want her to sink to her aunt’s level.

LJ: I wanted to destabilize Stella’s hero complex from the start to show it as confused. She wanted to connect with her aunt and build a sense of trust and to not be just another voice saying, “you’re a fuck up and we want your problems far away from us.” The short cut to that was to get low with her, get shamed with her.

That’s as opposed to saying I’m here, in a better spot, and I want you to come here too, which imposes a boundary and a separateness that requires a lot of moral fortitude and a kind of caring that’s willing to be patient.

A lot of wisdom there, and a lot of issues, too.

McKibben/Toles: Ignore the climate/disaster connection!

It's long been my contention that environmental writers, artists, and speakers have to access the full range of human emotion to make the case for the urgency of action needed to preserve our existing climate — even bitterness, if necessary. Science and earnest appeals to reason simply aren't enough.

So it's good, in a rhetorical sense, to see our leading advocate for action, Bill McKibben, resort to sarcasm and even, yes, a little bitterness in a column in the Washington Post about climate and tornadoes, not to mention, floods, droughts, wildfires, the melting of the ice at the poles, and more.

Caution: It is vitally important not to make connections. When you see pictures of rubble like this week’s shots from Joplin, Mo., you should not wonder: Is this somehow related to the tornado outbreak three weeks ago in Tuscaloosa, Ala., or the enormous outbreak a couple of weeks before that (which, together, comprised the most active April for tornadoes in U.S. history). No, that doesn’t mean a thing.

It is far better to think of these as isolated, unpredictable, discrete events. It is not advisable to try to connect them in your mind with, say, the fires burning across Texas — fires that have burned more of America at this point this year than any wildfires have in previous years. Texas, and adjoining parts of Oklahoma and New Mexico, are drier than they’ve ever been — the drought is worse than that of the Dust Bowl. But do not wonder if they’re somehow connected.

If you did wonder, you see, you would also have to wonder about whether this year’s record snowfalls and rainfalls across the Midwest — resulting in record flooding along the Mississippi — could somehow be related. And then you might find your thoughts wandering to, oh, global warming, and to the fact that climatologists have been predicting for years that as we flood the atmosphere with carbon we will also start both drying and flooding the planet, since warm air holds more water vapor than cold air.

Please read the whole thing. It gets even better, but I don't want to give away the punchline.

From Toles, of course.

Making a city resilient: plant more heat-resistant trees

That's what Chicago is doing, among other forward-thinking ideas:

Awareness of climate change has filled Chicago city planners with deep concern for the trees.

Not only are they beautiful, said Ms. Malec-McKenna, herself trained as a horticulturalist, but their shade also provides immediate relief to urban heat islands. Trees improve air quality by absorbing carbon dioxide, and their leaves can keep 20 percent of an average rain from hitting the pavement.

Chicago spends over $10 million a year planting roughly 2,200 trees. From 1991 to 2008, the city added so many that officials estimate tree cover increased to 17.6 percent from 11 percent. The goal is to exceed 23 percent this decade.

The problem is that for trees to reach their expected lifespan — up to 90 years — they have to be able to endure hotter conditions. Chicago has already changed from one growing zone to another in the last 30 years, and it expects to change several times again by 2070.

Knowing this, planners asked experts at the city’s botanical garden and Morton Arboretum to evaluate their planting list. They were told to remove six of the most common tree species.

Off came the ash trees that account for 17 percent of Chicago tree cover, or more than any other tree. Gone, too, are the enormous Norway maples, which provide the most amount of shade.

A warming climate will make them more susceptible to plagues like emerald ash disease. Already white oak, the state tree of Illinois, is on the decline and, like several species of conifer, is expected to be extinct from the region within decades.

So Chicago is turning to swamp white oaks and bald cypress. It is like the rest of adaptation strategy, Ms. Malec-McKenna explains: “A constant ongoing process to make sure we are as resilient as we can be in facing the future.”

Pretty radical stuff.

The “peculiar, newsworthy,” Republican style of illicit sex

The New York Times has many famous columnists, and one funny one: Gail Collins.

Which brings us to sex. What is it with Republicans lately? Is there something about being a leader of the family-values party that makes you want to go out and commit adultery?

They certainly don’t have a lock on the infidelity market, and heaven knows we all remember John Edwards. But, lately, the G.O.P. has shown a genius for putting a peculiar, newsworthy spin on illicit sex. A married congressman hunting for babes is bad. A married congressman hunting for babes by posting a half-naked photo of himself on the Internet is Republican.

A married governor who fathers an illegitimate child is awful. A married governor who fathers an illegitimate child by a staff member of the family home and then fails to mention it to his wife for more than 10 years is Republican.

A married senator who has an affair with an employee is a jerk. A married senator who has an affair with an employee who is the wife of his chief of staff, and whose adultery is the subject of ongoing discussion at his Congressional prayer group, is Republican.

We haven’t even gotten to Newt Gingrich yet!

Don't worry, she won't overlook him. She's not afraid of him, unlike her cohort David Brooks.

Kidding, kidding…

USA Today: Climate change deniers just like birthers

When the New York Times writes an opinion piece on climate change and the challenge it poses our political and economic system, as Andrew Revkin and other thinkers at that paper do on a routine basis, the world yawns. When the editorial board at the Washington Post declares that every candidate for political office should be asked if he or she disagrees with the scientific consensus on climate change, and if so, on what basis, few notice. Even when the august National Geographic gives an extraordinary lead column to the leading advocate for action on climate change, Bill McKibben, the nation shrugs.

But when the centrist USA Today declares that climate change deniers, which today includes almost the entirety of the Republican party, are like birthers, well, that makes news.

They write:

Late last week, the nation's pre-eminent scientific advisory group, the National Research Council arm of the National Academy of Sciences, issued a report called "America's Climate Choices." As scientific reports go, its key findings were straightforward and unequivocal: "Climate change is occurring, is very likely caused primarily by human activities, and poses significant risks to humans and the environment." Among those risks in the USA: more intense and frequent heat waves, threats to coastal communities from rising sea levels, and greater drying of the arid Southwest.

Coincidentally, USA TODAY's Dan Vergano reported Monday, a statistics journal retracted a federally funded study that had become a touchstone among climate-change deniers. The retraction followed complaints of plagiarism and use of unreliable sources, such as Wikipedia.

Taken together, these developments ought to leave the deniers in the same position as the "birthers," who continue to challenge President Obama's American citizenship — a vocal minority that refuses to accept overwhelming evidence.

It's a good argument. Maybe it will get traction.

Clearly, the facts aren't enough — six years ago on its front page the paper said "the debate was over" — the globe was warming.

The Seven Steps of Global Warming (a primer for deniers, by Toles)

According to Wunderblog's Jeff Masters. this month we've seen $2 billion damage on the Mississippi, a diastrous 300-year flood in Alberta, and flooding in Colombia the likes of which has never been seen.

He quotes Colombia's president, Juan Manuel Santos, who after 500+ deaths, said, "the tragedy the country is going through has no precedents in our history."

Masters adds that Colombia often suffers flooding during La Niña, but "La Niña has waned. April sea surface temperatures off the Pacific coast of Colombia (0° – 10°N, 85° – 75°W), warmed to the 13th highest temperatures in the past 100 years, 0.68°C above average. Thus, this month's flooding in Colombia may not be due to La Niña."

Tom Toles breaks it down for deniers in his Friday rant:

"What part of this don’t you understand?

1) Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere traps heat.

2) Warmer atmosphere holds more water, hence greater evaporation, greater droughts.

3) More water in the atmosphere means heavier rainfall elsewhere, that is greater flooding.

4) Warmer air also means greater volatility, that is violent storms. See also above.

5) A lot like the weather we’ve been having recently!

6) Even if this PARTICULAR weather isn’t the direct result of climate change (and it might be) LOOK AT IT AND YOU CAN GET THE IDEA what we’re asking for, and how our kids are not going to like it.

7) Now think ruined agriculture, food crises, refugee crises, oh and probably some warfare.

And your response? Hope it’s all made up! Yeah, THAT’s the sensible way to respond! Likely the biggest mistake humans have ever made. And you, not somebody else, YOU are making it right now. Way to go."

Journalism today: Don’t wait your turn (Robert Krulwich)

In which Robert Krulwich, of the excellent Radiolab, gives a speech to the newly-minted graduates of UC Berkeley's journalism school, and inspires even old guys like me. Here's the conclusion:

So for this age, for your time, I want you to just think about this: Think about NOT waiting your turn.

Instead, think about getting together with friends that you admire, or envy. Think about entrepeneuring. Think about NOT waiting for a company to call you up. Think about not giving your heart to a bunch of adults you don’t know. Think about horizontal loyalty. Think about turning to people you already know, who are your friends, or friends of their friends and making something that makes sense to you together, that is as beautiful or as true as you can make it.

And when it comes to security, to protection, your friends may take better care of you than CBS took care of Charles Kuralt in the end. In every career, your job is to make and tell stories, of course. You will build a body of work, but you will also build a body of affection, with the people you’ve helped who’ve helped you back.

And maybe that’s your way into Troy.

There you are, on the beach, with the other newbies, looking up. Maybe somebody inside will throw you a key and let you in… But more likely, most of you will have to find your own Trojan Horse.

(via)

The refrains of nature: Rachel Carson

If we think of Rachel Carson, we probably remember her for alerting us to the massacre of the birds by DDT in Silent Spring, and overlook her earlier, more poetic works, such as her bestseller The Sea Around Us, which was excerpted in The New Yorker, won the National Book Award, and numerous other prizes.

Yet in her era, Carson was criticized by some of her scientific peers for the poetry she mixed in to her science. Here's an early passage from a draft of her next bestseller, The Edge of the Sea.

There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of the birds; in the ebb and flow of the tides; responding to sun and moon as they have done for millions of years; in the repose of the folded bud in winter, ready within its sheath for spring. There is something infinitely healing in these repeated refrains of nature, the assurance that night after night, dawn comes, and spring after winter.

At the time — l951 — Carson had need of healing: She was dealing with the discovery of a tumor in her breast.

From Linda Lear's l997 biography, Witness to Nature, pp213.

The paradox of being hard yet soft: Tennessee Williams

In l942, Tennessee Williams, living in Greenwich Village, down to his last ten dollars, at work on a fragment of a play called The Paper Lantern, about a woman named Blanche, living on a plantation called Belle Reve…began to recover the vision he long had lost in his left eye.

In his diary, on the 25th of February, he mulled this over:

What a world!
Why see it, darling?
Yeah, but I want to, though.
I must be able to be a post-war artist.
Keep awake — Alive — New.
Perform the paradox of being hard and yet soft.
Survive without calcification of the tender membranes.
Be a poet. Be alive.

The great Russian film director Tarkovsky, most famous for Solaris, similarly mulled this paradox:

When a man is just born, he is weak and flexible. When he dies, he is hard and insensitive. When a tree is growing, it's tender and pliant. But when it's dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death's companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win."
— Andrei Tarkovsky

Those tender membranes…upon which sight itself depends. Here's one of Tarkovsky's personal Polaroids.

Like Williams, his is one of those talents easier to recognize than to explain: