Summer in Kansas: Tour de Goathead

Spring has come early to western Kansas, as it has to much of the West - temperatures in the low 80s, gentle breezes at about 20 nautical miles per hour, gusting to 35. Nothing to keep an old man off the bicycle - quite the contrary. If you can't rack up elevation gains during the daily bout of cycling, wind resistance is the next best thing - if, that is, you can master the irritability that comes of riding section lines along sandy roads on a windy day.    

I don't actually reside in Kansas, but it's the wind out here that brings me down from the Colorado highlands and gives me my daily bread in this Martian landscape farther east. I'm spending my days in a field office, set among greening fields of winter wheat alternating with corn stubble, making daily forays on a mountain bike of venerable years and aspect just to keep my tone up and my native affability in some fettle. Not a bad life for a geezer, if like me you prefer solitude and the company of curlews to that of commissioners, counselors, clerics, counts, cardinals, carpenters, cornhuskers, contortionists, confidence men, costermongers, curates, commercial travellers and constables.

Long-billed Curlew (J.J. Audubon)

Rural Kansas does have its drawbacks. For one thing, the place is carpeted from one end to the other, town and country, with the dreaded Tribulus terrestris. In the spring the new plant is benign enough in aspect, if a bit stringy.

But "tribulus" is a dead giveaway. This is a branching, flowering, low-growing plant, one of the Ten Plagues of Egypt along with frogs, locusts, boils, hyperactive children, surveillance satellites, installment funerals and robocalls. Like the Evil One, its names are legion - bullhead, burra gokharu, caltrop, cat's head, devil's eyelashes, devil's thorn, devil's weed, goathead, puncturevine, tackweed. A caltrop is one of those three-legged pronged thingies that an unsuspecting enemy is intended to step on and be disabled from further combat, thus:

The Romans, who used them in antiquity, called them "tribuli," - hence the name of the plant. I've always known it as goathead, all the while acknowledging it as the Devil's own handiwork. The flowers give way to fruit . . .

 . . . which dries in the summer sun to an incorruptible, indestructible, everlasting, omnipresent hazard the size of a small pebble with the half-life of plutonium. The thorn never decays, never disintegrates, never entirely dissolves its substance into something organic and benign. It litters fields and farm tracks, piling up generation on generation; farm machinery drags it into roadways on its tires; the county road grader pulls it into roadways while grading the verges. The work of Satan is everywhere to be found, lying in wait, seeking the unwary whose bicycle tires it may devour.

Several weeks ago, on an unseasonably warm February day, I ventured out on my old bicycle across the rural landscape, found myself about seven miles from the field office at a dead end. The only reasonable course, short of simply backtracking the way I'd come, was a two-lane farm track that cut along a half-section to the next county road a mile to the north. I took the farm track and in a quarter-mile of careful riding both my tires were fuzzy with goatheads. 

I pulled one, heard a slow sussuration of escaping air, so I pulled the rest. It took me 15 minutes to clean both tires of them, by which time both tires were flat. Midway through the operation it dawned that my tire pump was still in the office. But the insides of the tire casings bristled with the broken ends of countless spines - even the tube I carried in my pocket would have been flat in a second. After a five-mile walk and within two miles of the office a school bus driver heading back to the bus garage finally gave me a lift.

Today's ride was uneventful. Even riding along a clean, packed dirt road, I picked up an occasional thorn. But I had taken care to replace my standard inner tubes with "Goo Tubes," tubes filled with some sort of green slimey polymer that immediately flows into a puncture. So far, so good. 

I was a scant mile from returning to my start point, thorn free, flat free, when I passed a final farmstead which I knew to be the residence of two charming little Mennonite sisters and a pair of  overly zealous and prosecutorial dogs. Sure enough, there were the sisters tearing across a field on a tiny red motorized four-wheeler, waving madly, long gowns aflutter. And there were the dogs, at a disadvantageous distance to be sure, but eager to close on me, which they promptly did to the futile remonstrances of their small mistresses. The larger dog was a bit lugubrious about the pursuit, not wishing to run quite so hard for his sport but spurred on by his partner in crime, a miniature schnauzer whose demeanor seemed considerably less . . . predictable. Summer is returning to Kansas.

Never asleep, never on a leash

Get Your Hand Off My Asana

"Why do Baptists discourage sexual intercourse? Because it leads to dancing." (Methodist joke)

You may recall my old friend, Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican's chief exorcist. He's back in the news, having found the Devil lurking under a yoga mat somewhere: the Daily Mail reports last week that the good father warned a group of Catholic faithful about the dangers of yoga. "You think you are doing it for stretching,” said Father Gabriele, “but it leads to Hinduism.” Here is another instance of a well-meaning and otherwise intelligent person who, having settled on a theory he particularly likes, quickly finds that everything conforms nicely to it. Father Gabriele has mounted his hobby horse, and his hobby horse (which he will ride a-crupper into the weeds 'til Kingdom come) is Old Nick himself.

The hand on your asana

This cautionary pronouncement, like the joke about sex and dancing, is a case of the "slippery slope," a fallacy of informal logic unfailingly invoked by the limp-wristed, the vaporous, the timorous and the spinsterly to spare the gleefully incautious any untimely plunge into the twin Abysses of Pleasure and Enlightenment. Vote for Obama, they whisper, and "before you know it" (the trademark phrase and present sign of the fallacy) the Christmas tree in the White House will be replaced by a slaughtered goat, the menu in the Congressional cafeteria will secretly become halal, Sh'aria law will be enacted by legislative zombies in Oklahoma or Minnesota (both states apparently preferred hotbeds of Islamist conspiracy), the American dollar - instituted and backed by a benign God since the deliverance from Egypt - will be supplanted by the yen/yuan/reichsmark/ruble/rupee/rand, schoolchildren will be taught to spell 'Koran' as 'Quran,' and we, by the waters of Babylon, shall be taught to weep. Mark my words, they invariably conclude.

I'm not saying that a good stiff regimen of yoga, properly practiced, isn't hell, but that's just metaphorical, like saying that the Republican debates or a date with Herman Cain are hell. I'm guessing that most of the people who practice it (those of my acquaintance at any rate) really are "doing it for stretching." Among other things. Of course, this omits any consideration of naked yoga, which may well be a slippery slope for the weak-minded, the intractibly lonely, the very aged or the blind - for my money, watching a middle-aged acolyte with a trust fund and a rice cooker stretch, sweat and breath studiously while naked isn't much of an aphrodisiac.

"Could you check my breathing?"

"My advice to young people," Father Gabriele adds in yet another slide into illogic, "would be to watch out for nightclubs, because the path is always the same: alcohol, sex, drugs and Satanic sects." Before you know it. 

"First a couple of G&T's, now this . . . "

The good father is bested in his logic only by Jose Benitez, the mayor of Huarmey, Peru. Hizonner has apparently been, by mysterious methods, tabulating the homosexuals in his bailiwick. He concludes that their numbers are increasing because of the high strontium content in the town's drinking water. It's probably safe to assume that the young Huarmeyeros drink the local tap water, and (assuming the mayor is right and their numbers really are growing), the mayor has stumbled on yet another informal fallacy, the hoary and bearded post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Or in plain English, since the young men are drinking the water and then (in the mayor's astute judgment) becoming homosexual (if that phrase makes any sense whatsoever), the cause must lie in the drinking water since this only happens after the male residents imbibe. Since none of the otherwise-gendered residents are affected by the refreshing draughts of local strontium, one suspects it's the mayor's problem more than the town's problem. This effectively removes the chance that his error is excusable on the grounds that he's not a chemist.

The Devil at the DIA

"Fire is the Devil's only friend."  -  Don McLean, "American Pie"

 Oh, not again!

Living (as I do) within hailing distance of a large U.S. Army base, two Air Force bases, a major military academy and a semi-obsolete NORAD installation, I had thought that my demise, should it come from beyond these shores, would put a warmish thermonuclear period to an all too brief span of years, a fiery atomic punctuation mark at the end of a pleasant life sentence. To my horrified surprise, I have learned that it is my proximity to Denver International Airport that may cause eternal night to rain down upon my grizzled head - not at the hands of the Russians or the North Koreans, but from the very Hand that wields the Thunderbolt.

No, not him.

The Reverend William Tapley, a frequent face on YouTube productions and world-class nutter who assumes a Jungean gravitas as the "Third Eagle of the Apocalypse," has uncovered "phallic symbols" cryptically embedded at DIA. These symbols are unquestionably the work of Satan, who plays with more than just fire. But since Tapley provides no logical connection between phallic symbols and Satan, his argument evidently assumes that a) the phallus is undeniably principal among Satan's works, b) Satan's work is generally accomplished with that tool, and c) only Satan's acolytes employ it. (Quod erat demonstrandum.)

Tapley's mind is rich compost for his self-appointed role as penis-sniffer. The video that unmasks this conspiracy has went viral, as they say in Texas.

Exhibit A is a mural in the air terminal which Tapley has named "The Birth of the Antichrist," that depicts among other animals the great auk, extinct since the mid-nineteenth century. Its scientific name (Alca impennis, later changed to Penguinis impennis) is a boner to the reverend, the Latin nomenclature really a satanic snigger. The mural also depicts a naked woman in a red blouse and black slacks, presumably another of the Devil's works, as clothed women are the work of a benign Creator.

. . . this is actually the figure of a naked woman. And the crotch is formed by a bird form. But right opposite the woman is a penguin . . . . This sign on the penguin's cage constitutes a phallic symbol. It in fact represents the male genitalia.

Right opposite the woman are her clothes, as well. This is the offending mural:

The "crotch" of Tapley's dream is the bird in flight just to the left of Dick the Penguin . . .

 Exhibit A - Penguinus Impennis (Great Auk)

. . . which is in fact Dick the Great Auk, whose flipper-like wing, lacking flight feathers (pennae), rendered the bird flightless. 'Impennis' means 'without pennae'. (Neither 'Dick the Penguin' nor 'Dick the Great Auk' refer to well-known fraternity drinking games of the same name.)  

Please note that the Latin name for this bird includes the word 'impennis.' Now that is not accidental. The artist chose this bird for a reason . . . . The bird standing upright is phallic, the shape of the sign [a rectangle on the bird's cage] is phallic, and even the name is phallic.

Tapley's tendentious explanations invite one to surmise that a) his own penis is a blue rectangle similar to the sign on the bird's cage, and b) Tapley himself has never attempted to put a square peg in a round hole.

Exhibit B is Luis Jiminez's fiberglass mustang in the median of the Pena Boulevard airport approach.

 Exhibit B - Luis Jiminez's Blue Mustang

Many of the shapes on the horse's tail and mane are phallic shapes - and of course it is a masculine horse. 

Not that a 32-foot blue fiberglass stallion with eyeballs that glow red in the night is in particularly good taste. But whether "masculine" or equine, a stallion is a stallion, a Devil's Tool being standard issue. A phallus, particularly one in its usual location, is not a phallic symbol. Still, the horse has done the Devil's own work - Tapley notes with relish that in assembling the sculpture in his New Mexico studio, the sculptor was crushed when a section of the torso fell on him.

Exhibit C is a subtle matter, something the design team nearly got away with until Tapley uncovered their little game. An aerial view of the airport reveals, not only that the footprint is a swastika, but also . . .

. . . the outdoor baggage-handling area is in the shape of a phallus. . . . Up here, we see the testicle area, out here the phallus.

Exhibit C - DIA ('baggage handling area' at bottom)

Flanking the white building jutting to the south of the main terminal are two loop roads (the "testicle area") which feed into long, straight parallel roads off to the left at the bottom of the photo (the "phallus").

There's no doubt that the designers of this airport had something other in mind than making an efficient baggage area. . . . I think you can see what they're getting at.
 
We have known from infancy the wiles of Satan, but this is pushing the envelope even for that old traducer. And to think that he even enlisted our fellow mortals as his henchmen in this hellish scheme - a muralist, a sculptor, a team of airport designers - Hell's bells, even an extinct species of subarctic bird you'd probably never even heard of until now because it has the word 'penis' - well, 'pennis' - staring brazenly from its binomial nomenclature. Was the great Linnaeus, who named it 250 years ago, a party to this as well (in spite of being a somewhat casual orthographer)?

But for the rest of us innocents abroad, we can only thank . . . actually, I'm not certain who to thank for the Transportation Security Authority, but the TSA should require from now on that female passengers traveling through DIA be accompanied in the airport by male chaperones of a pure mind . . .

(Only looks like Larry Craig)

The TSA might further require that Denver staff the airport with castrati as insurance against any occult forces that may cause a woman's dress to wobble unaccountably (a TSA agent's hands not being officially an "occult force").

Baggage handler

Still, one might wonder, as did a student in my late friend Ed's literature class at the University of Denver, overheard as she was coming out of a classroom saying, "I know it's a phallic symbol, but a phallic symbol of what?" Is it a satanic conspiracy, an elaborate practical joke orchestrated over the centuries, or just the fevered dream of a poor superstitious sod who dreams, night after night, the same dream bearing the same promise:

Baggage handler

Vatican Superfund Sites: Paradise Regained

My monthly issue of Harper's Magazine arrived in the mail the other day, and in the "Readings" section I find brief excerpts from Memoirs of an Exorcist: My Life at War With Satan. These are the memoirs of Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican's official devil disser, a founding member of the International Association of Exorcists and a man with a face to scare the very Devil himself. Dissing with the Devil can make any man look less than his very best.

 

Father Gabriele Amorth 

Father Amorth has even had the professional good fortune to find the devil in the Vatican, although since Old Nick is known to "walk up and down upon the earth" generally this should come as no surprise to anyone. Sounded like devilishly good stuff, so naturally I tucked right in and was not entirely disappointed. The excerpted samples are the usual tales - inability in a young bride to menstruate (check the rabbit, Father), unspeakable contents found in a fairly regular issue of vomit . . .

. . . expelling (from various ports) such jetsam as 10-inch nails "thick as your thumb," unpleasant exchanges with a vengeful little chap named "Zago," and so on. Nothing you haven't already seen in the regular course of your life.

But what struck me was the eerie timeliness of the Harper's piece, as I had myself only recently commented on the various geological appurtenances, protruberances, upthrusts, slopes, rifts, faults, prominences, vales, gulches, draws, radial dikes, trenches and other such topographical whatnots and fiddlesticks thrown in on a whim at the Creation which are named for the very personage featured in these fevered if somewhat hackneyed memoirs. 

Even a cursory search of Google maps will yield a landscape littered with references to His Nastiness: there are the Devil's Corkscrew, Head, Thumb, Garden, Knob (!), Nest, Gulch, Ridge, numerous Lakes and Dens, Hopyard, Reach, Eye, Elbow, Coulee, Kitchen, Punchbowl, Meadow, Playground, Backbone, Jawbone, any number of Heads, Canyons and Mountains . . . . The American landscape seems to be little more than a catalog of demonic possessions. Clearly a bit of sanctifying housecleaning is long overdue.  

"Where would you like me to sanctify first?"

I've given this a bit of thought as you may already have surmised, and I've come up with a proposal: as my ordination is already entered by the Recording Angel in the Book of Life . . .

"Spell your last name for me."

. . . as a priest, minister or general functionary in the Universal Life Church (nothing to be trifled with), I propose that the Vatican name me, Father Miguel de Montaigne, Vatican Emissary and Plenipotentiary for Landscape Exorcisms. So empowered, it would be with me but the work of a moment to sanctify Cartographic America by finding suitably blessed monikers for all the little topographic anomalies that seem to invite licentiousness and geographical blasphemy.

So, for example, Devil's Canyon is easily redeemed as St. Bridget's Cleft; Devil's Mountain becomes the Hump of St. Hilarion; Devil's Den is hallowed as the Most Hidden Place of St. Gina de Lollobrigida; Devil's Knob is the precinct of any number of the randy sanctified; the Devil's Bowl becomes the Monstrance of St. Whoever-You-Like.

When my work is done the world will be a better place and the Recording Angel will know my name.

Javelina Journal: My Texas Vacation

I just returned from two weeks spent in Texas, one of the states in which Obesity assists Christian Endeavor. I went to Texas in order to experience Nature firsthand, so I went with my friend Peter, who is a desert ecologist. Desert Ecology is one of those disciplines that begs comparison with John Cage's musical composition 4' 33", in which content is necessarily at a minimum (it's a desert, after all). So we went to these deserts and we didn't see a whole lot except javelinas, which are unpleasant even when not approached and which I understand are the only North American pigs.

Divine, the Other White Meat

I met lots of nice people in the campgrounds, many of whom had come to Texas for the catfishing, which is said to be spectacular. As it was a desert, however, no one seemed to be having a great deal of success. These folks were despondent of their chances and, as their vacation dwindled away, were considering the prospect of trying another place, maybe a place with "Lake" in the name. I suggested Lake Erie.

"Wanna play Yahtzee?"

But I was there to recreate, as they say. A successful vacation should refresh the mind, bring new insights and perspectives with the change in scenery, so I thought of this Texas sojourn as a sort of blogger's holiday, or "blogiday," an opportunity to escape the pressures of regular blogging for money and refresh the fund of ideas. Instead I rode my bicycle.

Riding a bicycle in the desert requires that you be aware of the landmarks, the geological features in particular. Many of these features seem to be named for the devil's various body parts and accoutrements - the Devil's Thumb, Eyebrow, Nose, Needle, Playground, Jawbone, Hedge Fund, and so on. I chose for my turnaround point the Devil's Foreskin, by which I demarcated a particularly notable geological prominence situated at the apex of a three-mile climb. (Geological prominences in a forbidding landscape should have august names, so I thought 'foreskin' had more gravitas than, say, its Yiddish cognate 'schmeckel.')

At the top of this three-mile hill I met a group of Texans, fellow cyclists whom I had been meeting occasionally along the road as they passed me, all of whom applauded my ascent in the 90-degree heat, offered me their lunches, some chocolate chip cookies, God's undeservd blessings, and made me regret having ever aspersed any of their fellow citizens.

One thing I brought away from this relaxing time was the ability to keep my own counsel, to refrain from blurting the first thing that springs to mind. For example, whilst admiring the grandeur of the evening sun setting on El Castolon, the iconic formation in Big Bend National Park, I thought to myself (but did not say aloud), "Hey! that looks like a giant hat!" My patience was quickly rewarded by the fellow behind me, who promptly said it for me.

 

The Devil's Hat

Likewise, standing awestruck in the bowels of Carlsbad Caverns, wanting to but daring not speak its name, I heard in the semi-darkness of the cave a fervent voice: "Hey! That looks like a giant asparagus!"

The Devil's Asparagus

New ideas are hard to come by, even on vacation.