Southern Bookman

Thomas Pynchon fans rejoice at his archive donation to Huntington Library

Reclusive novelist Thomas Pynchon has donated his literary archive to the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif., exciting passionate fans who've long thrilled at periodic revelations about the mysterious writer.

The 85-year-old  author, who has largely shunned reporters and photographers and released few personal artifacts over the years, donated 48 boxes and 70 linear feet of material to the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, according to media reports. 

Beginning in late 2023, scholars and Pynchon aficionados can visit the Los Angeles-area library to study typescripts and drafts of each novel, handwritten notes, correspondence and research material. After years of hiding from public view, Pynchon has decided to reveal his creative process.

Pynchon's early novels "V," "The Crying of Lot 49" and "Gravity's Rainbow" drew an intense following in the 1960s and early '70s among predominantly male readers, mesmerized by the author's historical references, encyclopedic scientific knowledge, conspiratorial plots and iconic characters. Like fellow counterculture novelists Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, J.P. Donleavy, and Philip K. Dick, Pynchon was venerated as much as rock stars.

Later novels like "Mason and Dixon" and "Vineland" received less acclaim, although hard-core followers heralded the books. Pynchon's 2009 comic detective novel "Inherent Vice" was entertaining, reaching a more popular audience.

Pynchon's son, Jackson Pynchon, said the author chose the Huntington because of its impressive math, science, aerospace and map collections. The library's literary holdings include Shakespeare, Chaucer and Joyce manuscripts, a Gutenberg Bible, and archives from modern writers.

The writer also has a California connection: He wrote much of "Gravity's Rainbow" while living in Manhattan Beach, the setting of "Inherent Vice."

Will Pynchon reveal himself further? While his archive will bring years of scholarly and biographical discoveries, Pynchon apparently will remain secluded in his private world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Douglas Brinkley, author of "Silent Spring Revolution," inspires Atlanta History Center audience to keep environmental flame burning

Historian Douglas Brinkley appeared at the Atlanta History Center Monday night to promote his new book on America's environmental accomplishments, speaking before an audience mainly composed of those who remembered the first Earth Day in 1970.

Sadly, that national event was the high point of the environmental progress detailed in Brinkley's comprehensive "Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and the Great Environmental Awakening."

A furious counterattack by American business, which saw environmental regulation as a socialistic threat to the free enterprise system, crushed the green movement.

Brinkley in his talk cited former Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell's memo to the American Chamber of Commerce calling for right-wing capitalists to take action against a perceived liberal takeover of the media, academia, the judiciary and Congress.

That led to the rise of conservative think tanks like the Heritage Society and the Cato Institute and soaring campaign funding by the Koch Brothers and other wealthy business leaders.

Brinkley cited Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt for leading the first environmental wave, establishing national parks and preserving wilderness areas.

The movement gained momentum under the leadership of liberal Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, the major environmental mentor to the Kennedy family. Douglas influenced John F. Kennedy to author national seashore legislation when Kennedy was a U.S. senator.

Kennedy as president continued his environmental activism. After Kennedy's assassination, Lyndon Johnson stepped up the preservation of wilderness areas. Brinkley credited first lady Lady Bird Johnson for her environmental leadership during Johnson's administration, tragically ruined by his support of the Vietnam War.

President Richard Nixon, a reluctant environmentalist, compiled an impressive environmental record. After the devastating Santa Barbara oil spill pf 1969 in the early days of his presidency, Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act, which required environmental impact statements for construction projects, and established the Environmental Protection Agency, which banned the use of DDT.

Rachel Carson, whose monumental book "Silent Spring" in 1962 drew attention to the threat of DDT and other pesticides to animals and humans, was the main hero of Brinkley's talk.

Suffering from from the breast cancer that killed her in 1964, Carson was severely attacked by chemical companies until government scientists under President Kennedy confirmed the truth of her findings.

Before "Silent Spring," Carson wrote a pioneering trilogy of books on sea life. The books, recently republished in one volume by the Library of America,  predicted the current threats to the ocean from plastic pollution and rising acidification.

Most of those in the audience appeared in their 60s and 70s, members of a generation that witnessed the excitement of the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s, and its distressing demise after the massive corporate attacks, which are accelerating in today's Republican Party.

Brinkley, a professor at Rice University, expressed hope that a rising younger generation will launch a new environmental wave. He mentioned that his Generation Z students display an intense interest in combating climate change.

"Silent Spring Revolution" will  inform them about our generation accomplished, and let slip away. Its historical scope and optimism for the future will inspire them to not let it happen again.

 

Break out the cigars: World's population hits 8 billion

No wonder places seem so crowded these days: The world's population reached 8 billion Tuesday.

I remember when 3 billion was considered too many.

Although population growth has slowed somewhat in recent years, the number of people consuming the earth's finite resources will hit 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050 and 10.4 billion in the 2080s, according to the United Nations.

Growth has stalled in the industrialized world, which bears the most responsibility for climate change as carbon emissions keep rising.  The populations of Japan, China and European nations are aging. The U.S. population has also stalled.

Developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Mideast are experiencing huge population increases, as their resources disappear. Non-industrial nations are suffering the most from climate change, although they've registered the least amount of carbon emissions. Industrial nations at the recent climate change conference in Egypt pledged to contribute billions to those countries, but even greater aid will be needed.

Getting past the gloomy forecasts for the future, those children being born at a rapid pace offer hope for humanity. The laws of probability suggest that  generations to come will include geniuses who will develop technological solutions to the earth's problems. Our future descendants will invent now un-imagined wonders, discover cures for diseases, create new works of art.

On the other hand, perhaps humanity will die like the dinosaurs, and a new cycle of life  begin. Or the Earth will turn into a lifeless rock spinning around a dying sun. Humanity might say goodbye to our ancient home and find a new beginning far far away in the universe.

For now, I need to buy some batteries for the TV remote.

 

 

Mississippi River sinking to perilously low water levels

Mark Twain wouldn't recognize the Mississippi these days.

Twain's beloved river has fallen to its lowest water levels in years.

Huck and Jim now couldn't find enough water to float their raft. The river known for the devastating 1927 flood has turned docile.

A severe drought has brought the river's water levels so low that people can walk over dry land to an island in Illinois previously accessible only by boat. In Baton Rouge, a 19th century ship was discovered in the river's dried-up channel.

Shipping is imperiled from Minneapolis to St. Louis, Memphis, Vicksburg, Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Riverboat cruises are being delayed.

The U.S. Corps of Engineers keeps the river flowing to the ports of Baton Rouge and New Orleans. The river wants to cut a new channel to the west, which would abandon the port cities. Now Baton Rouge and New Orleans might see the river disappear anyway.

T.S. Eliot in "The Four Quartets" called the river a fierce brown god. It was serenaded as "Old Man River" by Paul Robeson in "Showboat." Jimmie Rodgers expressed the deep emotional ties to the river in "Miss the Mississippi and You." In the Civil War, the Confederacy's loss of the river signaled the Union's victory. Lewis and Clarke crossing the river opened the way to the American West. It was the backbone of the Louisiana Purchase.

Lake Mead, Salt Lake and western rivers are other essential American waterways that are disappearing. They can''t be replaced.

A couple of shots in the arm

On Friday morning, I took the fifth: another Covid booster shot.

Our friendly neighborhood Tuxedo Pharmacy was busy with people getting the latest version of the vaccine, this one re-engineered to ward off the raging Omicron variant, or whatever it is these days.

Hedging my bets, I also received a flu shot. Guess I'm good for the winter.

I received my first covid shot on a cold January night in 2021, at the Piedmont office building in Vinings.

Like a horror film monster, Covid has kept coming back since then. '

The flu has never gone away, and covid probably won't either. I'll keep taking shots until something else sweeps me away from this mortal coil.

Driving home, listening to J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers' "Last Kiss" on satellite radio, I felt good that I'd kept covid at bay once again, until the next variant comes along.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Republicans' climate change denial threatens humanity

Not one Republican senator voted for the United States' first significant climate change legislation.

If anyone's left to write history, the GOP senators will be remembered like the good Germans who ignored Hitler and the Holocaust.

I thought at least Utah Sen. Mitt Romney would vote for the Democratic bill that seeks to reduce carbon emissions by boosting solar energy and electric vehicles. But Romney joined with Mitch McConnell's Republican goose-steppers.

While liberal pundits and progressives cheer the legislation, which is expected to pass the House this week and go to President Biden, environmentalists are criticizing the bill for concessions to the fossil-fuel industry, such as allowing the completion of a pipeline in Sen. Joe Manchin's West Virginia.

The legislation, two or three decades too late, will do too little to cut emissions and keep temperatures from soaring to unsustainable levels.

While environmentalists have long called for a carbon tax, the legislation instead calls for solar-power and electric vehicle incentives. The fossil fuel industry has reluctantly come to support a carbon tax, which wouldn't cost American families, but it remains political poison, especially to the GOP.

Once, Republicans recognized the threat of climate change. In George W Bush's administration, Lindsay Graham and John McCain were proponents of carbon offset credit swaps. But the GOP succumbed to oil industry money, and now Graham is among the senators who deny climate change.

The United States must take more immediate and extensive climate change action. The planet's future depends on the Democratic Party increasing its control over the House and Senate in the midterm elections.  A Republican Congress will sound the death knell for human civilization.

Monarch Butterfly declared an endangered species

The Monarch Butterfly's disappearance is one of the saddest stories of the "insect apocalypse."

Once a common sight in American yards and byways, the orange and black monarchs have been declining for years.

Moving closer to extinction, the monarchs were declared "endangered" by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Thursday. The organization also placed the monarchs on its "red list" of threatened species, according to the Associated Press.

The Monarch Butterfly population in North America has fallen between 22 percent and 72 percent over the last decade, depending on the measurement method, the group said. The decline has been even more precipitous in recent years, according to some estimates.

Like honeybees and fireflies, the monarchs have all but vanished from our yards. The appearance of one or two brings a moment of melancholy wonder.

In North America, millions of the creatures participate in the longest migration of any insect species, from the mountains of central Mexico to Canada and back again, breeding new generations along the way.

The insects lay their eggs on milkweed, which has been devastated by American agriculture's increased use of pesticides and herbicides. Climate change has also hastened the insects’ demise.

Concerned homeowners can plant milkweed in their back yards to attract the butterfly, but a more massive campaign is required.

While the Mexican government set up a refuge for the butterflies, they won't be saved unless American agriculture makes significant changes.

So far, the insects have not been placed on the endangered species list under the American Endangered Species Act. That's a necessary next step in the campaign to preserve the beautiful flashes of color.

The monarchs are among thousands of species threatened by extinction as humans seize control of more and more of the Earth. Soon, humans will be alone, also an endangered species.

 

 

 

 

Black hole images raise awe at universe's majesty

Spooky to see those images of the Milky Way black hole on Friday the 13th.

Those extraterrestrial scientists who released photos of the black hole's spectrum must have a sense of humor.

On Friday the 13th, the black hole appears even more ominous and strange. Scientists say a black hole sucks into its endless dark chamber anything that gets too close.

And I'd thought the black hole was the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. Will it ever hold public hearings?

Another black hole is the U.S. Senate, where progressive legislation goes to die.

Black hole: that would be a good name for the coal mining corporation that made Joe Manchin a millionaire.

The big cookie monster at the center of the universe is 4 million times larger than the sun. A few years ago, scientists released images of an even bigger black hole farther out toward the universe's edge.

Those cosmic images are not actually the black hole, called Sagittarius A*, like the title of a sci-fi novel. Black holes, as their name implies, can’t be seen or photographed.

The international organization of scientists captured images of the black hole's outer spectrum, the light and matter that surrounds the black hole's swirling gravitational pull. The images reveal an orange halo resembling a misshapen doughnut. Images of Sagittarius A* match Einstein's theory of relativity. 

Capturing the first images of the black hole closest to earth - a mere 27,000 light years away - is an impressive accomplishment for an international group of researchers involved in the Event Horizon Telescope project. The term event horizon refers to the point where there's no escaping the black hole's embrace.

The black hole's images illuminate another mystery of the universe.

Too bad the United States now lacks the cooperative spirit of the Event Horizon team. Terrestrial black holes proliferate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

52nd anniversary of Earth Day raises urgency of climate change action

Bursting with spring beauty, LSU celebrated the first Earth Day in 1970.

Like Vietnam Moratorium Day six months before, also held on the Ole War Skule's Parade Grounds, Earth Day changed my worldview.

A freshman carrying out a misguided passive-aggressive protest against my ROTC class and close to losing my student draft deferment, I wandered through the Earth Day exhibits, instantly turning into an environmentalist.

Millions across the globe marked the event, protesting air pollution, species extinction and the destruction of the ozone layer. Climate change was an unknown concept, outside of a few academic research offices.

The Vietnam War still raged, dividing the country. But the environmental movement received nearly universal support, even in the Republican Party. The Environmental Protection Agency was created during the Nixon Administration, and action was taken to preserve the ozone layer.

That momentum waned in succeeding years, and the fossil fuel industry criminally impeded efforts to fight climate change. The world recently has begun action to reduce carbon emissions that should have been taken years ago.

The Biden administration, ambushed by rising gas prices and the Ukrainian invasion, recently retreated from its promises to move toward solar and wind energy. The climate change-denying Republican Party's culture war appears on course to retake the Congress and presidency.

On Earth Day's 52nd anniversary, the Earth is in greater peril than ever.

 

Apocalypse arriving soon if carbon emissions not slashed, U.N. panel warns

Cassandra keeps on singing.

In its latest apocalyptic alarm, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that the Earth will reach the point of no return in eight years.

As emissions soar higher and higher, the world is rapidly burning through its "carbon budget" for limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees celsius over pre-industrial temperatures, according to a Washington Post article.

The world can release just 500 more megatons of carbon to have any hope of meeting that threshold set at the Paris Climate Summit. At the present rate, the budget will be blown in less than a decade.

Failure to slash emissions will result in the earth heating to 3.2 degrees Celsius, or 5.8 degrees Farenheit, by the end of this century.

That'll make most of the world uninhabitable.

Monday's report was the third warning issued recently by the panel.  The New York Times ran a page-one article on the report, but the panel's in-depth assessments  by scientists from across the globe have yet to generate urgency among world leaders, especially developed countries.

Russia's massacre of Ukraine has led to a renewed commitment to oil and gas drilling more than a green economy. Opposition from Joe Manchin, the senator from coal, killed President Biden's climate-change plan. With gas prices rising, Biden abandoned reducing emissions by announcing  the release of oil from strategic reserves.

The Ukranian disaster is horrifying. Climate change is more so.