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sdzoo: Baba the pangolin on Flickr. Pangolins: Tragos- and Marianne Moore-endorsed The Pangolin Another armored animal–scale lapping scale with spruce-cone regularity until they form the uninterrupted central  tail row! This near artichoke with head and legs and grit-equipped gizzard, the night miniature artist engineer is, yes, Leonardo da Vinci’s replica– impressive animal and toiler of whom we seldom hear. Armor seems extra. But for him, the closing ear-ridge– or bare ear licking even this small eminence and similarly safe contracting nose and eye apertures impenetrably closable, are not;–a true ant-eater, not cockroach-eater, who endures exhausting solitary trips through unfamiliar ground at night, returning before sunrise; stepping in the moonlight, on the moonlight peculiarly, that the outside edges of his hands may bear the weight and save the claws for digging. Serpentined about the tree, he draws away from danger unpugnaciously, with no sound but a harmless hiss; keeping the fragile grace of the Thomas- of-Leighton Buzzard Westminster Abbey wrought-iron vine, or rolls himself into a ball that has power to defy all effort to unroll it; strongly intailed, neat head for core, on neck not breaking off, with curled-in feet. Nevertheless he has sting-proof scales; and nest of rocks closed with earth from inside, which he can  thus darken. Sun and moon and day and night and man and beast each with a splendor  which man in all his vileness cannot set aside; each with an excellence! “Fearful yet to be feared,” the armored ant-eater met by the driver-ant does not turn back, but engulfs what he can, the flattered sword- edged leafpoints on the tail and artichoke set leg-and  body-plates quivering violently when it retaliates  and swarms on him. Compact like the furled fringed frill on the hat-brim of Gargallo’s hollow iron head of a  matador, he will drop and will then walk away unhurt, although if unintruded on, he cautiously works down the tree, helped by his tail. The giant-pangolin- tail, graceful tool, as prop or hand or broom or ax, tipped like  an elephant’s trunk with special skin, is not lost on this ant-and stone-swallowing uninjurable artichoke which simpletons thought a living fable whom the stones had nourished, whereas ants had done so. Pangolins are not aggressive animals; between dusk and day they have the not unchain-like machine-like form and frictionless creep of a thing made graceful by adversities, con- versities. To explain grace requires  a curious hand. If that which is at all were not forever, why would those who graced the spires with animals and gathered there to rest, on cold luxurious low stone seats–a monk and monk and monk–between the thus ingenious roof-supports, have slaved to confuse grace with a kindly manner, time in which to pay a  debt, the cure for sins, a graceful use of what are yet approved stone mullions branching out across the perpendiculars? A sailboat was the first machine. Pangolins, made for moving quietly also, are models of exactness, on four legs; on hind feet plantigrade, with certain postures of a man. Beneath sun and moon, man slaving to make his life more sweet, leaves half the flowers worth having, needing to choose wisely how to use his strength; a paper-maker like the wasp; a tractor of foodstuffs, like the ant; spidering a length of web from bluffs above a stream; in fighting, mechanicked like to pangolin; capsizing in disheartenment. Bedizened or stark naked, man, the self, the being we call human, writing- master to this world, griffons a dark  “Like does not like like that is obnoxious”; and writes error with four r’s. Among animals, one has a sense of humor. Humor saves a few steps, it saves years. Uningnorant, modest and unemotional, and all emotion, he has everlasting vigor, power to grow, though there are few creatures who can make one breathe faster and make one erecter. Not afraid of anything is he, and then goes cowering forth, tread paced to meet an obstacle at every step. Consistent with the  formula–warm blood, no gills, two pairs of hands and a few  hairs–that is a mammal; there he sits in his own habitat, serge-clad, strong-shod. The prey of fear, he, always curtailed, extinguished, thwarted by the dusk, work  partly done, says to the alternating blaze, “Again the sun! anew each day; and new and new and new, that comes into and steadies my soul.”  — Marianne Moore

sdzoo:

Baba the pangolin on Flickr.

Pangolins: Tragos- and Marianne Moore-endorsed

The Pangolin

Another armored animal–scale

lapping scale with spruce-cone regularity until they

form the uninterrupted central 

tail row! This near artichoke with head and legs and

grit-equipped gizzard,

the night miniature artist engineer is,

yes, Leonardo da Vinci’s replica–

impressive animal and toiler of whom we seldom hear.

Armor seems extra. But for him,

the closing ear-ridge–

or bare ear licking even this small

eminence and similarly safe

contracting nose and eye apertures

impenetrably closable, are not;–a true ant-eater,

not cockroach-eater, who endures

exhausting solitary trips through unfamiliar ground at night,

returning before sunrise; stepping in the moonlight,

on the moonlight peculiarly, that the outside

edges of his hands may bear the weight and save the

claws

for digging. Serpentined about

the tree, he draws

away from danger unpugnaciously,

with no sound but a harmless hiss; keeping

the fragile grace of the Thomas-

of-Leighton Buzzard Westminster Abbey wrought-iron

vine, or

rolls himself into a ball that has

power to defy all effort to unroll it; strongly intailed, neat

head for core, on neck not breaking off, with curled-in feet.

Nevertheless he has sting-proof scales; and nest

of rocks closed with earth from inside, which he can 

thus darken.

Sun and moon and day and night and man and beast

each with a splendor 

which man in all his vileness cannot

set aside; each with an excellence!

“Fearful yet to be feared,” the armored

ant-eater met by the driver-ant does not turn back, but

engulfs what he can, the flattered sword-

edged leafpoints on the tail and artichoke set leg-and 

body-plates

quivering violently when it retaliates 

and swarms on him. Compact like the furled fringed frill

on the hat-brim of Gargallo’s hollow iron head of a 

matador, he will drop and will

then walk away

unhurt, although if unintruded on,

he cautiously works down the tree, helped

by his tail. The giant-pangolin-

tail, graceful tool, as prop or hand or broom or ax, tipped like 

an elephant’s trunk with special skin,

is not lost on this ant-and stone-swallowing uninjurable

artichoke which simpletons thought a living fable

whom the stones had nourished, whereas ants had done

so. Pangolins are not aggressive animals; between

dusk and day they have the not unchain-like machine-like

form and frictionless creep of a thing

made graceful by adversities, con-

versities. To explain grace requires 

a curious hand. If that which is at all were not forever,

why would those who graced the spires

with animals and gathered there to rest, on cold luxurious

low stone seats–a monk and monk and monk–between the

thus

ingenious roof-supports, have slaved to confuse

grace with a kindly manner, time in which to pay a 

debt,

the cure for sins, a graceful use

of what are yet

approved stone mullions branching out across

the perpendiculars? A sailboat

was the first machine. Pangolins, made

for moving quietly also, are models of exactness,

on four legs; on hind feet plantigrade,

with certain postures of a man. Beneath sun and moon,

man slaving

to make his life more sweet, leaves half the flowers worth

having,

needing to choose wisely how to use his strength;

a paper-maker like the wasp; a tractor of foodstuffs,

like the ant; spidering a length

of web from bluffs

above a stream; in fighting, mechanicked

like to pangolin; capsizing in

disheartenment. Bedizened or stark

naked, man, the self, the being we call human, writing-

master to this world, griffons a dark 

“Like does not like like that is obnoxious”; and writes error

with four

r’s. Among animals, one has a sense of humor.

Humor saves a few steps, it saves years. Uningnorant,

modest and unemotional, and all emotion,

he has everlasting vigor,

power to grow,

though there are few creatures who can make one

breathe faster and make one erecter.

Not afraid of anything is he,

and then goes cowering forth, tread paced to meet an obstacle

at every step. Consistent with the 

formula–warm blood, no gills, two pairs of hands and a few 

hairs–that

is a mammal; there he sits in his own habitat,

serge-clad, strong-shod. The prey of fear, he, always

curtailed, extinguished, thwarted by the dusk, work 

partly done,

says to the alternating blaze,

“Again the sun!

anew each day; and new and new and new,

that comes into and steadies my soul.” 

— Marianne Moore

Merhaba Bebek!
Over the entire row.
‹ ›

The book advertised in the placard pictured above is titled, “Hello Baby!” Its subheading reads, “This book will give your baby, your partner and you a good start!” [My translation. I can’t vouch for its accuracy.]

And yes. This is a men’s bathroom. And yes. That placard is placed over every single one of those urinals.

Want to know how baby crazy Turkey is? There you have it.

— Tragos, reporting from Ankara.

Exposing Yourself to Foreign Experiences

This morning, Mrs. Tragos, Baby Tragos and I headed down to a big indoor mall in Ankara. It was time to get some more serious toys for Baby Tragos. It was also time for Mrs. Tragos to get a haircut.

While Mrs. Tragos sat down for the above-mentioned haircut, I took Baby Tragos for a walk around the mall. Normally, I would put her facing out in the Baby Bjorn, which she loves. She gets to encounter the world that way. Unfortunately, we forgot the Baby Bjorn. So instead, I just held her in my palm so she could still meet and greet the world.

Now, I am not a very strong man. I’m a normal guy. So the tax on my biceps was pretty severe. I had to keep switching hands to hold Baby Tragos so that I could give each arm a rest in turn. Baby Tragos was loving our venture, talking up a storm with whomever we’d come across. Toward the end of our little perambulation, we wandered into a home furnishings store. Why? Because they had a whole row of different colored bright candles that looked like a gigantic crayon box. Perfect for entertaining a four-month-old.

As we drew near this wall of candles, two older women — grandmother-aged — approached. They took to Baby Tragos immediately, telling her she was “çok tatlı” (really sweet) and “çok güzel” (really beautiful). It was a really nice moment. Except my right arm was just killing me.

[Brief interruption for a sartorial detail: I was wearing a long sleeve snap-down-the-middle collared shirt today.]

I needed to make an adjustment, but the women were nowhere near finished cooing over Baby Tragos. So I went for it. As Baby Tragos swiped across my chest from right to left, she took one side of my shirt with her, unsnapping me completely.

So there I was, in Ankara, Turkey, in a quaint home furnishing store, bare chested in front of two grandmothers.

I nodded, grunted a quick, “Afedersiniz,” (hopefully the appropriate “excuse me” for the occasion), turned around, and with my free right hand, snapped my shirt up while Baby Tragos yelled out at the shiny mirrors on the shelf in front of her.

I turned around. The grandmothers were gone.

fsgbooks: “The solution came in a most unexpected way, on a flight between Buenos Aires and Madrid which, by chance, was commemorating the first flight between those cities (by an Iberian Airline Douglas DC4) on 22 September 1946. I bought at Ezeiza airport a copy of a short novel by Alejo Carpentier that I had not read: The Kingdom of This World. Nothing had prepared me for the surprise. From the first lines of the story, which recreates the hallucinating life of Henri Christophe and the building of the famous Citadel in Haiti, this superbly written and even better constructed narration in which, as in all literary masterpieces, nothing could be added or taken away, absorbed me body and soul and took away my surroundings, transporting me, for the ten hours or so of the flight, away from the frozen starry night into a prodigious epic account of Haiti in the previous century, where the most ferocious violence intermingled with the most fevered imagination, and everyday and trivial events blurred into miracles and legends. I read the final lines when the plane touched down in Barajas; the book had lasted the flight, and had taken away my fear for the entire journey.” -Mario Vargas Llosa, “How I Lost My Fear of Flying”

fsgbooks:

“The solution came in a most unexpected way, on a flight between Buenos Aires and Madrid which, by chance, was commemorating the first flight between those cities (by an Iberian Airline Douglas DC4) on 22 September 1946. I bought at Ezeiza airport a copy of a short novel by Alejo Carpentier that I had not read: The Kingdom of This World. Nothing had prepared me for the surprise. From the first lines of the story, which recreates the hallucinating life of Henri Christophe and the building of the famous Citadel in Haiti, this superbly written and even better constructed narration in which, as in all literary masterpieces, nothing could be added or taken away, absorbed me body and soul and took away my surroundings, transporting me, for the ten hours or so of the flight, away from the frozen starry night into a prodigious epic account of Haiti in the previous century, where the most ferocious violence intermingled with the most fevered imagination, and everyday and trivial events blurred into miracles and legends. I read the final lines when the plane touched down in Barajas; the book had lasted the flight, and had taken away my fear for the entire journey.”

-Mario Vargas Llosa, “How I Lost My Fear of Flying”

“I believe that literature must address itself to the problems of its time. An author must write with the conviction that what he is writing can help others become more free, more sensitive, more clear-sighted; yet without the self-righteous illusion of many intellectuals that their work helps contain violence, reduce injustice or promote liberty. I have erred too often myself, and I have seen too many writers I admired err—even put their talents at the service of ideological lies and state crimes—to delude myself. But without ceasing to be entertaining, literature should immerse itself in the life of the streets, in the unravelling of history, as it did in the best of times.”

Mario Vargas Llosa, from the May 20, 1997 issue of Prospect Magazine, in an article that directly addresses the question (posed in the subtitle), “Does literature serve any higher purpose beyond entertainment?”