By wink of water

It’s hot. Unbelievably so – as hot as it ever gets in Seattle, sun pouring into my south-facing apartment until well after 9 pm. Any DC native reading this will justifiably call me a wimp, but I’ll parry with “no AC” – it is somehow unGallic to artificially cool the air. My choices these past few nights have been between the noise and the heat; opening the windows offers a cool breeze, but there are loud cars and people on my street until the wee hours. So, in classic Seattle style, I’ve bought a fan and earplugs.

Still, despite the heat and noise, I love my little apartment. I don’t have internet at home, which leaves me lots of time to read. Perhaps too much time – I often get caught up in my book and arrive at work much later than planned. I brought with me to Paris some well-loved Jane Austens (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, and Lady Susan) and a few books I had purchased but never found time to read. The Jane Austens I read right away, the best cure for loneliness imaginable, though unfortunately too light to be long lasting. My favorite is Lady Susan, a minor work but so much fun. Then Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not, not his best in my opinion, a quick, sad read about a poor fisherman. Back when the movie In Cold Blood came out, I bought Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, packaged with two short stories. Oddly, I think I prefer Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly to the version in the novella. The short stories were quite good though; perhaps I ought to read In Cold Blood, though in general I’m not a fan of true crime works.

A friend of Mike’s gave me In the Beginning…Was the Command Line, an essay by Neal Stephenson and available online for free. It’s a interesting take on operating systems, Windows versus Mac versus Linux, though it basically became immediately outdated with the introduction of OSX. Also, any CS people out there who haven’t read Stephenson really ought to; Cryptonomicon is my favorite (I find Snow Crash too unpolished and The Baroque Cycle trilogy badly in need of an editor), but he is quite prolific, and writes intelligently about our milieu. I then read Middlesex, given to me ages ago by Liz, and very enjoyable, though I’m a little surprised it won a Pulitzer. It’s a well-plotted book, with a fascinating, meandering story line, yet for me it somehow stays on this side of popular fiction. I don’t think it will age well. On the other hand, I didn’t want to put it down.

And right now I’m reading Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky. She was a Jewish French novelist, already popular in the late 1930s, when she had to flee Paris; she wrote Suite Française while hiding in the countryside, where she was eventually found, sent to Auschwitz, and murdered. Her daughter had kept the manuscript but thought it was a diary; it was only recently that she realized it was a novel and published it. The book places me squarely in Paris, at the time of the German invasion and occupation, and makes me want to read more French literature. On the other hand, it’s not at all what I expected – the characters are for the most part upper middle class French who stupidly do not realize what is happening to them and are in any case superficial, selfish, and entirely unsympathetic. (Apparently she had quite a bad relationship with her mother, who after the war refused to take in her orphaned children – the scathing portrayal of the rich women in the novel is her only revenge.)

But this too will soon be done. So does anyone have suggestions on what I should read next?

I’ve been meaning to write a post for some time now – lots has been happening, lots of people are coming through, life is moving apace, never mind all the work I have to do despite all the holidays in May. In this post I’ll write about Becky and Ethan’s visit a couple of weeks ago, in the next about my latest news.

Ethan had a conference in Amsterdam, an excellent opportunity for a little European trip. (Those systems guys have it the best: loads of grant money, cool sponsored trips, articles in Wired, conferences in the Dominican Republic in February. I do get to go to Miami Beach, but it’s in June; not as bad as Rutgers in August, but if it’s going to be Florida, it should be cold back home.) He and Becky arrived Friday night around 8 pm and we met up with my friends Guillaume and Jan at Point Ephémère, my new favorite club in Paris. We actually had kind of a disastrous experience with the waitress, where a frustrating series of missteps culminated in us getting charged for both the incorrect dish brought and the dish ordered that never came. This caused Guillaume (as kind and calm a person as you will ever encounter) to actually lose his temper. I caught “C’est incroyable!” but the rapid French that followed was way beyond me.

In any case, the food was good and cheap, so we will pardon the waitress. At around 11 pm, we entered the club, planning to hear the band Love Is All – but the club was empty, everyone outside smoking cigarettes, and entry was free. Turns out that when they say 8 here, they mean 8, and when there are 3 bands, they each go on for about 45 minutes apiece. Coming from Seattle, where the headliner often starts around midnight, this is very odd indeed. I have to confess that I was pleased. Love Is All is a little noisy for my taste, so I made better use of my 12 euros by buying reasonably priced beer.

Meanwhile the music was fantastic. PB&J, Vampire Weekend, Franz Ferdinand, Mates of State (I think – I could never figure out why I knew one song), and best of all, everyone dancing! Despite the wonderful music scene in Seattle, I always found it tragically bizarre that no one dances. Jess and I would often get dirty looks, bouncing around to Helio Sequence or Okkervil River. But these songs are so danceable, I just can’t understand how anyone can stand there, barely nodding to the beat. It’s not that the French are better dancers than Americans, but they are unselfconscious. And there seems to be an understanding that this is what’s expected at a club.

A great night all in all – I would have stayed longer, but Becky and Ethan were tired after a long week, and indeed ended up sleeping till after 11 the next morning. We went to the market at Rue Mouffetard then to the Seine and had a lovely picnic of bread, cheese, avocado, dates, strawberries, and saucisse, marred only by the fact that it started pouring. Then to Shakespeare and Company, where I realized that I really ought to read some classic French literature (more on that in another post). And finally back home, to prepare for our four hour dinner at the Hidden Kitchen.

The Hidden Kitchen is a private supper club run by Seattlites Braden and Laura, out of their gorgeous flat in the first arrondisement. There is space for 12, and I’m not sure it’s exactly legal (especially in regulation-happy Paris), so shhhh. (Seeing as Clotilde Dusoulier has written about it on her blog, I don’t think it’s a very big secret.) We met our fellow diners while being served an apertif (some kind of orange-infused champagne). Then the meal – 10 courses, paired with 7 glasses of wine, 4 hours of interesting conversation with expats and visitors, and rice krispie treats to end the meal. It was really spectacular; there was an especially delicate poached egg dish that we agreed was our favorite of the night. I also got some inside info on how to watch streaming American TV here (Hulu and the regular broadcasters are blocked, since they make so much money rebroadcasting dubbed versions).

We spent the next day visiting some fantastic places to eat from Clotilde’s book: Blé Sucre, a lovely bakery in the 12th; the nearby Marché d’Aligre; L’As du Fallafel in the Marais; Le Loir dans la Théière, also in the Marais and known for incredibly delicious lemon meringue tarts; and finally, for dinner, a lovely small crêperie in Montparnasse called Ti Jos. Ethan and I also ate at Le Pre Verre, which was fantastic, and has quite a good deal for lunch; as it is very close to work, I have some hope of convincing my colleagues to forsake the school cafeteria one of these fine spring days. Clotilde’s book is now my bible – she has yet to steer me wrong in my eternal quest for good restaurants at reasonable prices.

It was an action-packed trip; funny how these incredibly fun visits often leave me feeling in need of a vacation (just in time to get back to work). Nonetheless, my schedule is falling into place, as is French, frisbee, work, and friends – more on that when I get some time for another post.

He sees the world in shades of gray.
——————————————————
Remarks of President Barack Obama
Notre Dame Commencement

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Notre Dame, Indiana

Thank you, Father Jenkins for that generous introduction. You are doing an outstanding job as president of this fine institution, and your continued and courageous commitment to honest, thoughtful dialogue is an inspiration to us all.

Good afternoon Father Hesburgh, Notre Dame trustees, faculty, family, friends, and the class of 2009. I am honored to be here today, and grateful to all of you for allowing me to be part of your graduation.

I want to thank you for this honorary degree. I know it has not been without controversy. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but these honorary degrees are apparently pretty hard to come by. So far I’m only 1 for 2 as President. Father Hesburgh is 150 for 150. I guess that’s better. Father Ted, after the ceremony, maybe you can give me some pointers on how to boost my average.

I also want to congratulate the class of 2009 for all your accomplishments. And since this is Notre Dame, I mean both in the classroom and in the competitive arena. We all know about this university’s proud and storied football team, but I also hear that Notre Dame holds the largest outdoor 5-on-5 basketball tournament in the world – Bookstore Basketball.

Now this excites me. I want to congratulate the winners of this year’s tournament, a team by the name of “Hallelujah Holla Back.” Well done. Though I have to say, I am personally disappointed that the “Barack O’Ballers” didn’t pull it out. Next year, if you need a 6’2” forward with a decent jumper, you know where I live.

Every one of you should be proud of what you have achieved at this institution. One hundred and sixty three classes of Notre Dame graduates have sat where you are today. Some were here during years that simply rolled into the next without much notice or fanfare – periods of relative peace and prosperity that required little by way of sacrifice or struggle.

You, however, are not getting off that easy. Your class has come of age at a moment of great consequence for our nation and the world – a rare inflection point in history where the size and scope of the challenges before us require that we remake our world to renew its promise; that we align our deepest values and commitments to the demands of a new age. It is a privilege and a responsibility afforded to few generations – and a task that you are now called to fulfill.

This is the generation that must find a path back to prosperity and decide how we respond to a global economy that left millions behind even before this crisis hit – an economy where greed and short-term thinking were too often rewarded at the expense of fairness, and diligence, and an honest day’s work.

We must decide how to save God’s creation from a changing climate that threatens to destroy it. We must seek peace at a time when there are those who will stop at nothing to do us harm, and when weapons in the hands of a few can destroy the many. And we must find a way to reconcile our ever-shrinking world with its ever-growing diversity – diversity of thought, of culture, and of belief.

In short, we must find a way to live together as one human family.

It is this last challenge that I’d like to talk about today. For the major threats we face in the 21st century – whether it’s global recession or violent extremism; the spread of nuclear weapons or pandemic disease – do not discriminate. They do not recognize borders. They do not see color. They do not target specific ethnic groups.

Moreover, no one person, or religion, or nation can meet these challenges alone. Our very survival has never required greater cooperation and understanding among all people from all places than at this moment in history.

Unfortunately, finding that common ground – recognizing that our fates are tied up, as Dr. King said, in a “single garment of destiny” – is not easy. Part of the problem, of course, lies in the imperfections of man – our selfishness, our pride, our stubbornness, our acquisitiveness, our insecurities, our egos; all the cruelties large and small that those of us in the Christian tradition understand to be rooted in original sin. We too often seek advantage over others. We cling to outworn prejudice and fear those who are unfamiliar. Too many of us view life only through the lens of immediate self-interest and crass materialism; in which the world is necessarily a zero-sum game. The strong too often dominate the weak, and too many of those with wealth and with power find all manner of justification for their own privilege in the face of poverty and injustice. And so, for all our technology and scientific advances, we see around the globe violence and want and strife that would seem sadly familiar to those in ancient times.

We know these things; and hopefully one of the benefits of the wonderful education you have received is that you have had time to consider these wrongs in the world, and grown determined, each in your own way, to right them. And yet, one of the vexing things for those of us interested in promoting greater understanding and cooperation among people is the discovery that even bringing together persons of good will, men and women of principle and purpose, can be difficult.

The soldier and the lawyer may both love this country with equal passion, and yet reach very different conclusions on the specific steps needed to protect us from harm. The gay activist and the evangelical pastor may both deplore the ravages of HIV/AIDS, but find themselves unable to bridge the cultural divide that might unite their efforts. Those who speak out against stem cell research may be rooted in admirable conviction about the sacredness of life, but so are the parents of a child with juvenile diabetes who are convinced that their son’s or daughter’s hardships can be relieved.

The question, then, is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?

Nowhere do these questions come up more powerfully than on the issue of abortion.

As I considered the controversy surrounding my visit here, I was reminded of an encounter I had during my Senate campaign, one that I describe in a book I wrote called The Audacity of Hope. A few days after I won the Democratic nomination, I received an email from a doctor who told me that while he voted for me in the primary, he had a serious concern that might prevent him from voting for me in the general election. He described himself as a Christian who was strongly pro-life, but that’s not what was preventing him from voting for me.

What bothered the doctor was an entry that my campaign staff had posted on my website – an entry that said I would fight “right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman’s right to choose.” The doctor said that he had assumed I was a reasonable person, but that if I truly believed that every pro-life individual was simply an ideologue who wanted to inflict suffering on women, then I was not very reasonable. He wrote, “I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words.”

Fair-minded words.

After I read the doctor’s letter, I wrote back to him and thanked him. I didn’t change my position, but I did tell my staff to change the words on my website. And I said a prayer that night that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. Because when we do that – when we open our hearts and our minds to those who may not think like we do or believe what we do – that’s when we discover at least the possibility of common ground.

That’s when we begin to say, “Maybe we won’t agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman to make, with both moral and spiritual dimensions.

So let’s work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term. Let’s honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded in clear ethics and sound science, as well as respect for the equality of women.”

Understand – I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. No matter how much we may want to fudge it – indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory – the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.

Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words.

It’s a way of life that has always been the Notre Dame tradition. Father Hesburgh has long spoken of this institution as both a lighthouse and a crossroads. The lighthouse that stands apart, shining with the wisdom of the Catholic tradition, while the crossroads is where “…differences of culture and religion and conviction can co-exist with friendship, civility, hospitality, and especially love.” And I want to join him and Father Jenkins in saying how inspired I am by the maturity and responsibility with which this class has approached the debate surrounding today’s ceremony.

This tradition of cooperation and understanding is one that I learned in my own life many years ago – also with the help of the Catholic Church.

I was not raised in a particularly religious household, but my mother instilled in me a sense of service and empathy that eventually led me to become a community organizer after I graduated college. A group of Catholic churches in Chicago helped fund an organization known as the Developing Communities Project, and we worked to lift up South Side neighborhoods that had been devastated when the local steel plant closed.

It was quite an eclectic crew. Catholic and Protestant churches. Jewish and African-American organizers. Working-class black and white and Hispanic residents. All of us with different experiences. All of us with different beliefs. But all of us learned to work side by side because all of us saw in these neighborhoods other human beings who needed our help – to find jobs and improve schools. We were bound together in the service of others.

And something else happened during the time I spent in those neighborhoods. Perhaps because the church folks I worked with were so welcoming and understanding; perhaps because they invited me to their services and sang with me from their hymnals; perhaps because I witnessed all of the good works their faith inspired them to perform, I found myself drawn – not just to work with the church, but to be in the church. It was through this service that I was brought to Christ.

At the time, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin was the Archbishop of Chicago. For those of you too young to have known him, he was a kind and good and wise man. A saintly man. I can still remember him speaking at one of the first organizing meetings I attended on the South Side. He stood as both a lighthouse and a crossroads – unafraid to speak his mind on moral issues ranging from poverty, AIDS, and abortion to the death penalty and nuclear war. And yet, he was congenial and gentle in his persuasion, always trying to bring people together; always trying to find common ground. Just before he died, a reporter asked Cardinal Bernardin about this approach to his ministry. And he said, “You can’t really get on with preaching the Gospel until you’ve touched minds and hearts.”

My heart and mind were touched by the words and deeds of the men and women I worked alongside with in Chicago. And I’d like to think that we touched the hearts and minds of the neighborhood families whose lives we helped change. For this, I believe, is our highest calling.

You are about to enter the next phase of your life at a time of great uncertainty. You will be called upon to help restore a free market that is also fair to all who are willing to work; to seek new sources of energy that can save our planet; to give future generations the same chance that you had to receive an extraordinary education. And whether as a person drawn to public service, or someone who simply insists on being an active citizen, you will be exposed to more opinions and ideas broadcast through more means of communications than have ever existed before. You will hear talking heads scream on cable, read blogs that claim definitive knowledge, and watch politicians pretend to know what they’re talking about. Occasionally, you may also have the great fortune of seeing important issues debated by well-intentioned, brilliant minds. In fact, I suspect that many of you will be among those bright stars.

In this world of competing claims about what is right and what is true, have confidence in the values with which you’ve been raised and educated. Be unafraid to speak your mind when those values are at stake. Hold firm to your faith and allow it to guide you on your journey. Stand as a lighthouse.

But remember too that the ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt. It is the belief in things not seen. It is beyond our capacity as human beings to know with certainty what God has planned for us or what He asks of us, and those of us who believe must trust that His wisdom is greater than our own.

This doubt should not push us away from our faith. But it should humble us. It should temper our passions, and cause us to be wary of self-righteousness. It should compel us to remain open, and curious, and eager to continue the moral and spiritual debate that began for so many of you within the walls of Notre Dame. And within our vast democracy, this doubt should remind us to persuade through reason, through an appeal whenever we can to universal rather than parochial principles, and most of all through an abiding example of good works, charity, kindness, and service that moves hearts and minds.

For if there is one law that we can be most certain of, it is the law that binds people of all faiths and no faith together. It is no coincidence that it exists in Christianity and Judaism; in Islam and Hinduism; in Buddhism and humanism. It is, of course, the Golden Rule – the call to treat one another as we wish to be treated. The call to love. To serve. To do what we can to make a difference in the lives of those with whom we share the same brief moment on this Earth.

So many of you at Notre Dame – by the last count, upwards of 80% — have lived this law of love through the service you’ve performed at schools and hospitals; international relief agencies and local charities. That is incredibly impressive, and a powerful testament to this institution. Now you must carry the tradition forward. Make it a way of life. Because when you serve, it doesn’t just improve your community, it makes you a part of your community. It breaks down walls. It fosters cooperation. And when that happens – when people set aside their differences to work in common effort toward a common good; when they struggle together, and sacrifice together, and learn from one another – all things are possible.

After all, I stand here today, as President and as an African-American, on the 55th anniversary of the day that the Supreme Court handed down the decision in Brown v. the Board of Education. Brown was of course the first major step in dismantling the “separate but equal” doctrine, but it would take a number of years and a nationwide movement to fully realize the dream of civil rights for all of God’s children. There were freedom rides and lunch counters and Billy clubs, and there was also a Civil Rights Commission appointed by President Eisenhower. It was the twelve resolutions recommended by this commission that would ultimately become law in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

There were six members of the commission. It included five whites and one African-American; Democrats and Republicans; two Southern governors, the dean of a Southern law school, a Midwestern university president, and your own Father Ted Hesburgh, President of Notre Dame. They worked for two years, and at times, President Eisenhower had to intervene personally since no hotel or restaurant in the South would serve the black and white members of the commission together. Finally, when they reached an impasse in Louisiana, Father Ted flew them all to Notre Dame’s retreat in Land O’Lakes, Wisconsin, where they eventually overcame their differences and hammered out a final deal.

Years later, President Eisenhower asked Father Ted how on Earth he was able to broker an agreement between men of such different backgrounds and beliefs. And Father Ted simply said that during their first dinner in Wisconsin, they discovered that they were all fishermen. And so he quickly readied a boat for a twilight trip out on the lake. They fished, and they talked, and they changed the course of history.

I will not pretend that the challenges we face will be easy, or that the answers will come quickly, or that all our differences and divisions will fade happily away. Life is not that simple. It never has been.

But as you leave here today, remember the lessons of Cardinal Bernardin, of Father Hesburgh, of movements for change both large and small. Remember that each of us, endowed with the dignity possessed by all children of God, has the grace to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we all seek the same love of family and the same fulfillment of a life well-lived. Remember that in the end, we are all fishermen.

If nothing else, that knowledge should give us faith that through our collective labor, and God’s providence, and our willingness to shoulder each other’s burdens, America will continue on its precious journey towards that more perfect union. Congratulations on your graduation, may God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.

Today I received a text at around 11:40 am from my brother: “Baby girl cherniavsky 5 pounds 6 ounces… Strong voice … Resting comfortably in the nursery”. So I am now an aunt x2! The video included here is of Sierra version 1.0, 2 years old and now a big sister.

I have a lot of time to listen to music these days: I have no internet at home, I walk a lot, I have to take the subway for over an hour to frisbee practice twice a week – the list goes on. I’ve been more aggressively searching out new stuff, often on The Tape, Passion of the Weiss, and KEXP’s podcast. The first is my absolute favorite music blog; they cover both the indie bands I like and also the latest pop/hip-hop. I love Guilty Music Mondays. The second is a blog by an LA journalist, and he’s quite a good writer who mostly covers hip-hop. Lastly, KEXP is the (public) independent music station in Seattle. They present a wide variety of music ranging across the whole indie landscape, though some subgenres are sparsely covered.

I am sadly absent from both Sasquatch and the Capitol Hill Block party this year. There are a couple of festivals in France that I’m looking into (I will definitely be at Rock en Seine – I’m really looking forward to Asher Roth. Kidding. Seriously.). But in the meantime, here’s a mix of my latest favorites. It’s quite cheerful, a little unusual for me. I’ll post the link in the comments section on facebook.

1. Nothing To Worry About by Peter Bjorn & John: always makes me smile
2. Little Secrets (LehtMoJoe Remix) by Passion Pit: really looking forward to the album
3. I Poke Her Face by KiD CuDi ft. KanYe West and Common: this is hilarious, courtesy of The Tape
4. Lisztomania by Phoenix: they are French!
5. Everything With You by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: coming to town May 26
6. Idiot Heart by Sunset Rubdown: my preferred Wolf Parade singer
7. Masked Moniker (Pop Eulogy) by CasOne: pretty sure it’s also from The Tape; Kentucky rapper
8. Tightrope by Coast: peppy Canadians
9. Crack A Bottle (DiscoTech Remix) by Eminem: you all know I’m going to get the album. He’s at least stopped feeling sorry for himself
10. Pistol Dreams by The Tallest Man On Earth: everybody’s latest fave, sweet, a little sad
11. Moth’s Wings by Passion Pit: hands down my favorite on this mix, I play this song over and over
12. Ursuline by Malajube: heard it on KEXP and actually figured out it was in French. listen and you’ll be impressed, it’s very difficult to make out the lyrics.
13. The Trapeze Swinger by Iron & Wine: super super sad!
14. You Can Have What You Want by Papercuts: continuing on the theme…
15. Young Adult Friction by The Pains of Being Pure At Heart: back to cheery
16. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel: this one is all Mike Hamm and his status updates