Cuthbert and the Otters - Paul Muldoon in memory of Seamus Heaney

The monastery and lobster boats at Lindisfarne

The Sea obeyed the word of the monk Cuthbert, allowing sailors to return home safe, the Bede reports in his hagiography The Life and Miracles of St. Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, who died on Farne Island in 687.  That is the Cuthbert of the title of Paul Muldoon's long poem which appeared in the Times Literary Supplement in December.  Muldoon like Heaney is from North Ireland.  He teaches at Princeton and is ensconced in Manhattan where he is poetry editor of The New Yorker.  His "three car garage" rock band Racket performs occasionally.

The poem, which is not the easiest read (e.g. a hauberk is a chain mail tunic; to "thole" is to tolerate), is a read-aloud to grasp the sometimes gruff onomatopoeia which evokes Heaney's language.  The first three stanzas are below.  Click on the title to go to the full poem on the TLS website.

Cuthbert and the Otters

Paul Muldoon: In memory of Seamus Heaney

Published: 20 December 2013

Notwithstanding the fact that one of them has gnawed a strip of flesh 
from the shoulder of the salmon, 
relieving it of a little darne, 
the fish these six otters would fain 
carry over the sandstone limen 
and into Cuthbert’s cell, a fish garlanded with bay leaves 
and laid out on a linden-flitch 

like a hauberked warrior laid out on his shield, 
may yet be thought of as whole. 
An entire fish for an abbot’s supper. 
It’s true they’ve yet to develop the turnip-clamp 
and the sword with a weighted pommel 
but the Danes are already dyeing everything beige. 
In anticipation, perhaps, of the carpet and mustard factories 

built on ground first broken by the Brigantes. 
The Benedictines still love a bit of banter 
along with the Beatitudes. Blessed is the trundle bed, 
it readies us for the tunnel 
from Spital Tongues to the staithes. I’m at once full of dread 
and in complete denial. 
I cannot thole the thought of Seamus Heaney dead. 

Can shop class save small-town America? - Salon.com

Can shop class save small-town America? - Salon.com:

"If you need a midwinter pick-me-up, and a break from the usual round of bad-news ideological bickering over American public education, both arrive at once in Patrick Creadon’s provocative, inspiring and mostly optimistic documentary “If You Build It.” (Which, fittingly enough, was largely funded by Kickstarter.) There have been plenty of other movies about attempts by idealistic outsiders to reform or reinvent aspects of public schooling, and Creadon’s movie follows a familiar pattern to that extent. In 2010, Emily Pilloton and Matt Miller, a pair of former corporate design professionals who quit their jobs and started an educational program called Studio H, arrived in rural Bertie County, N.C., with big plans that confounded some locals and excited others. This movie is in part the story of their struggles, setbacks, successes and failures."



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Chasing Shackleton - Episodes 1 and 2 | PBS

In 1999 I went to the Shackleton Antarctic Expedition exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History.  I was stunned by the beautiful photographs of Frank Hurley, the amazing story of survival after the Endurance was crushed in the ice, capped by Shackleton's rescue mission from Elephant Island 800 miles across the southern ocean to South Georgia Island in the 21 foot James Caird lifeboat (which was there at the museum).
For months I was obsessed, reading the many accounts of the journey.  Though nothing can match South - Ernest Shackleton's own account - the most vivid and dramatic is journalist Alfred Lansing's Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage.

But my obsession pales in light of mountaineer Tim Jarvis, who organized an expedition to repeat the legendary voyage of the Caird, in a replica - The Alexandra Shackleton.  They undertook to repeat it in original equipment - oil skins clothing, contemporary rations (4,500 unpalatable calories/day of "hoosh"), sextant, compass.  Though regulations required an escort vessel, VHF and AIS those electronics systems proved to be shaky.

Jarvis and crew did have cameras, which made  possible much of the video in the excellent PBS film, the second episode of which will air January 15, 2014.  Meanwhile the link below will bring you to Episode 1.   Enjoy.  - GWC
Chasing Shackleton | PBS: Episode 1
Episode 2

"The series follows a crew of five intrepid explorers led by renowned adventurer, scientist and author Tim Jarvis as they re-create Shackleton’s epic sea-and-land voyage in a replica of the original explorers’ boat, using only the tools and supplies his team used.
Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Trans-Antarctic Expedition, which launched in 1914, met with disaster when his ship The Endurance was crushed by arctic ice and sank. His heroic leadership in the face of almost certain death saved the lives of 27 men stranded in the Antarctic for more than 500 days, and has inspired explorers and leaders across every continent over many generations."

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Sounds of the Sixth Boro: Environment, Law, and History

David Schorr points to an archive of the sounds of the City.  New Yorkers have been complaining about the noise and the smoke and the dirt for a long time.  The truth is that things have gotten a lot better.  Except for the subway platforms, and the sirens.  But those sounds are distant eough now to evoke nostalgia.  I particularly recommend clicking on Horns in the harbor section of this audio archive - for videos of a fog horn and a McAllister tug. - gwc
Environment, Law, and History: The hidden histories of environmental law:
by David Schorr

NYC smog 1966

 "Thanks to the Legal History Blog and Slate's "The Vault", I came across "The Roaring Twenties", a digital history site self-described as "an interactive exploration of the historical soundscape of New York City". The site has historical newsreel footage of all kinds of loud noises from early twentieth-century New York, along with published materials and hundreds of original documents from the municipal archives relating to noise complaints (see the explanation of sources under "Info"), all organized by date, by type of noise, and accessible by location on a historical map of the city. In addition to the material on noise, other environmental issues pop up as well, such as in a 1930 video of a staged confrontation between two boys over a banana peel thrown on the sidewalk in Manhattan's Lower East Side (check it out for its great accents and slang). (And if you want to understand why New Yorkers for years turned their back on their waterfront, watch some movies of tugboats and other watercraft at work.)"





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U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star to assist vessels in Antarctica « Coast Guard Compass

U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star to assist vessels in Antarctica « Coast Guard Compass:
Written by Coast Guard Pacific Area.

The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star is responding to a Jan. 3rd request from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, AMSA, to assist the Russian-Flagged Akademik Shokalskiy and Chinese-Flagged Xue Long that are reportedly ice-bound in the Antarctic. The Russian and Chinese governments have also requested assistance from the United States.

Coast Guard Pacific Area Command Center received the request Thursday evening from AMSA after they evaluated the situation and determined there is sufficient concern that the vessels may not be able to free themselves from the ice. AMSA has been coordinating rescue operations since the Akademik Shokalskiy became beset with ice on Dec. 24. The Polar Star will cut short its planned stop in Sydney to support the AMSA’s request for assistance.

“The U.S. Coast Guard stands ready to respond to Australia’s request,” said Vice Adm. Paul F. Zukunft, commander of Coast Guard Pacific Area. “Our highest priority is safety of life at sea, which is why we are assisting in breaking a navigational path for both of these vessels. We are pleased to learn the passengers of the Akademik Shokalskiy have been transported safely off the vessel. We are always ready and duty bound to render assistance in one of the most remote and harsh environments on the face of the globe.”

- See more at: http://coastguard.dodlive.mil/2014/01/u-s-coast-guard-cutter-polar-star-to-assist-vessels-in-antarctica/#sthash.OxTVCSbQ.dpuf
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Friendship Harbor - 1 Fahrenheit

Lobstermen are not snowbirds.

Not a fit night out for man nor boat!

West Penobscot Bay, Owls Head data buoy

National Data Buoy Center
Station 44033

44.060 N 69.000 W

9:04 pm EST 01/02/2014
0204 GMT 01/03/2014
Wind: NNE (30°), 19.4 kt
Gust: 29.1 kt
Seas: 5.9 ft
Peak Period: 5 sec
Pres: 30.06
Air Temp: 7.2 °F
Water Temp: 38.8 °F
Visibility: 1.6 nmi

Man overboard -

Man Overboard

By PAUL TOUGH

John Aldridge fell overboard in the middle of the night, 40 miles from shore, and the Coast Guard was looking in the wrong place. How did he survive?

04547 Current Conditions, Friendship, Mid-coast Maine

National Data Buoy Center
Station 44033

44.060 N 69.000 W

9:04 pm EST 01/02/2014
0204 GMT 01/03/2014
Wind: NNE (30°), 19.4 kt
Gust: 29.1 kt
Seas: 5.9 ft
Peak Period: 5 sec
Pres: 30.06
Air Temp: 7.2 °F
Water Temp: 38.8 °F
Visibility: 1.6 nmi

• Tonight: Snow. Low around -2. Wind chill values as low as -25. Blustery, with a northeast wind 20 to 25 mph, with gusts as high as 40 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. Total nighttime snow accumulation of 3 to 7 inches possible.
• FridaySnow before 2pm. High near 9. Wind chill values as low as -24. Blustery, with a north wind 15 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 40 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible.
• Friday NightMostly clear, with a low around -4. Wind chill values as low as -18. Northwest wind 10 to 15 mph.

The Antarctica Rescue

A helicopter from Xue Long 龙雪- the Chinese icebreaker polar research vessel, has airlifted 24 passengers from Australis Borealis, a Rusian scientific ship with paying passengers trapped in the ice of the Ross Sea.