James Lockhart Perry's Blog, page 8

Knights Hospitallers

A Boy’s Life #2: Like many an English schoolboy, I had a fascination with the Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani, or The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem.

The Knights Hospitallers, like their rivals, The Knights Templars, defined chivalry in the Middle Ages. In 1023, they started out building and staffing hospitals in Crusader Jerusalem. Only later did they turn out of necessity into the excessively wordy and polite horse-born warriors we Game of Thrones watchers recall today.

Nearly all their incredible victories were defensive. In 1522 on Rhodes, 7,000 Knights under Brother Philippe Villiers de L’Isle-Adam held off an invasion by Suleiman the Magnificent and his 100,000 Ottoman Turks. In 1565 on Malta, Grand Master Jean Parisot de Valette and 700 Knights defeated another 40,000 invaders sent by Suleiman, still at the height of his powers. It wasn’t until 1798 that Napoleon finally subdued them.

Such was their medieval reputation for both invincibility and charity, that the Knights were given the oddly matched tasks of building hospitals and fending off Barbary Pirates. And they excelled in both until, after six centuries of good works, the Maltese Brothers themselves succumbed to the temptations of piracy.

Other than that odd lapse, legend and reality for once coincided in this Order—these guys were the real deal. And even today, you can see their hands at work all over the beautiful bastions of Rhodes and Malta.

Filed under: Europe Tagged: Greece, Malta

Guns of Navarone

A Boy’s Life #1: My favorite book and movie in childhood was the WW II adventure, The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean. It didn’t hurt that the gorgeous, busty Greek turncoat in the movie, played by Gia Scala, was a dead ringer for a major crush, my Italian third grade teacher. It did bother me that the director had her unmasked and shot by the second-most gorgeous and busty actress in the movie, Irene Papas—but as David Niven would have sighed, war (at least in the cinematic version) is a tiresome business.

So naturally I was thrilled to be sailing past the island of Leros (the real Navarone) on the way to Rhodes, where the film was shot. And through the mists, I could hear Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn and all scaling those cliffs, impersonating those Germans, falling for those gorgeous, busty actresses, planting those explosives, and blowing stuff up.

Except… In looking up the names for this post, I discovered that the tempestuous Gia was in fact an Englishwoman born in Merseyside and named Josephine; that she might have been murdered in Hollywood age 38; and that her husband ditched her for none other than Rock Hudson. And not only did the movie nearly kill David Niven with pneumonia, but Gregory Peck’s superb German was in fact dubbed.

Sometimes adult reality truly sucks.

Filed under: Europe Tagged: Greece

Venezia

There was a time when the mask business in Venice was more than just a quirky feature of the tourist trade. No one really knows if the original intent was political (for anonymous voting) or social (to disguise your class and identity). But by the 12th century, both the wearing of masks and the behavior of the male wearer (no women allowed) were highly regulated—no gambling, no weapons, no throwing of rotten eggs, no lurking around the convent to seduce the novitiates. Eventually, the practice became entwined with la Carnevale di Venezia—a cross between an orgy and a political riot—so when the prudish Austrians took over in 1797, they banned both.

In 1979, both mask and la Carnevale returned, albeit in a more tourist-friendly and gender-neutral mode. Most of the masks available today are modern inventions. The Volta in the photo (feminine, ghost-like, and covering the entire face) is the most popular and least practical (no eating or drinking). The glummer male Bauta can come with the mouth hinged or unhinged, but it does leave the wearer looking a little formidable. The masks with the long, hideous noses, the medici della peste, were originally developed for the safety of plague doctors, but are worn today by anyone with a taste for Freud, ostentation, and the macabre.

Like most such traditions, la Carnevale has been swamped by the tourist trade, with over 3 million visitors a year showing up every spring to misbehave. And before you decide to buy a mask, you might want to check the origin. If you can afford it, it was probably made in China.

Filed under: Europe Tagged: Italy

Manzanar

From 19 February, 1942, until 2 January, 1945, at least 110,000 men, women, and children, 62% of them American citizens, were forcibly removed from their homes, farms, and jobs and relocated in primitive camps like Manzanar.

No charges were brought or proven against any of them. The Supreme Court did eventually rule the incarceration illegal, but not until the case of Ex Parte Endo on December 18, 1944. It is an irony of the current political situation in America that it took a liberal Democratic President, Franklin Roosevelt, to commit the crime and, 46 years later, a conservative Republican President, Ronald Reagan, to apologize for it and issue reparations.

Like most judicial crimes in American history, this one was committed haphazardly. In Hawaii with its 30% Japanese population, only a handful of suspects were detained. The frenzy in California came as much from economic motives as anything—farmers and merchants denouncing competitors, real estate speculators scooping up entire communities like Palos Verdes in Los Angeles County.

There was little of the viciousness uncovered in 1945 by victorious American troops at places like Dachau and across the Pacific, but conditions were never better than harsh. And it is an irony of the war that these camps—along with Native American reservations and African-American and Latino ghettoes—produced some of the most valorous and highly decorated soldiers for a country that had failed them so miserably.

Anyway, this is what an ethnic round-up looks like in America. If there is a quiet dignity about the place today, it’s a testament to the loyalty, humility, and perseverance of the incarcerees. Those qualities make all the current bluster we’re hearing just a little tinier and more pathetic than it already is.

Filed under: America Tagged: California

Chicago

One of these days, we have to go to Chicago voluntarily. Our three visits to the city have all been courtesy of United Airlines flight delays, missed connections, and nasty Midwestern thunderstorms.

We always take the Blue Line into town, stock up on umbrellas and tooth brushes we’ll never use again, eat a fabulous lunch at Gibson’s Steakhouse, then wander around in an under-washed daze until it’s time to head back to the friendly skies. We always promise we’ll come back soon, because we know we’ll probably have little say in the matter. But we never quite get around to intentionally buying the tickets.

The one massive drawback for the city is the distance to the nearest ocean. Lake Michigan just doesn’t cut it—there is no salt in the air to dilute the boatloads of allergens. But to repeat the usual cliché, the place more than makes up for it with the people you meet. Chicagoans are without doubt the nicest, most open and friendly human beings to ever tread the earth. And no one anywhere grills a better steak.

The photo of the L in downtown says it all—both as to our state of mind and as to the mob of cars who waited patiently (seriously, without even honking!!!) while we stood in the middle of the street with a green light to get the shot. If we tried that in Los Angeles, we’d be posting this posthumously.

Whistling Frank Sinatra as we speak…

Filed under: America Tagged: Illinois

Budapest

This weird statue–named Man with a Snake (to signify War) and soaring over Hősök tere (Heroes Square) in Budapest–set us to puzzling over chariots.

First of all, wouldn’t the charioteer be better off hanging on? Chariots had iron-rimmed wheels with zero suspension and could barely operate on flat, level ground, much less on the messy terrain where battles have always been fought.

Second, we’ve never tried whipping our horses along with a large, unruly snake. Not sure how that would go.

Third, did the ancients really fight naked like this, with spears and arrows flying everywhere? As if a crash helmet would help this dude in a fall.

The simplest explanation, of course, is that the Austro-Hungarians built this monument in 1896 after centuries of marrying their way to empire. One might not expect the rotund, plutocratic Hapsburgs to know much about fields of battle.

The truth is, chariots never really made it as war machines. The largest chariot battle, involving roughly 5,000 vehicles on either side, was also the oldest recorded major battle in history. But after Ramesses II and the Egyptians duked it out with Mutawalli II and his Hittites at Kadesh in 1274BCE, the fad seems to have rapidly faded. Nearly all those martial pot shards, mosaics, paintings, and statues you’ve seen are complete fakes.

At least until Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd let loose in the 1959 epic Ben Hur. The famous chariot race scene took the movie-going public by storm and did indeed feature the overpriced stars careening around a specially constructed stadium carved out of an Italian quarry. But that nine-minute sequence on a hyper-smooth track took a year of preparation, hundreds of miles of racing and film stock, and more than 20% of the film’s production budget to shoot.

No one died making the film, of course, although the stuntman Joe Canutt came closer than he might have liked. Nevertheless, upon reflection, we’ve decided to take the bus.

Filed under: Europe Tagged: Hungary

Kadiköy

The political classes are forever looking for symbols to crystalize their support and distract from the failure of their policies. No symbol has remained more potent, persistent, and maybe ridiculous than the headscarf.

We would dismiss the entire brouhaha, if it wasn’t for Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, one of the smartest men to ever rule a country. Kemal started the pot boiling over the Fez, the headscarf, and Habib in general all of the way back in 1920s Turkey.

In the Occident, the scarf is feared as a threat to the core values of an entire civilization (insert the words Al-Qaeda or ISIS into the conversation, and you even get an American’s attention). Put a fragment of cloth on your head, and you can be arrested for disturbing some stranger’s odd notion of peace.

In the Orient, politicians get elected by promising to allow headscarf wearers into public facilities. When they pass the enabling legislation, thousands come out in protest. When the courts overturn the law, thousands come out in protest.

Our position on the controversy is that headscarves–at least the endless variety  you find in the streets of Istanbul–or long, shiny, flowing hair both make terrific additions to any photo. And we might be hopelessly naïve, but once you factor out the usual bigotry on both sides, we suspect that ordinary people care no more than we do. It’s just what some people do.

Head-covering in a mosque is an entirely different matter, and we wholeheartedly support this. In fact, we miss the days when tourists were expected to show respect and cover their shoulders, legs, and heads in the great Christian cathedrals of the West. Just try to pray during high season with bubble gum and flash cameras popping in your ears, and you’ll know what we mean.

Filed under: Elsewhere Tagged: Turkey

Waffles

Waffles are yet another example, along with modern beer, French Fries, and the saxophone, of how Belgium has been slowly and quietly conquering the civilized world. The original Gauffre developed in the Middle Ages out of the production of Oublies, the pressed wafers fed to the confessed Catholic faithful at Mass. Medieval guilds arose to regulate and monopolize the production of both versions—the competition in France being so intense by 1560 that Charles IX legislated a minimum distance between the cooks of at least four yards. Waffles have always been a deadly serious business.

The modern American version is a descendant of the Gauffre de Bruxelles—what Americans have misnamed the Belgian Waffle—a yeasty flour recipe typically lathered up with a heart-attacking concoction of sweet whipped cream and strawberries. In Belgium itself, by far the most popular version is the Gauffre de Liege, a brioche-type dough laced with sugar and strongly recommended for the well-being of all who consume it. For centuries, immigrants have sold these piping hot treasures from doorways all over the country, including (in my youth anyway) from the guild halls in the photo.

Incidentally, the building on the right of the photo, #1 Grand’ Place, used to house the Baker’s Guild and, since 1902, my favorite Bruxelles café, Le Roy d’Espagne. The food was always horrific tourist fare, but the gloomy, smoke-laden atmosphere, the full-sized stuffed horse in the foyer, and the lamps fashioned out of inflated pig bladders all made up for it. It was here, in 1965, that I met my first American girlfriend. Unfortunately, the only things I remember about her today are that she was blond, beautiful, a full head taller than me, and owned a Harley-Davidson. And she might have run off with a pretend Hells Angel from Indiana (although that can’t be confirmed).

But I digress. One waffle a week—that’s all we ask. At a cost of six Euros and mere inches around the waistline, you will feel so much better.

Filed under: Europe Tagged: Belgium

Galveston

The Galveston Seawall was always a little raunchy, but we were still sorry to see the Balinese Room and its pier vanish in Hurricane Ike on the evening of September 13, 2008. We used to walk from the nearby USS Flagship Hotel on Pleasure Pier (also wrecked) and guzzle on the Margaritas, supposedly invented here in 1948 by the bartender Santos Cruz for the visiting Peggy Lee (and named after her).

Opened in 1942 by the mobbed-up, bootlegging Maceo Brothers, Sam and Rosario, the club featured Sicilian food, exotic drinks, illegal gambling, and entertainment as varied and famous as Frank Sinatra, Burns and Allen, and the Marx Brothers. My jitterbugging mother-in-law Louvelle never missed a chance to strut her stuff on the big-band dance floor here.

The well-connected club gave rise to one of the great excuses of all time, when the Sheriff of Galveston County explained to a committee of the Texas Legislature that he couldn’t shut down the notorious venue because he wasn’t a member and therefore couldn’t get in. Sixty-four consecutive nights of Keystone-Cop raids by the Texas Rangers failed to find a single incriminating chip, but in 1957, when the authorities finally figured out the scam, they tossed chips, machines, and tables over the rails into the surf. And with them, washed away one of the more colorful pieces of Texan history.

Galveston remains a favorite spot for seafood and drinks, but it will never be the same. No doubt, visitors said the same thing after the 1900 Galveston Hurricane that caused even greater havoc. Yet the locals just seem to pick up and move onward into the future.

Filed under: America Tagged: Texas

Flers–Courcelette

This statue in the heart of the tiny village of Flers in northern France is remarkable for three reasons:

First, it commemorates a foreigner, the British Tommy, or foot-soldier, who fought and died by the thousands in 1916 in the Flers-Courcelette phase of the World War I Somme Offensive. The French don’t erect a lot of statues to foreigners.

Second, in a war notorious for its indifference to the fate of the common soldier, this village forewent the usual memorial to some mustachioed general who’d spent the war comfortably ensconced miles from the front. You don’t see a lot of WW I monuments to the poor sods who bore the brunt of the fighting.

But the third and most surprising reason for wondering about this bronze Tommy is that he stands on the precise spot where the first armored tank in history was offloaded on September 15, 1916, and sent lumbering on its caterpillar tracks to the nearby front. No sign anywhere in the village today of the British invention that, along with the airplane, would define warfare in the twentieth century.

The British Generals had no real clue about the offensive potential of their weapon and envisioned it as a sort of land battleship for use as infantry support. Forty of the forty-nine top-secret machines broke down before they even reached the front. After the initial surprise, the Germans quickly neutralized the other nine. The battle netted a gain of two kilometers at a cost of 29,376 lives, but as usual on the Western Front, no Generals were cashiered.

In a perverse classification worthy of Freud, the British divided their early tank designs into Male (large and dangerous cannon) and Female (small and irritating machine guns). The earliest Male design was naturally named the Little Willie, but it was the later Mother version and her massively armed descendants that conquered the world.

Filed under: Europe Tagged: France