Richard Dawkins' reading and conversation with Greg Stikeleather last night at Stanford University was enjoyable and entertaining. He read from his new biography, An Appetite For Wonder, and answered questions about how he became a scientist. He was as brilliant and erudite in person as he is in his writing. He answered questions with clarity and charm. He is very charismatic.
He spoke more about evolution, giving several examples of how easy it was to prove and he talked less about the folly of religion. Although he threw in a few good shots at those who refuse to educate themselves beyond one book and he seemed skeptical that there might be no atheists in the U.S. Congress.
He talked about his parents and other relatives and reminded us that family traits fade after a few generations as we only get half of each parent's DNA as they only get half of their parent's, and so on.
He said it was more for fun that he was interested in his immediate ancestors rather than a search for a continuing line of similarities in features and disposition.
Professor Dawkins also touched on one of his favorite subjects, how amazing it is that we are here at all. The crazy, random circumstances that led to our births are so determined by chance that each and every one of us should give pause to the string of lucky events (that we will never know of) that ended up resulting in our being born.
Like a great great grandmother's chance meeting on a street of a great great grandfather because she decided to go to a new market. Or a great great great great grandfather seeing a beautiful woman in a field after he got lost hunting and she became your great great great great grandmother. I could make up examples all day of the strange possibilities of unplanned encounters. We are who we are because of countless lucky (for us) meetings of two people who became attracted to each other. It sends the mind whirling.
Palo Alto is just off the campus and is a comfortable college town. The downtown is full of shops and restaurants and is busy on a Sunday afternoon. I walk around for a while and have lunch and a beer at the bar of an Italian place that was quite good. Then I explore the neat neighborhoods of stately houses before I wander over to the campus to look around. I walk by the hall where Professor Dawkins will be speaking tonight. It's an attractive campus. I see the famous Frost Amphitheater, a regular stop for The Grateful Dead way back when.
Back at my hotel I grab a beer at the bar and then walk over to the theater. I'm a half hour early but my timing is perfect. There are only ten people in line but minutes later there are hundreds. I end up in the second row center.
Dawkins is very generous with his praise for his teachers as well as his late friends Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Addams. He mentions them both several times and encourages us to read them and also to pay attention to Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris.
It's over way too soon, I could have listened to him for hours. I can't imagine how fascinating it must have been to have had him as a teacher.
The book signing outside the theater is impressive. Everyone who was inside has a book and the line stretches across the lawn almost to the next building. Because of the crowd there will be no time for pictures and we are asked to have our books open to the title page.
I'm way towards the end of the line and when I get close I can see Dawkins looks a bit tired, after-all he's been traveling across the country giving talks and readings and meeting with other scientists, writers and politicians for a few weeks now. And he's seventy-two, but close up he looks much younger as he signs and signs.
I'm able to thank him for coming to California and for his massive contribution to making the world more interesting. He looks me in the eye and grins that mischievous smile of his. Someone off to the side says time is almost up and the person behind me starts to yammer, so I move on. The Professor takes his book, lowers his head and autographs it wordlessly.
The night is cool and full of stars. There is no moon and Autumn is in the air. I walk back across campus to the hotel and sit in the bar sipping a cold beer. I start reading the first chapter of Appetite and am instantly lost in the elegant writing.
Traffic out of Palo Alto, until I get past San Jose, this morning is disgusting. How people deal with this every day is beyond me. It's the Wasteland.
I turn toward Monterey and go directly to Carmel and park at the lot at the end of Ocean Drive. The day is sharp and clear. The Pacific sparkles. There are only a few people on the sand this early and I leisurely walk along Scenic Drive.
Before too long I'm at Tor House, Robinson Jeffers' old home and stone tower he built by hand with rocks from the surrounding cliffs. Old pictures of what he named Hawk Tower show a lone house with the tower off to the side and nothing else but sky and ocean. Now it's in a neighborhood of expensive beach houses. But it still looks slightly out of place, more like a small castle with its handmade rough elegance. When it was a lonely outpost it was here he wrote his epic poems with dark themes about the mysteries of nature and the wild and incomprehensible beatings of the human heart. His work is full of murder, incest, lust, and death. Nature looks on with indifference. His poetry overflows with hawks and stones, storms and waves. And people who live raw and rustic.
One of the beauties of having an iPad is that I can carry an impressive portable library with me. Hunter S. Thompson said the reason he quoted Revelations so often was because in his travels far from his massive book collection in Woody Creek, the bible was the only book handy in the hotels he stayed in, compliments of the Gideons. Which made him somewhat limited to his references. Although he appreciated the brutal and unforgiving language of whatever madman tacked that bit of notorious raving on to the end of the New Testament. And now I wish I had Dr. Thompson on my iPad.
But I have Jeffers' Selected Poems with me.
The Place for No Story
The coast hills at Sovranes Creek;
No trees, but dark scant pasture drawn thin
Over rock shaped like flame;
The old ocean at the land’s foot, the vast
Gray extension beyond the long white violence;
A herd of cows and the bull
Far distant, hardly apparent up the dark slope;
And the gray air haunted with hawks:
This place is the noblest thing I have ever seen.
No imaginable
Human presence here could do anything
But dilute the lonely self-watchful passion.
I sit in the jeep and read a few more poems before heading south on Highway One. I pass over the Carmel River and notice the trees are turning yellow. I think they are a type of cottonwood. The drive is relaxing and Big Sur is uncrowded on this Monday morning. I pass deer near the Big Sur Lodge and, in fact, do see many hawks including a Kestrel perched on a guardrail at one of the lookouts.
Nepenthe seems to be a good call for lunch and I sit at the counter outside with a grand ocean view. To the south is fog but perched high above the cliffs the patio is sunny and warm. The fog is at sea level and instead of seeing the water it looks like the ocean was replaced with fluffy white cotton that stretches to the horizon. The dark cliffs covered in pines rise out of the whiteness up to meet the deep blue of the sky. The contrast in colors is an artist's dream.
After lunch I go to the gift shop and look at the junk. Wind chimes and incense, tie-dyes and carved driftwood. Indian flute music plays in the background. The book section overflows with New Age titles and there is a large wall devoted to Spirituality. The natural history shelf is woefully sparse and there is not a single book by Jeffers.
How could this be? And what would Professor Dawkins say?
I'm reminded of the gift shop at Mount Equinox in Vermont. The Carthusian Monks have a monastery on the side of the mountain and they are partially supported by the toll they charge to drive to the summit as well as by the gift shop. It is a beautiful place and I'm sure the peace of the Green Mountains is very conducive to meditation. The views from the top of the peak are commanding. One day last October with my old friends Bruce and Bill, we walked the short trail along the ridge and sat in the sunshine enjoying one of the last days of warm Fall weather. Instead of meditating we talked about our great luck that put us together on such a day.
But the gift shop and all its cheap trinkets and talismans was a depressing room. Bill offered to buy me a rosary. I declined.
And the shelves of books that most confounded me were the ones filled with commentary, history, biography and praise for Mary. How does she rate the thousands of pages devoted to her, just in this tiny store, when she is mentioned less than fifteen times in the bible? And what about the other Mary? Mary Magdalene, she seems a much more interesting character and I find only one book about her. And it's on a far shelf as if in the pornography section.
I'm also dismayed to find no Chartreuse for sale. This potent and herbal liquor has been made by the Carthusians from a secret recipe for centuries at their monastery in the Alps. It's a drink best savored on cold nights because its warming properties are legendary. I recommend no more than one (a generous pour) after dinner and be sure to drop an ice cube in the glass and allow a few minutes for it to melt and properly chill the liquor. I assure you the conversation will be enhanced by the green elixir. I have, at least for keeping Chartreuse flowing, a respect for those solitary monks who toil to harvest the flowers and herbs and dedicate so much time to the distillation of this unique drink that gives courage to the heart.
I am tempted to go back upstairs to the Nepenthe bar and see if they have a bottle but one hefty glass and I wouldn't be able to drive. So I continue towards Santa Barbara after jotting these few notes while sitting in the jeep.
I can't resist stopping at the Henry Miller Library. It's possible I met the artist Emil White here many years ago although I didn't know who he was at the time. After my first drive down Highway One I bought Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch. Miller's brilliant writing drew me back up the coast on several impromptu trips. Many times over the years a rereading of that book would cause me to con a friend into jumping into my old red truck and cruising up the coast. Whether it was to camp at Lime Kiln or stay at The Lodge or even make it all the way to Carmel there was something in this book that sparked my wanderlust. And the reverse happens, too. Tonight when I get home I'll flip through the pages of Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch searching for that odd wisdom of Miller's that flowed so cleverly from his wild mind. I would have loved to have been sitting at the bar at Nepenthe on a night when Miller and his artist and bohemian friends held court and pondered the mysteries of the world.
One night by a fire in a stone house in Pineville, PA, I read some of my favorite passages and vowed to myself I would move back to California as soon as I could. I did, and within a few weeks of being back I drove up to Big Sur for several days and knew I had made the right decision.
The library has all of Miller's books for sale as well as works by other Big Sur writers and painters. There's an eclectic collection of novels, poetry and guide books as well as prints and music by local artists. The place has a hippie vibe and while I'm there most of the people who come in look like they are on their way to a Grateful Dead concert. It's good to see that there are places where the long-hair freaks can still hang out. Big Sur has always been a haven where you could meet people at a campground or the bar at Ventana and the conversation would somehow always loop its way around to Bob and Jerry. I feel a bit cosmopolitan in my Patagonia fleece while surround by tie-dyes and love beads.
Although in the parking lot mine is the only vehicle sporting a worn Steal Your Face sticker. If nothing else, I am authentic.
As the highway descends closer to the water near Lucia and Gorda I drive in and out of the fog. It truly feels like the road at the end of the world. And I as I make my way to Ragged Point there is nothingness on either side of me. I roll down the window and the sea air fills my lungs as I navigate the curves through the mist.
I stop at Ragged Point and walk down the trail to the edge of the cliff. I can hear, but can't see, the waves a few hundred feet below. Standing in the fog-drip from the cypress trees the wind shifts and the sun starts to shine through the whiteness. The top of the hills become visible and a few minutes later I am eye level with the top of the wall of fog. Above me is blue sky and below me misty tendrils dissolve and reform. Just barely I can make out the waves and whitecaps at the foot of the trail that leads down to the cove. And then the air stills and I'm right at the line where the mist meets the sky again. I detect the slightest of fogbows. Hints of the color spectrum, almost imperceptible, disappear when I focus hard on them. Seconds later I'm enveloped in the wet air that turns grayer as the wind picks up and blows off of the water. And then, strangely enough, the flowers lining the path are suddenly full of Monarchs. Their orange wings stand out sharply in the opaque light. Had I the mastery of description that Jeffers had I would find a poem in all this random beauty that I stumble on by chance and good luck.
Back on the road I stop here and there at turnouts to check out the sand and surf. I'm in no hurry to get anywhere and I feel like Doc from Cannery Row. The only thing missing is a few quarts of beer to sip on as I drive as, surely, Doc would have done.
The Elephant Seals are at their usual spot just north of San Simeon. A crowd has gathered to watch them but on this cool and foggy afternoon they are pretty unmotivated and I stand there for fifteen minutes and only a few out of the hundred of these giant animals even move. If you didn't know any better you would think they all washed up dead on shore. Except for every few minutes one of the big males makes that distinctive noise that sounds like a cross between a snort and a dying truck horn.
But as docile and peaceful as this scene looks, this is wild nature at its purest. And life less than a mile off shore is untamed and fierce. To think that Great White Sharks and Killer Whales hunt and eat these seals, that can weigh thousands of pounds, out there in the cold water during their migration, it stuns the mind.
I'm near the spot where I saw a mountain lion a few years ago. It's exhilarating to think that if I hike up the hills here or paddle out into the ocean I become prey. A true member of the food chain. This spot is not as tame or bucolic as it seems at first glance. But because we are eaten so infrequently we are lulled in to a sense of invincibility. However, we are one wave or one backcountry trail away from being food. Never underestimate the power of Nature that eyes you as part of the process. I'm humbled by my insignificance. I'm either a guy driving down the coast or I am cat food. Again, what would Dawkins say?
On the side of the highway before the turnoff to Hearst Castle are the zebras. Yes, zebras. A dozen or so graze in the pasture-like fields, they are wild descendants from Hearst's long gone zoo. The population has remained stable since the 1930s when the animals somehow escaped and found the gently rolling hills of the central coast a close substitute for the savannas of Africa.
They always catch me by surprise as I'm driving along. All of a sudden there they are in black and white against the brown grass.
Hearst Castle, Casa Grande, the mansion William Randolph Hearst built as a getaway for his famous girlfriend and to host grand parties is itself barely visible above the fog. I've visited the top of the mountain many times and am always amazed by the shear opulence of the rooms and grounds. For this vacation retreat he spared no luxury. It must have been thrilling to be invited for a weekend of pure leisure and to relax on the peak, leaving the problems and worries of the world far below. It's a very inviting and romantic place.
I stop in Cambria, I wanted to look at a studio that was for rent but it has since been taken off the market. I'm a few weeks late. I have that little idea to spend half a year here focused and working without the distractions I've spent so much time cultivating in Santa Barbara. But that's still a ways off.
I'm tempted (and I can resist anything but temptation.) to stop at Sycamore Hot Springs for a soak in a sulfur tub, so I do. Unfortunately, the redwood tubs on the hill are booked for over an hour. I'm too impatient, patience being my least favorite virtue, so now I'm back home. I put on some solo acoustic Metheny. I've poured a large Dalwhinnie and am flipping through the Miller book. His prose is bold and authoritative. He writes so well about the beauty of Big Sur and the wild and artistic characters who were his neighbors. It's a rather upbeat book and I read a section on solitude and self reliance as good as anything by Thoreau. I want to jump back in the jeep and drive north. But the scotch has started to work its desired effect and I ponder the works of all the geniuses I've encountered today; Dawkins, Jeffers, Miller and those nameless monks who protect and preserve the secret recipe for Chartreuse. I make a note to pick up a bottle tomorrow.
Tired as I am I have one last thing to do tonight. The Draconid Meteor shower peaks just after dark. The sun has set and I walk over to Shoreline Park. Tonight the earth is passing through the debris in the wake of Comet Giacobini-Zinner. My eyes adjust and scan the sky, I'm unable to remember where the consolation Draco, the Dragon, is located. The night is clear, I left the fog way back near Pismo. After a while, looking out over the ocean, I see two meteors. Brief streaks of chalky white against the black. They are tiny and not very bright and they seem very far away.
Back at the house I open the bedroom window to the sounds of the Pacific. Tomorrow I hope to wake up with euneirophrenia.
