Summer's Day

Shakespeare’s sonnets were first published on this day [May 20] in 1609, most likely without Shakespeare’s permission. The book contained 154 sonnets, all but two of which had never been published before. Shakespeare (or perhaps the publisher Thomas Thorpe) dedicated the collection to “Mr. W.H.” whose identity has never been known. The poems are about love, sex, politics, youth, and the mysterious “Dark Lady,” and they have given young lovers and the hopelessly romantic words for the ages:

Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, a
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course
            untrimm’d:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade,
Nor loose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his
            shade,
When in eternal lines to time though grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

From The Writer's Almanac

Werner Herzog's 'Cave Of Forgotten Dreams'

Werner Herzog's 'Cave Of Forgotten Dreams'

by Kenneth Turan
Listen to the Story
May 9, 2011

There's an underground cave in the south of France with contents so valuable a big steel door guards the entrance. Director Werner Herzog's new documentary, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, is about that treasure. The Chauvet cave paintings are the oldest cave paintings on record.

STEVE INSKEEP, host:

The wide-ranging films of the German director Werner Herzog include many acclaimed documentaries. Kenneth Turan reviews his latest, called "Cave of Forgotten Dreams."

KENNETH TURAN: There's an underground cave in the south of France with contents so valuable, a big steel door guards the entrance. Ordinary mortals are never allowed inside because the treasure is so fragile. Now for the first time, director and narrator Herzog helps us enter what he calls the cave of forgotten dreams.

The cave is huge - the size of a football field - and so quiet you can hear your own heartbeat. On the cave walls are hundreds of paintings so startlingly beautiful they make your head spin. These are not just any paintings - they date back 32,000 years and qualify as the oldest cave art ever discovered.

Unidentified Man: A beautiful horse here, one of the most beautiful in the cave. And what is touching is that it looks as if it had been done yesterday. Look how fresh it looks with that technique.

TURAN: The most confounding thing about these paintings is how good they are by any standard. Images like a compelling pride of lions intent on some unseen prey astound even the experts.

Mr. WERNER HERZOG (Filmmaker): We should note that the artist painted this bison with eight legs, suggesting movement, almost a form of proto-cinema.

TURAN: These ancient artists made extensive use of the curves and contours of the cave's undulating walls, so Herzog decided to film these paintings in 3-D because it was the only way to capture that extra dimension.

The filmmaker never lets us forget that these paintings are so old they represent the awakening of the modern human soul and are proof of how intrinsically human the artistic impulse is.

Herzog also insists that because of the paintings' great age, understanding what was on the minds of the image makers is a challenge. But that doesn't get in the way of the profound feelings viewing this art awakens in us. It's a privilege and a pleasure to be present in a sacred space where the human and the mystical effortlessly intertwine. And we are in Werner Herzog's debt for that great gift.

INSKEEP: Kenneth Turan reviews films for the Los Angeles Times and for MORNING EDITION.

Trip to Kauai April/May 2011

Our trip to Kauai to visit our friends Jim and Marion Perry at their timeshare.

Noli me bonsai

A Work of Artifice

The bonsai tree
in the attractive pot
could have grown eighty feet tall
on the side of a mountain
till split by lightning.
But a gardener
carefully pruned it.
It is nine inches high.
Every day as he
whittles back the branches
the gardener croons,
It is your nature
to be small and cozy,
domestic and weak;
how lucky, little tree,
to have a pot to grow in.
With living creatures
one must begin very early
to dwarf their growth:
the bound feet,
the crippled brain,
the hair in curlers,
the hands you
love to touch.

Marge Piercy

I tie and prop up the peonies to prolong their lives

clipped from writersalmanac.publicradio.org

Late Spring

Because of the late, cold wet spring the fruit of greenness is sud-
denly upon us so that in Montana you can throw yourself down just
about anywhere on a green grassy bed, snooze on the riverbank and
wake to a yellow-rumped warbler flittering close to your head then
sipping a little standing water from a moose track. Of course pitch-
ing yourself downward you first look for hidden rocks. Nothing in
nature is exactly suited to us. Meanwhile everywhere cows are nap-
ping from overeating, and their frolicsome calves don't remember
anything except this bounty. And tonight the calves will stare at the
full moon glistening off the mountain snow, both snow and moon
white as their mother's milk. This year the moisture has made the
peonies outside my studio so heavy with their beauty that they



droop to the ground and I think of my early love, Emily Brontë. The
cruelty of our different ages kept us apart. I tie and prop up the peo-
nies to prolong their lives, just as I would have nursed Emily so she
could see another spring.

---

"Late Spring" by Jim Harrison from In Search of Small Gods. © Copper Canyon Press, 2009.

Hookahs

Hookahs Overview

* Hookahs—sometimes called water pipes—are used to smoke specially made tobacco that is available in a variety of flavors (e.g., apple, mint, cherry, chocolate, coconut, licorice, cappuccino, and watermelon).1,2

* Hookah smoking is typically practiced in groups, with the same mouthpiece passed from person to person.1,2 

* Hookahs originated in ancient Persia and India and have been used extensively for centuries.1,2,3 

Today, hookah cafés are gaining popularity around the globe, including Britain, France, Russia, the Middle East, and the United States.1 An estimated 300 hookah cafés operated in the United States in 2006, and the numbers continue to grow.1 In recent years, there has been a increase in hookah use around the world, most notably among youth.1,2,3

Hookah Pipe

* Hookah is known by a number of different names, including narghile, argileh, shisha, hubble-bubble, and goza.1,2 

* Hookahs vary in size, shape, and composition.2 

* A typical modern hookah comprises a head (with holes in the bottom), a metal body, a water bowl, and a flexible hose with a mouthpiece.4

Compared with Cigarettes

While many hookah smokers may consider this practice less harmful than smoking cigarettes, hookah smoking carries many of the same health risks as cigarettes.1,2

* Water pipe smoking delivers the addictive drug nicotine and is at least as toxic as cigarette smoke.2 

* Due to the mode of smoking—including frequency of puffing, depth of inhalation, and length of the smoking session—hookah smokers may absorb higher concentrations of the toxins found in cigarette smoke.1,2 

* A typical 1-hour-long hookah smoking session involves inhaling 100–200 times the volume of smoke inhaled from a single cigarette.4 

* Hookah smokers are at risk for the same kinds of diseases as are caused by cigarette smoking, including oral cancer, lung cancer, stomach cancer, cancer of the esophagus, reduced lung function, and decreased fertility.5

Hookah smoking is NOT a safe alternative to smoking cigarettes.1 Health Effects Hookah Smoke and Cancer

* The charcoal used to heat tobacco in the hookah increases the health risks by producing high levels of carbon monoxide, metals, and cancer-causing chemicals.1,4 

 

* Even after it has passed through water, the smoke produced by a hookah contains high levels of toxic compounds, including carbon monoxide, heavy metals, and cancer-causing chemicals.4 

* Hookah tobacco and smoke contain numerous toxic substances known to cause lung, bladder, and oral cancers.1,4 

* Irritation from exposure to tobacco juices increases the risk of developing oral cancers. The irritation by tobacco juice products is likely to be greater among hookah smokers than among pipe or cigar smokers because hookah smoking is typically practiced (with or without inhalation) more often and for longer periods of time.6

Other Health Effects of Hookah Smoke

* Hookah tobacco and smoke contain numerous toxic substances known to cause clogged arteries and heart disease.1,4 

* Sharing a hookah may increase the risk of transmitting tuberculosis, viruses such as herpes or hepatitis, and other illnesses.2 

* Babies born to women who smoked one or more water pipes a day during pregnancy have lower birth weights (were at least 3½ ounces less) than babies born to nonsmokers and are at an increased risk for respiratory diseases.5

Hookahs and Secondhand Smoke

* Secondhand smoke from hookahs poses a serious risk for nonsmokers, particularly because it contains smoke not only from the tobacco but also from the heat source (e.g., charcoal) used in the hookah.1,4

Using a hookah to smoke tobacco poses a serious potential health hazard to smokers and others exposed to the smoke emitted.1,4

References

1. American Lung Association. An Emerging Deadly Trend: Waterpipe Tobacco Use Washington: American Lung Association, 2007 [accessed 2011 Feb 15].

2. Knishkowy, B., Amitai, Y. Water-Pipe (Narghile) Smoking: An Emerging Health Risk Behavior Pediatrics. 2005;116:113–9 [accessed 2011 Feb 15].

3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Tobacco Use Among Students Aged 13–15 Years—Baghdad, Iraq, 2008 Exit Notification. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 2009;58(12):305–8 [accessed 2011 Feb 15].

4. World Health Organization. Tobacco Regulation Advisory Note. Water Pipe Tobacco Smoking: Health Effects, Research Needs and Recommended Actions by Regulators Exit Notification. (PDF–550 KB) Geneva: World Health Organization, Tobacco Free Initiative, 2005 [accessed 2011 Feb 15].

5. Nuwayhid, I, Yamout, B., Ghassan, and Kambria, M. Narghile (Hubble-Bubble) Smoking, Low Birth Weight and Other Pregnancy Outcomes Exit Notification. American Journal of Epidemiology 1998;148:375–83 [accessed 2011 Feb 15].

6. El-Hakim Ibrahim E., Uthman Mirghani AE. Squamous Cell Carcinoma and Keratoacanthoma of the Lower Lips associated with "Goza" and "Shisha" Smoking. International Journal of Dermatology 1999;38:108-10 [cited 2011 Feb 15].

For Further Information

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Office on Smoking and Health E-mail: tobaccoinfo@cdc.gov Phone: 1-800-CDC-INFO

Media Inquiries: Contact CDC's Office on Smoking and Health press line at 770-488-5493.

Say hello to time

Daffodils
by May Swenson

Yellow telephones
in a row in the garden
are ringing,
shrill with light.

Old-fashioned spring
brings earliest models out
each April the same,
naïve and classical.

Look into the yolk-
colored mouthpieces
alert with echoes.
Say hello to time.

Photo by Don Sessions


From the Writer's Almanac