A Japanese Garden

The Japanese gardens at the Missouri Botanical Gardens are stunning.
These traditional gardens, with many stone lanterns and other features, surround a large pond.

Raked gravel surfaces surround beautifully-shaped trees, stone lanterns, and large rocks.

There are quite a few stone water basins with bamboo water-supply pipes.

In the pond we saw ducks, geese, and a few egrets.

A bridge at one end of the pond allows one to view the enormous koi

 Photos © 2024 mae sander

St. Louis: A Little History

From our trip this week: the view from the St. Louis Art Museum which stands atop “Art Hill.”
The Art Museum was built for the St Louis World’s fair: the only building intended to be preserved after the Fair closed.
The lagoon at the foot of the hill was one of many water features designed for the Fair.

Forest Park in St. Louis was originally developed as the site of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, also called the St.Louis World’s Fair, in 1904. The Fair celebrated the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase in April, 1803, a result of which St.Louis (and much more territory) became part of the United States. The Fair also commemorated the departure from St. Louis of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which left St. Louis in May of 1804, and traveled up the Mississippi River for around 40 miles to reach the mouth of the Missouri River. From there, they explored westward until they reached the Pacific Ocean.

Maybe you can hum the tune of “Meet me in St. Louis, Louis, Meet me at the Fair,” a popular song from 1904 about this very famous event in St. Louis history. Visiting the Art Museum this week while I was in St. Louis has made me think about the history of St. Louis as I learned it in elementary school in a suburb of St. Louis where I was born. By the way — no one who comes from St. Louis pronounces it “Looie” the way the song does.

At the entrance to the World’s Fair stood a majestic statue of Saint Louis, for whom the early French settlers named the city when it was founded in 1764. Louis IX (1214-1270) is the only king of France that was also a saint of the Catholic Church. Louis became king at the age of 12, so his reign was long and he was fondly remembered — obviously so by the founders of St. Louis: two fur traders who were named Auguste Chouteau and Pierre Laclède.

A view of the statue “Apotheosis of St. Louis.”
(Don’t you love the little dog that was walking in the park?)

The statue “Apotheosis of St. Louis,” was designed by sculptor Charles Henry Niehaus in 1904 for the World’s Fair. Niehaus made the original of plaster along with other statues to decorate the elaborate temporary fairgrounds; it stood at the entrance to the Fair. After the Fair was over, the Exposition Committee that had been responsible for the Fair commissioned St. Louis sculptor W.R. Hodges to make a bronze cast of the statue as a permanent symbol of the city. In its current location it was dedicated in 1906. I remember seeing it there all my life! Niehaus’s interpretation of King Louis has several anachronisms, such as a sword that wouldn’t have been invented until several centuries after the life of the subject. 

The River

Any history of St. Louis must focus on the river beside which the city was built, and which was very important for commerce and trade from its start. As we left St. Louis, of course we had to cross the river, though we did so to the north of the city, not downtown where the famous Arch stands. Two years ago, we did drive past the arch, which has replaced the statue of Saint Louis as the most recognizable symbol of the city. Here’s the photo from then:

Going back to St. Louis always makes me think about what I learned in school! A few years ago, I read a book titled The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States by Walter Johnson (published in April, 2020). This book made me rethink what I learned in school. For example, in my review of this book — which I called “I am ashamed” — I wrote this:

“Even the famous Louisiana Purchase Exposition -- that is, the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair -- embodied the pervasive racist practices of the time in employment and other areas. The ‘anthropology’ of the fair involved bringing specimens of humanity to the fairgrounds where dark-skinned natives were kept in the largest human zoo in history. They served fair-goers as an example of the progress and civilization of the American way and of the supposed backwardness of the non-white races. I learned a lot by reading Johnson's account of this underlying reality -- and inhumanity -- of the fair.”

George Washington Carver

Life-size bronze of Carver by the late acclaimed African-American sculptor Tina Allen of California.

Here’s an example of the deficiencies of my education about famous people from the St. Louis area: I learned almost nothing about George Washington Carver, a leader in both agricultural science and in education. Carver was born in slavery near St. Louis. I learned a number of facts about him at the George Washington Carver Garden at the Missouri Botanical Gardens this week. The Carver Gardens opened in 2005.

Blog post ©2024 mae sander. Photos © 2022, 2024.

Saint Louis Highlights

 

The Saint Louis Art Museum and the iconic statue “The Spirit of Saint Louis.”

This statue of King Louis of France, for whom Saint Louis was named, is a symbol of the city.

The Missouri Botanical Gardens contain fantastic plant life and also art works. In this photo you can see some of the
statues by sculptor Carl Milles, glass “onions” by Dale Chihuley, and the famous Climatron, a geodesic
dome invented by Buckminster Fuller.

Inside the Climatron, more Chihuly creations among the tropical plants.

We plan to drive back from St. Louis to Michigan tomorrow, and I’ll organize more photos and write about the gardens and the museum. The purpose of our trip was to visit family, which we’ve been doing during all three days of our visit here.

Books and Flowers

I’ve reread two Icelandic mystery stories by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir. Good ones! 
The series now has four books, and the author will soon publish another one.

What is a monster? Claire Dederer devotes this entire book, Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma, to an effort define this term insofar as it relates to gifted men — geniuses — creators — who are abusers, sexual predators, racists, antisemites, or worse. Men whose brilliant creations are stained in the eyes of the audience member who loves their work but becomes aware of the reality of the artist. One way she says it:

“I realized that for me, over the past few years of thinking about Polanski, thinking about Woody Allen, thinking about all these complicated men I loved, the word had come to take on a new meaning. It meant something more nuanced, and something more elemental. It meant: someone whose behavior disrupts our ability to apprehend the work on its own terms.” (p 46)

This is a terrific book, full of interesting insights into the consumers of great literature, art, film, and music who struggle with the sins of the artists. As a combination of memoir, literary criticism, and general observations about works of art, it's wide-ranging and readable. One very interesting theme is the contrast between men who create with women who create. Though  creative women and men can both be monsters, it’s never for the same reasons, and there are many examples to show the differences.

Another theme is how critics writing about the arts deal with the impact of a creative person's immorality or evil-doing on the audience for their work. The author tries to get to the heart of the claim that a critic can be objective and judge the art independent of its maker: “Authoritative criticism believes in the myth of the objective response, a response entirely unshaped by feeling, emotion, subjectivity.” (p. 73) Basically the author concludes that objectivity about art is a myth: a male myth. 

I enjoyed a lot of the varied accounts of authors/creators and their history:

• I enjoyed Claire Dederer’s insights about a number of creators that I haven’t thought about recently, such as Gertrude Stein, Doris Lessing, Jenny Disky, Sylvia Plath, Woody Allen, Richard Wagner, Picasso, and many more, and the varied ways their biographies might affect their audiences.
• I enjoyed it when she reminded me of the strange 1960s life of Valerie Solanis (1936-1988), author of the SCUM Manifesto, but better known for shooting Andy Warhol: in case you don’t know about Valerie Solanis, SCUM stands for “Society for Cutting Up Men.”
• I enjoyed her examination of the challenges to women who want to be both creators and mothers, and maybe do terrible things to their children (or maybe just abandon them, terrible enough). Or maybe abandon their art.
• I enjoyed her short biography of the little-known artist Ana Mendieta, whose death “makes a kind of parable about artistic silence.” A few weeks ago, I read Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez, thinking it was purely a work of fiction, but I checked up and discovered that it wasn’t simply fiction, but a fictionalized life of Ana, who was actually killed by her husband — also an artist. He was tried but let off, which is a scandal and clearly an example of an artist monster. I appreciated Claire Dederer’s insights about this particular example of the artist/husband who gets away with murder — and of a victim who was spectacularly diminished by her abuser.

The author presents the reader with many questions about those who love the works of genius/monsters, and those who justify the monstrousness. One possible explanation: “We want the asshole to cross the line, to break the rules. We reward that rule-breaking, and then we go a step further, and see it as endemic to art-making itself. We reward and reward this bad behavior until it becomes synonymous with greatness.” (p. 111) 

If you would like to read about fairness, this is not the book for you. The number of ways that society is unfair to women are unbearably numerous, from the unfairness to the victims of artists’ self-justified cruelty and violence to the unfairness to women artists. Even “cancelling” an artist for his vices isn’t very satisfactory. Quotes:

• “The very term ‘cancel culture’ is hopelessly non-useful, with its suggestion that the loss of status for the accused is somehow on a par with the suffering endured by the victim.” (p.133)
• “The violence of male artists is tied to their greatness. It’s an impulse. It’s freedom. The violence or self-harm of female artists can be a sign of sensitivity, a sign of lunacy, but it is rarely turned inside out to become a sign of creative and moral strength.” (p. 222)

In this review, I have hardly begun to explore the many-faceted content of this book. (It goes without saying that the author presents her own view of Lolita.) I’ll just leave you with this:

“It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of patriarchy.” (p. 221)

Next book:  Sojourner Truth by Nell Irvin Painter.

Gardens Around Me

Allium, about to bloom.

On the Road Again

It’s Saturday, and we left home at 8 AM.
Our destination is St.Louis. We are half-way there, in Indiana, at my sister’s house.

We arrived in time for a fabulous lunch.

Blog post and photos © mae sander 2024

Neighborhood Zoo

Taking a Walk Near Our House

Photos © 2024 mae sander

In My Kitchen and Thoughts on Chocolate, April, 2024

What’s New?

Using my new dragon bowl for fruit, for candy, and for leeks vinaigrette.

Using a new set of little bowls for tomatoes, artichokes, mushrooms, and grated cheese— to go on pasta.
They were perfectly designed for this use: mis en place.

Cooking in April

Preparation for making stir-fried pork.

Salad and roasted peppers.

My kitchen this month has been busy, as we have had a few invited guests to share meals. I’ve just selected a few of the foods that Len and I cooked or prepared. I’ve posted already about our Passover food, our first outdoor cooking, and some of the things we ate elsewhere. I’m sharing these food images with a group of bloggers who post kitchen thought each month at Sherry’s blog in her link-up called “In My Kitchen.” Now for some thoughts about the possible fate of one of my favorite foods!

Climate Change Is Coming for the Chocolate Supply

Cocoa pods growing on the trunk of a cocoa tree. The beans in these pods must undergo considerable
processing — fermentation, drying, roasting, and conching — before they become cocoa or chocolate.
(Tree is in Matthaei Botanical Gardens, Ann Arbor.)

Climate change and its effect on farming is often in the news, but reading about it seems very distant and maybe not even urgent. If you love chocolate as much as I do, you’ll see one issue as more pressing; specifically, rising chocolate prices due to supply disruption. Ultimately, the problems with the global chocolate supply are caused by poor growing conditions in the tropical areas where cocoa is produced. Recently, these areas have had bad weather — temperatures are high or rainfall is too little or too much, leading to stressed or diseased trees, lower harvests, higher prices, and instability of processors.

Many factors prevent the logical response; that is, the expansion of cocoa farms. The main obstacle is that it takes years to grow new productive trees. Expansion is limited because chocolate can grow only in a narrow area within 20 degrees of the Equator.

According to the trade association World Wide Chocolate (article here), many people “have no idea how difficult cocoa ‘the commodity’ is to grow, procure, process and ultimately apply to different applications and create all of those wonderful chocolate products we’ve come to love.” This article uses two West African countries and their difficulties as examples — the challenges to poor third-world farmers are much more profound than one would guess, and rising prices don’t generally mean that the impoverished farm workers receive more for their labor. As an article in yesterday’s Guardian explains: “Nine in 10 west African growers are smallholders, while the confectionery market is dominated by huge players: Oxfam notes that Lindt, Mondelēz, and Nestlé raked in nearly $4bn in profits from chocolate sales last year, while Hershey’s confectionery profits totalled $2bn.” (link)

But the problems of growers and injustices to workers are just one area of many. More detail about the many difficulties of farmers and processors in Africa appeared in an article in Reuters in March titled “African cocoa plants run out of beans as global chocolate crisis deepens” (link). It’s complicated, involving pre-set prices from farmers who are experiencing very poor harvests. Opportunistic dealers step in and disrupt the expected supplies to the local processing plants:

“In normal times, the market is heavily regulated - traders and processors purchase beans from local dealers up to a year in advance at pre-agreed prices. Local regulators then set lower farmgate prices that farmers can charge for beans. However, in times of shortage like this year, the system breaks down - local dealers often pay farmers a premium to the farmgate price to secure beans. The dealers then sell the beans on the spot market at higher prices instead of delivering them at pre-agreed prices. As global traders rush to purchase those beans at any price to meet their obligations with the chocolate firms, local processors are often left short of beans.”

Chocolate candy production requires more than just cocoa. The Wells Fargo Investment service (article here) summarizes the situation:  “To some extent, chocolate’s escalating cost can be understood by looking at the overall rise in product manufacturing costs, with the Producer Price Index (PPI) for Food Manufacturing increasing 28% since January 2020. This rising inflationary environment has increased the cost of labor, processing, manufacturing, packaging, and transportation. Higher raw material costs for two of chocolate’s crucial ingredients - sugar and cocoa - are also included in this overall cost increase.”

In an article in this month’s Atlantic, titled “Chocolate Might Never Be the Same,” author Yasmin Tayag  wrote:

“By one estimate, retail prices for chocolate rose by 10 percent just last year. And now this is the third year in a row of poor cocoa harvests in West Africa, where most of the world’s cocoa is grown. Late last month, amid fears of a worsening shortage, cocoa prices soared past $10,000 per metric ton, up from about $4000 in January. To shoulder the costs, chocolate companies are gearing up to further hike the price of their treats in the coming months. Prices might not fall back down from there. Chocolate as we know it may never be the same.”

This week’s Guardian article cites even more increase in prices: “Soaring prices for cocoa beans recently hit a record $12,000 a tonne: roughly four times last year’s price. Many think they will go higher.” Issues of sustainability and fairness to workers are not easy to address. For an extremely detailed study of these issues related to global chocolate production and processing, see the recent report from Oxfam (link).

Chocolate candy seems to me to embody a whole range of cultural and economic concerns for our time. Exploitation of third-world agricultural and processing workers, including child labor abuses and even slave labor are of great concern. Chocolate plantations, which must be in the tropics, are especially affected by climate change. All chocolate is a highly processed food and an economic commodity handled by huge corporations. Consumers of luxury goods such as high-end chocolate candy provide a giant contrast with the extreme poverty of the producers. 

So many issues! As I thought about this, it occurred to me that the expression “first-world problems” is a good description for people who are inconvenienced by high candy prices — in contrast to impoverished and exploited third-world farmers and their children who are paid a pittance for the produce for which they labor.

I’ve written about this before, including a post earlier this week. For my post on chocolate cultivation issues see “Cocoa: Who cultivates it? Who processes it? Where does it come from?” and “Chocolate: Food of the Gods.” For more history see “Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures.” 

In 2021, this bag of Hershey Nuggets cost $8.98.
It now costs typically $12.58 (though a terrific sale price has been in effect).
I’ve been buying this and other chocolates quite often.

Blog post and photos © 2024 mae sander.

Shared with Sherry’s In My Kitchen.