Fiction

[weezo]

Could it have been when jungle came to mean an urban setting full of action, sound and fury, instead of a quiet, peaceful forest where the sounds are at a lower pitch and the movement at a slower pace except when the predator make music pursuing the prey. Even Monk remind us that "it's a jungle out there!"
And he isn't talking about a multi-tiered forest or green!

[Donotremove]

Weezo, the lyric line, "it's a jungle out there" is from the theme song, written by Randy Newman, for the television series "Monk."

[madupont]

You mean like when they had "Guerilla Theatre" in Manhattan and other boroughs?

I had a friend who was then in the "tropical rain-forest" in the late Sixties before Commandante Marco came in to organize the Mayans who were getting wiped out by Negroponte' s US educated militia.  The villagers, who had taken excellent care of her, told her "el brujo" was coming and that she ought to go. So she did.  She then wanted to talk with me about the feasibility of going into India during the Seventies. Less jungle, more population.

Or, rather, the kind of jungle you have suggested. One of her first questions when she got back for a visit, I happened to be sitting cross-legged at a little bamboo tray on legs, breakfast-tray sort of thing, in my backyard because, the first time that I looked at that thing, I knew that with the cup-holder and everything built right in, it was a perfect thing for an outdoor desk while sitting around in one of those Swedish bathing suits, taking notes from Joseph Needham's encyclopedia of the Sciences in China --when she looked at me very curiously, stared at me as if she were trying to see my eyes behind the dark octagonal framed sun-glasses that I was wearing, and Elfriede said: "That's what I need."

"What?" I responded. (a black bathing suit with built in cups because it was a backless number?)

"Those shades", she said, in her odd little Austrian accent, I mean, you  have to picture somebody who is the female equivalent of an Arnold  Schwartznegger, paired down for all purposes of femininity,"You can't imagine what it is like walking all those miles [approximately twenty] on the roads between ashrams with all these faces coming at you without let up and making direct eye-contact with you because...", well she didn't have to say it, because she was different than the other Europeans they were used to, in the first place, she remained a fair-skinned five foot seven Westerner with strawberry blond hair down to her waist until I told her to oil it, braid it and wind it up like the Hindu women when she complained of split ends. I hate to think of spending all that time in the hot sun, not exactly sight-seeing but, it nevertheless causes significant eye damage.

Ps. I think Monk's, "jungle out there!" possibly refers to us, considering how mastermindfully he negotiates discomforts to solve  crimes. I'm a fan of Tony Shalub. Did you ever see the one where John Turturro plays his agoraphobic brother?

[madupont]

Hi! donotremove, I picked up your vibe.  We got rained out yesterday; thought we would blow away.

[Lhoffman]

I think "jungle" is an older word than the combination of "tropical" and "forest."  "Tropical forest" (with the "rain" dropped" seems to have recently come into use as a synomyn for "jungle.  But, it is really not possible to make the argument that a jungle is anything but violent, as anyone who has ever witnessed to male lions or elephants inadvertantly crossing paths....or as Ruth May's family found to their complete dismay.  


Jungle:

1776, from Hindi jangal "desert, forest, wasteland, uncultivated ground," from Skt. jangala-s "arid, sparsely grown with trees," of unknown origin. Specific sense of "land overgrown by vegetation in a wild, tangled mass" is first recorded 1849; meaning "place notoriously lawless and violent" is first recorded 1906, from Upton Sinclair's novel (cf. asphalt jungle, 1949; blackboard jungle, 1954). (dictionary.com)

[madupont]

Lions live on the veldt.   So do elephants prefer; but they do instinctually use paths by memory long after overgrown by jungle where jungle was not growing there before.

[Lhoffman]

True....African lions do not live in the jungle.  But Indian lions live in the Gir forest.

[madupont]

That's that good old,"In nova fert animus mutatus dicere formas corpora" again. In the Gujarati speaking "raj". 

I have to run up Random House for some large print and compare the price,as I just phoned my local bookstore where they don't have in what I need, before I decide whether to proceed with fiction that ought to be on line by now, wouldn't you think?

[Lhoffman]

I believe Indian (Asiatic) elephants prefer to live in forests.  The problem there is that much of the forest has been cleared, displacing the elephant population.  But I'm not sure whether the Indian forests are jungles per se.  There is a visitor's lodge on the Gir Forest Reserve called the "Gir Jungle Lodge"....perhaps a nod to orientalism?

[weezo]

Intereting the juncture of jungle and forest. Let me add "woods". In the book "Into the American Woods" which is a story of the coming together (and often clashing) of the Native and the European cultures in Pennsylvania, the author, James H. Merrill, explains his choice of the word "woods" in the title as meaning a wild and untamed, somewhat fearful place. He described the "Edge of the Woods" ceremony which was performed for a traveler who had come through the woods to a Native Village, and the ceremony clear the eyes and ears of the problems, stresses and fears encountered in the "woods" so that they can peacefully take in the messages and conduct the business for which they came.

Yes, Maddie, I did see an episode of Monk with his brother and it was quite interesting. I watched a lot of Monk when I first discovered it, then lost interest in it. When one has OCB's of their own, it is sometimes painful to watch someone else's OCB's.

Maddie, I had an interesting day trying to send a fax to someone in South Africa from the town closest to me. The town has a number of stop lights, the bank has two branches, and I thought the town was pretty sophisticated. I had expected my father-in-law to be able to handle it from the shop, or, at worst the bank could do it for me, either have international capabilities. So I went to an office services place and the woman energetically took it on as her challenge for the day, and learned how to send an international fax, and, after I'd read much of the paper, announced it had been received! I have been emailing a correspondent in SA for months, but had no idea it would be so difficult to send her a fax. I asked at the bank if they would be able to set up an account for me to receive royalties on my books through, and they can take wire transfer, but I think I will have to have my account at a bigger bank for them to be able to use electronic transfers of funds.

[madupont]

nytempsperdu, re:#211

"...Big Night, aka "Waiting for Louis Prima..." That had to be one of my favourite movies, as I'd just previously thrown myself into a fit of Northern Italian cooking to match the stress shown in that film. I'd made an exhaustive experimentation of just about every recipe by a Lynn Rosetta Kaspar (or, Lynn Rosetto Kaspar) who specialized in the cucina ala Emilia Romagna.

[Lhoffman]

Adah's ambivalence about Africa and life in general is represented quite cleverly in Adah's fascination with palindromes and hearing words both backwards and forwards.   Her words seem to teach her that backwards or forwards, the truth will out. 

In Exodus, Kingsolver has Adah say, ""The arrogance of the able-bodied is staggering.  We would rather be just like us, and have that be all right."  In the end, Adah is healed...."normal"...perhaps Kingsolver meant her healing as symbolic of her ambivalence.

Adah is truly interesting...I wonder what Dr. Sachs  (The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat) would make of her, with her compulsion to manipulate meaning and the one-eighty her physical form took.

[madupont]

Reader 5232,re:#516 Thanks for this number, as you brought something back to mind that had been bugging me and this time I caught as one occasionally can do with gnats.  It has to do with their family name. Which I think is another example of the Kingsolver intentionality.

"A woman who is a ruby beyond Price."

[madupont]

There is no Adah mentioned in the Pentateuch and Haftorahs.

[Lhoffman]

Adah...see Genesis 4:19-20,  "Lamech took two wives; the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. Adah bore Jabal; he was the ancestor of those who live in tents and ahve livestock.


Genesis 4:23-24:
"Lamech said to his wives: 'Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold."

See also Genesis 36:2-4:
Esau took his wives from the Canaanites: Adah daughter of Elon the Hittite, Oholibamah daughter of Anah son of Zibeon the Hivite, and Basemath, Ishmael's daughter, sister of Nebaioth. Adah bore Eliphaz to Esau; Basemath bore Reuel."


Genesis 36:10-12:
"These are the names of Esau's sons: Eliphaz son of Adah the wife of Esau; Reuel, the son of Esau's wife Basemath. The sons of Eliphaz were Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam, and Kenaz. (Timna was a concubine of Eliphaz, Esau's son; she bore Amalek to Eliphaz.) These were the sons of Adah, Esau's wife."


Genesis 36:16:
"Korah, Gatam, and Amalek; these are the clans of Eliphaz in the land of Edom; they are the sons of Adah."