Pic of the Day

Plain, Simple Garak

Elim Garak

One of my favorite characters in the Star Trek universe is a Cardassian. In general, the Cardassians were not known as the nicest of races. Captain Edward Jellico, who was briefly in command of the Enterprise-D, said of them, "Cardassians are like... timber wolves… predators... bold in large numbers... cautious by themselves... and with an instinctive need to establish a dominant position in any social gathering." The Cardassians were similar to the Romulans in their xenophobic tendencies, and also shared the Romulan belief there is no such thing as luck. Like the Breen, they treated their prisoners with little tolerance or sympathy; they had no qualms using torture to extract information. Some Cardassians were even known to enjoy torturing their prisoners whether there was information to be extracted or not. 

 

Ideal Cardassian life was one of complete loyalty and servitude to the State and to the family. Like the Chinese, family was the building block of Cardassian society, and as such, the hierarchical system of respect also applied to one's rulers and one's family. The Cardassian government was assumed by its citizens to be omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent; the government was anything but benevolent. An example of the Cardassian approach to life was found in their jurisprudence and criminal trials in which the conclusion was always determined beforehand: the ruling of each case was a guilty verdict; the purpose of the proceeding was not justice in the Human sense, but instead bringing the offender to recognize the power and benevolence of the State. A trial, therefore, was an opportunity for the State to reveal how someone's guilt was proven by what they considered, "the most efficient criminal investigation system in the quadrant." 

 

Almost all Cardassians lived in fear of the Obsidian Order, the chief intelligence agency of the Cardassian Union, whose constant surveillance had led to the sudden elimination of numerous "traitors." It was said The Order was so efficient a Cardassian citizen couldn't sit down to a meal without each dish being duly noted and recorded including its preparation and the exact measurement of each ingredient. Dr. Julian Bashir wondered what happened to people who ate something that was "not in agreement" with the Order, and Odo noted that people had "disappeared" for less. Every Cardassian home was equipped with surveillance equipment to keep an eye on its citizens. Only members of the Central Command, the military leaders of Cardassia, could turn off the cameras and only occasionally. The Order was the ultimate Big Brother.

 

Some of the alien races of Star Trek, especially the enemies of the Federation, had an equivalent in Earth history especially during the Cold War era of The Original Series. The Klingons represented the Soviets, the Romulans were like the Communist Chinese, the Cardassians were representative of Nazi Germany, the Bajorans similar to the persecuted Jews of Europe. Cardassians took control of Bajor in 2319 establishing the Bajoran Occupational Government. Initially, the Bajoran people offered them little resistance. However, the Cardassians rapidly pacified the planet and began a coordinated scheme of strip-mining, forced labor, slavery, and genocide. The brutality of the Cardassian military drove many Bajorans to form a resistance to the Occupation. Using guerrilla and terrorist tactics, the resistance continually harassed Cardassian forces. Under constant attack and unable to subdue the Bajoran resistance, facing pressure from both internal civilian elements in the Cardassian Central Command and from the Federation, the Cardassians withdrew from Bajor in 2369. However, many Cardassians, such as Gul Dukat, continued to want to regain control of Bajor and to exterminate its people.

 

While the Cardassians were a brutal race, they sometimes showed signs of being a kind and warmhearted people. One of the most complex characters in Star Trek history is one of my favorites, Elim Garak. He was the Cardassian tailor and Promenade shopkeeper of Garak's Clothiers who lived on Deep Space Nine. He first appeared in the episode, “Past Prologue” where he introduced himself to Dr. Bashir who believed Garak was a spy. As soon as I saw this conversation, I knew Garak would be an interesting character. He proved to have some of the best lines in the series beginning with this: after Garak asks Bashir to stop by his shop if he desires new apparel or some interesting conversation, Bashir says, "You're very kind, Mister Garak." To which Garak replies, "Oh, it's just Garak. Plain, simple Garak." Right away viewers knew there was nothing plain or simple about Garak. He had previously been an agent of the Obsidian Order but had been exiled to Terok Nor, the Cardassian name for Deep Space Nine. 

The true reason for Garak’s exile is never revealed during the series. When he does tell Bashir why he was exiled, he tells him three different stories all involving a man named Elim which Bashir later learns is Garak’s first name. When Bashir asks Garak, "Of all the stories you told me which ones were true and which ones weren't?" Garak replies, "My dear Doctor, they're all true." Bashir says, "Even the lies?" to which Garak replies in his standard obfuscation, "Especially the lies." Garak once told Bashir, "Truth is in the eye of the beholder, Doctor. I never tell the truth because I don't believe there is such a thing. That is why I prefer the straight-line simplicity of cutting cloth." Garak believed, "Lying is a skill like any other. And if you want to maintain a level of excellence, you have to practice constantly." Bashir once tried to tell Garak the fable of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." While Bashir believed the moral to be that lying too much will cause people to never believe a person, Garak retorted he believed the point was, "That you should never tell the same lie twice." As his father, Enabran Tain, the one-time head of the Obsidian Order once said of him, one of Garak's basic philosophies is, "Never tell the truth when a lie will do." Garak once explained his belief that, "the truth is usually just an excuse for a lack of imagination."

 

Andrew Robinson

 

Garak, though, was more than just a pathological liar. Played by Andrew Robinson, originally a stage actor, he is also known for his portrayals of the serial killer Scorpio in the crime film, Dirty Harry (1971); Larry Cotton in the horror film, Hellraiser (1987); and as the title character in the ABC television film, Liberace (1988). Without Robinson, the character of Garak never would have become as intriguing as it did. In fact, the character might have had only one appearance in the series. Robinson commented, "Garak is one of those guys, we all know someone a bit like him who you can't trust as far as you can spit. The moment you see him you put your hand on your wallet, and the moment he opens his mouth you know he's going to lie to you, but yet, somehow, you'd rather be in his company than with almost anybody else. He's a charming rogue, you can't deny it. Even I get sucked in by him. Although it's me playing him. When I see Garak on TV, I swear to God this is true, I'm fascinated." Robinson also said of the character, "He's all subtext. If a smart guy like Garak says he's 'plain and simple', you realize he's not plain and not simple. There is a lot going on. Regardless of how innocuous or simple each line is, there's always something going on underneath that belies the line. And his eyes and the tone of his voice say something different than the words he's speaking. It's not an easy thing to work with subtext, but when you do it well, you really get people's attention."

 

Garak was also one of the most sexually ambiguous characters in Star Trek history. Robinson stated in an interview, "I started out playing Garak as someone who doesn't have a defined sexuality. He's not gay, he's not straight, it's a non-issue for him. Basically, his sexuality is inclusive. But, it's Star Trek, and there were a couple of things working against that. One is that Americans are very nervous about sexual ambiguity. Also, this is a family show; they have to keep it on the 'straight and narrow' so I backed off from it. Originally, in that first episode, I loved the man's absolute fearlessness about presenting himself to an attractive Human being. The fact that the attractive Human being is a man (Bashir) doesn't make any difference to him, but that was a little too sophisticated, I think. For the most part, the writers supported the character beautifully, but in that area, they just made a choice not to go there, and if they don't want to go there, I can't, because the writing doesn't support it." Ira Steven Behr, the executive producer of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, commented, "I wish we could have done a little bit more with the Garak character…. I mean, he was clearly gay or queer or however you want to say it. I think I would have loved to have taken that and seen where that went and how that affected his relationship with Bashir." I would have loved for the show’s creators to have explored that part of Garak. It took twenty-five more years before we saw LGBTQ+ characters in Star Trek: Discovery. There had been a few hints, or even winks, to LGBTQ+ characters. It could have come sooner and been bolder with Garak’s character, and we wouldn’t have had to wait twenty-five years.

 

Behr once said, "Garak is a mystery wrapped in an enigma. So, who he is, what he really is, who the hell knows? And I think it took a more sophisticated audience to really get behind that kind of a character, because back in the day, it seemed anyway, that mystery and ... I don't want to say subtlety, but something along those lines ... that's not what people wanted, they wanted their TNG good, bad, everything very clear, everything very clean, everything very understandable. And at the end of the day, everything was safe. Everything was basically safe. And Garak is not a safe character. The fact that now he's so popular says something about how the audience has matured. And that's a good thing." Hans Beimler, a writer, producer, and script editor of many Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes, commented, "To me, the guy that embodied the show was Garak. He was a fuckin' spy, man! He was a bad guy in a way. But you got to know and understand him. And he got to know us and understand us. Even appreciate us. He wasn't such a bad guy at the end of the show."

 

Garak had been intended to be a one-off character; Robinson said he first portrayed the character, because he needed money that month to pay his bills. The producers were impressed with Robinson's performance and decided to develop the character after Robinson agreed to return. The decision to incorporate Garak into more of the series led to Garak becoming a pivotal character transforming him into someone of importance, of unusual complexity, and of resonance. Garak became known throughout the series for the ruthlessness of his past with the Obsidian Order, but at various times, he uses contacts on Cardassia to help Starfleet and even the Bajorans. He was known to be a witty conversationalist and a skilled tailor, but underneath his friendly and charming exterior, he was a proficient assassin, saboteur, and expert liar able to adapt to a variety of situations. Occasionally, he was used by Starfleet as a backchannel to the Cardassians when a direct message was not possible. By the end of the series, he was a different man. 

 

On numerous occasions, Garak was seen to have internal conflicts between his morals and his obligations to the Cardassian Central Command. One of my favorite episodes is, “In the Pale Moonlight.” This episode shows the Federation on the brink of losing the Federation-Dominion War. With mounting losses and the specter of defeat, Captain Sisko must put aside his Federation morals in an attempt to turn the tide of the war.  Sisko enlists Garak's help to "persuade" the Romulans to join the Federation/Klingon alliance. Deep down, Sisko knew Garak could do things that he, morally, could not. Garak tells him at the end of the episode, "That's why you came to me, isn't it, Captain? Because you knew I could do those things that you weren't capable of doing. Well, it worked. And you'll get what you wanted: a war between the Romulans and the Dominion. And if your conscience is bothering you, you should soothe it with the knowledge that you may have just saved the entire Alpha Quadrant, and all it cost was the life of one Romulan senator, one criminal… and the self-respect of one Starfleet officer. I don't know about you, but I'd call that a bargain."

 

Pic of the Day

Is It Time to Embrace the Dangly Earring?

I am going to admit it, I downloaded TikTok because I saw a TikTok video on Twitter of a really hot guy doing a sexy rope trick. There is no shortage of hot men on the app. After I downloaded it, I find myself going down the rabbit hole of TikTok videos whenever I get bored. There are lots of cat videos, which as a cat lover, I find very cute. Then there are the videos of teachers telling funny stories of students, many of which I can relate to. Of course, there are lots of drag queens, and I can’t resist watching a good drag queen. There are also the dances that are usually cute at first but then they get a little redundant. Finally, there is what seems like a never-ending supply of gay men on TikTok. It’s a total thirst trap. There are some sexy straight men too, but I mostly prefer the gay ones. A lot of the videos, which are all under one minute, are humorous, while there are some that always have more serious content. I usually open the app for entertainment, not a lecture, but I digress.

 

The point of this post is not really about TikTok, but it needed to serve as a sort of introduction to the topic at hand. One of the things I have noticed with a lot of the young gay men is that a large number of them are now wearing dangling earrings. Honestly, it’s not something I find very attractive. Some of the earrings that loop to another ear piercing higher up their ear remind me of Bajoran earrings from Star Trek. If you have ever watched Deep Space Nine or any episodes with Ro Lauren on The Next Generation, you know what I am talking about. The Bajoran earring was an elaborate piece of jewelry traditionally worn on the right ear by the Bajorans, male and female alike, as a symbol of their faith. Each person's earring was individualized and bore the symbol of their family.

I know these guys aren’t wearing the dangling earrings as a homage to Star Trek, but I have to wonder: what is with this trend? Naturally, I decided to do a little research on the subject. According to an August 2019 article “It's Time to Embrace the Dangly Earring” in GQ:

 

The trend traces most obviously to George Michael, who wore a single dangling silver cross during the 1980s. (Mr. T’s trailing feather hoops also deserve a mention.) But let’s start further back, in Elizabethan England. According to priest William Harrison’s 1557 text Description of England, some men—specifically “lusty courtiers…and gentlemen of courage”—at that time were wearing large earrings made from “gold, stones, or pearl.” (Harrison editorialized that earrings “rather disgrace than adorn their persons.”) Dangling pearl drops were worn by Sir Walter Raleigh, and, later, by King Charles I, whose taste for luxury goods played no small part in the English Civil War and his subsequent execution. Charles, who acquired his rare ovoid pearl earring at the age of fifteen, actually kept the earring on during his own beheading, after which it was removed and sent to his daughter and eventually ended up in the collection of an East Midlands estate.

 

The New York Times in November 2019 mentions the TikTok trend specifically, saying:

 

It has also permeated internet culture, with dangly men’s earrings popping up in TikTok videos and various memes. Zach Clayton, a 19-year-old internet celebrity who lives in Los Angeles, recently observed on Twitter: “I just went on TikTok for the first time in so damn long and every dude on there has one dangling earring.”

 

In the same article, The New York Times goes on to discuss how the trend has been co-opted by fashion designers:

 

Fashion designers have been quick to co-opt the trend, perhaps sensing that men’s dangly earrings are well suited for our nonbinary gender moment…Dangling earrings were sent down the runway at numerous men’s wear shows earlier this year, including at Celine, Balenciaga and Gucci.

 

While this trend may have been around since the 1500s, it seems that until recently, it was not something that was fashionable for the average person. At first, it was something that the upper classes wore, then devolved to pirates, and by the 1980s to rock stars, to be more specific, George Michael. In the current social media frenzied climate, it seems to be a fashion trend for many, but for some it is also a statement about non-gender conformity. While it is not a trend I think looks good, I think we will see more trends that bring attention to non-gender conformity as the LGBTQ+ community becomes freer and more open to gender expression and the world become more accepting of differing sexualities.

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Etty Hillesum

"If there is ever to be peace, it won't be authentic until each individual achieves peace within [them]self, expels all feelings of hatred for a race or group of people, or better, can dominate hatred and change it into something else, maybe even into love- or is that asking too much? It's the only solution."

- Etty Hillesum

 

I came across this post in my daily email from Queer Theology. I’ll be honest, I had never heard of Etty Hillesum, who was a diarist and Holocaust victim. There is probably a reason for that. Her diaries are not of a young girl like those of Anne Frank, but a woman who was open about her sexuality. In one of her writings she wrote, “I am accomplished in bed.” Hillesum journaled for two years and three months. In her first entry, she boasted of being, “just about seasoned enough I should think to be counted among the better lovers.” She was then sleeping with the man she was living with, Han Wegerif, a widower of 62. Soon, Etty would be sleeping with her therapist, Julius Spear. When it came to sexual freedom, Etty was a woman ahead of her time. But besides being a sexually free woman of the 1940s, who was Etty Hillesum?

 

Etty Hillesum was born on 15 January 1914 in Middelburg, Netherlands. After leaving school in 1932, she went to Amsterdam to study law. She also studied Slavic languages in both Amsterdam and Leiden. She greatly enjoyed student life moving several times within Amsterdam before settling down in an apartment on the Gabriël Metsustraat in 1937 which she shared with Wegerif. She lived in that apartment until her final departure for Westerbork (a Dutch camp that served as a staging ground for the deportation of Jews) in June 1943, and it was there in the Gabriël Metsustraat that she wrote her diaries.

 

At Westerbork, Etty was assigned to the registration of arrivals and acted as a social worker, psychologist, and spiritual counselor. The survivors of that period testified to her radiant personality and her great dedication. "One would like to be a balm poured on so many wounds." She devoted herself to others and bore the daily brunt of the stress in the camp such as the deportation of a part of its population every weekend. She finally fell ill, but thanks to her status, was allowed to go back to Amsterdam to be treated. Despite such pressure, Etty nevertheless remained determined to write, and she kept up her journaling. 

 

On June 5, 1943, when friends offered to help her hide, she chose instead to return to Westerbork and stay there to continue her work. She also had the opportunity to help her parents and her brother Misha who had been the victims of the great roundup of June 20-21, 1943. An unfortunate letter written by Etty’s mother to H.A. Rauter, the Commanding Officer of the police and the SS in the Netherlands, exasperated him and caused the entire Hillesum family to be deported. On September 7, 1943, they were sent to Auschwitz with 986 other Jews. According to the Red Cross, Etty was thought to have died there on November 30, 1943.

 

What survives her is a diary covering the last three years of her life. In Etty’s diary we discover her as she really was, day by day, and this presence which we perceive in her writing moves us much more than a biography written by someone else. A few letters also remain. They were published in 1982, and give us a deeply moving picture of Westerbork: "the home of Jewish suffering" stuck in the mud and barbed wire where Etty depicts men, women, children, old people who have nothing left except "the thin cover of their humanity." The end of her diary written in Westerbork unfortunately disappeared with her at Auschwitz.

 

The quote above shows her feelings about humanity. With protests, divisive politics, and an emerging police state surrounding us every day, we need to take her words to heart. We can honor her legacy by expelling those feelings of hatred we may have and achieve peace. We can turn our negative feelings to love and create a better world. I think Etty makes a very good point. It is something we should strive for in our lives.

 

 

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The Song of the Chattahoochee

The Song of the Chattahoochee

By Sidney Lanier - 1842-1881

 

Out of the hills of Habersham,

Down the valleys of Hall,

I hurry amain to reach the plain,

Run the rapid and leap the fall,

Split at the rock and together again,

Accept my bed, or narrow or wide,

And flee from folly on every side

With a lover's pain to attain the plain

Far from the hills of Habersham,

Far from the valleys of Hall.

 

All down the hills of Habersham,

All through the valleys of Hall,

The rushes cried 'Abide, abide,'

The willful waterweeds held me thrall,

The laving laurel turned my tide,

The ferns and the fondling grass said 'Stay,'

The dewberry dipped for to work delay,

And the little reeds sighed 'Abide, abide,

Here in the hills of Habersham,

Here in the valleys of Hall.'

 

High o'er the hills of Habersham,

Veiling the valleys of Hall,

The hickory told me manifold

Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall

Wrought me her shadowy self to hold,

The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine,

Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign,

Said, 'Pass not, so cold, these manifold

Deep shades of the hills of Habersham,

These glades in the valleys of Hall.'

 

And oft in the hills of Habersham,

And oft in the valleys of Hall,

The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone

Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl,

And many a luminous jewel lone

-- Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist,

Ruby, garnet and amethyst --

Made lures with the lights of streaming stone

In the clefts of the hills of Habersham,

In the beds of the valleys of Hall.

 

But oh, not the hills of Habersham,

And oh, not the valleys of Hall

Avail: I am fain for to water the plain.

Downward the voices of Duty call --

Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main,

The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn,

And a myriad flowers mortally yearn,

And the lordly main from beyond the plain

Calls o'er the hills of Habersham,

Calls through the valleys of Hall.

 

 

About the Poet

 

The Montgomery County Board of Education voted last Tuesday night to change the names of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Sidney Lanier High Schools — each named after men who were members of the Confederacy. I agree that Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee High Schools needed to be changed, but I’m not so sure it is appropriate to change the name of Sidney Lanier High School. Established in 1910 on the southern outskirts of downtown Montgomery, Alabama, the school was named for a Southern poet, Sidney Lanier, who lived in Montgomery during 1866–67. The school has one of its focuses on the arts, and Lanier (February 3, 1842 – September 7, 1881) was far more famous for being a poet and a musician than being a private in the Confederate army, where he spent most of his time as a prisoner of war. While being held in prison, Lanier contracted tuberculosis. The disease eventually killed him at age 39. Lanier was mostly forgotten for decades after his death until, in the 1920s the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) worked to enhance Lanier’s posthumous reputation and succeeded in making him a symbol of the Lost Cause. The UDC called him the “Poet of the Confederacy.”

 

The connection with Lanier and the Lost Cause is a sad epilogue to his career. Lanier was a young man of 19 when the war broke out, and he was a southerner and a product of his time. I don’t think his legacy should be tarnished because of that. During his lifetime, Lanier published an anti-war novel about his war experiences, Tiger Lilies (1867), as well as a collection of poems, a series of adventure stories for children, and a work of criticism. His Poems (1877) brought him renown and led to his appointment as lecturer at Johns Hopkins University in 1879. He died just two years later. Lanier was considered a minor poet in his own times, and although his fame has steadily risen in recent years, he remains obscure in comparison to the giants of the 19th century such as Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Nonetheless, Lanier is a notable poet in the American canon because his style of writing poetry is so utterly distinct from almost every other English-language author of his era. Greatly influenced by the Anglo-Saxon poets of the Old English period, Lanier gradually developed a style of poetry written in a loose imitation of Anglo-Saxon meter that utilized extremely creative and musical alliteration and sound effects to create poetry unlike anything else written in America.

 

About the Poem

 

Lanier composed “Song of the Chattahoochee” in November 1877 for a small paper in West Point, Georgia. At the time he considered it the best poem he had ever written, and critics have generally agreed that it is one of his finer efforts. Originally from Macon, Georgia, Lanier travelled much in Georgia, Maryland, Florida, and North Carolina for employment and for his health. Lanier was able to see much of the South’s natural beauty, and he found much religious and spiritual significance in it. “Song of the Chattahoochee” is primarily a musical poem whose words flow very much like the river that is its speaker. The river’s aim is to do its duty, answering the call of God.

 

“Song of the Chattahoochee” describes the Chattahoochee River which begins in Georgia, has a significant portion which divides Alabama and Georgia, and empties into the Gulf of Mexico in the Florida Panhandle. The poem describes for readers the river’s journey, from its headspring in Habersham county to its end in Georgia’s East Gulf coastal plains, where, in Lanier’s time, it fed into another river that led to the Gulf of Mexico. Lanier’s style in this poem copies the rushing, shifting, gurgling motion of a true river, giving readers a little bit of the experience of following the water on its journey. He gives the river a human personality, ascribing to it human motivation. This helps to make this natural phenomenon more understandable to people who are not familiar with it and to make readers who are familiar with rivers experience the feeling of them anew.

 

The river is introduced as being on a mission, to water the dry fields of Georgia and to turn the water wheels that power the grain mills. Similarly, the other natural objects that the Chattahoochee passes seem to have a human motivation. They all want the river to stop, or “abide.” Most of the natural objects in the poem are presented as calling for the river to stop its motion. The waterweeds hold the river, the trees command “pass not,” the gemstones try to lure it to stay with them, etc. Nature, in general, is presented as favoring passive behavior over action. The river is presented here as an exception to nature, as being almost unnatural in its rush to keep on moving. This idea is supported by the fact that the river’s “Duty” (which is capitalized in the poem, to show its connection to God’s will) is not to aid nature, but to aid humanity in the commercial enterprises of farming and milling. The river, though natural, rushes like a human in order to fulfill its human responsibilities.

 

 

PS: Did you read the title of this post and think not about the poem by Sidney Lanier but the 1993 song "Chattahoochee" by Alan Jackson? While I have known the poem most of my life, the first thing I think of when I think of the Chattahoochee River is:

 

Way down yonder on the Chattahoochee

It gets hotter than a hoochie coochie

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