Furthermore: Where the Headlines Take You

High Water

As you have no doubt heard or even seen, the Columbia, the Willamette, and many other northwest rivers are very full right now. The Willamette is high, but the Columbia at Vancouver is actually over flood stage. Fortunately, the actual flooding at Vancouver has been slight so far, and little damage is anticipated by forecasters. Floods are awful, dangerous, messy things, and I've been fortunate never to have experienced one personally – but I will admit that growing up, I found floods completely fascinating and always wished we'd have one in Portland. I think the two books below may have helped fuel my early romantic ideas about floods:

First, I blame Tove Jansson, author of the eminently satisfying Moomin series (a childhood favorite of mine). In her wonderful book Moominsummer Madness, the Moomin family are flooded out of their house as a wave sweeps through their valley. But luckily, a new house comes floating by right at their moment of need! Everyone clambers aboard and great relief is felt. However, the house turns out not to be a house at all, but a theater, already occupied by a theater-lover named Emma – and many high jinks ensue as the collection of flood refugees explore floats down the valley, and eventually stages a play written by Emma and Moominpapa.

When I was a little older, I got a second hit of flood-fascination from another novel, Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping. It's a complex coming-of-age story about Ruthie and Lucille, two sisters who are raised by a grandmother, two great-aunts, and eventually, their very eccentric aunt Sylvie. I couldn't begin to summarize the whole plot here, but, here's the important part for our subject today: the flood. Although the family home is in a town that is frequently plagued by floods, it is built high up usually stays dry. But one year, the flood waters rise so high that the house does flood, and the family's response is magical! When the water has just begun to invade the first floor of their house, Ruthie and Sylvie dance around in flood water up to their knees.  When it rises higher they retreat to the second floor, and use a fishing line to rescue inundated objects from downstairs.  Throughout their ordeal, they enjoy the unusual situation rather than worrying about the mess, the damage, and the discomfort.

A common thread in these books is that their characters try earnestly to look at life's challenges with whimsy and optimism, and to find joy wherever they can. I doubt this approach alone would carry me through the challenge of a real-life flood, but I hope that if high water ever reaches me, I'll remember to laugh a little, if I can.

Out of the Rubble

The terrifying images from Japan of tsunami waves, the earthquake, and failing nuclear reactors is sobering, saddening, and heartbreaking. How can the country, especially those people in villages that were utterly destroyed, face another day? Just as any country on the Pacific Rim has had its share of earthquakes, volcano eruptions, and tsunami waves, Japan has endured through previous tragedy, both natural and man-made. The opportunity to rebuild after utter destruction can even have unexpected positive effects, suggest some. Japan may see an economic boost that it hasn't experienced in decades because of the investments in rebuilding the country. And Lesley Downer points to the Japanese national character that will allow them to rebuild bigger and better than ever, as they have done after past disasters.

An earthquake in September 1923 destroyed Yokohama and most of Tokyo, killing 100,000 to 140,000 in the earthquake and resulting firestorms. Yokohama Burning: the Deadly 1923 Earthquake and Fire that Helped Forge the Path to World War II suggests that the ensuing chaos, which resulted in attacks on Koreans living in Japan, the establishment of martial law, and high unemployment, created a situation ripe for the Nationalist fervor that was to grip the country and make it an aggressor in World War II. Joshua Hammer largely focuses on the American perspective in his book, and it is more on the popular end than the scholarly history end of the continuum of disaster narratives. If eyewitness accounts of tragedy are in your reading pile, this should fit in.

Is there any way to say this politely? This country dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, killed and injured hundreds of thousands of people, and completely destroyed two cities. The situation at the time may have allowed the US to make that decision, but after seeing the consequences, I don't think any nation of conscience could make the same choice. The suffering of ordinary people in war, especially children, is horrible to witness, but the Japanese comic series Barefoot Gen will make you want to keep reading. Author Keiji Nakazawa was seven and living in Hiroshima with his family in 1945. This series is his semi-autobiographical account of the bombing, his harrowing account of survival in the days after, and the long-term effects the bomb has on his family, his friends, and the country. Despite the many losses Gen suffers, his spirit is resilient, and this series will stay with you long after you finish reading.

On March 20, 1995, five members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult released deadly sarin gas in the Tokyo subway, killing 13 and injuring hundreds of others. The extreme nature of this attack on the crowded Metro at rush hour had profound effects on Japanese society, and the nation was stunned by this group of well-educated people who had turned on the country. While the media was obsessed with the cult, its leader Shoko Asahara, and the trials of the perpetrators, the victims and their continued suffering didn't stay in the headlines. The novelist Haruki Murakami wrote Underground : the Tokyo gas attack and the Japanese psyche to report on the attacks and tell the stories of the ordinary victims of the attack. Most of the stories are shared as pure reportage and read like a transcript. Murakami, already a famous novelist in Japan at the time, was able to craft riveting interviews with his subjects. The first part of the book is dedicated to the attack and includes the voices of many people there that day and affected by the attacks, as well as some of the perpetrators. The second part of the book focuses on Aum, now known as Aleph, which still follows Asahara's teachings but has denounced the attacks.

Meltdown

As reports continue to come in from Japan, the news moves from bad to worse – not only did Friday's magnitude 9.0 earthquake and the following tsunami take lives, destroy property and natural resources, and render millions of people homeless – it has seriously damaged several of Japan's nuclear power plants. The two worst hit plants, Fukushima Daiichi and Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Stations, have suffered explosions, loss of power to their cooling systems, and partial meltdown. Radioactive material may continue to be released for months. Sobering news, indeed. Since this is hardly the first time a nuclear power plant has suffered an accident, there are many interesting books illustrating different ways these accidents have affected human and natural history – read on for a hand-picked selection.

The worst nuclear power plant accident in recent memory was in 1986 at reactor number four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukraine. The nearby cities of Chernobyl and Pripyat (both within about 10 miles of the plant) were abandoned shortly after the disaster because the whole area was dangerously radioactive. Photographer Robert Polidori visited about 15 years later, and Zones of Exclusion is his record of what remains. Houses, schools, parks, and streets are still there, but they are crumbling, peeling, shifting, sinking, and leaning. Trees grow in city squares, abandoned schoolrooms lie disheveled but nearly intact under a dozen years of radioactive dust, and rusting boats list in the shallow waters at the edge of the River Pripyat. The photographs are grim, but surprisingly beautiful – and they definitely inspired me to think carefully about the long-term, unintended effects of human endeavors.

Nuclear accidents have occurred in the United States too. The most well-known is the partial core meltdown at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1979. At the 25-year anniversary of the accident, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission historian J. Samuel Walker published Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective. This is a serious text, filled with detail and critical analysis. It's not a breezy read, but it is a very thorough and interesting discussion of the accident in political, social, and historical context, with emphasis on the 1970s-era debate about nuclear power, the regulatory structures in place at the time, and of course, the portrayal of the accident and surrounding crisis in the media and popular culture.

Despite the horrors natural and man-made disasters bring, life continues, and people are able to find some hope. For example, the English language edition of the Japanese daily Asahi Shinbun ran a story this morning about two women who delivered healthy baby girls in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture in the hours after the tsunami struck the town. But we also find inspiration and reassurance in the very act of making it through disaster together. Rebecca Solnit explores this territory in A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster. Solnit uses the examples of five historical disasters, and though none of her examples are nuclear accidents, there is no doubt that they illustrate the dynamics that are evident in all disasters. Included are many little-known stories, like the impromptu flotilla of boats that ferried New Yorkers across the river to safety on 9/11, or the woman who set up a kitchen in Golden Gate Park after the 1906 earthquake and fed anyone who would eat, for free. Solnit's core message is that people, as a rule, respond to disaster in the most helpful, community-minded way, and the experience changes us for the better. No one would ask for an earthquake to strike or a nuclear power plant to melt down, but when it does, it brings out the best in most of us.

The Drama and Pain of the Theatre

After postponed previews, technical problems, and some creative challenges, speculation is swirling that the multi-million dollar production of the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark will be canceled, a claim the producers vehemently deny. More people are predicting the demise of the show after one of the costumed Spider-Man stunt doubles fell into the orchestra pit at the climax of the show. The actor is recuperating, but the next day's shows were canceled to implement greater safety measures.

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark wouldn't be the first Broadway musical to flop in grand style. Producing a show is a collaboration between hundreds of people and can quickly go wrong. Sometimes, the vision of the writers, producers, and director just doesn't find an audience. And sometimes, conflicts between the money men and the creative people can derail a production before it even has a chance to leave the station. Lucky for us, we have Ken Mandelbaum to tell us the stories of a couple hundred Broadway flops in his book Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops. Take the shows described here as a cautionary tale, or just snicker at the the failures of others. Carrie: the Musical? Really?

Maybe reading Larry Stempel's history of Broadway will help us put Carrie: the Musical into context. Showtime: a history of the Broadway Musical Theater leaves nothing out, beginning with the mid-1800s early musicals (including an adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin), follows up with vaudeville, and takes us all the way to the present-day. This comprehensive tome--826 pages!--will satisfy the most hard core fan of musicals but could also inspire those who have a more casual interest to start looking into our collection of musical scores on CD.

I was a theater kid. I got some respectably big roles in my school productions from elementary up through high school and I even joined the cast of a few community theater productions in my hometown. I heard about such things as "going to drama camp" and "working in summer stock", but that was an imaginary universe as far as I was concerned. I am going to read Mickey Rapkin's Theater Geek: the Real Life Drama of a Summer at Stagedoor Manor, the Famous Performing Arts Camp and pretend that I am back in high school and experiencing all the drama of a camp full of teenage divas. Wait--I'm not so sure I want that anymore. I'll just enjoy the joys and heartbreak of these campers on their own terms.

For the ultimate in online Broadway research, check out the Internet Broadway Database at ibdb.com. Modeled after the Internet Movie Database, it collects a growing number of performers, producers, directors, shows, and opening night production credits for shows where available for performances going back to the beginning of Broadway.