On Dolphins

http://www.dolphinsfilm.com/


They have much to teach us about our world, and scientists everywhere are watching and listening. They're discovering where the many kinds of dolphins live and travel; how dolphin families and societies form; how these marine mammals communicate with one another; and sadly, how humans adversely affect their health and mortality. Our film is a window into an incredibly complex realm where dolphins are just one citizen of a magnificent water kingdom. We hope our film Dolphins inspires you to look at the ocean and its inhabitants with new eyes -- eyes that reflect our best selves and that someday mirror a healthy ocean.
Dive Into
The Mesmerizing World Of
Dolphins

Imagine you are a marine biologist working in the crystalline, turquoise waters of the Bahamas. Sunlight dances off the rippled, white sand banks. Swimming alongside you are some of the most graceful and extraordinary creatures on earth-- wild dolphins. While few of us will ever have the chance to encounter a dolphin in the wild, audiences will feel like they are participating in exciting research on these magnificent animals when they viewDolphins, a large-format Great Adventure Film from MacGillivray Freeman Films, producers of the box-office hit Everest.

From the dazzling coral reefs of the Bahamas to thewind-swept seas of Patagonia, Dolphins takes audiences on an underwater adventure with inquisitive Atlantic spotted dolphins, acrobatic dusky dolphins, and the familiar bottlenose dolphin. Viewers will meet a young woman scientist, Dr. Kathleen Dudzinski, and her two colleagues, mentor Dr. Bernd Würsig and Dr. Alejandro Acevedo-Gutierrez, as they lead us on an exploration into their fascinating world.

While most of what we know about dolphins comes from studying them in captivity, Dudzinski and her colleagues conduct their research with dolphins in the wild, a far more strenuous, time-consuming, even dangerous endeavor. Employing innovative scientific methods and technology, Kathleen and her colleagues set out to learn more about how dolphins communicate and their foraging and social behaviors. Audiences may be surprised to witness firsthand how scientific progress is made in inches and not miles, and how the slow accumulation of scientific data is passed on, and expanded upon, from one generation of scientists to the next.

Featuring a soundtrack with music from Grammy Award®-winning singer and songwriter Sting, Dolphins will capture the imagination of audiences worldwide who will gain newfound respect for the ocean and the importance of scientific research to its preservation.

Dolphins is produced by MacGillivray Freeman Films in association with the National Wildlife Federation, the nation's largest member-supported conservation group, and with major funding provided by the National Science Foundation and Museum Film Network

In Dolphins, audiences are introduced to Dr. Kathleen Dudzinski, scientist dedicated to studying dolphin-to-dolphin communication in the wild. Her work often takes her to remote parts of the world where she carries out her methodical research in conditions that are exciting, isolating, and sometimes even dangerous.

Though scientists have been observing dolphins in captivity for nearly century, underwater research on dolphins in the wild has only taken place for about 20 years. Dudzinski's research is unique and gives us great insight into the ways that dolphins communicate with each other. Dudzinski's dedication and enthusiasm for her research and the world of dolphins made her a perfect choice as the lead scientist for Dolphins.

While attending graduate school at Texas A&M University, Dudzinski traveled to the Bahamas - where swimming with dolphins is still legal - to study the Atlantic spotted dolphins and work as a naturalist aboard tourist boats. Besides gathering data, her job was to make sure that both dolphins and divers had safe, enjoyable encounter. The experience also allowed her to share her research with others. She would return to Texas to study and analyze the data she had collected, then go back to the Bahamas to gather more data. Dudzinski spent four, six-month stints observing dolphins in this fashion for her Ph.D. thesis. From approximately 2,000 hours of fieldwork, she gathered just under 20 hours of usable recordings.

Dudzinski overcame a major challenge when she developed and built her first mobile video/acoustic array to record dolphin behavior and communication. Since sound moves faster underwater - 4.5 times faster - the dolphin sounds seemed to come from all directions at once, making them difficult to track. With her professor, Dudzinski devised a simple solution: a pair of underwater microphones, called hydrophones, set on a bar at least 4.5 times wider than the distance between her own ears. The delay produced by that distance allows her to localize the sounds. Later, she studies her films and tapes, and identifies which animal is vocalizing and which are reacting to the vocalizations

Dudzinski recently returned to the U.S. from the Japanese island of Miyake where she studied bottlenose dolphins as part of a postdoctoral fellowship sponsored by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (National Science Foundation s Japanese counterpart). She is Director of the Dolphin Communication Project with O.C.S., with which she is hoping to develop new study areas that may include in New Zealand and Patagonia.

While Dudzinski is dedicated to her study of dolphins in the wild, she is also dedicated to exposing others to their world - their playfulness, grace, and intelligence. Some scientists feel that dolphin watching - and swimming with dolphins - can disrupt the animals feeding patterns, stress them when they should be resting, and even separate mother from calf. (It has been illegal to swim with wild dolphins in the United States since passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972.) Since worldwide interest in dolphins is expanding exponentially, however, Dudzinski believes the best thing to do is teach people how to swim with the animals responsibly. Of her days aboard the tourist boats in the Bahamas, and then in Japan, she says, "Every passenger is delighted after their first encounter with dolphins. It s a pleasure to share that experience as well as teach them about dolphins lives."

Dudzinski has taken a big leap toward cracking the dolphin communication code as well as their use of a variety of signals. After spending years meticulously conducting her research, Dudzinski has come to an enlightening observation: "Swimming with dolphins has taught me that I don t need to rely on language to understand the meaning of an exchange between individuals, be they human or other animals. And while my work is a passion for me, life is meant to be enjoyed and shared. I guess you could say that dolphins have taught me to enjoy my playtime." Dudzinski shares her personal story about the film and working with wild dolphins in the children’s companion book to the film, Meeting Dolphins: My Adventures in the Sea, published by National Geographic Books in March 2000.

Personal Profile:

Lives with: Umi, the Mighty Sea Beagle, a dog she jokingly says communicates with her via nose smears "Hana Kanji" left on the windshield of her car.

Studies: Japanese and Spanish in order to communicate with people at her study sites.

Hobbies: lifts weights in order to carry her mobile video/acoustic array, which is pretty heavy.

Typical exclamations: "Cripes!," "Yikes!" "For goodness sakes!"

Fondest teenage memory: setting up a traveling petting zoo for inner city kids.

Least favorite prior job: waitress in a sports bar.

What she knows about sports: zip.

Attitude toward folks with unscientific ideas about dolphins: "I might learn something."


http://www.dolphincommunicationproject.org/
Annual visits with Shedd’s High School Marine Biology Program
Bimini 2012
Written by Kelly Melillo Sweeting
Thursday, 05 April 2012 15:10
Late last month I had the pleasure of visiting with the first round of students participating in Shedd Aquarium’s High School Marine Biology program. It was a great group – as was Wednesday’s! Both sets of students were engaged in the conversation and asked great questions….but then again, so did the teachers and boat captains!

Each year, I enjoy my visits with these groups. I appreciate their support and enthusiasm and the opportunity to share DCP’s work with them. I’ll spend the next couple of months looking forward to the next group aboard the Coral Reef II!

Thanks Shedd HSMB students!
Kel

PS: Since we were talking about other marine mammals breathing during our visit: According to the Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals, most pinnipeds have “normal” mammalian breathing, but northern fur seals appear to have unihemispheric slow wave sleep like dolphins. But, be careful because some websites out there do indicate that “all marine mammals” are “voluntary breathers”….it’s important to trust your source! And to remember, when it comes to marine mammals, the answers aren’t always easy ones. Understanding their breathing and which areas of the brain control this is very complex!

Family day with the spotteds
Bimini 2012
Written by Kelly Melillo Sweeting
Wednesday, 04 April 2012 03:45
On Monday I joined a last-minute dolphin trip with Bimini Adventures. The boat was filled with excited kids and parents and we were all glad the seas were calm, and became even calmer as the day progressed. After two swim breaks and a couple hours of searching, we saw them! At first there were two Atlantic spotted dolphins – Stefran (#82) and an older calf/younger juvenile. Moments later Tina (#14) came to the bow. I was very excited to see them all, but was slightly concerned that Tina did not have a young calf with her after being pregnant last summer. This is one time where I would be happy if I’ve gotten the ID wrong and it wasn’t really Tina after all. I am fairly sure that Cerra (#38) also came by the boat with another older calf/young juvenile. We were able to swim with the two youngsters, one of which was male and may be added to DCP’s ID catalog as he has both a noticeable spot and scarring along his peduncle.

Our second water entry was shorter, but we got to see one of the older dolphins grab a fish! Since it was getting late, we climbed back aboard the boat and headed for home. On the way, we saw a few more dolphins leaping in the distance.

The seas off Bimini are calming down and the water is already warm. So, stay tuned for many more field reports!

Until then,
Kel

Searching for dolphins with Missione Natura
Bimini 2012
Written by Kelly Melillo Sweeting
Monday, 12 March 2012 00:11
I’ve been waiting all year for a visit from La7 TV’s Missione Natura and Friday and Saturday were it! It was a pleasure working with this team and being a part of their program. Thankfully, the weather cooperated giving us two days of calm seas in the midst of a wildly windy week. Although we got to see several species – a tiger shark, bottlenose dolphins, a single Atlantic spotted dolphin and a turtle, we did not get to observe/film the dolphins under water. This of course was disappointing, but I certainly hope the capable Missione Natura team can still make a great episode, featuring Bimini and including the Dolphin Communication Project!

Stay tuned for more updates from Bimini as we get closer to the summer field season!

-Kel
End of the year dolphins!
Bimini 2011
Written by Kelly Melillo Sweeting
Friday, 30 December 2011 00:09
This week I had the pleasure of joining Bimini Undersea staff aboard the newly rebuilt, ‘Adventurer.’ Adventurer is a fantastic, workhorse of a boat who has served Bimini Undersea well over the years. This year meant a complete overhaul of the ol’ girl and she looks and rides fantastically! Although we did not see any dolphins on last Saturday’s trip, we did have the pleasure of observing two groups of bottlenose dolphin on Thursday. I looked over the photos quickly and it seems the two groups were in fact different and, drum roll please….that tiny calf we saw did still have fetal folds! The little youngster hung close by mom’s side, but did entertain us all with its half-leaping antics! The second group was a bit more spread out than the first and included this active dolphin, leaping on its way somewhere.

A big thanks to all of Bimini Undersea’s guests – today and all year long. We wish you all a very happy 2012. And remember – you still have time to make an end-of-year, tax-deductible donation to DCP. Click here to donate today!

Until next year (unless another trip pops up in the next two days, of course),
Kel

http://www.dolphincommunicationproject.org/pdf/NewsLetters/DolphinGazetteV15n4.pdf

DCP visits Nassau and Dolphin
Encounters in early November
Submitted by Kathleen Dudzinski, Ph.D Bimini
Our trip to Nassau was well-timed again this year. Just after Mother Nature dropped an early snow storm on New England, I
departed for Nassau for a few days of data collection on the dolphins at Dolphin Encounters (DE) at Blue Lagoon Island. Kelly
joined me to help deploy and recover the SM2M passive acoustic recording device. That is, this trip was short - only 3 days for
data collection and so we decided not to use the MVA for our regular routine of behavioral and audio observations. Rather, we
used the SM2M to document ambient noise levels and dolphin
vocalizations. You can read more about this device, the Song
Meter 2 Marine, on page 7 of this issue of the Dolphin Gazette.
It was a good thing we decided this because the weather was
VERY windy and the sea was quite rough - rolling breakers on both
sides of Blue Lagoon Island and wind that did not seem able to
decide from which direction it wanted to come. This all contributed
to lousy underwater visibility. It was so bad that on the second
and third days we could not see past the end of our outstretched
hands! Using a passive acoustic recorder - i.e., just recording
sounds - meant we did not need good underwater visibility. In this
photo, one of the younger males cruises past the SM2M, which is
attached to the dock piling. This was the only decent visibility we
had all trip!
Kel and I were joined by Dr. Rebecca Singer, from Georgetown College in Kentucky. Dr. Singer is beginning a study of object
permanence in dolphins and collaborating with the folks (and dolphins) at DE. In short, this study will see if dolphins understand
what visible and hidden objects mean. As for the audio recordings, this trip was quite productive for acoustic data collection. I’ve
already begun examining the audio files and creating an underwater sound map of the pools. DCP (myself and two scientists
from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute) will return to DE in January 2012 to conduct some hearing tests on the dolphins, in
addition to more data collection with DCP’s MVA and SM2M. Stay tuned! The details are sure to be interesting!

W-O-W. The 2011 research season was busy, busy, busy. With
continued support from Al Sweeting, Jr (www.biminiadventures.com)and Bimini Undersea (www.WildDolphins.com), we completed 92
dolphin trips this year. Our field course with the University of New
Brunswick Saint John was a huge success in May and in July and
August, I had the much needed assistance of our summer interns,
Alexis, Brittany and Sabena. We completed two member-sponsored
beach clean-ups and a member-sponsored boat trip. We met with four
education groups aboard the John G. Shedd Aquarium’s research
vessel, The Coral Reef II (one group’s talk got cancelled due to weather
challenges – a bummer!). And of course, we interacted regularly with
eco-tourists who challenged us with questions and provided the human element to our research; that is, we
strive to keep our science bubble open, sharing what we
know (and what we don’t) with the general public.

This season’s 92 boat trips amounted to almost 430
hours at sea searching for dolphins. In those hours,
we had 187 dolphin sightings and over 50% of those
sightings were Atlantic spotted-only dolphin groups.
We also saw bottlenose-only groups and mixed species groups. And of course,
sometimes we saw dolphins in the distance and we could not be sure which
species we had seen. We had 102 dolphin encounters, which are underwater observations lasting at least three
minutes. Almost 80% of all encounters were with spotted-only dolphin groups. We also collected a pile (digitally
speaking) of new photographs, which will be sorted for IDs throughout the offseason.

This summer DCP had the opportunity to beta test
a new Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) device.
PAMs are great because they are very non-invasive
and can gather acoustic data in locations, in conditions
and at times that we landlubbers can’t. The
folks at Wildlife Acoustics are experts in recording
audio from wildlife and recently developed a marine
version of their successful Song Meter 2 unit. You
can find details on the Song Meter 2 Marine (SM2M)
at their website, www.wildlifeacoustics.com. Our
friends at Wildlife Acoustics entrusted us to be the
first to field test this unit; in other words, we were the
first to put the bad boy (or girl?) out in the ocean,
all by its lonesome.The unit was deployed twice
off Bimini, once in July for nearly 12 days and once in September for nearly 13 days. We now have
hours and hours of underwater recordings, which will take some time to analyze. But, for the first time
we have dolphin recordings outside of boat trips! And, we can say that the SM2M works in the real life
ocean.

We also tested the unit in a more controlled setting, during our November visit to Dolphin Encounters
(DE). It was a windy few days, so although that meant poor underwater visibility, the SM2M didn’t mind!
Kathleen is currently sorting through these acoustic recordings and soon we will have a better sense of
the ambient noise and dolphin vocalizations! You can read more about our recent round of data collection
on page 2.



Book Recommendation: Witness to Extinction
The tragic recognition of the extinction of the Yangtze River Dolphin or baiji in
2007 became a major news story and sent shockwaves around the world. It
made a romantic story, for the baiji was a unique and beautiful creature that
features in many Chinese legends and folk tales. The Goddess of the Yangtze,
as it was known, was also the lone representative of an entire and ancient
branch of the Tree of Life. But perhaps the greater tragedy is that its status as
one of the world’s most threatened mammals had been widely recognized,
yet despite wide publicity virtually no international funds became available.
Samuel Turvey here tells the story of the plight of the Yangtze River Dolphin from
his unique perspective as a conservation biologist deeply involved in the struggle
to save the dolphin. This is both a celebration of a beautiful and remarkable animal
that once graced one of China’s greatest rivers, its natural history and its role as a
cultural symbol; and also a personal, eyewitness account of the failures of policy and
the struggle to get funds that led to its tragic demise. It is a true cautionary tale that
we must learn from, for there are countless other threatened species that will suffer
from the same human mistakes, and whose loss we shall not know until it is too late.

DCP Announcements!
10
End-of-Year Donations
The end of the tax year is a great
time to get in last minute donations to
your favorite non-profit organization. We
hope
that DCP will be on that list! As a 501(c)
(3) organization, all donations to the
Dolphin Communication Project are tax
deductible – and greatly needed to
ensure that DCP can continue to meet
our research and education goals.
To make a financial contribution to DCP,
please visit the donation page on our
website, http://tinyurl.com/DCPDonate
or send a check to:
Dolphin Communication Project
PO Box 711
Old Mystic, CT 06372-0711
New Papers
K.M. Dudzinski, J. Gregg, K. Melillo-Sweeting, B. Seay, A.
Levengood, S. Kuczaj II. (2012). Tactile contact exchanges
between dolphins: self-rubbing versus inter-individual contact
in three species from three geographies. International Journal
of Comparative Psychology.
This is the third DCP paper to discuss dolphins’ use of pectoral
fins to contact each other. It is the first to include data from
our Bimini, Bahamas field site as well as explore self-rubbing
among dolphins at Bimini, Roatan Institute of Marine Sciences
and Mikura Island, Japan. It is scheduled to appear in the
February 2012 issue of IJCP.
K. Melillo-Sweeting, J.P. Reid, L. Gittens, N. Adimey, J.Z. Dillet.
(2011). Observations and relocation of a West Indian manatee
(Trichechus manatus) off Bimini, The Bahamas. Aquatic
Mammals 37(4).
After being presented in poster format at the 18th Biennial
Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals in 2009, the
story of “Harold” the manatee will soon be published as a short
note in the journal, Aquatic Mammals. This paper outlines
the manatee’s habitat use as well as the cooperation among
multi-national governments, non-profits, business and private
citizens, culminating in the manatee’s release back into the
wild. This paper is scheduled to appear in the December issue
of Aquatic Mammals.As soon as these publications are released, you’ll be able
to request PDF copies or access them from the publications
page on the DCP Web site. Enjoy! Let us know if you have any
questions.

Jean Baptiste Charbonneau son of Sacagawea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Baptiste_Charbonneau

http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=9780878424320

Jean Baptiste Charbonneau (February 11, 1805 – May 16, 1866) was an American explorer and guide, fur trapper and trader, military scout during the Mexican-American War, alcalde (mayor) of Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, and a gold prospector and hotel operator in California. He spoke French and English, and learned German and Spanish during his six years in Europe from 1823-1829. He also spoke Shoshone and other western American Indian languages, learned during his years of trapping and guiding.
LITTLE POMP RAISED BY CAPTAIN CLARK
Son of Sacagawea, a Shoshone, and Toussaint Charbonneau, her French-Canadian husband, who worked as a trapper and interpreter for the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804-1806, Jean Baptiste was born during the travel. He was taken by his parents as an infant across the country. The Expedition co-leader William Clark and other European Americans nicknamed the boy Little Pomp or Pompy. He lived with Clark in St. Louis, Missouri as a boy, where he attended St. Louis academy. Clark paid for his education

Charbonneau's image appears with that of his mother on the United States Sacagawea dollar silver coin. He is the only child ever depicted on United States currency. Pompeys Pillar on the Yellowstone River in Montana and the community of Charbonneau, Oregon[1] are named for him.

BIRTH OF THE CHILD'S EXTREMELY PAINFUL BIRTH HER LABOR WAS TEDIOUS

ChildhoodJean Baptiste Charbonneau was born to Sacagawea, a Shoshone, and her husband, the French-Canadian trapper Toussaint Charbonneau, in early 1805 at Fort Mandan in North Dakota. This was during the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which wintered there in 1804–05. The senior Charbonneau had been hired by the expedition as an interpreter and, learning that his pregnant wife was Shoshone, the captains Lewis and Clark agreed to bring her along. They knew they would need to negotiate with the Shoshone for horses and guides at the headwaters of the Missouri River. Meriwether Lewis noted the boy's birth in his journal:

The party that were ordered last evening set out early this morning. the weather was fair and could wind N. W. about five oclock this evening one of the wives of Charbono was delivered of a fine boy. It is worthy of remark that this was the first child which this woman had boarn and as is common in such cases her labour was tedious and the pain violent; Mr. Jessome informed me that he had freequently administered a small portion of the rattle of the rattle-snake, which he assured me had never failed to produce the desired effect, that of hastening the birth of the child; having the rattle of a snake by me I gave it to him and he administered two rings of it to the woman broken in small pieces with the fingers and added to a small quantity of water. Whether this medicine was truly the cause or not I shall not undertake to determine, but I was informed that she had not taken it more than ten minutes before she brought forth perhaps this remedy may be worthy of future experiments, but I must confess that I want faith as to it's [sic] efficacy.—[2]

^ Lewis, Meriwether; Clark, William; Floyd, Charles (1904), Original journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804–1806, 1, p. 257, http://books.google.com/books/about/Original_journals_of_the_Lewis_and_Clark.html?id=kvAtAAAAYAAJ .

The infant Charbonneau traveled from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean and back, carried along in the expedition's boats or upon his mother's back. His presence is often credited by historians with assuring native tribes of the expedition's peaceful intentions, as they believed that no war party would travel with a woman and child.

In April 1807, about two years after the expedition, the Charbonneau family moved to St. Louis, at Clark's invitation. Toussaint Charbonneau and Sacagawea departed for the Mandan villages in April, 1809, and left the boy to live with Clark. In November, 1809, the parents returned to St. Louis to try farming, but left again in April, 1811. Jean Baptiste continued to reside with Clark.

Clark's two-story home, built in 1818, contained an illuminated museum 100 feet (30 m) long by 30 feet (9.1 m) wide. Its walls were decorated with national flags and life-size portraits of George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette, Indian artifacts and mounted animal heads. Upon visiting the museum, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, a geologist and ethnographer, wrote,

"Clark evinces a philosophical taste in the preservation of many subjects of natural history. We believe this is the only collection of specimens of art and nature west of Cincinnati, which partakes of the character of a museum, or cabinet of natural history."[3

]^ Schoolcraft, Henry R (1825), Travels in the Central portions of the Mississippi Valley, New York: J. and J. Harper, p. 294



As a boy, Charbonneau learned from the vast collection.

Clark paid for Charbonneau's education at the St. Louis academy, a Jesuit Catholic school, although the expense was considerable for the time. The school's single classroom was then located in the storehouse of Clark's friend, the trader Joseph Robidoux. Brothers James and George Kennerly paid for Charbonneau's supplies for 1820 and were reimbursed by Clark:

January 22, 1820: payment to J. E. Welch for two quarters tuition of J. B. Charbonneau, a half-Indian boy, and firewood and ink. Amount = $16.37
April 1, 1820: to J. & G. H. Kennerly for one Roman History for Charbonneau, a half Indian, $1.50; one pair of shoes, $2.24; two pairs of socks, $1.50; two squires of paper and quills, $1.50; 1 [William] Scott's Lesson,[4] $1.50; 1 dictionary, $1.50; 1 hat, $4.00; four yards of cloth, $10.00; one ciphering book, $1., one slate and pencils, $.62.
April 11, 1820: to J. E. Welch for one quarter’s tuition, including fuel and ink. Amount = $8.37.
June 30, 1820: to Louis Tesson Honoré for board, lodging and washing. Amount = $45.00.
October 1, 1820: to L. T. Honoré for lodging, boarding, and washing from 1 July to 30 September at $15.00 per month. Amount = $45.00
March 31, 1822: to Louis Tesson Honore for boarding, lodging and washing of J. B. Charbonneau, a half Indian.[5]
From June through September 1820 and in 1822, Jean Baptiste boarded with Louis Tesson Honoré, a Clark family friend and member of his church, Christ Episcopal.[6]:67 The general had helped organize the church in 1819. They lived in St. Ferdinand Township in St. Louis County, Missouri near Charbonneau's father's 320 acres (1.3 km2) of land.

Adult life

On June 21, 1823, at age eighteen, Charbonneau met Duke Friedrich Paul Wilhelm of Württemberg, the nephew of King Freidrich I Wilhelm Karl of Württemberg.[7] Charbonneau was working at a Kaw Indian trading post on the Kansas River near present-day Kansas City, Kansas. Wilhelm was traveling in America on a natural history expedition to the northern plains with Jean Baptiste's father as his guide. On October 9, 1823, he invited the younger Charbonneau to return to Europe with him, which was agreed upon.

The two set sail on the Smyrna from St. Louis in December 1823. Jean Baptiste lived at the duke's palace in Württemberg for nearly six years, where he learned German and Spanish, and improved his English and French. The latter was still the dominant language of St. Louis, which had first enabled his conversations with the Duke.[6]:71 According to a 1932 translation of Wilhelm's journal by the historian Louis C. Butscher, Wilhelm wrote that Charbonneau was "…a companion on all my travels over Europe and northern Africa until 1829."[6]:75[8] Another scholar questions the accuracy of Butscher's translation. For instance, in 2001 Albert Furtwangler, noting two more recent translations of the duke's journals[9][10], suggests that Charbonneau's role in Wilhelm's court may have been less intimate than Butscher's perhaps romanticized account implied. Charbonneau may have been hired as a servant, rather than invited as a companion. As support, he notes the apparent lack of further contact between the two men after Charbonneau's return to America. However, lack of contact in itself does not mean Charbonneau was a hired hand. Such an act may have been an insult to Clark, which the duke likely would have avoided. [11]11.^ a b Furtwangler, Albert (Fall, 2001), "Sacagawea's Son as a Symbol", Oregon Historical Quarterly 102 (3) .[12]^ Morris, Larry E (2004), The Fate of the Corps, New Haven: Yale University Press . As with many aspects of his life, little is known for certain about Charbonneau's time in Europe.


Children
Parish records in Wuerttemberg show that while there, Charbonneau fathered a child with Anastasia Katharina Fries, a soldier's daughter. The baby, Anton Fries, died about three months after his birth.[11]:{{{1}}}

Nearly two decades later, while in California as an alcalde or magistrate, Charbonneau was recorded as being the father of another child. On May 4, 1848, Maria Cantarina Charguana was born to Margarita Sobin, a Luiseño woman, and Charbonneau. Sobin, 23 at the time, traveled to Mission San Fernando Rey de España near Los Angeles for the infant girl's baptism, performed on May 28, 1848, and recorded by Father Blas Ordaz as entry #1884. Margarita Sobin later married Gregory Trujillo, and some of their descendants may be members of the La Jolla band of Mission Indians.[13]^ "Maria Canatarina Charguana, child of Margarita Sobin," First Book of Baptisms. May 28, 1848, entry #1884, Plaza Church, Los Angeles, California

Trapper and hunter

In November 1829, Charbonneau returned to St. Louis, where he was hired by Joseph Robidoux as a fur trapper for the American Fur Company, to work in Idaho and Utah.[6]:84[14] He attended the 1832 Pierre's Hole rendezvous while working for the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. There he fought in the bloodiest non-military conflict that preceded the Plains Indian wars, which began in 1854.[6]:88

From 1833–49 Charbonneau worked in the fur trade in the Rocky Mountain Trapping System[15] with other mountain men, such as Jim Bridger, James Beckwourth and Joe Meek.[16]


7th Baronet of Blair, 1837, by Alfred Jacob MillerFrom 1840–42 he worked from Fort Saint Vrain, floating bison hides and tongues 2,000 miles (3,200 km) down the South Platte River to St. Louis. On one of the voyages, he camped with Captain John C. Frémont on his cartographic expedition. In 1843, he guided Sir William Drummond Stewart, a Scottish baronet, on his second long trip to the American West, which was a lavish hunting expedition.[17]^ Victor, Frances, ed. (1870), The River of the West: Life and Adventure in the Rocky Mountains and Oregon, Hartford: Bliss & Co, p. 474 .

Seeking employment again, in 1844 Charbonneau went to Bent's Fort in Colorado, where he was chief hunter, and worked also as a trader with southern Plains Indians. William Boggs, a traveler who met him, wrote that Charbonneau "…wore his hair long, [and] was…very high strung…" He reported, "…it was said Charbenau (sic) was the best man on foot on the plains or in the Rocky Mountains."[18]^ Hafen LeRoy, "The W.M. Boggs Manuscript About Bent's Fort, Kit Carson, the Far West and Life Among the Indians," The Colorado Magazine 7 (March, 1930): pp. 45-69

Mexican-American War

In October 1846, Charbonneau, Antoine Leroux and Pauline Weaver were hired as scouts by General Stephen W. Kearny. Charbonneau’s experience with military marches, such as with James William Abert[6]:128 in August, 1845, along the Canadian River, and his fluency in Indian languages qualified him for the position. Kearny directed him to join Colonel Philip St. George Cooke and Lieutenant William H. Emory on an arduous march from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to San Diego, California, a distance of 1,100 miles (1,800 km). Their mission was to guide 20 huge Murphy supply wagons to California for the military during the Mexican-American War.[6]:136 A Mormon contingent of 339 men accompanied U.S. cavalry on the uncharted trail. The marchers became known as the Mormon Battalion. A memorial to the battalion was erected at the San Pedro River, one mile (1.6 km) north of the US–Mexico border near the present-day ghost town of Palominas, Arizona. Cooke noted that from November 16, 1846, to January 21, 1847, Charbonneau assisted 29 times on the march.[6]:150 Eight of the 20 wagons reached Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, four miles (6 km) from today’s Oceanside, California, and the leaders counted the expedition as a success.

Cooke wrote, "History may be searched in vain for an equal march of infantry."[19] Known as the Gila Trail, the wagon road was used by settlers, miners, stagecoaches of the Butterfield Stage line and cattlemen driving longhorns to feed the gold camps. Parts of the route became the Southern Pacific Railroad and U.S. Route 66. In February 1848, knowledge gained about the region was used as the basis of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which established the United States-Mexico border in December 1853 following the Mexican-American War.[6]6.^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Ritter, Michael (2005), Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, Man of Two Worlds, Charleston: Booksurge, ISBN 1-59457-868-0 .:151

Alcalde

In November 1847, Charbonneau accepted an appointment from Colonel John D. Stevenson as alcalde (mayor) at Mission San Luis Rey de Francia. This position made him the only civilian authority, a combined sheriff, lawyer and magistrate, in a post-war region covering about 225 square miles (580 km2). From 1834–50, the lands were owned by rancheros through legally questionable land-grants.

The rancheros hired local American Indians, mainly Luiseño, to do agricultural work. Many functioned in virtual servitude, and some rancheros paid them only with liquor. Trying to correct abuses and also facilitate post-war control, in November, 1847, Colonel Richard Barnes Mason, the territorial governor, ordered Charbonneau to force the sale of a large ranch owned by the powerful Jose Antonio Pico, whose family was politically connected. His brother Pio Pico had been the last governor of California under Mexico.[20] On January 1, 1848, Mason banned the sale of liquor to Indians. Such ordinances attacked the foundation of ranchero power and ability to do business. Eventually the changes led to United States civilian control of California.[6]:161 Although Charbonneau was assisted by Captain J. D. Hunter as he negotiated with Pico, he saw that local resistance would make enforcing Mason's orders difficult. Charbonneau resigned his post in August, 1848, and was soon followed by Hunter. California statehood on September 9, 1850, ended the post-war difficulties


Gold mining

In September 1848, Charbonneau arrived in Placer County, California at the American River, near what is now Auburn. Arriving early in what became known as the California Gold Rush, he joined only a handful of prospectors. Panning was not done during the hard Sierra Nevada winter or spring runoff, so in June, 1849, he joined Jim Beckwourth and two others at a camp on Buckner's Bar to mine the river at the Big Crevice. This claim "…was shallow and paid well."[21] Charbonneau lived at a site known as Secret Ravine, one of 12 ravines around Auburn. A successful miner, he kept working in the area for nearly sixteen years.

Charbonneau afforded the mining region's highly inflated cost of living. For example, at a time when a good wage in the West was $30 per month, it cost $8–16 per day to live in Auburn.[6]:176 Transiency was high but Charbonneau was still there in 1860, working as the hotel manager at the Orleans Hotel.[22] By 1858 many miners had left the California fields for other gold rushes. In April, 1866, he departed for other opportunities at age 61. He may have headed for Montana to prospect for gold, although sites such as at Silver City and DeLamar in Idaho Territory were much closer.[6]:190
Death


It is not clear why Charbonneau left Auburn, California. Before leaving he visited the Placer Herald newspaper and visited with an editor, who wrote later in his obituary, "..he was about [his purpose was] returning to familiar scenes."[23] Some of those "familiar scenes" may have been where he had lived and worked as a mountain man east of the Great Basin. His destination also may have been the Owyhee Mountains, where rich placer deposits were discovered in May, 1863. Or perhaps he sought to reach Alder Gulch near Virginia City, Montana, because it had produced $31,000,000 in gold by late 1865. Other possible destinations were the Bannock, Montana gold strikes or—as noted above—the mines at Silver City (formerly Ruby City), Delamar or Boonville.[24]

His route and travel method likely took him on a stagecoach over Donner Summit and east along the well-traveled Humboldt River Trail to Winnemucca, Nevada, then north to army Camp McDermitt near the Idaho border.[6]:197 Passing the camp in rugged terrain, the men reached an Owyhee River crossing at present-day Rome, Oregon, where an apparent accident occurred and Charbonneau went into the river. The accident's cause is unknown, but there are several possibilities. He may have been on a stagecoach operated by the Boise-Silver City-Winnemucca stage company that began its route in 1866 out of Camp McDermitt and in crossing the river, the coach sank.[6]:198 Or he may have been on horseback and fallen off the river bank or slipped out of the saddle while crossing. The Owyhee River in snowmelt may have turned into whitewater. Other possibilities are he was injured on the land journey, inhaled alkali dust, or fell ill from drinking contaminated water.[6]:199

The ill Charbonneau was taken to Inskip Station in Danner, Oregon, built in 1865, about 33 miles (53 km) from the river and west of Jordan Valley. It is now a ghost town. The former stage coach, mail stop and general store served travelers to Oregon and the California gold fields. It had its own well, and Charbonneau may have deteriorated from drinking the water.[6]:200 After his death there, his body was taken one-quarter mile north and interred at 42.9518°N 117.339°W.

Charbonneau died on May 16, 1866. A death notice was sent by an unknown writer, likely one of two fellow travelers on the journey east, to the Owyhee Avalanche newspaper and it said he died of pneumonia.[25] This is the first documented evidence of his death.[6]:201 The Placer Herald obituary writer opined that he succumbed to the infamous "Mountain Fever", to which many illnesses in the West were attributed.

His grave site, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is on 1 acre (4,000 m2) of land. (It is near the Anderson General Store, which is intact and appears to be in 1940s condition.) Now contained within the 6,000 acres (24 km2) Ruby Ranch, the site was donated to Malheur County, Oregon by the owners. The gravesite has three historical markers. In 1971 the Malheur County Daughters of the American Revolution placed a marker. In 1973 the Oregon Historical Society installed a marker, reading:

Oregon History

Jean Baptiste Charbonneau

1805–1866

This site marks the final resting place of the youngest member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Born to Sacagawea and Toussaint Charbonneau at Fort Mandan (North Dakota), on February 11, 1805, Baptiste and his mother symbolized the peaceful nature of the "Corps of Discovery." Educated by Captain William Clark at St. Louis, Baptiste at 18 traveled to Europe where he spent six years becoming fluent in English, German, French and Spanish. Returning to American in 1829, he ranged the far west for nearly four decades as mountain man, guide, interpreter, magistrate, and forty-niner. In 1866, he left the California gold fields for a new strike in Montana, contracted pneumonia enroute, reached "Inskips Ranche" here, and died on May 16, 1866.

In 2000 a third marker was dedicated by the Lehmi-Shoshone tribe. As the son of Sacagawea, a Northern Shoshone who lived in the Lemhi Valley, Charbonneau was considered one of their people.

Earlier in the twentieth century, some Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard argued that Charbonneau died and was buried at the Shoshone Wind River Indian Reservation. Dr. Charles Eastman, a Santee Sioux, did research that attempted to establish that Charbonneau's mother Sacagawea died at the reservation on April 9, 1884. Some believe that Charbonneau died in 1885 and was buried next to her. Memorials in their names were erected in 1933 at Ft. Washakie.[26] Eastman did his research in 1924–25, interpreting oral history. But that tradition has been superseded by documentary evidence for both Charbonneau and Sacagawea.

In 1964 an edited nineteenth-century journal was published that included the information that Sacagawea died much earlier, on December 20, 1812, of a "putrid fever" (possible following childbirth) at Fort Manuel Lisa on the Missouri River.[27] Four 19th-century documents support this earlier date, including a statement by William Clark years after the 1805–07 Lewis and Clark expedition that "Secarjawea was dead."[28]









Further reading

Colby, Susan (2005). Sacagawea's Child: The Life and Times of Jean-Baptiste (Pomp) Charbonneau. Spokane: Arthur H. Clarke (University of Oklahoma Press).
Kartunnen, Frances (1994). Between Worlds: Interpreters, Guides, and Survivors. Rutgers: Rutgers University Press.
Moulton, Gary, ed (2003). The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Ritter, Michael (2011, revised) Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, Man of Two Worlds. Charleston: CreateSpace.

References

1.^ a b McArthur, Lewis A; Lewis L. McArthur (2003) [1928], Oregon Geographic Names (seventh ed.), Portland, OR: Oregon Historical Society Press, p. 190, ISBN 0-87595-277-1
2.^ Lewis, Meriwether; Clark, William; Floyd, Charles (1904), Original journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804–1806, 1, p. 257, http://books.google.com/books/about/Original_journals_of_the_Lewis_and_Clark.html?id=kvAtAAAAYAAJ .
3.^ Schoolcraft, Henry R (1825), Travels in the Central portions of the Mississippi Valley, New York: J. and J. Harper, p. 294 .
4.^ Scott's Lesson textbook formally dealt with elocution, language and speaking.
5.^ Abstract of Expenditures by Captain W. Clark as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, 1822, American State Papers, 2, USA: Department of the Interior, 1834, p. 289 .
6.^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Ritter, Michael (2005), Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, Man of Two Worlds, Charleston: Booksurge, ISBN 1-59457-868-0 .
7.^ Gastel Lloyd, Brigitte; Theroff, Paul (January 18, 2002) .
8.^ Hebard, Grace (1932), Sacajawea: Guide and Interpreter of Lewis and Clark, Glendale, CA: Clarke, pp. 119–24 .
9.^ Wilhelm, Paul (1973), Travels in North America 1822–1824, trans. Nitske, W Robert, Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press .
10.^ Wilhelm, Paul (1938), trans. Bek, William, "First Journey to North America in the Years 1822 to 1824", South Dakota Historical Collections (19) .
11.^ a b Furtwangler, Albert (Fall, 2001), "Sacagawea's Son as a Symbol", Oregon Historical Quarterly 102 (3) .
12.^ Morris, Larry E (2004), The Fate of the Corps, New Haven: Yale University Press .
13.^ "Maria Canatarina Charguana, child of Margarita Sobin," First Book of Baptisms. May 28, 1848, entry #1884, Plaza Church, Los Angeles, California
14.^ Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, Idaho State Historical Society Reference Series .
15.^ Wishart, David J (1979), The Fur Trade of the American West, 1807–1840, A Geographical Synthesis, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, pp. 125–27 .
16.^ United States National Park Service: "Jean Baptiste Charbonneau," The Lewis and Clark Journey of Discovery
17.^ Victor, Frances, ed. (1870), The River of the West: Life and Adventure in the Rocky Mountains and Oregon, Hartford: Bliss & Co, p. 474 .
18.^ Hafen LeRoy, "The W.M. Boggs Manuscript About Bent's Fort, Kit Carson, the Far West and Life Among the Indians," The Colorado Magazine 7 (March, 1930): pp. 45-69
19.^ Bieber, Ralph, ed. (1938), Exploring Southwestern Trails, 1846–1854, Glendale: Arthur H Clark, p. 104 .
20.^ See this page for Portrait of Jose Antonio Pico, the elder brother of Pio Pico and Andrés Pico, USC, http://digarc.usc.edu/search/controller/view/chs-m19419.html .
21.^ Angel, Myron; Fairchilds, MD (1882), History of Placer County, Oakland: Thompson and West, p. 229 .
22.^ Eighth Decennial Census, 1860
23.^ "Obituary", Placer Herald, July 7, 1866 .
24.^ Lindgren, Waldemar (1899), Report on Florida Mountain, Idaho State Historical Society Reference .
25.^ Owyhee Avalanche (Ruby City, ID), June 2, 1866 .
26.^ Note: See photo of Charbonneau's memorial on this page, which gives his death as 1885 and states he was buried west of that site in the Wind River Mountains.
27.^ Luttig, John. Journal of a Fur Trading Expedition on the Upper Missouri, 1812–13, ed. Stella Drumm, New York: Argosy-Antiquarian Ltd., 1964
28.^ Ottoson, Dennis R (Spring, 1976), "Toussaint Charbonneau, A Most Durable Man", South Dakota History (6): 152 .

PSALM 118: TEXT AND INTRODUCTION ; TZELEM ELOKIM

(The concept "tzelem Elokim" is too often translated as "In the image of G-d." I believe this is not an accurate translation of the words, and is not a Jewish translation on a conceptual level. The root of the word "tzelem" is "tzeil," which means shadow. A shadow reveals the contours of an object in an indirect way, without one actually seeing the object itself. An idol is called a "tzelem" because it purports to reflect a certain reality, without actually being that reality. Man, as a "tzelem Elokim" embodies within him the potential to enable the contours of the Divine to be seen, if you will, without actually seeing G-d. Therefore, I have translated it as a reflection of the Divine. The idea of man being an "image of G-d" probably has its roots in another religion.)

O Praise Hashem, all you nations; extol Him, all you peoples.

For His loving kindness has overwhelmed us; and the truth of Hashem endures for ever. Halleluyah!

These two simple verses, containing no words which are ambiguous or demand intensive investigation, make up a quatrain which is anything but simple.

Before assaying the difficulties in this text, we should note that the familiar pair Hessed and Emet, which we explained as a hendiadys at the beginning of ps. 115, should probably be read the same way here: For His true kindness has overwhelmed us…(again, what would be the meaning of "His truth overwhelming us"?).

There are at least three identifiable problems here, one contextual, one interpretive and the other logical.
THE HALLEL THESE 6 PSALMS COMPRISE ONE UNIT
The contextual problem is only a challenge if we accept the premise that all six of these psalms were composed as a unit (as is evidenced by the common denominator among the various rabbinic opinions regarding the time, circumstance and author behind these psalms). If that is the case, how does the psalmist turn from a very exclusive audience in the Temple (end of previous psalm) to addressing the nations? Indeed, how is any address to the nations of the world to be understood? Where is he speaking - and who is really his direct audience?
The interpretive problem revolves around the equivoke at the beginning of v. 2 - Aleinu. Who has been overwhelmed by His kindness? Am Yisra'el or the entire world?

The logical problem flows from the interpretive. If we accept the common translation of ki(first word in v. 2) as "because" then we have an argument, reformatted as follows:

Premise: G-d has overwhelmed us with His kindness;

Conclusion: All of the nations ought to praise Him.

The fallacy of this argument needs no clarification.
Some of the Rishonim (e.g. Rashi ad loc.) solve this last dilemma by interpreting ki as "in spite of" or "indeed" - which only lessens the sense of dissonance but doesn't entire relieve it - why should the nations praise G-d?

If we interpret Aleinu as referring to the entire world, there is clearly no fallacy in the argument. Where, however, is there any mention of G-d's kindness to the entire world in the foregoing texts?
would like to suggest a solution by first reorienting our understanding of the setting, thus explaining the first issue. Although the psalmist stands in the Mikdash before the assemblage (we will find out when and under what circumstance by the end of the next chapter), he rhetorically addresses himself to the rest of the world. Taking note of how kind the Ribbono Shel Olam has been to His people - those who praise Him - he adjures the rest of the world (so to speak) to join in the praise for their own benefit. To wit: You all see how blessed we are; this is the result of our close relationship with the Almighty. You, too, should act likewise. This is not honestly directed at the nations, but at Am Yisrael (such oratorical devices are common in T'nakh - see, inter alia, the first chapter of Amos). The effect is that we should feel particularly blessed and, if the rest of the nations ought to praise Him, how much more so should we do likewise (compare BT Pesahim 118b).
Nonetheless, the context is odd. The psalmist has just completed the most individual expression of praise in this series of psalms; the sharp 180° turn to facing the entire world, even if only rhetorical, is jarring (to say the least).

MORAL CLARITY TO EVOKE UNIVERSAL PRAISE FOR HAKADOSH BARUKH HU; external power is a function of internal strength.

Following the reasoning we proposed at the end of the previous shiur, we may explain as follows: Only when the individual has identified, completely and intensely, with the experience of redemption, can he turn to the world with the necessary energy and moral clarity to evoke universal praise for HaKadosh Barukh Hu. It is exactly - perhaps exclusively - the personalization of the Exodus which catapults the individual to the international stage and allows him to speak to the global community. Counterintuitive though it may be, external power is a function of internal strength.

THE LEVIIM ELICIT PRAISE FROM THE THREE GROUPS BELOW DESCRIBED
The Levi'im then turn to the same three groups who were adjured to trust in G-d, then promised His blessing of fertility in ps. 115 (vv. 9-13). Now, they exhort each group, in the same order (Yisra'el, the Kohanim, the Yir'ei Hashem) to respond to the call of praise.

Maharal by Rabbi Shaya Karlinsky

Chapter 3: Mishna 5: Part 5
Tzelem Elokim
(The concept "tzelem Elokim" is too often translated as "In the image of G-d." I believe this is not an accurate translation of the words, and is not a Jewish translation on a conceptual level. The root of the word "tzelem" is "tzeil," which means shadow. A shadow reveals the contours of an object in an indirect way, without one actually seeing the object itself. An idol is called a "tzelem" because it purports to reflect a certain reality, without actually being that reality. Man, as a "tzelem Elokim" embodies within him the potential to enable the contours of the Divine to be seen, if you will, without actually seeing G-d. Therefore, I have translated it as a reflection of the Divine. The idea of man being an "image of G-d" probably has its roots in another religion.)


So, a person walking alone on the roadway is diminishing his ability to be a reflection of the Divine (since he is detached from other people). There is a principle that the Satan brings charges against a person (highlighting defects making him worthy of punishment) during times of danger. Therefore, a man is held liable for tragedy that befalls him while walking alone on the road (since he is seen as exposing himself to a situation of danger without including the proper precautions).
The previous Mishna taught us that three people who ate together at one table, and at that meal said words of Torah, are viewed as having eaten from the table of the Almighty. When they didn't say words of Torah they are viewed as having eaten from sacrifices of the dead. From this we learn that it is through the Torah that man creates a bonding with G-d, and when he separates himself from the Torah, he removes himself from any connection with Him, leaving the domain of the Divine. We follow this with the lesson teaching us that one who turns his heart to time-wasting is removing himself from the orderly system of how the world functions and from the natural protection afforded by that system. This departure makes him "liable for his life," for any tragic consequences that befall him due to this behavior. The natural order provides for man to be under the protection of G-d, Who is constantly watching over the world (when its functioning is aligned with that natural order, and this person separated himself from that order).

(This offers a very penetrating insight into the common question "Does G-d cause tragedy, does man cause tragedy, or does it 'just happen'?". When man's behavior is aligned with the natural order as created by G-d, the system provides natural, Divine protection. But man has the ability to depart from that system, at which point G-d turns man over to random forces that He created, often leading to tragic results. It should be pointed out that even then, G-d can, of course, intervene with special protection, which would be classified as a "miracle," either overt or hidden. Judaism frowns upon man putting himself in these kind of situations precisely because it requires this special level of intervention on G-d's part, which is not the way He intended the system to function.)

(The concept "tzelem Elokim" is too often translated as "In the image of G-d." I believe this is not an accurate translation of the words, and is not a Jewish translation on a conceptual level. The root of the word "tzelem" is "tzeil," which means shadow. A shadow reveals the contours of an object in an indirect way, without one actually seeing the object itself. An idol is called a "tzelem" because it purports to reflect a certain reality, without actually being that reality. Man, as a "tzelem Elokim" embodies within him the potential to enable the contours of the Divine to be seen, if you will, without actually seeing G-d. Therefore, I have translated it as a reflection of the Divine. The idea of man being an "image of G-d" probably has its roots in another religion.)

Therefore, when two people are together, they are protected from the harm of a demon (due to the greater manifestation of the "tzelem Elokim" they reflect, compared to one person). And three people are completely insulated from the demon (due to the even more intense manifestation of the "tzelem Elokim') leading to the demon's inability to even appear to them. So, a person walking alone on the roadway is diminishing his ability to be a reflection of the Divine (since he is detached from other people). There is a principle that the Satan brings charges against a person (highlighting defects making him worthy of punishment) during times of danger. Therefore, a man is held liable for tragedy that befalls him while walking alone on the road (since he is seen as exposing himself to a situation of danger without including the proper precautions).

Hallel(V)


Psalms 117-118

PSALM 118: TEXT AND INTRODUCTION

The concluding psalm among those which make up the Hallel is also its longest (29 verses):

1) O give thanks to Hashem; for He is good; because His loving kindness endures for ever.

2) Let Yisra'el now say, because His loving kindness endures for ever.

3) Let the house of Aharon now say, because His loving kindness endures for ever.

4) Let now those who fear Hashem say, because His loving kindness endures for ever.

5) In distress I called upon Hashem; Hashem answered me, and set me free.

6) Hashem is on my side; I will not fear; what can man do to me?

7) Hashem takes my part with those who help me; therefore I shall gaze upon those who hate me.

8) It is better to take refuge in Hashem than to put confidence in man.

9) It is better to take refuge in Hashem than to put confidence in princes.

10) All nations surround me; but in the name of Hashem I will cut them off.

11) They surround me; indeed, they surround me; but in the name of Hashem I will cut them of.

12) They surround me like bees; they are quenched like a fire of thorns; for in the name of Hashem I will cut them off.

13) You pushed me hard that I might fall; but Hashem helped me.

14) Hashem is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation.

15) The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tents of the righteous; the right hand of Hashem does bravely.

16) The right hand of Hashem is exalted; the right hand of Hashem does bravely.

17) I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of Hashem.

18) Hashem has chastised me severely; but He has not given me over to death.

19) Open to me the gates of righteousness; I will go into them, and I will praise Hashem;

20) This is the gate of Hashem, into which the righteous shall enter.

21) I will give You thanks; for You have answered me, and You have become my salvation.

22) The stone which the builders rejected has become the head stone of the corner.

23) This is Hashem’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.

24) This is the day which Hashem has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

25) Save us, we beseech you, Hashem! Hashem, we beseech you, send us prosperity!

26) Blessed is he who comes in the name of Hashem; we have blessed you from the house of Hashem.

27) G-d is Hashem, who has shown us light; bind the sacrifice with cords, to the horns of the altar.

28) You are my G-d, and I will praise you; you are my G-d, I will exalt you.

29) O give thanks to Hashem; for He is good; because His loving kindness endures for ever

Crime Wave

At another table, a hang dog B-girl dripping with mascara and dime store jewelry sobs about some chucklehead boyfriend from her past, while at yet another a career stool-pigeon chastises a junior cop about bracing him in front of his neighbors. What makes the whole thing work is the extraordinary authenticity: pay attention to what is going on in the frame away from subject, almost as if the extras forgot for a moment the cameras were rolling. And this ain’t no soundstage — most of the scenes in Crime Wave, interiors and exteriors alike, are filmed in real Los Angeles locations.And if Hayden wasn’t so utterly believable as a 1952 LAPD homicide detective, none of it would work — he’s the glue that holds the entire movie together. If part of the allure of these old films is seeing things as they actually were way back when, this is a scene (and a film) that will keep you in goose bumps.
Then there’s Gene Nelson, of nimble feet and Oklahoma! fame, who plays Steve Lacey, ex-con. Nelson rightly underplays his part. His performance doesn’t offer much beyond matinee good looks and rolled up shirtsleeves. Like I said, this is Hayden’s movie, and Nelson stays out of his way. Whether it was his idea or De Toth’s, Steve Lacey is Lieutenant Sims perfect foil. From a noir perspective, Lacey is a protagonist in the classic mold: trying to make good after doing some hard time: employed, married, permanent address. Crane Wilbur’s story puts him in the classic bind: when his old cellmates come looking for help, he knows that helping them puts everything he’s worked for at risk, yet failing to do so is even more dangerous. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, and you can't outrun the mistakes of your past: the rock and the hard place of classic film noir, with only fate to decide whether or not a man comes out clean on the other side.
The wife is model-turned-actress Phyllis Kirk. Kirk did most of her work on television, but if you remember her at all it’s probably as the damsel in distress in De Toth’s most famous picture: House of Wax. Kirk and Nelson are well matched — and the mature depiction of their relationship is surprising for a film noir, and rather progressive when we consider typical gender depictions in similar crime films. Ellen Lacey wears the pants in the family; her assertiveness perfectly balances her husband’s diffidence — yet she’s neither a nag nor a shrew. Steve Lacey’s time behind bars has wrecked his ability to function outside the walls. He needs this strong woman to prop him up and constantly assure him that he has a future. That he had been, of all things, a fighter pilot during the war especially heightens the unusual nature of their relationship. Gone is the recklessness and bravado typically found in screen characterizations of such men, while the wife is equally surprising — a strong, modern woman who is neither a femme fatale nor perky a June Allyson. The film gives us an ideally matched couple, each offering what the other needs.
The crooks. Ted de Corsia: Eddie Muller says he looks like he was born in a boxing gym. James Ellroy: he “oozes Pomade.” Iconic in The Naked City, de Corsia shines reliably here as the brains behind the breakout. Crime Wave’s theatrical audience was familiar with him in heavy roles dating all the way back to The Lady from Shanghai. De Corsia’s screen persona was as hard-boiled as they come —*like an old-school Raymond Burr. His young partner is Charles Buchinsky, who also worked for De Toth in House of Wax. Of course Charles Bronson would go on to be one of the icons of seventies crime films, and one of the biggest movie stars in the world, but it’s always jarring to see him this young. His face is somewhat lined, but nowhere near as weather-beaten as it would become. Crime Wave offered the young actor one of his best early roles: he actually gets to act a little, and even has a few moments where his physicality is on display. The juxtaposition of a studio era character actor as traditional as de Corsia with someone as contemporary as Bronson gives the pair an unusual chemistry. Then there’s Tim Carey, the wild man of the American movie scene. There’s not enough room in any film review to dig into the strange case of Tim Carey, though on the strength of his appearance alone this one is worth the price of admission. His few brief moments of screen time are so bizarre — whether he’s at the center of the shot or mugging from the corner of the frame — that Crime Wave would be notable if for no other reason.
Enough about the cast, as good as they are, there are more worthwhile reasons to watch this, especially if you appreciate how a film looks, even more if you can feel a film. Usually when a noir essayist digs on cinematography, he’ll discuss the lighting and composition of individual shots — I’m not going to do that. From top to bottom, Crime Wave is a beautifully and thoughtfully staged movie, yet it’s not a one-trick-pony when it comes to visual style (check out Witness to Murder). Instead, it’s a movie that employs a variety of techniques depending on what individual scenes call for. The sunlit exteriors are pure documentary naturalism: showing LA locales (Burbank, Glendale, downtown) in a straightforward “this is the city” fashion. It’s difficult to follow the movie during these scenes; one’s inclination is to instead focus on signs and landmarks, trying to get a feel for the way the streets, the people, and the cars looked during those spectacular post-war years. At night, Glennon goes for drama, placing klieg lights in off kilter spots to create a chiaroscuro effect that seems as contrived as the day shots seem real; yet somehow it works, and the transitions barely register.
However the scenes are staged, the greatest thing about Crime Wave is where they are filmed: on location all the way through — and not just the exteriors. De Toth somehow swung access to city hall; the homicide bureau scenes are the real deal. Crime Wave is a superlative example of the way in which a low budget feature could be extraordinary: without money to build sets or dictate production values, De Toth was forced to find locations for the film, and it’s clear after just a single viewing that he had a peculiar talent for doing so: it’s is one the most attractive, even exhilarating, film noirs ever made. Pause on almost any frame and you’ll find something to linger on. De Toth successfully captured all of the content tropes and moviemaking techniques that had become germane to film noir in this tiny little film, and he did it with only half of his promised budget, and in a shoot of only thirteen days. The location work of The Naked City, the backseat point of view from Gun Crazy, the tones of John Alton, the jittery handheld cameras, semi-professional actors, and the quagmire of the ceaseless urban landscape. This a mean, unglamorous movie — populated with Dudley Smith cops ready to shoot a suspect in the back, hard-boiled killers, damaged goods, floozies, stool pigeons, strongarms, and professional losers. The good, the bad — even the insane — all trying to claw their way through a world that no longer gives a damn. It’s a cheap, but delicious buffet of everything noir buffs hunger for — and the final few frames make for one hell of a dessert. It should be on many of those ubiquitous top-ten lists, but the guy beside you probably still hasn’t seen it.
Crime Wave (1954, filmed 1952) Directed by André De Toth
Screenplay by Crane Wilbur
Adaptation by Bernard Gordon and Richard Wormser
Original Story by John and Ward Hawkins
Produced by Brian Foy
Cinematography by Burt Glennon
Art Direction by Stanley Fleischer
Starring Sterling Hayden, Gene Nelson, and Phyllis Kirk
Released by Warner Bros.
Running time: 74 minutes

“At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.” – Aristotle

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“At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.” – Aristotle
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Nearly a decade after defense attorney Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck) acts as Good Samaritan by intervening in an attempted rape, perpetrator Max Cady (Robert Mitchum) tracks him to Savannah, Georgia and begins to deal out long-awaited retribution on Bowden’s family. As Cady carefully navigates the ever-thinning line between licit and illicit, Bowden becomes increasingly vulnerable to crossing criminal boundaries in order to protect his wife and daughter. The threat of the stable family unit by outside forces is a common motif in the noir genre, but never did the threat feel as tangible as it did in Cape Fear. An unpretentious film, it was received as coarse and vulgar in its time, yet it provokes a visceral reaction from the viewer as it questions the supposed usefulness of societal law.

The making of Cape Fear was put into motion by Gregory Peck, who also acted as producer through his motion picture company, Melville Productions. While his production house may have been named after a respectable author, Cape Fear’s origin was pulp – the touchstone of film noir screenplays. Though author John D. MacDonald was a graduate of Syracuse and Harvard universities, the Second World War derailed his life, and once discharged he found himself penning short stories for even shorter stacks of cash. Thanks to a booming crime novel market MacDonald was well-known by the time he wrote The Executioners, which eventually fell into the hands of Peck. Under the impression that films with geographical titles did well at the box office, Peck ran his finger down the Eastern Seaboard until he hit the Cape Fear region of North Carolina. In short order, Peck assigned himself the role of Sam Bowden and handed Cady’s reigns over to drinking partner Robert Mitchum.

Peck looked no further than his last director, J. Lee Thompson who had earned himself an Academy Award nomination with The Guns of Navarone. Cape Fear would be Thompson’s sole expedition into noir territory, but he was enthusiastic about conveying the film’s sense of threat and carnal undertones. Director of Photography Samuel Leavitt had little more experience with the genre. When all was said and done, his offerings were slightly dubious noirs like Johnny Cool, Crime in the Streets, and The Crimson Kimono. Yet Leavitt absolutely understood how to film chiaroscuro; after all, he took home the Oscar for black and white cinematography for Anatomy of a Murder and The Defiant Ones. Leavitt elevates Cape Fear from thriller to noir with his careful attention to shadows and light: he and Thompson shoot Mitchum behind a blur of black wrought-iron, with shadows of bar glasses gleaming on his naked back, and the sheen of sweat and black blood glistening on his skin.

“Hello, Counselor. Remember me?” – Max Cady
Max Cady has spent the last eight years, four months and thirteen days (roughly) with one thing on his mind: revenge against the man whose interference put him behind bars. Or, more accurately, Cady has spent his incarceration learning the loopholes in criminal law so he may legally terrorize Bowden’s wife Peggy (Polly Bergen), and teenaged daughter, Nancy (Lori Martin). The film follows Cady as he plagues the Bowden family unit, but always outside the long arm of the law. There are no witnesses when he poisons the family dog. And if he’s outside Nancy’s school or leering at her on a boat dock? Well, a man has a right to be in public places, does he not? Not without resources, Bowden pulls a few strings and asks police chief Dutton (Martin Balsam) to roust Cady or dig up some warrants – but he’s clean. “You show me a law that prevents crime. All we can do is act after the fact,” Dutton complains. When the chief somewhat scornfully suggests a private detective, Bowden hires Charlie Sievers (played by a positively hirsute Telly Savalas) and Bowden is finally given something he can work with. Sievers follows Cady and finds that he has picked up and brutally beaten a young woman named Diane Taylor (Barrie Chase.) However, it is Cady who is sending a message to the counselor: he’s hurt and scared the young woman so badly she refuses to press charges or make a statement. Cady’s threat to her looms so large that she flees the city in the middle of the night. Bowden and his wife, Peggy, understand now that this is what Cady means to do to Nancy. It’s not the act that is important to Cady; he wants Bowden to think about an attack on his daughter for the rest of his life.
The denouement of the film is particularly tense and almost wordless, and Bowden’s indecision about his own capabilities and the practicality of law are neatly tied up. After a nerve-wracking cat-and-mouse through swampland, Bowden has Cady lined up in the sights of his revolver but does not pull the trigger. He dooms him to spend the rest of his life in jail and restores his own faith (if not so much the audience’s) in justice.

“You just put the law in my hands and I’m going to break your heart with it.” – Max Cady
Although the ending of Cape Fear stops short of the anticipated slaughter of Max Cady, the film goes beyond B-grade horror by doing an effective job of exploring the uneasy introspection of the its hero. While Cady patiently bides his time in the murky grey waters of the law, Bowden becomes positively mired in it. He’s a man who has built the foundations of his life in the black and white world of right and wrong only to discover that a he cannot use logic to solve an illogical problem. The core struggle in the film is not whether Bowden will stop Cady’s reprisal, but whether he will give up the known truths in his life to operate outside societal rules. Sam Bowden never quite makes the transition into full-fledged noir anti-hero. Though he constantly questions the law’s ability to protect upright citizens, he only dips his toes into the criminal cesspool when he hires thugs to rough up Cady after Diane Taylor’s assault. After the thugs are neatly dispatched by Cady, Bowden waits for imminent threat to his wife and daughter before he takes personal responsibility; he’s only willing to bloody his knuckles within the confines of the laws he stubbornly clings to.
“Max Cady, what I like about you is you’re rock bottom. I don’t expect you to understand this, but it’s a great comfort for a girl to know she could not possibly sink any lower.” – Diane Taylor
Draw a line in the sand, because the debate for Mitchum’s best villainous role is about to begin. Watch these Cape Fear scenes back to back: Cady’s soliloquy on the reckoning of his ex-wife, the aroused phone call he makes after he’s worked over by a chain, and the treatment he gives Peggy Bowden on the houseboat. Mitchum’s accolades for his work in Charles Laughton’s delirious The Night of the Hunter are deserved, but his character is not as authentically depraved as Cady. Yes, preacher Harry Powell surely is a devil of a man, but his performance there is somewhat tempered (through no fault of his own) in the dreamlike mise-en-scène. Powell’s ruse of posing as a preacher renders Mitchum’s performance just the tiniest bit hammy – though no less fun to watch. However, Powell is like a character in a nightmare the audience can wake up from. Max Cady’s foundation is realism; you find him not in your nightmares, but in your local tavern.
such a great noir baddie caused great concern for the censors: he stares unabashedly at a scantily clad adolescent and slowly smears raw egg across a woman’s décolletage. Mitchum doesn’t walk in this film, he oozes. During the climax he slithers into the swamp like a cottonmouth. Any perceived slight gives Cady the motivation for savagery, and he wallows in the fun of it. Though censors had grown more lenient since the inception of the Hays Code, they were still vigilant with respect to two issues. Gone was Max Cady’s past as American Government Issue. In the past, noir films had gotten away with the unstable soldier issue by giving characters a good case of shell shock or amnesia, but Cady goes through life as a psychotic rapist, unchallenged by the Army or prison. Gone too, is the real reason Cady focuses on Bowden’s daughter. The original attack the good counselor tried to prevent was not on a woman, but a fourteen year-old girl. Cady finds a certain humor and justice in despoiling Bowden’s adolescent daughter. While British censor John Trevelyan lopped six minutes of Cady’s degenerate behaviour off the UK version, American censors gave Thompson a little more leeway with his film. Good thing, too: his portrayal of Bowden’s antagonist is the driving force behind the film and Cape Fear would fall flat with a tamer villain.
Cape Fear is a transitional film, one of the last that can claim noir roots. If its predecessors were thoughtful noir films like Act of Violence, then Cape Fear ushered in the era of psychological horror along with Psycho. It was not well-received by audiences despite the release of Hitchcock’s film two years prior. It came up about one million dollars short of production costs. “What on earth is Gregory Peck doing in such a movie?” The New Yorker wondered, calling it “A repellent attempt to make a great deal of money… out of sexual pathology.” Indeed, Cape Fear would be the last film put out by Peck’s Melville Productions. But in Hollywood everything old becomes new again, and when Martin Scorsese remade Cape Fear as an homage to Thompson’s film, Peck received a rather late return on his investment and a new audience was introduced to Max Cady. While Robert DeNiro’s Cady is fun to watch, it is Mitchum’s performance that has stood the test of time. Cape Fear is ageless: still unapologetic, still chilling, still raising relevant questions. Watch this one at night with the lights turned low and raise the volume for Bernard Herrmann’s disconcerting hymn to depravity.

Film Noir of the Week: They Live by Night (1949)

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Film Noir of the Week: They Live by Night (1949)

THE BELOW ALLUDED TO ESSAY I MUST SAY IS AMONG THE BEST I HAVE READ GETTING RIGHT TO THE CORE OF NOIR -AN AFTER THOUGHT OF THE DISMAL AFTERMATH OF WWII IN VICHY FRANCE AND HOPELESS EXISTENTIALIST REACTIONS PHILOSOPHICALLY IN A EUROPE OF RUBBLE AND A FORLORN GRAVEYARD AS EXPRESSED BY STEIGER IN THE PAWNBROKER.

The force that drives noir stories is the urge to escape: from the past, from the law, from the ordinary, from poverty and stifling relationships and personal failure. Noir found its fullest expression in America because the American psyche harbors a passion for freedom and autonomy, forever shadowed by a corresponding fear of loneliness and exile. Both find expression in the road story and its fiercest variant, the lam story. To be on the road is to be moving forward, released from all bonds. To be on the lam is to be hunted, running away from something that is always closing in, shutting off options one by one. The “key to the highway” has its B side, the haunted persecution of a “hellhound on my trail.” As they are powered by the need to escape, noir stories are structured by the impossibility of escape, so their fierce, thwarted energy turns inward on itself.

Film noir has no monopoly on man-on-the-run stories, but noir versions emphasize the isolation of fugitives, their vulnerability to betrayal and exploitation, the ruthless closing in of the law-enforcement dragnet, the physical and mental fraying of outcasts unable to settle anywhere in safety, and the way outlaws are driven further and further out of society, until they eventually become something less than human—something to be hunted down and slaughtered with overwhelming force, like rabid animals.

The lam story is as ritualistic and full of repeated motifs as the heist movie or the prison drama. Fugitives drive all night, sleep in back seats, abandon their cars as the license plates are reported over the radio, steal new cars; hop freight trains; stay in motels and tourist cabins; get married in quickie roadside ceremonies; work menial laboring jobs, hold up gas stations, wake doctors in the middle of the night to treat wounded companions; charge roadblocks, flee cops armed with machine guns, see Wanted posters trumpeting the prices on their heads; haggle with used-car dealers, pawnbrokers, immigrant smugglers and other carrion crows of the road. The claustrophobic city may be the quintessential noir setting, but the transient, banal, melancholy world of road travel is an essential noir locale too. The in-between realm created by postwar car culture, what James Kunstler called “the geography of nowhere,” embodies the essential alienation of the noir world, where no one is ever really at home. Film noir relentlessly mapped the false lure of the highway, which promises freedom and escape but leads only deeper into danger. All roads are blind, in both senses of the word: full of twists and corners concealing the dangers beyond, and leading ultimately to a dead end.

Sunday, March 04, 2012


A Double Life (1947)

George Cukor's A Double Life stars Ronald Colman as a brilliant stage actor named Anthony John — "Tony" to his friends — who loses himself so completely in each of his roles that he has to be careful about which parts he accepts.

When the film begins, Tony appears to be a charming, "hail fellow well met" sort of chap who's as friendly with theatrical agents and his fellow actors as he is with stagehands and women on the street. It's no coincidence, however, that he's starring in Philip MacDonald's comedy A Gentleman's Gentleman.

When the run comes to an end and he's offered the lead in Shakespeare's Othello, Tony hesitates. He's always wanted to play the part, and even worked out some staging ideas years earlier.

But the role of Othello is a dark one (no pun intended), and Tony fears what psychic and emotional depths he might sink to playing the tragic Moor night after night.

And he's not the only one. His beautiful ex-wife Brita Kaurin (Signe Hasso) cautions against it. She and Tony still love each other, but when she tells her boyfriend, theatrical agent Bill Friend (Edmond O'Brien), what it was like to be married to Tony, it's clear that the good times and bad times all coincided with the parts he was playing. "When he's doing something gay like this it's wonderful to be with him, but ... when he gets going on one of those deep numbers," she says. "We were engaged doing Oscar Wilde, broke it off doing O'Neill, were married doing Kaufman and Hart, and divorced doing Chekov."

Against her better judgment, however, Brita eventually takes the role of Desdemona, and everything goes just as badly as you might expect.

If A Double Life were just a burlesque version of Othello, with a stand-in for Iago whispering lies about infidelity in Tony's ear, it wouldn't be nearly as good or as interesting as it is.

Instead, it's a hypnotic portrait of self-inflicted madness. We watch Tony slide easily from one persona to another early in the film when he slips on a pair of eyeglasses and goes out to eat in a new restaurant, convincing young waitress Pat Kroll (Shelley Winters) that he's new in town.

He's a hugely talented actor, but his talent comes with a price. The more popular his performances as Othello become, the more his mental and emotional health deteriorate. (And his performances are indeed popular; his Othello ends up running on Broadway for an unbelievable, not to mention unrealistic, 300 performances.)

When Tony finally commits the inevitable murder, it's not a passionate reenactment of Othello's murder of Desdemona, it's a weird, tawdry killing committed in a dissociative state.

There's much about A Double Life that's heavy-handed, both visually and thematically. If you're paying close attention, all the attempts early in the film to hammer home the point that Anthony John has a "double life" might seem like a bit much. (Even his name — two Christian names in search of a surname — is a clue.) By the second or third reel, however, I was completely enthralled.





The plot of A Double Life is essentially pulpy and exploitative, so I think a great deal of credit must be paid to Ronald Colman for his exceptional performance, not only as Anthony John, but as Anthony John playing Othello. (The role was originally intended for Laurence Olivier. When Olivier was unavailable, the producers went with another seasoned British thespian.)

Colman ended up winning the Academy Award for best actor for his role in A Double Life. It was the fourth time he was nominated and the first time he won. (Miklós Rózsa's score also won an Academy Award.) There are moments when his performance tends to get a little exaggerated and "showy," but I thought that was appropriate for the character. He's playing a self-involved, grandiose stage actor, after all.

Milton R. Krasner's brilliant cinematography bears mention, too. There are many things about A Double Life that don't exactly place it in the category of film noir, but the look of the film is pure noir. It's full of shadows, dramatic lighting effects, city streets at night, and cramped, dark rooms. There's a mounting sense of dread running through the film, and Krasner's cinematography is largely responsible for it.

I had no idea what to expect from A Double Life and I was completely blown away. It's a film where everything comes together; Cukor's direction, Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin's script, Krasner's photography, and the performances of the three principal actors. I'm looking forward to seeing it again some day, and I highly recommend it if you've never seen it.