The Essential Earthman
Crutcher, Anne
the president's wfice turned to ice-coated steel--"l said, 'What did you say?' "The fellow looked at Kroocheff, mumbled something, Kroocheff mumbled back--fellow couldn't look me in the face...
...The President resumed his agitated walk behind the table, his mind obviously reverting to the alternatives he had faced shortly before midnight the night before...
...For him, obviously, the texture of crape myrtle bark makes up for many a camellia bud bitten off by frost...
...The Kennedy-CIA plots against Castro were not very impressive...
...I d o n ' t know...
...But if you will the end, you must also will the means--or else you are a dangerous fool (viz., the Kennedy-J ohnson policy in Vietnam...
...When an attempt was made to kill Sukarno of Indonesia, the late Wilmoore Kendall remarked that " t h e plot had all the earmarks of a CIA operation: Everyone died except Sukarno...
...A s t r i n g e n t though his wisdom may be, it is never sour...
...When Eisenhower ordered Lumumba off the political stage, the CIA failed and the problem had to be solved by Mobutu's toughs...
...I couldn't kick out the interpreter...
...But, is the CIA in fact this effective...
...In the real world, a considered decision has always to be made about means and ends: Are they in proportion...
...It is a cliche of SAVE UP TO ON PERFUHES We've created our versions of Opium, Bal A Versailles, Joy, Oscar de la Renta, 1000, L'Air du Temps, Chloe, Shalimar, Norell, Halston Night, etc...
...Thematically, the book addresses i t s e l f to two large and serious matters, one general and one particular: the means-end relationship and the role of agencies such as the CIA...
...I myself would be happy( if the Agency were always as successful as it is in this novel...
...Beyond the immediacies of beauty and disappointment in a gardener's relationship with nature, he guides us to contemplate the nature of things...
...Without a covert capability, we are left with few options between passivity and sending in the 82nd Airborne Division...
...He speaks of the " h i g h d e l i g h t " of examining a wild tulip bulb, or savoring shades of garnet and blackgreen in winter azalea leaves...
...Despair is readying an ambush...
...We need to be warned that too many t r e e s will make everything else impossible, deflecting sunlight, using up the moisture in the soil, and crowding out hyacinths with their bulky roots...
...On means-ends it takes what seems to me to be a common-sensical and obviously correct position...
...plus $2.00 delivery charge first bottle, 50 cents each additional one...
...Essential Products Co., Inc...
...That would have left me alone with that grinning son of a bitch with no way to talk to him...
...His aesthetic is too recherche for masses of red geraniums against white walls...
...What's the difference...
...In his most eloquent passage, Mitchell asserts that it is not a green thumb but a spirit of defiance that s e p a r a t e s the g a r d e n e r s from the soulless tennis players and indoorsmen...
...like a good watch, and Blackford carries it out with great eclat...
...Men's colognes too...
...We intervene in Chile and E1 Salvador...
...Mitchell, a man who admits to having four forest-scale trees on his lot, is particularly vehement against ill-advised maples and hemlocks...
...Who else would describe opium poppy seed pods as "beautiful and ingenious little architectural follies" ? From what other vocabulary would the blooming of portulaca emerge as "taffeta explosions" ? Besides, the Essential Earthman is indeed concerned with essences...
...The refinement of his own perceptions can make him a little impatient with people more attuned to the obvious...
...THE ESSENTIAL EARTHMAN Henry Mitchell / Indiana University Press / $12.50 I t ' s as true amid the pink and green ardors of spring as among the blight and borers of less clement seasons: Henry Mitchell writes about gardening rather the way Herman Melville wrote about whales...
...Send for free sample and fragrance list...
...Any g a r d e n , " he says, " i f you see it at just the right moment, can be confused with paradise...
...I t ' s all the same...
...Could be...
...S t i l l , his greatest contribution to the well-being of lesser gardeners is philosophical and cosmic...
...It is comforting to realize t h a t , like the rest of us, Henry Mitchell is so in love with May that he is forever in danger of neglecting the p o t e n t i a l i t i e s of other seasons...
...But a man capable of the Mitchell prose may be allowed his crotchets...
...The ends don't justify the mea~s" is a very tricky cliche, slithering around on the various meanings of that word "justify...
...And, certainly, we need an effective organization of this kind...
...Such endearing self-deprecations make him the more effective as a practical counselor...
...The one that appealed to me most was to walk right up to him, eye to eye, then knee him one right in the crotch, then sit back and tell the interpreter to tell 'Nicky' to watch his language...
...Perhaps we hear mostly about its fiascos...
...Rufus's scheme is brilliant, it works...
...They reflect his experience in the 40- by 100-foot suburban garden where he is both Le Notre and stoop labor...
...But don't be fooled...
...There's nothing solemn or grandiose about it...
...the president's wfice turned to ice-coated steel--"l said, 'What did you say?' "The fellow looked at Kroocheff, mumbled something, Kroocheff mumbled back--fellow couldn't look me in the face this time--but he said: 'The Chairman's words...
...Oh, I thought of a few alternatives...
...To start with the mundane, some of us need to be told primal truths about gardening...
...It helps to know that he too is tempted to overcrowd limited territory with favorite irises when he knows p e r f e c t l y well that space is to a garden what punctuations of silence are to music...
...They are the more appealing for Robert Borja's woodcuts of trees Anne Crutcber is a journalist based in Washington, D.C...
...He is a matchless guide to small, subtle appreciations...
...The natural s t a t e of any garden is d i s a s t e r . "Magnificent gardens mean magnificent heartbreaks...
...Everything grows f o r e v e r y - body," Mitchell assures us, adding, "Everything dies for everybody, tOO...
...the KGB does dirty tricks...
...Still, the CIA did have successes in Guatemala and Iran and no doubt elsewhere...
...sir, which he insists I translatc directly, are: "lke, you should watch your language...
...90 Water St., Dept...
...By the time he is through debunking that one, it seems a contemptibly vulgar ambition anyway...
...H e ' s never Tennyson brooding over the flower in the crannied wall...
...T h i s book is a collection of columns Mitchell has written as the Washington Post'sEarthman since he came to Washington from Memphis 12 years ago...
...It's just that, while he is discussing mulch or aphids or the best climbing rose, suddenly, the r e a d e r ' s mind is on God and the waltzing stars...
...A New York, NY 10005 212-344-4288 Serving, Wal/ Street area since 1895 utopian bearing, assuming a world in which all means must be and can be pure...
...The Peace rose, for example, he dismisses as designed to please "anybody who has longed to grow the largest turnip in the world...
...All four of the Blackford Oakes novels possess the ingredients for successful m o v i e s - - i n t r i g u e , violence, adventure, sex, exodc locales --and it seems to me inevitable that in due course Oakes will make it to the screen as an American James Bond...
...Sayeth the Liberal: The CIA does dirty tricks...
...He keeps going on about how, one of these days, he will cut down an early mistake and grow roses on the stump...
...They involved poisoned cigars, lethal wet-suits, exploding sea shells, and a beard d e p i l a t o r y , as well as some broken-down Mafiosi...
...Everything grows for you...
...This book assumes, correctly, that no, t h e r e ' s an obvious difference: Our ends differ from theirs--relative freedom and political decency versus tyranny...
...Marco Polo, I f You Can is also a kind of Valentine card to the CIA...
...He knows the concrete and technical lore of horticulture...
...There has never been a year in which everything did well...
...Attacking the utopian illusion with which many of us first take up the trowel, he tells us to forget the idea that if we just do it right, we'll have a garden that looks like the seed catalog...
...Warning his readers not to expect the impossible, Mitchell invites them to luxuriate in the magical...
...and flowers, stones and garden tools...
...And he is given to linking the homely details with intimations of the eternal...
...What g a r d e n e r s have to look forward to is not static success but the stern existential joy of "pitting hope against destiny again and a g a i n " so the unknowing can say, "You have favorable conditions here...
...at $15.00 per oz...
...They shine as down-to-earth advice, as revelations of a rich, finely tuned sensibility, and as examples of how an artist can use the English language...
...38 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1982...
...The Soviets intervene in Poland and Afghanistan...
Vol. 15 • April 1982 • No. 4
