Bin Gregory Productions

Strange Fruit pt. 4

When I spotted this fruit in the market, I left the stall I was standing at and zipped over to the neighboring stall where it was being sold, five-year-old in tow. I started asking the hawker about the fruit when the lady from the previous stall came over, carrying my crying three-year-old. She shot me this look that said “you delinquent father you!” Oops!

The fruit you see above is Dragon Fruit, product of Bintulu, Sarawak. It’s pretty large, weighing about a kilo and about the size of my hand covering my fist. The outer skin is tough and pink, but easily peeled. Between the outer skin and the edible part is a livid purple color. The shot I took of it didn’t come out, sorry. The edible part is gray and shot through with little black seeds. It strongly resembles an

enormous gray kiwi fruit, except the seeds are not regularly arranged around the center, but evenly dispersed throughout the flesh. The flavor and texture is kind of like a kiwi too, except not at all citrus-y, and more sweet.

Yet it’s not related to the kiwi! Dragon Fruit, Hylocerus undatus, is in the cactus family and originates in drier tropical climates in the New World. Read more about it at Tradewinds Fruit. Or you can see some better pictures than mine.

About Ghetto Palm

These entries are dedicated to chronicling the growth of Ailanthus altissima in cultural consciousness. Simply put, I’m collecting any reference to the tree in art, literature, movies, music, etc. and putting it on the web. I also may include ecology of the tree, but it’s not my principal focus.

Why am I doing this? People have in their contact with nature developed sets of ideas related to many different trees. Individual species of trees represent different things to us, and have wound up in our cultural memory. The willow tree can be “Old Man Willow”; we tie yellow ribbons around oak trees; President Andrew Jackson was nicknamed “Old Hickory”, children sing “here we go round the mulberry bush”, and so on.

In the past, the bulk of the world population lived in the countryside, and contact was with the agricultural and unmanaged landscape. My assumption is that as the majority of the world population has moved to the city or suburb, our principal contact with nature will be with whatever is common in cities. That will certainly include Ailanthus altissima.

Some have predicted the emergence of new urban ecosystems that will span the globe, meaning the plant assemblages found in any one northern city will be much the same as in any other. If a Detroiter moves to Germany or Northern China, the urban landscape will be very much the same. Ailanthus altissima is the urban tree, able to survive in the most desolate urban environments, and adaptable to a wide range of climate. It follows that as more and more people spend their lives in proximity to the tree, they will start to attach meaning to it, and that will slowly seep into our culture. I want to catalog that and share it here on this website.

Why the name “ghetto palm”? I am interested in the meaning people attach to the tree Ailanthus altissima. In Detroit, where I grew up, ghetto palm is a name give to Ailanthus. It flourishes all over the city, in neglected lots, abandoned homes, old industrial sites, everywhere. The more dilapidated the district, the more prevalent the tree. I don’t know who coined the term, and as I’ll show in later posts, I don’t think it’s unique to Detroit. It is to my mind a perfect example of people recognizing and reacting to their natural environment.

If you have links, images, or even personal stories about this tree, you are most welcome to contribute. I will post whatever I am given, with credit and a link.

Little Odessa

Little Odessa‘s an older movie (1994) that I just picked up on VCD a little while ago. It’s not a particularly interesting drama, but the setting is. It’s filmed in a part of New York city called Brighton Beach. It’s a decaying industrial sector with a large Russian immigrant population. The climax scene in the movie uses Ailanthus altissima to great effect. The thug (Tim Roth) has taken his victim to an abandoned factory to assassinate him. The victim stands at his grave. As Roth raises his gun, we see the bare branches of Ailanthus altissima rising between them like the devil’s own horns. There’s no doubt the director (James Gray) included the tree on purpose; just look at how tips of the branches line up with the gun and the victim’s head. It’s a depressing movie, like every movie by or about Russians I’ve ever seen, but it’s worth watching for the scenery.

Ghetto Palm

I’ve been busy working on a new website that I had been contemplating building for a while. Ghetto Palm is something of a fan site for an unusual tree, Ailanthus altissima, the Tree-of-heaven. I want to collect any and all popular (I mean, non-scientific) references to the tree that I can find and put them up on the web. It’s a bit of an odd idea I know, but you have to understand I work with trees for a living so I can’t help but get a little attached to some of them. You can read my too-wordy rationale about why I am doing this. If you’ve spent any time in the northern half of the US, you’ve almost certainly seen this tree whether you know it or not. If you’ve an interest in this tree as well, stop by or send anything you have my way. I’ll be happy to put it up on the site and credit you appropriately.

Between Hope and Fear

Muslim WakeUp’s most recent article deals with the scoresheet mentality in religious observance, where promised rewards for good actions are tallied up like a “pile of candy”. I agree with Pamela’s assessment that this is the morality of toddlers. As a convert, this kind of thinking has very little appeal. In fact, this simplistic kind of morality is probably responsible for driving a good many people out of their inherited religion, muslim or otherwise. My father recalls his religious instruction being “hell avoidance” training with little other context. He was Catholic, but every religion has this at some level.

Now, the rewards that Pamela writes about come from the Hadith, so none of us can say these things are not valid, or that they are not of use in motivating us to do good. Why else would Nabi Muhammad have said it? [Aside: I got married early in part because of the hadith that the salat of the married person is worth 23 times the salat of the unmarried. Little did I know this is because you have 23x less time to pray…] The problem only comes when we count on our actions to purchase us this or that. It smacks of Catholic indulgences. Focusing on the candy lessens Allah’s Mercy and His Justice. It makes it more difficult for us to be between hope and fear of our final destination. (Hey, I can’t be in danger of Hell, I’ve already earned 5 umbrellas in Paradise!)

It is an article of faith as a muslim to believe in the reality of Allah’s reward in Paradise and His punishment in Hell. I don’t think what Pamela writes denies that at all. When Rabia prayed (horribly paraphrased) “Lord, if I worship You out of desire for Your Paradise, deny me of it, and if I worship You out of fear of Your Hellfire, plunge me in it”, she was certainly not denying their existence or even making small the reward or punishment of these places. She was expressing the idea that this is not the highest and purest reason to do good deeds.

We can cultivate deep fear of Hell and hope of Paradise without keeping score. This was the way of the Salaf (The first few generations of Muslims, not the modern-day nutters from Saud. But you knew that.), who would weep, faint and even expire upon remembering the hellfire, and become elated and weep for joy upon remembering God’s mercy and Paradise. A great article on this last point is The Impressibility of the Salaf.

Imam Ahmad in his Kitab al-Zuhd (“The Simple Life” p. 248 #880) narrates from Abu Hayyan that when Ibn Mas`ud passed by the furnace of a blacksmith as they were fanning the fire, he fell unconscious.

SubhanAllah! Ibn Mas’ud collapsed even though he had not committed a sin; remembering the reality of the Hellfire was sufficient!

Baby Toes

Time flies. My baby daughter is almost six months old. She’s wriggly and floppy. Lately she’s found her feet, and is now earnestly trying to get her toes in her mouth. They must look so tasty up there above her head. But we must take caution. According to cakap orang tua, what our Malay elders say, when a baby puts her toes in her mouth, it means she’s asking for another baby, and pregnancy will soon follow. Now, I put a lot of weight in the wisdom of generations, orally transmitted from mother to daughter. So I knew it was time to get a birth control device and that’s exactly what I did:

Continue reading “Baby Toes”

Key to the Garden

A friend of mine loaned me a wonderful book some time ago, Key to the Garden by Habib Ahmed Mashhur al-Haddad, a handbook for spiritual development. It is a short work, only about 150 pages, but so very beneficial. The Habib’s writing style is a pleasure too, even in translation. In every chapter, he begins his topic with selections from Quran, develops his argument with support from hadith and writings of other shaykhs, and then… concludes with a poem! The effect is quite moving; can you imagine how much more interesting your university coursebooks would have been with the same technique? Chapter 3: Ecology of Wetlands, followed by An Ode to a Peat Bog. Now that would be a well rounded education!

Two poems deal with proper etiquette in the remembrance of God, dhikr. Shaykh al-Haddad admonishes those who lose their self control in acts of remembrance, while affirming the right of those who are overcome with rapture. First, the admonishment:

A man lays claim to reverence
When his limbs are shaking;
His ecstasy turns to movements
And sometimes to leaps.
–
Everyone behaves like this
When in frivolous pleasure
So the opposites of seriousness
And play are the same!
–
By God! Had reverence
Truly dwelt in his heart
It would find peace
and he would bow to his Lord
–
Tears would have flowed
From his fear of his Lord
And he would have obeyed
The rules of true Adab.
–
So I left him, and followed them
In that which is easy,
Vast is the gulf which lies
Between truth and falsehood.

And the poem exonerating those who are overcome:

When I remember Thee I sway as though,
From the fragrance of the mention that is Thine
I have been poured a wine

Taski Cemerlang

My son has been in his preschool for six months now. I recently got his class picture, which I’ll post below. The picture was ready weeks ago, but when his cikgu, teacher, would tell him to tell us it was ready, he would reply with a firm “anh” of assent. And then promptly forget. Or chances are just as good he had no idea what she just said. You’d never know he’s only catching about a tenth of the Bahasa Malaysia he hears, because anytime anyone asks him anything, “anh” he says. “Paham, Ridhwan?” “Anh!”

In spite of that, we got his first report card after the semester exam: First out of 21. I’m bragging, I know, can’t help it. Of course, my US readership is probably thinking, “Report card? Exam? In Preschool?!” It took me some getting used to, too. Especially with the homework. Some evenings, there is just no getting him to sit and concentrate for half an hour. I can’t bring myself to come down heavy on a 5-year-old for that. Besides, he doesn’t grasp the evaluation process anyway. When I told him he got first in the class, all I got was a blank look and a shrug.

You have to click below for the picture; he’s second from the right, first row.
Continue reading “Taski Cemerlang”