By the Waters of Babylon...

By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres. 
--Psalm 137:1-2

Human history has been intertwined with water. Until the past 200 years waterways have been the chief highways for travel. For this reason, all the world's major cities were located on rivers or lakes. Paris, London, Cairo, Moscow, Rome, New York, Vienna, Berlin, Prague, Delhi. Even those adjacent to oceans were established at the mouths of freshwater rivers and bays.

Railroads changed this. 

As a young lawyer, Abraham Lincoln became involved in a legal dispute involving a railroad bridge being built over a river. If the bridge were built, it would block the riverboats traveling on that liquid waterway. After much study, Lincoln saw that railroads were the future. Years later, he became an advocate for the Transcontinental Railroad project that opened up the West, signing into law the Pacific Railway Act of 1862.

Railroads enabled the construction of major cities in all manner of locales. Rivers were no longer needed for the mass transport of good. 

Las Vegas, founded in 1905 along the railroad line that ran from L.A. to Salt Lake City, is perhaps the most famous such city of our time. There were natural springs in the vicinity, water was scarce in the desert there. The lack of power and water to support the scale to which it has grown now was unimaginable then. 

The first significant growth of Las Vegas came with the construction of the Hoover Dam in the 1930s, which brought an influx of workers. In 1931, Nevada legalized gambling, which laid the foundation for "Sin City" to become a major gambling hub. The opening of the El Rancho Vegas in 1941 marked the beginning of the Strip, the city’s famous boulevard lined with casinos and resorts.

I first visited the city in the early 90s when the population had just exceeded a million. Complaints about road congestion were in the news. This didn't stop people from coming. They came from all over the world. Today there is a larger concern as the city surpasses three million inhabitants and struggles with its water and energy needs.

The past few years Las Vegas had been dealing with water shortages due to low water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which are fed by the Colorado River. In 2021, the Secretary of the Interior declared a shortage on the Colorado River, which reduced the amount of water available to Nevada and other users in 2022. In 2022, the lakes reached record lows, and the federal government warned that some states, including Nevada, might need to make significant cutbacks.

This past year when the rains came the lakes began filling up again, but the drought did reveal the region's vulnerability. Currently, the city (and surroundings) uses 400,000 acre-feet of water, 90% of it from the Colorado River.

Las Vegas, like many cities, has continuously adapted to its environment, finding ways to grow and thrive against the odds. The fluctuating levels of Lake Mead serve as a metaphor for the city's—and humanity's—resilience and adaptability. As we face an uncertain future, Las Vegas reminds us of our ability to innovate and adapt, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges. Our history with water may be complex, but it is also a story of survival, resourcefulness, and hope.

Songs, Stories and Trivia About Rivers

Rivers

The Longest Rivers in the United States

Watching the River Flow

Old Man River

Of Time and the River

Throwback Thursday: Rivers

"All rivers run into the sea, and yet the sea is not full."
~Eccles. 1:7 

At one time rivers were the roads. Before the infrastructure of highways and byways, of rails and roads, the rivers were our transportation routes. In other words, geography played an important role in the generation of wealth.  

In Herman Hesse's novella Siddhartha, the river is a symbol. As he encountered the river in various stages of his life, its wisdom was revealed to him as it reflected his soul. 

At one time in my life, the word "rivers" meant Larry Rivers, an artist whose paintings made an impression on me when I was a young art student at Ohio University, Athens, which itself was located on a river--the Hocking.

Larry Rivers. (Creative Commons)

The best part about one's college experience is the vast sea of influences one gets exposed to. University libraries are just the ticket for getting that exposure. I lived in Scott Quad my first year at school which was possibly the closest you could get to the school's library without sleeping as a vagrant on the main green. Row upon row of large fat books filled with full color photos of art seemed to reach out to me. I explored, found that the number of artists I'd never heard of was countless, and so much of their work fascinating. In this manner I encountered painters and sculptors from all periods of history, favoring the moderns at the time.

To call Larry Rivers my favorite artist would be a misnomer, but for sure I identified with the originality and passion with which he created his work. As a young art student, I found inspiration when viewing his work. He had studied with Hans Hoffman but rejected abstract art, choosing instead an approach that gave viewers something to grapple with, figures and forms rather than fields of color or designs. 

A Ukrainian Jew born in the early twenties, he emerged as a successful painter of central influence in the 1950s New York circle with numerous shows and accolades. In the early 1960s Rivers lived in the Chelsea Hotel, the selfsame residence as many other notables like Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin, Dylan Thomas, Arthur C. Clarke and others. 

If nothing else he was exceedingly productive. Making art is what he did, and I liked the liberated sense with which he attacked his work. You can see examples of his work here.

Originally published April 2010.

The Longest Rivers in the United States

Louisville on the Ohio River

I started watching Ken Burns' documentary of the Lewis and Clark expedition that had been commissioned by Thomas Jefferson. When they first began preparing for the trip the Louisiana Purchase has not yet taken place and when it finally did, these were the first men to see what Jefferson had purchased.

Their journey, which began in 1804, took them up the Missouri River through Iowa, Nebraska the Dakotas and Montana, then across the Rockies with the final destination being the Pacific Ocean, which they reached in November 1805.

The purpose of this little blog post isn't to summarize the Lewis & Clark expedition, but rather to briefly talk about rivers. 

It's astonishing how much has changed in little over 200 years. I can't even imagine what the world will look like 200 years from now or how history books will describe this period. Back then there were no roads yet. Rivers were the roads of yesteryear. When we reflect on all the major cities in our country you'll notice how they sit at the edge of bodies of water--oceans, lakes and rivers. Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland. In fact, look at the list of cities with an NFL football team and nearly all can be found with a waterway at their feet. (Desert-bound Las Vegas is probably the one exception, though its proximity to Lake Mead and Hoover Dam resolves that problem.)

A bridge across the Mississippi in Minneapolis

While Abe Lincoln was a young attorney in Illinois he saw the future of transportation when he became involved in a lawsuit between riverboats and a railroad bridge. The bridge was blocking the ability of the riverboat to service the river. "Bridges are not welcome here!"

Lincoln spent time studying the issue and came to realize that railroads were the future and somehow a compromise would have to be achieved. It could never be either/or. Years later, this experience as a young man became a see that flowered, leading to the ambitious transcontinental railroad initiative.

* * * 

So, this is a trivia game. What are the ten longest rivers in the United States? What I will do is list them here in the incorrect order. See if you can list them in their correct order. I think you'll be surprised.  

Rio Grande River

Red River

Columbia River

Yukon River

Ohio River

Missouri River

Colorado River

Mississippi River

Arkansas River

Snake River

 * * * 

The Duquesne Incline in Pittsburgh, above the Monongahela.

Photos courtesy Gary Firstenburg

Here's a link to his website. Ye shall be impressed.

www.firstinphoto.smugmug.com

Missouri (2341 mi.), Mississippi (2202 mi.), Yukon River (3190 mi.) Rio Grande (1759 mi.), Colorado (1450 mi.), Arkansas (1443 mi.), Columbia (1243 mi.), Red (1125 mi.), Snake (1040 mi.), Ohio (979 mi.)

Related Links
Rivers!
The One River, Many Stories Project
Watching the River Flow: Dylan Wrestles with His Inner Self

Watching the River Flow--Dylan Wrestles With His Complicated Inner Self

"All rivers run into the sea, and yet the sea is not full." ~Eccles. 1:7

Here's a place I like to go to watch the river flow. 

Some of the great books that I've read featuring rivers include Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through, Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, Nobel Prize-winning author V.S.Naipaul's A Bend in the River, Thomas Wolfe's Of Time and the River, Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Herman Hesse's Siddhartha. This past year I began an interesting book called River of Doubt about Teddy Roosevelt's journey up the Amazon. Hollywood films featuring rivers include Deliverance, The African Queen, Apocalypse Now and The Man from Snowy River, among a host of others.

At one time rivers were the primary means of transportation. Before the infrastructure of highways and byways, of rails and roads, the rivers were our transportation routes, hence all the major cities that we find along bodies of water. In Herman Hesse's novella Siddhartha, the river is a symbol. As he encountered the river in various stages of his life, its wisdom was revealed to him as it reflected his soul.

By this river I want to stay, thought Siddhartha... Tenderly, he looked into the rushing water, into the transparent green, into the crystal lines of its drawing, so rich in secrets. Bright pearls he saw rising from the deep, quiet bubbles of air floating on the reflecting surface, the blue of the sky being depicted in it. With a thousand eyes, the river looked at him, with green ones, with white ones, with crystal ones, with sky-blue ones.

I think I associate this song with Siddhartha because I was reading Herman Hesse around that time of my life when this song, and then the album, came out. But Bob Dylan's "Watching the River Flow" is a different kind of contemplation.  Recorded in March 1971 it was released as a single after which it appeared on his Greatest Hits, Volume II. It's a more energized song than the one he wrote with Roger McGuinn for Easy Rider. "The river flows, flows to the sea, wherever that river goes I want to be." (I used to play a harmonica lick with that when I was in college. It was very relaxing.)

The power in "Watching the River Flow" comes from the inner conflict that sits at the core of this story. It appears to be an autobiographical sketch that correlates with theologian Paul Tillich's intimate autobiographical sketch On the Boundary. In it Tillich explores the various polarities of his life and how they influenced him in different ways, between city and country, between social classes, between reality and imagination, between theory and practice, etc.

At the beginning of the song the narrator's been all night at an all-night cafe, "walking to and fro." This to and fro is the first clue of his inner restlessness, his life on the boundary between competing desires, two competing selves. There's a universality in this image as we all must learn to manage the polarities in our lives.

I love the matter-of-fact storytelling, similar to "I went to see the gypsy...saw him in a big hotel, he smiled when he saw me coming..." --just telling what happened, simple things, yet so much more. And in that song to he's been up all night so as to see the sun coming up "on a little Minnesota town."

As dawn is breaking, he here heads to a bank of sand by the riverside to mull things and watch the river flow.

What’s the matter with me
I don’t have much to say
Daylight sneakin’ through the window
And I’m still in this all-night café
Walkin’ to and fro beneath the moon
Out to where the trucks are rollin’ slow
To sit down on this bank of sand
And watch the river flow

This is a person very different from Siddhartha. Dylan is youth, Siddhartha full of years. Dylan is restless, Siddhartha inwardly at peace.

Wish I was back in the city
Instead of this old bank of sand
With the sun beating down over the chimney tops
And the one I love so close at hand
If I had wings and I could fly
I know where I would go
But right now I’ll just sit here so contentedly
And watch the river flow

The real Dylan was raising a family at this time. He had some little ones to look after, a father role to play. He states he'll sit here contentedly, sharing this quiet life with the one he loves. And yet... As he notices people in disagreements, it might be that he notices this external feature because he has his own disagreements within himself.

People disagreeing on all just about everything, yeah
Makes you stop and all wonder why
Why only yesterday I saw somebody on the street
Who just couldn’t help but cry
Oh, this ol’ river keeps on rollin’, though
No matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow
And as long as it does I’ll just sit here
And watch the river flow

We live in a world today where there's more verbal conflict than ever. It might be best for all of us to get off social media and read more books, or sit on riverbanks.

People disagreeing everywhere you look
Makes you wanna stop and read a book
Why only yesterday I saw somebody on the street
That was really shook
But this ol’ river keeps on rollin’, though
No matter what gets in the way and which way the wind does blow
And as long as it does I’ll just sit here
And watch the river flow

Watch the river flow
Watchin’ the river flow
Watchin’ the river flow
But I’ll sit down on this bank of sand
And watch the river flow

Copyright © 1971 by Big Sky Music; renewed 1999 by Big Sky Music

He began by asking, "What's the matter with me?" This is interesting because his accusation is turned inward. He's not saying, "Why are you so screwed up?" He's not finger-pointing. (He's not finger-painting either, but I'm curious if he'd paint his masterpiece with brushes or some other tool.)

He ends by taking a seat at the riverside. There's something refreshing and healing about rivers and water. They can be dangerous, too, when they rage and overrun their banks. But rivers, like people, have their rhythms.

Dylan has played this song 500 times live. Here is a YouTube video that has the first two of these live performances from 1978, courtesy someone who calls himself Mr. Tambourine Man. This is not a high-end production, but it's historical value can be underscored.

* * * *

Love the energy Joe Cocker delivers in his version of the song.

Rivers are cited more than three dozen times in Dylan's songs. His Hibbing home wasn't that far from the headwaters of the Mississippi and a rare triple watershed. Every river begins somewhere.

You can find insights from Robert Shelton, Greil Marcus, Clint Heylin, Christopher Ricks and others here on Wikipedia.

For a nice closure here, let's borrow these lines from Oscar Hammersteiin.

Ol' man river,
Dat ol' man river
He mus' know sumpin'
But don't say nuthin',
He jes' keeps rollin'
He keeps on rollin' along. 

* * * *

This week is Duluth Dylan Fest, a virtual event this year due to the literal disruption caused by the pandemic. For the first time you can participate from anywhere without being here. For the schedule of event, culminating Sunday on Bob's 79th birthday, visit Duluth Dylan Fest Goes Virtual