EXCERPTS FROM THE DAILY LEVEL # 1

Tuesday, September 1, 1998

THE LAST OF A SPECIES

Sea Level, N.C., July 27, 1998

.....oh hell, of course I knew Sailors' Snug Harbor at Staten Island, I used to catch the launch right across the street from it, to go to Bayonne, you know...no, I never went to the facility, nor had the curiosity to just walk across the street to look at it....I met some of the inmates in a bar that I happened to be in...they wandered around and the seamen 'd get them drunk, I mean, it was....oh yeah, eve-rybody knew about Snug Harbor ....there was always the standard joke, you know...'you can always go to Snug Harbor'....nobody had the intention to go, really...I didn't know the history of it until I came here....I made no effort to find out.....they never ever really gave it a lot of publicity, I mean....it's there....it's available....but now it's getting so difficult to get somebody in here, that the unions are running ads in their papers....well, the source is drying out....we're the last of a species, really....I mean, the maritime industry is most radically changed...it was about time, it had not changed much since Moses in a basket, for God's sake...I mean, all the old traditions that carried on for years and years and years....you can look at these ships here...they all have a mast, but they're actually displaced.... there's no use for them, but they still put them on ships....now, you see a ship, and it's a utilitarian 1) deal....it looks like hell...it's just a floating box with a doghouse set up on top of it...it looks like a seagoing version of the African Queen, for God's sake.... they don't build a ship for esthetics now...the lines of it, the way they look like....well, you could recognize a Dutch ship all over the world by the stern....it was always distinct, it had a sturdy look...just a little line that you could tell...

(Horace Twiford)

1) utilitarian = designed to be useful for a purpose rather than attractive

SNUG HARBOR / Bosun Pepe Fernando

Fear not my shipmate if ye are lost

Set sail by faith at any cost

And if the seas be foul and deep

In these my words your courage keep

Your shipmate I am, and always will be

No matter what the hell lies ahead for me

So set ye a course that is true and straight

And follow yon star to my open gate

Then drop your anchor on our friendly shore

And you will find that ours, is an open door

For within our halls you will always know

That you are welcome here

When there is no place, left to go.

(Pepe Fernando died at Sea Level, July 1998)

GLOSSARY

vessel:

- a hollow receptacle for fluid

- a large ship

- a person regarded as the recipient or exponent of a quality

FIRST WATER

Liquids

Liquids are bodies which do not have a definite shape and do not resist deformation. If a stretch or shear, even a small one, is exerted upon them, they alter their shape in response. In particular, they will respond to the force of gravity and alter their shape in such a way as to reduce their potential energy to a minimum. In response to gravity, such bodies will move downward and flatten out as much as possible; in doing so, they will take the shape of any vessel in which they might be.

The principle of the communicating vessels

This principle can be used to explain the observed fact that if a container of liquid contains two or more openings, to which are connected tubes of various shapes into which the liquid can rise, and if enough liquid is present in the container so that the level will rise in those tubes, the liquid will rise to the same height in each (fig. 1).

fig.1

(from: 'Understanding Physics' by I. Asimov)