817 pages, plus footnotes/index. Help.
I keep putting this one off because it’s so heavy (literally) that I know it shall take at least one month if I read daily, and I am in the habit now of juggling as many as three books simultaneously (not literally). But I reeeeeaaally want to read it!
Okay I will breeze through “The Partly Cloudy Patriot” first. I am already on pace for over fifty books this year, twice my original stated goal.
Posted in Books and Reading | Comments Off on His Excellency
Scene: A Bank of America ATM in Berkeley, CA, 1997. I have traveled through time to talk to my past self.
Past Me: (withdraws a $10 bill from ATM, because that used to be possible)
Future Me: One day, decades from now, you will shed real tears over the man pictured on that ten, while listening to a song about the duel he lost.
Past Me: What? Who? (looks at money) Who is that?
Future Me: Sigh. It’s Alexander Hamilton.
Past Me: Who? Oh, right! “Aaron Burr!” From that milk ad.
Future Me: Right. So, that guy in the “Got Milk?” commercial?
Past Me: What about him?
Future Me: That’s you in 20 years.
Past Me: …
Fin
Posted in Hamilton | Comments Off on A Short Play
What a gloomy and gray day it has been. I took a long forest walk in a local park, noticing the stark colorless bareness of the vegetation around me, skinny gray tree trunks and dry leafless brown brambles curling along the earth, all silent except for the sound of thin brooks weaving through the wood. I visit this park more in the summer, when it is bursting with lush greenery and bird song, the whole of it enclosed in a canopy of bright leaves.
Here is a fun fact: while in Paris, Thomas Jefferson sent his friend Madison numerous gifts, one of which was a pedometer. Wait. There is an 18th century pedometer??! I told you people haven’t changed that much!
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Walk in the Forest
I don’t know much about James Monroe. Last night I started his section in the James Madison book, and got a bit more up to speed about who he was. One interesting tidbit I want to share rather encapsulates why I have become so attached to the study of human history here in the US.
At one point in the 1780s, Monroe — who tended to be very emotional and a bit insecure — complained in a letter to a friend that Madison and Jefferson had “hurt my feelings.”
This passage stopped me for a moment. We don’t think of these long-gone founders as having real emotions very often, of showing a trace of vulnerability, in fact I didn’t even know such things could be articulated back then, particularly by a man. When I think of the phrase “my feelings are hurt”, it conjures images of something very modern, maybe dating from the 20th century at the earliest.
But nope. Here we have a six-foot-tall soldier, a lawmaker, a founding father, confessing that not only does he have feelings, but that they can be hurt. Of course I think Lafayette said this kind of thing a lot too, his heart was an open book to his friends.
Humanity is constant, it changes, but it also stays exactly the same. We think that we can escape our nature and disappear into screens and distractions, but evolution is more powerful than we know. Connecting with our ancestors as fellow people who share these feelings and experiences is what brings them alive. Many history books, especially the ones taught in schools, are dry and boring affairs full of dates and places and names of men, but few stories anyone can relate to. But those stories are there, they just have to be searched out.
And on yesterday’s dream post: of course this morning I dreamed about riding on a bus. As usual, I was in SF. I disembarked and then realized I had left my suitcase on board. I tried to chase the bus, but it drove away.
Posted in History | Comments Off on Commonality
Did people of the 1700s record their dreams? Psychology was in its most embryonic stage, so while of course humans (and animals!) have always had dreams, I wonder what those of the 18th century thought of them? Did they consider them prophetic, meaningful, frightening? Probably all three.
And what did they dream about? I know my dreams have always included the artifices of my environment — cars, elevators, telephones, airplanes, television — machines.
So I imagine that the people I have been studying must have had dreams full of the elements of their own world. I imagine dreams of horses, firelight, snowstorms, nature. Perhaps of newspapers and books. Dreams of chores, of work. And of course, of people, always people.
Did they share common themes that humans have always dreamed about? Teeth falling out, or discovering oneself half-dressed in a crowd? Did they dream about falling, or even flying? Revolutionary War vets must have had horrible nightmares of the battles they experienced.
Maybe it was considered strange or embarrassing to share these things except among the most intimate companions, and certainly not written in letters. I don’t know. Of course the letters we have preserved are mostly “important” ones, but plain folk also wrote to each other every day, and we can’t know what little personal stories they might have shared.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged dreams | Comments Off on Deep Sleep
Today I did a lot of reading. I imagine this will soon be my primary occupation, as I am weaning from social media and find very little of interest on television. I think a part of me seeks to retreat into a more natural state of slowness and silence, perhaps that goes hand-in-hand with my ongoing interest in the world of the 18th and 19th centuries. If it brings my heart and mind some peace, then I’ll take it. I already know how prone I am to anxiety and depression, particularly in the month of February, historically. That month approaches soon and I will take all necessary caution to stave off the spiral.
It of course doesn’t mean avoiding human connection — on the contrary. I prefer a more authentic and intimate connection, if one is to be made, than the false and superficial connections afforded by social media. So I am making plans to meet in person with friends, spending time with my dear family, writing emails, attempting internet conversations that aren’t being broadcast to the whole world. Ideally I would be writing letters, but almost nobody I know (perhaps even less than that) would write back to me, I’m afraid.
This morning read a bit more about James Madison and his extremely close friendship with Thomas Jefferson. And people accused Hamilton of being a puppet-master behind the scenes; look in the mirror, Thomas.
And I finished the huge first book in the trilogy about Theodore Roosevelt. There are two more volumes, I think they will have to wait a while. The last couple chapters were depressing — viewed through my contemporary lens. Roosevelt was a staunch Republican, and he believed in environmental conservation, corporations paying fair taxes, the rights of workers, and honesty and integrity in government. The slide into fascism and the embrace of anti-intellectualism was very, very long, but it was steady. He would be absolutely disgusted if he could know what has happened to his party.
Posted in History | Tagged Theodore Roosevelt | Comments Off on Four books done
FYI, my humble blog is not a place where I will regularly discuss the Resistance, unless it becomes absolutely necessary to do so (let us pray that does not happen). Instead I choose to talk about whatever I am reading or studying, or other events of everyday life here in my nation’s brightest blue state. I won’t let myself be defined entirely by ugliness and despair — that lends victory to tyranny and terrorism.
That wine with George on the label was very good indeed. I learned later that evening from a friend that the same winery sells a different bottle of Zinfandel with Hamilton’s most photogenic face on the label. I would like to hunt it down somehow, partially because I am told it is also high quality.
Read some more this morning about James Madison and the deal to place the capital on the Potomac River. The musical “Hamilton” (of course) fails to mention how very influential Washington was in this deal, perhaps more so than anyone else. The musical also puts the compromise in 1791 somehow, though it took place in the summer of 1790, almost a year before Hamilton began his idiotic affair (in the play, those events are swapped, I’m sure for “dramatic flow”). So in other words, the debt assumption deal really had little if anything to do with his exhaustion and stress leading him into adultery or whatever. He was just kind of a slutty guy with many, many issues around attachments, sex, and coming to the rescue of “helpless” women. And he happened to choose exactly the worst mistress on this occasion.
Posted in History | Tagged Hamilton, wine | Comments Off on Washington on my side. The man, not the city.
So if no one is reading this, I guess I can really just pontificate at length! *types into the void*
Anyway, I saw this at Trader Joe’s today:
Well, we do know that Washington did love his wine. But was he a Federalist? Perhaps in all but name. He didn’t like political factions or partisanship, but his views did align almost exactly with Federalists Hamilton and Madison, that is until Madison split from Hamilton and became an ally of his BFF Jefferson, a Democratic Republican. I later found out that this winery is called “Federalist” and they put famous founders and presidents on their labels. Their most expensive bottle is a red blend called “Dueling Pistols.”
I did go swimming this afternoon, for the second time in as many days. My endurance is crap so I have to be consistent if I want that to improve. In the sauna afterward, there were two people discussing feminism — a young black man and an older lady who I think was Latina? Anyway at first I was like, ugh I want my quiet peaceful sauna! But fortunately their conversation was a favorable one so I found myself joining in for a moment. Then I had to excuse myself as it was a sauna… and very hot.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Washington | Comments Off on Talking to myself like Alexander Hamilton, minus the genius
situation
late 15c., “place, position, or location,” from Medieval Latin situationem (nom. situatio), from Low Latin situatus, pp. of situare (see situate). Meaning “state of affairs” is from 1750; meaning “employment post” is from 1803.
onus
c.1640, from Latin onus (gen. oneris) “load, burden.” Hence legal L. onus probandi (1722), lit. “burden of proving.”
coffee
c.1600, from Italian caffe, from Turkish kahveh, from Arabic qahwah “coffee,” said originally to have meant “wine,” but perhaps rather from Kaffa region of Ethiopia, a home of the plant (Coffee in Kaffa is called buno). Much initial diversity of spelling, including chaoua. Appeared in Europe c.1515-1519. Introduced to England by 1650; by 1675 England had more than 3,000 coffee houses. Coffee plantations established in Brazil 1727.
And now, you know.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Word Origins | Comments Off on Word Origins are Fun
I collect old road maps. Someone send me a few hundred dollars so I can frame a couple of them.
This one is from 1984, and is of New York City and Vicinity, and Long Island. Historical sites aplenty.
Hamilton Grange, in Harlem
Setauket, Long Island, principal setting in “Turn”
Weehawken Park, NJ
Another much older road map is from 1957, and is of the Northwestern States. It is beautiful.
On the back there are detail maps of cities and a map showing driving distances between cities. I remember using folding maps to guide my road trips ALL the time. It wasn’t as convenient as GPS but it actually made determining spatial relationships a lot more logical for the human mind.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Maps | Comments Off on Bygones