Collection

Congratulations Colin Smith, on being PUBLISHED! By an agent! At this amusing post singing the praises of The Perfect Agent on the BookEnds Literary Agency blog.

Gary Corby points out the interesting and useful fact that The Silk Road was not the beginning of European silk trading. Super handy for him, writing about ancient Greece; and, in that vein, it's also an instructive look into the way historical fiction authors make decisions about what we use and don't from popular sources.

For more on silk, this time its strategic role in WWII, and a wider look at the ingenuity - and national *importance* - of fashion under restrictive conditions, please read Celia Rees' post at The History Girls. It's a great piece of perspective on how we got where we are - and who we once were, compared to who we are now. This is another of those examples of how fashion is more than frivolity and its depth of importance for us as human beings.

Jeff Sypeck has me DYING of Teh Internets, because the idea of someone reading a writer's work and creating music from it is more wonderful a form of interaction and inspiration than I even hope for. But now I'm totally hoping for something like this, some day.

Kim Rendfield posts about the complexities of slavery in a very different time from antebellum America - a world where someone might sell themselves into slavery and freedom had no Railroad. In Ax, I didn't examine slavery in any depth, though it is depicted throughout. In Wippy, I'll be taking a much, MUCH closer look at the institution as it was inherited from Rome, and practiced in Gaul and Constantinople. A slave is a major character. I'm leaving the environs Ax shared with Kim Rendfield's works, but she's not escaping my bookmarks!

The History Blog has its usual worthwhile analysis and excellent links about New York's marker for the Wall Street/Pearl Street slave market. Of the 38 markers in Lower Manhattan ... this will be the first acknowledging the role of slaves in building New York City. Interesting, too, are the comments, which reflect a general consensus that Northern states are absolved of guilt in America's slave history. Not so much - and look where it stood. Wall Street.

The History Blog is also revisiting automata - so if that creeps you out, do NOT click here. Yes, boys and girls, it is a creeping BABY automaton. And so much more. Racialized (that is to say, racist) automata - including a deeply disturbing mockup of a Sojourner Truth by no (other) name at all. And an electric cane which may or may not be good for you for some reason or other, though  “the effect of a gentle galvanic current on the human organization is not in the present state of electrical and physiological science fully explained.” Um.