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Haha - Tom Williams best book review I've read in a good while. Spoiler: it's atrocious!

Oh my gosh, Herculon. That's one of those words guaranteed to take me to a very specific period of childhood, like heatilator. Cool posts, both, and the first link is smart, warm, and very in-depth about the world as some of us remember it - scratchy, brown, not always forgiving, and warm.

 Strange Company has been a simmering new favorite for a while now. This post is a great example of why - a nicely written, in-depth look at one of the oddments of history - in this case, a look at the gruesome depths to which vanity can take us . Fun!

Edited to add more from Tom Williams - this post about Ely Cathredral is a wonderful piece of history. Part 2 here. Both have stunning photographs, and the architectural story, as it tends to do, is also the story of politics, people, and the land itself.

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Dunking doughnuts outside the 54th floor, Louis and Mrs. Armstrong at the Sphinx, a woman neck-deep in grapes, Malyshka the Russian Space Dog of Sputnik II ... oh and so indescribably MUCH more. Photos from The Atlantic's amazing archive.

In fuzzy-history-we-think-we-know: did you realize that the Equal Rights Amendment passed forty-six years ago, almost to the month? But it has never been ratified. Yes, ladies - and women too - there is still a deficit of two states' ayes to enforce what even CONGRESS was able to say yes to, way on back in 1972. More than a quarter of states in the theoretically United States still don't care to accept the amendment, two generations on. I am not proud to note my home state remains a holdout.

Tom Williams has a good post, reviewing New Grub Street by George Gissing. As interesting as the work looks, one of Tom's points is meta - that the work contains the flaws it rails against. He also points out that the complaints of the fictional author in New Grub Street are still with us today. To take this one more layer of meta, this morning before I saw his post, I happened to get up and turn on The Loves of Edgar Allen Poe as my background to waking up and getting ready. I was fascinated by its repeated commentary on a writer's raw deal in publishing, out of the Poe character's mouth, and got curious about the world of publishing circa, say 1941 or 1942 (the movie came out in 1942). Little is to be found about Brian Foy, who wrote the screenplay, in a cursory search, but he seems to have started life as a child entertainer before becoming a writer - easy to imagine he was exploited in more than one way in his given professions. I leave the link to Tom's post with only the observation that there is either hope or despair in knowing that it's never been easy in publishing.

Tom has another post of interest - short, beautiful, and poignant - about the Palace of Peace, the elite, and rumors of war. Sigh.

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How much fun is a good debunking? Particularly one that goes after those clickbait farms that so adore spreading BS which, unfortunately, people seem to lap up like creature-milk. Please enjoy ... the true history of gruesome Victorian photography of the dead! Not. Heh. (The click beyond: tear catchers and the phrase "each of us can choose our own belief." Maybe meant to be funny; but YET another symptom in the hardening American resistance to *facts*. And now sigh.)

Ummmmmmm(ami) - women's emansoupation - here is a tale of tasty seasoning, which I now feel the need to go buy so I can put it in my new spice rack.

Dominick Tao, an American veteran, is a great writer ... with a meaningful story.

Do you remember Powers of Ten? Here's another great animation, graphically representing just how far humanity has gone into the Earth.

And finally, the old two-space. I trained myself out of this habit over the space of a few days just in the past four years or so. My resistance to change (apart from being a Virginian) was seething irritation at the single-spacers' screaming insistence that ye olde River of White was apparently horrifying to them, and that has always struck me as a ludicrous stance. My feeling is, what is so damn gorgeous about a giant, unbroken wall of text? Ahh, but: count on the Arrant Pedant to produce a detailed, and MUCH more cogent discussion on the subject. (Also: yay, he is back!)

Project Gutenberg Rocks, and Other Stories

Character is one of England's noblest and most deliberate products, but some Englishmen have it to excess.

My lunchtime reading of late has been H. G. Wells. We all know ABOUT his work – we all know about The Time Machine and Moreau and The Invisible Man, anyway – or we all know the movies – or know there *are* movies, but can’t remember whether we’ve seen them or not …

But how many of you have read H. G. Wells? Until this past couple of weeks or so, I can say, I had not.

I started with an anthology on Project Gutenberg – The Hidden Door and Other stories, and have come upon an unexpected gem in The Marriage. Hidden Door shows a wonderful range, and, unfortunately, not a tiny little tidbit of deeply hideous racism**, intentionally or not embedded in the most gruesome story of the bunch. Some of these pieces are on the pedestrian side, and some – from the vantage point of the twenty-first century – may feel been-there/done-that for some readers looking for adventure. The final one misses a truly intriguing opportunity, but is still interestingly conceived. The Star, I would say, is in many ways the star of the show – an asteroid-coming-at-Earth prototype, the journalistic remove of which ends up delivering rather a remarkable blow in the end.

The Marriage – which I haven’t finished reading yet, but is a GOOD enough read I feel the need to babble about it – is another example of the literature we now view as antique, which has a wonderful nimbleness of language and irresistible wit. It’s even funnier than the dog in Lady Audley’s Secret - and at greater length. Written in 1912, when the man and his career were seasoned and confident, the characterization of a twenty-year-old female character is remarkably good (less remarkable, perhaps, is how assured it is – but I’ve read male authors’ feminine voices before which, though clearly written with all the *assurance* in the world, were more difficult to believe), and the family dynamic is recognizeable and alive, not entirely the relic of a forgotten and dusty old fusty English age.

Wells at this point in his life was philosophical and experienced, and he brings that to bear in support of the humor and plot at work in Marriage. I am absorbed and cannot wait to see where Wells goes.

(S)he had over her large front teeth lips that closed quietly and with a slight effort after her speeches, as if the words she spoke tasted well and left a peaceful, secure sensation in the mouth.

**I also don’t want to give short shrift to the point above, about racism. It’s a trick of our culture, 100 or more years later, that a white woman with tons of privilege and a different point to make, can breeze by a point like that and get away with it – but even if I meant to make a different point, the world is still not one in which it’s reasonable to gloss over bigotry as if it were not there.

“The Cone” is the story in which That Word we all know too well is prominent. The description of a particular character of color, as well as the omniscient voice’s judgement of quite a number of races, detailed with highly squeamish results, is difficult to reconcile to the biographical facts of Wells’ stated outlook on prejudice and racial tyranny. Yet I can’t write this prose off, as a reader, with the old “It was the mindset” dismissal that lets me concentrate on something else in the face of virulent details. When people like me fail to observe things like this, we give ourselves the excuse not to see them in life, and … we don’t live in a world where that is a tenable position. There is no defense for dismissing the past, in a present in which the same problems exist; to answer #BlackLivesMatter with #AllLivesMatter as if that puts paid to the devaluation of an entire class within the “all” of our society.

The more I face the privilege I possess, even as the rarefied and perhaps irrelevant exercise in personal creativity that is writing a novel in which not everybody is white and well-fed and well-off and unthinkingly, unblinkingly secure … the more I understand that one facet of this blog – particularly if I gain any success – is to deal with the subtext and the offstage workings that I DON’T, perhaps, write about.

It is unfortunate that, in my recent attempts to deal with this issue, I’ve couched it entirely in the ME ME ME ME ME ME ME context of MY novel not selling, and hoping to do better with one that contains more diversity. I see the problems there. I see problems in myself I may never have the courage to write about publicly. But I also know that this blog is only one voice, and my voice in the world, the one I want to have heard, is that of an author. And so, knowingly – even if incorrectly – the content here is filtered that way. This may be detrimental. Maybe some day, I’ll have the courage to put down the mirror and stop making everything about my own reflection. In the meantime, I am learning.

Dresses Undressed

Nabbed this when I saw it at Two NerdyHistory Girls.  Though the music is a hair sad, and the veins in the ghostly hands which appear here and there are ... weirdly animated and eerie ... the CLOTHES are beautiful, gorgeously constructed, and this look at all the layers of dress in this period is instructive and interesting.  The micro close up lace shot is as gorgeous as it looks like it would be from this preview still, by the way.

Enjoy!

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In a stunning turn of events, I found two history/archaeology links *not* via the History Blog.

First, Mojourner sent me a look into a Merovingian grave.  Ahh, I do love a good grave good.

Next, courtesy of a link at Gary Corby's blog, we have ... a cup from which Periclese himself may have quaffed?

Two Nerdy History Girls look at western/caucasian haircare of the early nineteenth century.  Makes me think about the No 'Poo movement.  (Yes.  I see the joke in those last three words.  Settle down, kids.)

And finally Tom Williams has some interesting observations about his audience's thoughts on sex in his novels.

Edited to add:  The History Blog did catch up to Mojourner today!

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The History Blog has some very nice details on the recent geek-bonanza, the sale of the first Wolverine artwork.  One of the most significant pieces of original comic art - and a fun story for some of my graphic-loving readers.

At the HB once again, take a look at a Conquest era skeleton.  Well, as for ME anyway, this sort of thing is fascinating.

It's not my era, but it's dead-on my territories (with Ax, anyway) - explore the Roman camp at Thuringia ... and their bread ovens, no less.  More thanks to the HB.

Two Nerdy History Girls have also been busy - here we get a look at the history of DIY, with cottonian book bindings.  They're rather lovely.

TNHG are also explaining what a hair guard is (with a very nice, brief look at whether Dickens really was paid by the word!).  Victorians were quite ingenious with human hair weaving.

Bloomin' Bicycling, Barefoot Little Heathen, and There Shall Be A Multitude of Hats

Though the transcription here (from the digized copy of an old newspaper clipping, included on the same page as an image) suffers, the points made by the writers of letters to an editor asking “Should women wear bloomers?” in the Los Angeles Herald, circa 1895) are worth winkling out – that clothing defines far more than the statement of an individual, but their affiliations within their societies, their communities, their expectations of themselves (and others … should those critics mired in the depths of vulgarity see and judge).

(Quotations left with transcription errors intact.)

The ill health of American women has long been deplored by all who have thought on the subject and all agree that lack of vigorous out-door exercise has been the chief reason for that Ul health. The bicycle promises to be the greteat boon to health that American women have known. It should oh that accoont he welcomed by men and women alike,for men suffer quite as much from tbe Ul health of women ns women themselves. Tbe continued newspaper comments on tbe suoject frighten tbe nervous, timid women wbo would be most helped physically by tbe use of the bicycle, and wbo would, but for this constant criticism, be using tbe health-giv-ing wbeel.

Tbat tbeie ia anything immoral to be feared from its adoption it the argument pf a sensualist, and shows the depth of vulgarity to wbich criticism may descend.

I have words of censure for the immodest exposures of person tbat every ball room furnishes, and for tbe extravagance of style which dictates tbat yards of material aball be put into sleeves serving no purpose but to jostle tbeir owner into prominence, and force her upon the attention of every passer-by. I abhor the untidiness of the long skirt on the street, and I deplore the wickednessof the tightly corseted waist, but for tbe bloomers, which make out-door exercise for women a fascinating delight, I nave only commendation and admiration.  ...  

My profile says “I contain multitudes” and one of the central ways this has always been expressed in my life is through the way I dress.

When I was a little girl, I was MAD for “twirly skirts.”  There are a LOT of you reading right now who are immediately nodding; you know precisely the garment I’m describing, and you remember exactly the appeal of a dress or a skirt, cut full, which either belled or entirely fanned out when you spun in a circle, round and round.  I can’t say how many conversations I’ve had in which fond memories of The Twirly Skirt arose, but it’s something many of us recall as being a fond and fun, and very particular part of childhood.  I have memories, too, of a certain flame-haired imp I know, not so very far past these years (perhaps not at all), the sight of whose vivid coloring, in a bright pink tutu skirt, capering across the green of a lawn only the Pacific Northwest could produce – who might nod as gravely as any old lady my age might, understanding the joys of twirling across the grass, barefoot, in a properly designed flounce, with a properly calibrated spin …;

But I wore many things other than twirly skirts, as most of us did.  Shorts were fun, and bathing suits, and – oh joy! – the new Mary Jane patent leather shoes every year, in time for Easter.  Because – there was Sunday Best, and then there was EASTER Sunday Best.  White tights, a pale green dress with a pink satin flower, or yellow bow – and patent leather shoes.

You didn’t get to wear Sunday Best every day, and so it held both the excitement of a luxury held in some reserve, but also the powerful association of pretty things with A Sense of Occasion.  To this day, I still dress up for church, though it’s by no means necessary to do so in my congregation.  Dressing on a Sunday morning carries with it the memory of family bustle, the feeling that you present yourself at your best for G-d and the gathering.  Dressing on a Sunday morning – wearing those things I wasn’t allowed to wear “just” for school – had all the sartorial anticipation, beauty, and pleasure of a party dress.  Dressing on a Sunday morning was probably half the means by which I could be persuaded into two hours (Sunday school, then the church service itself) to behave at all like a civilized child and go to church at all.  If I went to boring-old-church, at least I got to do so all decked out.

And yet, after church, coming home and changing into play clothes was exhilarating, too.  I learned the utility and comfort of different clothes early – and so, I learned early, that as much fun as it is to get dressed up, there is also reward in “boring” every day clothes, in which I could curl up and read, or run around outside, or hang off my mom’s elbow, whining about how there’s nothing in the world at all to do.  (It is a sad truth that the latter of these comprised perhaps the bulk of my childhood …)

Clothing imparts a rhythm to life.  Sundays had this heightened activity in terms of wardrobe; weekdays, I’d come home from school and almost certainly not change until time for beddy-bye and a nightgown.  Going out to supper with my family, we’d dress up a bit, but not like for church.  If family or friends were coming over, we may not change, but there’d be a hair-combing and a bit of a wash on tap (yes – har) for us, after a quick but effective inspection.  The energy my mom imparted, from more attention or frustration for those occasions calling for more formality or visibility, set the energy for given events.

In me, this translated into an ongoing extension of that same sine wave of intensity in my habits of dress.  I don’t get stressy over work clothes, but I do plan what I wear and how I hope to look – in recent times, this has resulted in the careful modulation of Interviewing Clothes worn on days I didn’t want anyone to think too hard about how I was looking, and an adjustment from a fairly formal place of employment to a new job in which I can get away with glittery nail polish – but am still forty-six years old, and not trying to look like a teenager.  I’ve gained a little freedom to indulge the Frowsy Middle-Aged Authorial look around here … but I’ve also lost my key spectator, too.  Because dressing for work is dressing for those friends who’ll ooh-and-aah over the latest new pashmina in my collection, or the great little vintage shoes I bought while out shopping with my friend and former workmate Cute Shoes, or (on rare occasion) showing off that I’ve dropped a pound or two.  Dressing for work is about indulging in seasonal change by indulging in new colors, and pieces that have been in storage for a while.

But dressing for work, I have found, has lost MUCH of its charm since Cute Shoes and I no longer get to work together.  And here we  have the truth of the statement:  that women dress for *each other* …;

After work clothes, for me these days, it’s dog-walking pants.  For shopping trips and errands, it’s jeans and either brisk or bohemian casual tops or sweaters.  For church, still, it’s low heels and dresses or skirts.  I never feel I fit well in my nicer pants these days (and there lies at least one sewing project I’ve been putting off for too long).

There are men and women, I know, who never have to change their mode of dress, or who don’t want to.  TV reality stars seem particularly prone to enslavement to an “image” – heavy makeup/false eyelashes, ridiculous stillettos, and evening and/or cocktail dress no matter the day, time, or occasion.  Certain tatty magazines or shows produce GASPING images of “stars without makeup” as if (a) the stars’ looks reside only in pots of pigment, and/or (b) celebrities actually *sin* by ever appearing in anything but their approved, stylist-generated masks and costumes.  It looks to me exhausting, and surely must take all the fun out of getting dressed up.  Their states of undress are duly recorded and regurgitated for audiences, talking around makeup artists or their stylists or supposed-servants as they are outfitted for some scandals-on-tap scripted fiasco, providing entertainment as we see them how they “really” are (always a minimum of 75% of the way through any given process, so those “no makeup” shockers are actually not to be).

Likewise, there are certain people – famous and not – who formulate a more particular look for themselves early, and somehow end up unable to get out of it or develop it beyond a certain point.  There’s a particular starlet, actually not far from my own age in fact, who’s spent some years rocking the insouciant vintage pinup girl thing, and as we age, I find myself wondering – how is this woman going to be able to grow old?  Even Bettie Page stopped modeling at last – and, though honestly I think she made a very lovely old woman (the photo or two of her in her seventies are difficult to find, but they are out there), she consciously preserved her image by retiring both from it and the public eye, so her actual youth would never be compromised by ever-diminishing returns in the attempting-to-hold-on-to-it department.  One of the truly odd things about that statement, above, that I don’t look my age, is that … it is because I’m not trying to look younger, per se, either.  There isn’t too much jarringly age-inappropriate fadishness drawing attention to how old I really am – yet there isn’t too much holdover-from-when-I-*was*-younger, either.  The clue-catcher 80s bangs don’t give me away, nor the untied LA Gear high-tops and scrunched down socks.  If I look young enough, it’s precisely because I’m not working too hard to do so.

We’ve all seen examples of those who do; the pinups who end up, as Queen Mary was once described as appearing, basically enameled into an image they’ve lost forever.  Epoxied, some of them.  Or those who gracefully let go, and are castigated for ageing.

It goes both ways, of course, with those who can’t/don’t/won’t dress up for any occasion either.  I’ve become acquainted of That One Person who has a matched set of sneakers/hoodies in multiple neon colors.  It happens to be someone I like, and it’d be asinine in the first degree to think this person needs to vary their wardrobe beyond the eyeball-smacking palette.  We don’t all have the same rhythms, and why should my multitudes apply to ANYONE but myself?  As long as we’re all clean and covered to the current mores of society/our friends/our office/whatever, it’d be boring as hell for us all to dress the *same*.  And, of course, the sneaks and hoodies look won’t age poorly; someone in their eighties or whatever is perfectly endearing, running around not letting him or herself become invisible, and blissfully exempt from any uniform of expectations the rest of us may choose to hew to.

… and when I am old, I shall say to heck with wearing purple – or a red hat – I shall wear whatever is comfortable to me in whatever mood I find.  And – bless me – I’m old enough to do that now!  When I am old ... I shall wear *hats*.