Day 72: (DDRD 825): February 4, 2020
Well, this is it for the trilogy. I cracked open Volume 3 early this morning. It's 699 pages long including notes and index...632 text pages. So if I keep hitting it at 20 pages a day, which has seemed reasonable, I should be finishing up on March 6th, which would be DDRD 857. Because I have obsessive / compulsive / anal-retentive tendencies, I would like to finish one more book en toto by Daily Devotional Reading Day 1000. So I'll be looking for a book that is about 2,860 pages long. Hmmm. That's a fair amount of territory, ennit? Of course, that assumes that my math is right, so I'll do some checking up on that before The🌅Glorious🌅Day.
Meanwhile...today I read the foreplay stuff: Table of Contents, Maps and Graphs list, Illustrations list, Foreword. That took me to page 20. And even there I found some things that piqued my interest. For one thing, check out these Great Titles For Novels:
"How England Became an Island" and "The Invention of Siberia." I mean...come ON.
Here are some good stuffs which kind of set the stage:
and
"Is not the present after all in large measure the prisoner of a past that obstinately survives, and the past with its rules, its differences and its similarities, the indispensable key to any serious understanding of the present?"
page 20
Pretty excited to get going on this. Maybe excited enough to throw down another chunk of pages today, but first I really need to watch The Hudsucker Proxy, so we'll see where that goes. ☮📤
Day 73: (DDRD 826): February 5, 2020
Did end up reading another ten pages yesterday, so finished on page 30.
Today I made a trip to the library to pick up these two beauties--
--both of which were mentioned by Braudel in The Wheels of Commerce. (Not sure when Foucault came up, but see Day 68: DDRD 821: January 31, 2020 entry for Place de la République). Books always open up to other books and movies and paintings and people and...well, you know what kind of eyes she got. I don't always get around to following through on the follow-ups (barely got a foothold into The House of Life, I'm sorry to say), but I still love to run down the leads. It's one of the reasons I have so damned many books in my house. One thing leads to another.
At any rate...I'm going to try to watch Place de la République while I ride my stationary bike this morning (having determined--on the trip to the library--that it's way too cold to be walking out on the streets today). Maybe watch the other two films, too? Could happen.
And...did 60 minutes on the bike and watched Place de la République. Which is 94 minutes long, but I do my bike in 15 minute increments followed by a break, so I only had about ten minutes left when I'd finished biking. It worked out well on both fronts: distracted me from the unpleasantness of exercise and really got me interested in the work of Louis Malle...who was a very active presence in the film. He did most of the interviewing as he wandered the Place de la République. And he seemed like a very sweet, caring guy. So yes, I WILL watch those other two movies. And if I'm still in love with Louis at that point, I'll see what else there is to be seen.
As for this movie...it was quite interesting. Just little conversations with everyday people...many of whom were not so everyday. And several of them had repeat meetings with Louis, so you actually felt like you kind of knew them a little bit by the end of the film.
Here are my absolute favorite moments:
Man, do I know the weight of that thought.
And then there was this fellow--
--and when he said this (unfortunately he was not in frame then)--
--you didn't need to hear the rest of the sentence. As a matter of fact, he didn't even utter the rest of the sentence. But anybody would know what comes next, of course.
What the fuck IS it all about, Alfie?
And then there was this humble lady, who I really loved:
Yep. Wonderful movie.
As for today's reading...well, how about this from page 38:
"Let us salute en passant the need economists always feel to depart from the real world, the better to understand it."
I think that's pretty profound. Even moreso if you apply it to areas other than economists. In order to understand anything...up to and including life itself...maybe you have to depart from the real world in order to better understand it. Which would definitely be a good starting point if you wanted to posit the importance of literature and other arts. And maybe religion, too. Imagining a world with no religion might not be easy, even if you try, because religion is so central to an understanding of the world...in part because religion is only possible if you step outside of the world.
So there's that.
Also...
"For if one of the specific characters of the economy is that it extends beyond its own area, can the same not equally be said of the other social 'sets'? They all nibble at frontiers, seek to extend their territory and create their own Von Thünen circles." (45)
Thünen's model: the black dot represents a city; 1 (white) dairy and market gardening; 2 (green) forest for fuel; 3 (yellow) grains and field crops; 4 (red) ranching; the outer, dark green area represents wilderness where agriculture is not profitable.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Heinrich_von_Thünen#/media/File:Von_Thünen_circles_city.svg)
and
"...a loss is never the result of a single throw - nor indeed is a triumph. Success depends on seizing the opportunities of a given period, on doing so time and time again. And piling advantage on advantage." (50)
Read to page 51 today. Game on!
Day 74: (DDRD 827): February 6, 2020
From page 54:
Read to page 70.
Day 75 (DDRD 828): February 7, 2020
Stop me if this sounds familiar:
Nothing new under the 🌞, baby.
To page 90.
Day 76 (DDRD 829): February 8, 2020
The Word of the Day:
632 - 110 = 522 (26 days @ 20ppd)
Day 77 (DDRD 830): February 9, 2020
To page 120: 632 - 120 = 512 (25.6 days @ 20 ppd)
Day 78 (DDRD 831): February 10, 2020
On page 135...
...a Shake-speare allusion. I like that in a man.
Hamlet Act I, Scene ii
And on page 140...heavens to Murgatroyd, aNOTher typo:
Pretty clearly "and free to make its own decisions" is what is called for here. And btw, I'm still here, boys.
Also btw...you can probably tell that this page has some water damage. In fact, a big chunk of pages in this book show that damage. So I guess that's why I got it at such a bargain price. But I don't mind. It doesn't stink or anything, at least.
Read to page 140: 632 - 140 = 492 (24.6 days @ 20 ppd)
Day 79 (DDRD 832): February 11, 2020
Yep. Nothing new under the 🌞, right? I wanted to see where this line came from, so I checked up on that footnote right away--I usually wait until the end of the day's reading to look at them, but I was pretty sure I'd forget to get to it, so....
And it said
Which really wasn't all that helpful. So I had to do a little backtracking to find out who this B.N. person was...though I was pretty sure that it wouldn't really be all that helpful, since Ms. Fr. would seem to indicate that it was from an unpublished manuscript. An unpublished manuscript which was written in French, to boot. But hey, it's been awhile since this book was published, so I figured it was still worth a looksee.
And?
Well...as it turns out, B.N. is not a person, it's Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. So looks like I won't be finding the source of that bit of quote. Along the way, though, I did find out that there's a thing called Internet Archive (@ https://archive.org) where you can find, amongst many, many other things, the full text of all three volumes of Civilization and Capitalism, 16th - 18th Century. Which doesn't do me any good, but hey, there it is. If you want it.
P.S. I took Braudel to Joe's basketball practice tonight and knocked down a few more pages. So there's that.
To page 182...632 - 182 = 450 (22.5 days @ 20 ppd...) Waitaminute. Did I really read 40 pages today? That doesn't seem possible, but I did take the book with me to the cardiologist appointment today, and I did read a bit whilst waiting for the doctor (several different times)...so.... I just checked back. Yep, I did read 40 pages yesterday. Wow. Made a big difference in the projected end date, too, didn't it? My original projection was March 6th, and now I'm down to the 4th. Woo-hoo!
Day 80 (DDRD 833): February 12, 2020
I checked the translation of the title of this book and according to Google, it goes like this:
Which is not nearly as good as The Perspective of the World, is it? The reason I checked on this was because I wanted to take a look at the publication date (see arrow), but I have since forgotten why I wanted to check on that. So...never mind.
In other news...this seems ironic given the climate in Trump's America:
I also found this to be interesting in the context of Trump World:
Did I say interesting? I meant terrifying.
Read to page 200. That's 632 - 200 = 432 (21.6 days @ 20 ppd...)
Day 81 (DDRD 834): February 13, 2020
Read to page 220.
Day 82 (DDRD 835): ♥️February 14, 2020♥️
From page 222:
Which might be why we really need Bernie Sanders for president.
Read to page 240.
Day 83 (DDRD 836): February 15, 2020
Only made it to page 250 today. (Elizabethtown, SOKY 🏀)
Did happen us this (on page 250), which I thought was worth noting, though:
Day 84 (DDRD 837): February 16, 2020
Well...it was a busy day. Spent from 12 to 1 with the kids eating out, then 1 to 5:30 at the opera. So I just did ten pages again. Truth be told, I had time for ten more, but wanted to read some A Gentleman in Moscow more. C'est la vie.
Day 85 (DDRD 838): February 17, 2020
Another ten page day--to page 270. Slipping back on the projected finish date: 632 - 270 = 362 (18.1 days @ 20 ppd...which puts it back up to March 6th. Not so bad, really.)
Day 86 (DDRD 839): February 18, 2020
My first 20 page day in a few--to page 290. Which, much to my surprise, takes me back to 17.1 = March 5th. Hmpf.
P.S. Speaking of...Friday of last week I was in the library when I thought, "I should read a book on economics so I have a better grasp of what Braudel is talking about when he gets into that stuff (which is often now)," and went looking to see if I could find a comic book thing (on the order of Larry Gonick's stuff), and I found a thing called The Global Economy as You've Never Seen It: 99 Ingenious Infographics That Put It All Together by Thomas Ramge, Jan Schwochow, and Adrian Garcia-Landa. I ended up not checking it out--mostly because it was a gigantic book (10.3 x 1 x 13.9 inches), and I didn't feel like dealing with that, but there were two pages which really caught my eye. One of them showed a pair of blue jeans and the cost of making each part (pretty minuscule--and far less than the price of jeans). The other showed the breakdown of a modern person's household budget. I took a picture of that one:
One of the things that struck me was how different this was from the illustration in volume I of Braudel's book, wherein the cost of bread was 50% of a regular person's budget.
Well, today I went back on the hunt for a comic book econ book, and this time I ended up finding a thing called The Cartoon Introduction to Economics, Volume I: Microeconomics by Yoram Bauman Ph.D. and Grady Klein, and it looked pretty interesting, so I looked at the preview pages of it. And somehow or other that led me to a booked called The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies by Bryan Caplan, wherein I read this line: "Voter ignorance is a product of natural human selfishness, not a transient cultural aberration." So of course now I'm thinking I should probably read that book. This is how it happens, you know? Each branch branches off, and before you know it you're sitting in your own pee with a cigarette burning into your knuckles.
(That's a reference to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, btw.)
They don't have the Myth of the Rational Voter book at the public library...and it's a bit pricey on Kindle ($15.63)...but as it happens, U of L's library does have a copy. And I just checked out Józef Czapski's Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp from there, so I was going to have to go back to return it at some point, so....
And that's how you get too many notes. But hey, I'm getting better. There was a time when I would have just gone ahead and bought it. Which is why I have thousands of books in my house right now, and am working on thinning that herd. (Anybody want to buy some books? Cheap? 🤙
Day 87 (DDRD 840): February 19, 2020
Read to page 310, so, yes, another 20 page day. Hurrah. So 632 - 310 = 322 (16.1 days @ 20 ppd). Oh, wait a minute...that's still March 6th, isn't it? Same for yesterday. I forgot to account for the "one day later" factor. Well, that makes more sense, for sure.
ANYway...
Made a copy of my bookmark as I have several times wanted to use it as an under the line I'm reading marker and that was awkward with the original, so:
now. Same great look, new rectangular shape.
Meanwhile...
I was SURE that the binding on this book was sewn, but every time I caught sight of evidence of stitches, I could only find the little holes which could also correspond to that other cheap-shit, FedEx binding (you know, the little plastic thingies?). But today I happened upon the stitches themselves. It made me happy.
Several things here. First, I am always interested when Braudel points out that he thinks a book is particularly noteworthy, so I wanted to check out this Ernest Wageman (how apt a name is that for an economist?) fellow. Turns out that Das Differ als Detective (The Number as a Detective) is pretty hard to find out there in the tubes. In fact, I couldn't even find it on the German Amazon website. So there you have that. Curious and now Not Read, I suppose. Also, turns out there's a typo here, as the name of the writer is actually Wagemann...and, in fact, there are references to that spelling later on the same page. Ah ah ah ah. You guys. Give me some cheddar.
P.S. Though I did find this on GoodReads:
So if I learn to read Spanish, I can get a copy of from Amazon and then I can read this obscure German book. Sigh. The 21st Century should really be better than this, don't you think?
Day 88 (DDRD 841): February 20, 2020
RBTW...in yesterday's reading, Braudel saodthat the national debt could reach twice the GNP without risk to the financial well being of a nation (on page 307). I looked around online and found that the U.S. of A. currently has a national debt of $23.25 trillion, and the GNP for 2017 (the latest figure I could find) was19.61 trillion dollars. So I guess everything is A OK.
To page 320 today.
Day 89 (DDRD 842): February 21, 2020
 |
| Just a ten page day. (Public Domain image, btw.) |
Read to page 330.
Day 90 (DDRD 843): February 22, 2020
To 340. And btw, Braudel's comments on how BIG France was got to me, so I Googled, and much to my surprise...
Wouldn't have guessed that France was the biggest country by land mass in Europe proper. Or that Ukraine was so danged big, either. Hmpf.
Day 91 (DDRD 844): February 23, 2020
Read to page 350. Kind of stuck in this ten page a day thing now. Partially because it's such low pressure. Partly because there are so many other books I really want to nip at: A Gentleman in Moscow, which I'm one hundred pages into...and loving every minute of it. And I just picked up John Barth's A Floating Opera and a cool looking books called The Philosophical Detective: The True Story of an Imaginary Gentleman which has a cover illustration by William Blake and seems (only read a page) to have Jorge Luis Borges as its protagonist. What more could you fucking want?
ANYway. To page 350. And I thought that this
was pretty funny. I mean...he is CALling that Bitch out!
Day 92 (DDRD 845): February 24, 2020
Read to page 360. Here's a thing that lands in the Sounds Familiar For Some Reason category:
Day 93 (DDRD 846): February 25, 2020
My first 20 page reading day (to page 380) in some time. For no particular reason...except perhaps that I started reading pretty early on (got disgusted with the news, so had a bit of time there).
Here's a thing:
"Could it be said that the English chose gold rather than silver, without consciously realizing it - and by so doing became a world power?" ( 361)
Without going into details that I don't even pretend to understand, Braudel is suggesting that the English moved to a gold standard for with no particular place to go, just a "take the next left" kind of thing which could just as easily have been an "or right" kind of thing. And that if they'd taken the right instead, maybe there would have been no British Empire. And then, maybe there would have been no United States of America. And then, maybe there would have been no Trump. Shit, I kind of wish they'd taken that right, you know?
Also, here's a thought:
"In 1700, Londoners numbered 555,000 - a tenth of the English population." ( 365) I mean...seriously? That's not far off from Louisville / Kentucky 2020 numbers...and we aren't even a little bit of an empire. Although I have to say that Kentucky Empire would be a good name for a band. (copyright 2020 Brother K. Productions, but transferable to you for a small annual fee.)
Also, get this: there were 17 theatres in London in 1629, but only 1 in Paris. Mama, I'm so hard to handle now.
P.S. 632 - 380 = 252 / 12.6 days @ 20 ppd, so my slacking off has pushed the projected finish date from March 6th to March 9th. And, of course, that's only if I keep hitting 20 pages per day for the next 13 days...which might not be happening. I've kind of enjoyed the more leisurely pace, actually.
Day 94 (DDRD 847): February 26, 2020
Here's a rather startling thought Braudel brings me from Karl Marx:
"The veiled slavery of the wage-workers in Europe ended, for its pedestal, slavery pure and simple in the New World." (392)
I mean...yow-fucking-za. And in case that's not clear enough, Braudel spells it out with a little commentary on Eric Williams's Capitalism and Slavery:
"The essence of mercantilism, he concludes, was slavery."
I don't think this lessens the responsibility of United States Americans vis-à-vis one whit, but it does give me some pause. I mean...Don't England and Spain and _________ (my knowledge of history isn't nearly extensive enough to fill in the blank with all of the other nations who took part in the slave trade to the American colonies) all bear some responsibility for that, too? I mean...they're the ones who started it before the USofA was a thing.
I think it's worth thinking about, Europe.
Speaking of things to think about...this really brought a chill to my bones:
"To swell the numbers of emigrants, misleading advertisements were sometimes supplemented by violence. Press gangs would swoop on certain districts of Paris. Men, women and children were kidnapped into emigration in Bristol; or heavy criminal sentences were passed to increase the number of 'volunteers' for the New World who could thus save themselves from the gallows or from the galleys." (396)
From the Plantation to the Penitentiary, indeed.
Read to page 400, so, yep...another 20 page day. Can he keep that up? Tune in tomorrow and we'll see.
632 - 400 = 232 / 11.6 days @ 20 ppd, so no change in Projected End Date.
Day 95 (DDRD 848): February 27, 2020
And yes, we DID have another 20 page day, by George. Here are some of the things that made me happy:
Also ATB, Voltaire referred to Canada as a "few acres of snow." (412) That is PFF.
And like the commercial says...
...that's not right.
And I thought that this...
...was a pretty excellent footnote. Well, endnote, really, but that word just lacks pizzazz.
Read to page 420, so...632 - 420 = 212 / 10.6 days @ 20 ppd, which means we're still on for the 9th of March at this point. There is a part of me that wants to push that date forward...but what the hell, man...enjoy the fuckin' ride! Sheesh, that guy.
Day 96 (DDRD 849): February 28, 2020
Braudel is making reference to England, but this sure reminds me of Trump: "...with France beaten and the American revolutions out of the way, [England] no longer had any calls for Prudence." (424)
"...with the Democrats beaten and the Threat of Impeachment out of the way, Trump no longer had any calls for Prudence."
Mmm-hmm.
Only read to page 
today, though.
Day 97 (DDRD 850): 👣February 29, 2020👣
It's Leap Day, Baby! And to celebrate the occasion, I threw down and did a Full On 20 Page Read (to page 450).
And it was good.
But I did find this paragraph (on page 441) more than a little bit troubling.
I mean, what the fuck? Why would you go into a list of factors which "diminish the blame or responsibility attaching to Europe, as regards the African population"? And why draw particular attention to that list by saying, "I'm not going to do it" before you do it? I'm very confused about this. It sure sounds like racism to me.
Day 98 (DDRD 851): March 1, 2020
Took it on the road today...and hit 20--to page 471. Woo-hoo. One thing: reading how just about every trading nation in the world did its best to screw Russia as it was just beginning to coalesce as a nation certainly went a long way to explaining why they've been so recalcitrant ever since. I mean...for fuck's sake, Europe!
Day 99 (DDRD 852): March 2, 2020
I meant to do 20 pages today, so I didn't stop at 480. But I had an interruption and marked my place at 482 and never got back to it. So...
Day 100 (DDRD 853): March 3, 2020
...I thought I'd start early today and see if I could make it do what it going to do. And I ran into something interesting right at the get-go:
I mean...is that some cold shit or what? And then to go ahead and quote him anyway, relegating his identity to a footnote? Ha ha. Oh, Fernand. You are quite the trip.
Anyway...read to page 500, so (1) almost a 20 page day and (2) a mere 132 pages to go! So if I can step back up to 20 pages a day (maybe), that's less than a week. I kind of want to do that. We'll see how it goes.
Day 101 (DDRD 854): March 4, 2020
As DDRD 1000 looms (more or less) into view, I started questioning my numbering. Was today really Day 854? How could I check? I went back through old blog posts, many of them unpublished. Narrowed it down, but couldn't find my actual start date. Then I remembered that I used to write the date of reading in my DDR books, so I dug up Ominbus I of AHoP and looked at the first page:
And then (just to see what would happen) I typed "How many days ago was November 2, 2017?" into Google. And...
And so if you count today, that makes it 854. So yep, on track. And 146 days until that magical Day 1000, which should be...Tuesday
July 28, 2020. I think. (Google thinks, too. But I'll keep an eye on it just in case.)
Meant to do 20 today, but pooped out and only read to page 513.
Day 102 (DDRD 855): March 5, 2020
Well...my plan was to read to page 532, so that (1) I'd hit my twenty page goal and (2) I'd be under 100 pages. But I pooped out at 529. (1) I was pretty tired and (2) I'm not finding India to be completely fascinating.
Day 103 (DDRD 856): March 6, 2020
Thought today would be a "catch up" day...but nah. Watched The Dark Crystal and went to a Fish Fry instead.
Read to page 540, though, and found some good stuff. Like this:
"...no machine will ever be able to perform what even the worst horses can - the service of carrying people and goods through the bustle and throng of a great city." Jean-Baptiste Say, 1828
 |
| Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=316667 |
Day 104 (DDRD 857): March 7, 2020
Check this shit out:
Don't worry: Fernand Braudel is talking about Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries. Any resemblance to the United States of America in the 21st century is purely coincidental.
Also, just a few lines after the above, this funny typo:
Day 105 (DDRD 858): March 8, 2020
Read to page 562. 70 to go. I seem to have lost the ability to read 20 pages a day, though, so it might be another week.
Met up with Jethro Tull today, by the way.
Day 106 (DDRD 859): March 9, 2020
Read to page 572. Some good stuff along the way. Such as? I'm glad that you asked.
Fernand got a little frisky in these pages, and he let his nerdy little sense of humor off the leash. Check this out:
And then just a bit later:
Humor, arf arf.
Also of interest (but not humorous)...there were a couple of pages devoted to showing how technological improvements don't necessarily make any difference at all for quite some time...specifically with respect to furnaces and looms. Basically the argument goes that until some other factor intersects with the technological improvement, no one will give a shit. It was interesting reading. It also made me think of the electric car. I mean, those fuckers have been around for a very, very long time...over a century, in fact. About a century and a quarter. (Don't believe me? Well, I wouldn't either, but check this shit out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle . Amazing. I first ran into this idea reading a book of letters between Edgar Rice Burroughs and one of his buddies.) But the technology doesn't matter in and of itself. There has to be another factor. In the case of the electric car, maybe it's the environmental catastrophe which is looming before us. Maybe five years from now we'll all be driving electric cars...and little boxes will be sucking carbon out of the air. It could happen. Of we could all die gasping for breath. It's a 50-50 shot, really.
Day 107 (DDRD 860): March 10, 2020
Read to page 592. One of the most interesting things I read today was that the first trains had wooden wheels and road on wooden rails. Huh.
Day 108 (DDRD 861): March 11, 2020
Points of interest:
an extended urban area, typically consisting of several towns merging with the suburbs of one or more cities.
"the major conurbations of London and Birmingham"
(New one on me.)
And wouldn't this be a good title for a novel?
How did Jethro Tull not release an album entitled
And in the That's A Bit Much category:
Also...what's up with the order of these dates?
Read (with some extra effort) to page 612. Which means I might be able to finish the book tomorrow!
Day 109 (DDRD 862): March 12, 2020
And...?
Well...not as of this (4:07 pm) writing, but close. Barring accidental death or dismemberment, it should be happening in a little while.
Along the way, there was this:
And then there were two more typos a few lines later, but I just figured what the fuck, it's not like anybody other than me even cares, so why bother?
So there's that.
Also, there was this:
On page 623 Braudel quotes Henry Hope (1784) as saying, with respect to trade, "It is often ill but it never dies." Braudel observes that the same thing could be said of capitalism. Heh heh.
The last sentence of Volume III goes like this:
"Just as a country at the centre of a world-economy can hardly be expected to give up its privileges at international level, how can one hope that the dominant groups who combine capital and state power, and who are assured of international support, will agree to play the game and hand over to someone else?"
Yowza!
And yes, I did finish Volume III today. So at the end of 1,992 pages of text, Fernand Braudel ends on a kinda Commie rant.
I like that in a man.
So that's it. Highly recommended, by the way.
Now I wonder what I'm going to start reading tomorrow?
