Just in case you missed it...

We have a president who suggested that injecting bleach, disinfectant, or...wait for it...sunshine into our bodies might cure us of the Covid-19 Virus.

"I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute," he said. "Is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that."

Trump Suggested Experts Find A Way To Inject Light Or Disinfectants Into Human Bodies To Kill The Coronavirus (Buzzfeed News, by Stephanie K. Baer. Posted on April 23, 2020, at 8:16 p.m. ET)

Covid-19 Clampdown

I have friends from across the political spectrum, so during these Covid-19 Days, I see some of them who are shaking their fists at the governor and saying they are ready to take their chances with the virus ("Give me convenience or give me death!"), some who are adhering to the restrictions but bitching and moaning their way through every day, some who don't really seem upset about the deal, and some (I shit thee not) who are praying to the Virus, thanking it for the lessons it has taught us.

Yep.

In fact, I have a microcosm of allathat on the home front, as my youngest son wakes up every morning and begins to complain, and  asks me when things will be open again at least one hundred times (literally...and I mean that literally) during the course of the day...while my daughter happily listens to Monteverdi in her room, walks the neighborhood with me, reads, and talks to her friends--a group which includes St. Lucy, Christine from Phantom of the Opera, Cosette from Les Miserables, and so forth.

And me? Well, I'm a little bit country and I'm a little bit rock 'n' roll. More country though.

But it seems kind of whiny to me to get really upset about the whole lockdown thing. As I told one of my bitching and moaning friends, "You know, Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in a prison cell, and he didn't even have Netflix or grubHub." She was not impressed with this, by the way, but we are still friends. 

Kinda sorta.

ANYway...my Crazy Ladies group (actually an Edgar Cayce group I stumbled into (full story available upon request), but I am usually the only male present and though the ladies are very kind, sweet, and etc., they are also without a doubt batshit crazy) has been meeting via Zoom since the Clampdown. At these meetings we do a little meet and greet, a little meditation, a little prayer, and then spend the majority of the time reading from A Search For God...which is basically a book of spiritual reflections based on Cayce's experiences and writings. That's the part that I enjoy the most. (I'm not much of a meditator, and I like to keep my prayers to myself. I do like the chit chat, though.) Put me in a group that wants to read and talk about what they've read, and I'm happy. I don't care what book it is, really.

At our last meeting, one of the participants suggested that we should say a prayer THANKing the Coronavirus for the lessons it has taught us. (As referenced above.) And at the top of this meeting, she read a prayer of that ilk which she had composed.

On the one hand, I marveled at her optimism. On the other hand, I was appalled [(With emphasis.) AP-PALLED.] at the idea of the thing. I mean...to me that's on a level with praying to a concentration camp and thanking it for the lessons IT taught. (Obviously not in degree of extremity, but in terms of how inappropriate such a thing would be.) But I have to admit that her prayer did have some sense to it...though I can't remember the specifics...and of course there is something to be said for attempting to find a lesson even in a horrible, negative experience. Just ask Viktor Frankl. 

Anyway...we then proceeded to read from a chapter entitled "The Cross and the Crown"...specifically in the sub-section "Why Must I, as a Soul in a Material Plane, Bear a Cross?" And there's a lot about how you carry The Cross until you overcome it, and then you wear The Crown. And when my turn came to read, I have to admit that I stopped in my tracks after I read this line:

"Shall we evade the cross that is ours to bear, especially at this time when humanity is entering the greatest test period in the history of the world?"

I mean...yowza. 

And then I heard a bell ringing in the back of my mind...but I couldn't quite catch the tune. Until this morning, when it hit me:

I'm not saying that this means anything...because I don't think it does. But it is pretty fuckin' weird, isn't it?

The kingdom is ransacked

The jewels all taken back

And the chopper descends

They're hidden in the back

With a message written on a half-baked potato

The spool goes 'round

Sayin' I'm back here in this place

And I could cry....

Joe Strummer and Mick Jones

Life Goes On: Apparently someone forgot to tell this bird about the apocalypse.

via Imgflip

Worst. Logo. Ever.

I've been going through some comic books that had been stacked up on my bureau for a long time. Alphabetizing, bagging and boarding, putting into a long box, if you're a comic book guy or gal, you know the drill. It's one of those things I've been meaning...even been wanting...to do for some time. And, as you know, there's a bit more of that lately. Not so much as you'd think for me, since I have two adult autistic children with me all day every day (and four nights to boot), but even so, there are a few extra moments here and there.

And it's kind of fun encountering books that I haven't thought about for months...sometimes years. (Yeah, I know. So sue me. Housework is not my specialty.) A lot of the time I'll think, "I'd like to read this one again." And sometimes I think, "Did I ever read this?" And so on. But when I saw this one...

...my first thought was, "What the fuck does that say?" It just looked like a splotch of something to me. My second thought was, "That has got to be the. Worst. Logo. Ever." Why would anyone in their right mind think that that was a good idea?

So of course I had to share.

BTW...Charlton Comics. Oh, yeah. I always thought of them as a slightly disreputable company. The kind of comic book folks who ripped off other companies for their ideas, then hired second or third rate talent to create their books. Which really isn't true at all. In fact, they had some great people working for them. I mean...Dennis O'Neil, Steve Skeates, Dick Giordano. Steve Ditko. Lots of others. And without The Question, we wouldn't even have The Watchmen. So hey, a toast to Charlton Comics.

Ben Cosgrove

You like keyboards?

Then you'll love this guy:



I've gotten out of the habit of wantonly posting links to other sites and / or pictures, videos, etc. In fact, that's why I took down a couple thousand of my blogposts. Literally. (And I mean that literally.) But with respect to Mr. Ben Cosgrove, I thought it was safe to do, since he posted the video himself and put a share option on it. Also, I really wanted to do my part, however small that is, to promote this fellow's music. Check out that concert, brahs and tahs. Is that some fantastic shit or what? If I could play like that, I probably wouldn't even notice that there was a lockdown.

Funny, too, because 27 hours ago I hadn't heard of Ben. 

Long version: 7 1/2 years ago I had a glimpse of an EP cover which caught my eye. It was Burnin' Both Ends by Doug Balmain, and the image was of a bipedal spaceman in a suit, holding his helmet in his hands. But said spaceman had a lion's head. Well. He had me at lion's head. 🦁. And it turned out to be some really great music--six very soulfully sung tunes. (You can find it on iTunes or Amazon...and there is a video of the title track on YouTube. I'm pretty sure that if you listen to that one, your feet will be tapping before the song ends.) My love for that EP led me to follow Doug/Douglas via various media platforms, which is probably how I ended up being on his email list. 

And yesterday I got this email:

So I thought I would give a listen. (If it's good enough for Doug/Douglas, then....) Just to prepare (since I'd never heard of this Ben Cosgrove), I went online and found a video--Ben Cosgrove - Montreal Song | Sofar Boston. I liked Ben right off, as he introduced the song by saying, "I'm going to play a song and then we can talk about it. Or about whatever." He seemed a little quirky and awkward...which is something I really like in a man. Or a woman. (Too much confidence really pisses me off. It can turn a pretty girl into just a big mouth, and a big boy into an annoying prick right quick.)  And then when he started playing...oh, my. Solo piano is not always a big hit with me, but I immediately felt that I could listen to Ben play for hours. So I posted a Facebook link to the live stream concert and sent a message to my #1🌞, who is a professional musician, and then, sorry to say, I kind of forgot about it.

At 7:45 pm I remembered the concert and tuned in for the last couple of songs. And it was so good. When it was over I backed up and listened to the whole thing. And having enjoyed all that free music, I wanted to give something back. So I started with my favorite Music Access point, /bandcamp. They had some stuff. In fact, they had a lot of stuff. Five full albums and two singles. As I poked around, I also visited Ben's own website--where I found four albums, a t-shirt, an unavailable and out of print book, and a sticker/magnet--and Amazon, where I found six albums. Hmmm. And it wasn't even quite that straightforward, because one of the albums on /bandcamp didn't appear anywhere else. (And on top of that, that album--Midwinter, was actually a compilation of six EPs which had been released over the course of five years.) And there were two albums on Amazon that didn't appear anywhere else. I know it's very autistic of me, but I immediately had to stop what I was doing and attempt to create a complete, chronological discography of Ben Cosgrove.

To wit--

∆The Ben Cosgrove Discography∆

Kaleidoscope (11/27/2005)

 1. Intro

  2. Treading Water

  3. Refraction

  4. Phoenix

  5. Treeline

  6. Undertow

  7. Mirror

  8. The Architect, Act I

  9. The Architect, Act II

  10. The Architect, Act III

  11. Kaleidoscope

  12. Until Again

  13. BONUS TRACK: Scattered Flowers

Yankee Division (3/22/2011)

1. Prairie Fire

2. I Am Walking Inland

3. When You Are a Road

4. Nashua

5. From Ten Thousand Feet

6. Middle Distance

7. North Central

8. Good Fences

9. Oarlock

10. All the Weather Ahead

11. Yankee Division

12.I Remember When Days Like These Were Instantly Available

Midwinter, Volume 1​ (12/1/2012)

1. Coventry Carol

2. In the Bleak Midwinter

3. I Wonder as I Wander

4. O Come Emmanuel

5. Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming

7. 6. Greensleeves

8. The First Noel

9. In Dulce Jubilo 

“Little Rain” single (9/27/2013)

So far as I can discern, this is the same version/mix as the one that appears on Field Studies—same time (3:33), too. (Yes, I do think about these things. Worry, even. So sue me.)

“Palo Alto” single (12/1/13)

And again…so far as I can discern, this is the same version/mix as the one that appears on Field Studies—same time (4:04), too.

Midwinter, Volume 2​ (12/1*/2013)

1. Huron Carol

2. Silent Night

3. O Little Town of Bethlehem

4. We Three Kings

5. I Saw A Maiden 

Field Studies (1/30/2014)

1. Lafayette

2. Montreal Song

3. West

4. Little Rain

5. Abilene

6. Palo Alto

7. We Will Be Fine

8. Sigurd F. Olson

9. Hold Your Latitude

10. Bath

11. We Never See Anything Clearly 

12. Narrow Land/River of Grass (feat. David Berkeley)

13. Nautilus

Midwinter, Volume 3​ (12/1/2014)

1. Wassail Wassail

2. O Holy Night

3. Away in a Manger

4. Sheep May Safely Graze

5. Joy to the World 

Midwinter, Volume 4​ (12/1/2015)

1. Bring a Torch

2. Jeanette Isabella

3. Deck the Halls 

Solo Piano (9/2/2016)

1. Montreal Song (Live Solo Version)

2. Black Is the Color - Palo Alto (Live Solo Version)

3. Grace Harbor (Live Solo Version)

4. Abilene (Live Solo Version)

5. Come Down (Live Solo Version)

6. Wind Falling from a Higher Place (Live Solo Version)

7. Siletz (Live Solo Version)

8. When You Are a Road (Live Solo Version)

9. Distant Music (Live Solo Version)

10. Bath (Live Solo Version)

11. Nashua (Live Solo Version)

12. Coldwater (Live Solo Version)

13. Nautilus (Live Solo Version)

Empty Rooms (10/13/2016)

 1. Harbor

  2. On Acrobats & Calculus

  3. Distant Music (Song for Michael Furey)

  4. Toulouse #4

  5. Unfolding

  6. New Salem

  7. Public Alley 429

  8. Shoulder High

  9. Come Down

  10. Armory Road

  11. Anchor & Crane

  12. All That Surrounds It (postscript)

Midwinter, Volume 5​ (12/1/2016)

1. Good King Wenceslas

2. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

3. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear 

Salt (6/5/2017)

1. Champlain

2. Break

3. Pine

4. Salt

5. Let

6. Landfall

7. Slip

8. Oxbow

9. Kennebec

10. Glass

Midwinter, Volume 6 (12/1/2017) 

1. Cherry Tree Carol

2. While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night

3. Adestes Fideles

* I’m presuming that the release date for all of the volumes of Midwinter occurred on the same date…because that’s the way that I would do it. The only release information I could find indicated the specific date of release of volume 1, but only the  year of release for volumes 2 - 6.

Well. There goes an hour of my life...but hey, now it's forever, and we both can enjoy it.

One of the things I learned whilst completing this so-far-as-I-can-discern Complete Discography is that it might be a bit precarious to acquire all of this music. As stated earlier, Midwinter seems to exist only on /bandcamp, and Kaleidoscope and Empty Rooms were both released on CDBaby, which no longer sells cds. 

I can't tell you how many times I've seen A Thing That I Wanted, not bought it (because even to this day it's hard for me to buy things because I want them, even if I have the money to do it effortlessly; I assume it's the product of growing up poor divided by serious self-esteem issues multiplied by divorce squared)...and a day or a few days later, when I'd decided that I was, indeed, going to buy That Thing, I found that it was gone, gone, gone. Many times, for sure. So I bought Midwinter Volumes 1-6 from /bandcamp, and then I went to Amazon and bought Kaleidoscope and Empty Rooms. So it looks like my quest to acquire All Of Ben has begun. 

News as it happens.

Somewhere in between paragraphs above, I went out for a walk. A solo walk, which is a rarity in the Covid-19 Days, as I have charge of my two adult autistic children six out of seven days, and we walk together. So I was going to fire up an audiobook--I currently have Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham, and Blowout
by Rachel Maddow--both of which I've started but (1) not gotten very far into and (2) haven't really absorbed much from. But my phone is woefully out of date (it's a Samsung Galaxy S4, which came out April 27, 2013), and sometimes apps just don't load. This was one of those days. So I thought, "I shall listen to Ben Congreve's Live From a Room again!" And I did. And it was even better the second time around. 

And even as we speak, I'm listening to "Ben Cosgrove interviewed on Vermont's WGDR, July 2015" (radio station located a mere 86 minutes from #1🌞's front door, which for some reason makes this dearer to me), and after a bit of chat Ben sat down to play a live version of "Montreal Song." And then he played a new song which had not yet been recorded at the time of the interview: "Grace Harbor." And then "Abilene." Which got me thinking...there should be a discography of live performances...at least the internet-preserved ones...shouldn't there?

Hmmmm.

Man, it's not easy being anal retentive. On the other hand, it pretty much guarantees that you can find a purpose for living at the drop of a fucking hat.

ANYway...I think you should lend Ben Congreve your ears, and some dollars if you have any to spare. These are hard times for musicians. And I think that concert posted up top is probably a good starting point, but as I explore more I'll see if I find something else. 

A lot depends on where you start, doesn't it? Starting at the wrong point can mean that you end up not liking someone you really would have liked a lot. (For instance, I am just about finished reading Amor Towles's Rules of Civility, and I do not like it very much at all. If this had been my first Amor Towles book, it probably would have been my last. As it happens, though, I first read his second novel, A Gentleman in Moscow, which I loved. So instead of being through with Mr. Towles, I'm looking forward to his next novel instead of shaking his dust from my sandals  In fact, I loved A Gentleman in Moscow so much that I read the completely forgettable "You Have Arrived at Your Destination" (which is either a long short story or a short novella) and am willing to finish The Rules of Civility. I might even be persuaded to read his short short story collection Eve in Hollywood if I can find it for free. (It's a companion to The Rules of Civility, so I'm not willing to spend any money to get it into me.) 

So, yeah.

That's it for now. Listen to some music.

☮📤

Boots

Addendum: Well, it just goes to show you. I posted this picture because I'd gotten a message from an ebay seller saying she had accidentally sent me an item which was meant for someone else, and asking if I could take a picture of the item and email it to her. (Apparently the post office requires this.) I took the picture, wrote the email, sent it...and she wrote back that the picture hadn't come through. I tried again. Nope. I tried again. Nope. So I posted the picture here and sent her a link. Success.

And this picture, with no words other than the title ("Boots") has had more hits than half of the posts I've done in the past two weeks. 

It's kind of hard not to be a little depressed about that.

On the other hand, I am now looking around the house to see what other footwear I can feature for upcoming posts. When in Rome....

Addendum 2: And as of 8:16 am on 4/26/2020, there are only 15 posts in my last 100 posts which have more hits than "Boots." The only good news is that Fernand Braudel, who devoted his life to researching and writing about history, is kicking Boots's ass. 

I guess I just had more faith in the internet than was sensible, huh? I mean...BOOTS! FF'sS.

The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II Volume II by Fernand Braudel

Day Thirty-Four (DDRD 896): April 15, 2020

Thus beginneth my reading of Volume II of Fernand Braudel's The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. Since it's the same book, different volume, I'm keeping the same numbering, but new blogpost because that makes my life a little bit easier. 

Read to page 10. Some pretty interesting talk about the speed of travel and of mail delivery. 



Day Thirty-Five (DDRD 897): April 16, 2020

Today's reading focused on distance and time required to cover it. It was kind of fascinating, actually--everything from letters to ships to horses. Apparently it took about two months to journey from one end of The Mediterranean to the other...a distance of about 2,300 miles. Um...that's about 38 miles per day. And check this out:

That's less than 25 miles in a day. I'm no horse, but my best day of walking...which didn't occupy the entire day, I might add...was 12 miles, so I'm not really all that impressed with 25. 

ANYway...pretty fascinating little canter. Pun intended. Read to page 20.



Day Thirty-Six (DDRD 898): April 17, 2020


Another rather interesting little bit...still focusing on distances and time, but also getting into fairs a bit. Also, a reminder that Everything Old Is New Again:

"The islanders paid taxes for the building of road links, but the government used the money for other things, so the Sicilian interior had no properly maintained roads until the eighteenth century." (31)

Mmm-hmmm.

Read to page 31, btw.



Day Thirty-Seven (DDRD 899): April 18, 2020


Read to page 41.



Day Thirty-Eight (DDRD 900): April 19, 2020


Read to page 50.



Day Thirty-Nine (DDRD 901): April 20, 2020

Hmmm. 

Looks like that possessive apostrophe fell and can't get up.

Read to page 60.



Day Forty (DDRD 902): April 21, 2020

Read to page 70.

Day Forty-One (DDRD 903): April 22, 2020

Read to page 80.

Day Forty-Two (DDRD 904): April 23, 2020

Read to page 90.

Day Forty-Three (DDRD 905): April 24, 2020

There's been some interesting stuff every day, but things have been kind of shitty, so I was just kind of keeping it moving. Today I couldn't resist a few quotes, though. Such as...

"...inequality between the very rich (perhaps 5 per cent) and the great mass of poor and very poor, with the gap between the small minority and this huge majority continually widening. I believe that if the observable attempts at social revolution failed, were not even clearly formulated, it was because of the intense, relative pauperization of large numbers of the population." (92)

Things just don't fucking change, do they? It's like inequity is just baked into the pie from the get-go...and it doesn't matter if it's blackberry, blueberry, strawberry, or squirrel. 

Speaking of high calorie foods, check this shit out:

"The unexpected element in these past diets is that when the rations allotted to soldiers, seaman, galley-slaves, and poor-house inmates are measured for calorie content, they yield something like 4,000 calories a day." (97)

My God...they must have running at 100 degrees to burn off all of those calories. That's what I eat in two days...at least.

And finally...

"It has even been suggested, not unconvincingly, that the vitality of the Roman Empire was sapped by the haemorrhage of precious metals." (101)

So there's that.

Read to page 100. (I always finish the first paragraph on the next page, in case you're wondering why my last quote came from one page further on than I said I'd read to.)



Day Forty-Four (DDRD 906): April 25, 2020

Read to page 110. Gold and silver.



Day Forty-Five (DDRD 907): April 26, 2020

Read to page 120. Not the most interesting reading this time out, I'm sorry to say. 


Day Forty-Six (DDRD 908): April 27, 2020

Read to page 130.


Day Forty-Seven (DDRD 909): April 28, 2020


Read to page 140.

More about silver and gold...and the shift to paper money came in at the end of today's reading, which was kind of interesting. Also, this footnote...

...is kind of amazing of you think about it. Can you imagine ow many records Fernand Braudel had to go through before he found this reference to holding fairs at Poligny in August of 1568? It boggles the mind. And now multiply that amount of time by the thousands of other facts that Braudel had to substantiate, and you wonder how a book like this can ever be written.


Day Forty-Eight (DDRD 910): April 29, 2020


Read to page 150.


Day Forty-Nine (DDRD 911): April 30, 2020


Read to page 160.


Day Fifty (DDRD 912): May 1, 2020


Read to page 170.

Speaking of which...in this here Volume II I've got 490-170 = 320 = 32 more days to go. And in Volume III there are 340 = 34 days to go. For a total of 66 days. Well, maybe a little more than that, since Volume III has a big fat Index, and I feel obliged to at least give each page of that a cursory glance. But either way, it looks like I should be able to finish the whole thing with a good three weeks to spare. I was kind of thinking that it'd be nice to finish right on the dot, though. You know. But that's just my anus speaking, I guess. (Of course, I could cut back to 7.5 pages per day, and then I'd come out right on the dot. Hmmmm.)



Day Fifty-One (DDRD 913): May 2, 2020

Read to page 180.


Day Fifty-Two (DDRD 914): May 3, 2020


Read to page 190.

A lot of information about pepper.

Day Fifty-Three (DDRD 915): May 4, 2020


Read to page 200.


Day Fifty-Four (DDRD 916): May 5, 2020


So...58 pages into this chapter, Braudel says

Which I thought was high-larious.

Read to page 210.



Day Fifty-Five (DDRD 917): May 6, 2020

Read to page 220.

Day Fifty-Six (DDRD 918): May 7, 2020

Read to page 230. Sorry to say it...and maybe I'm just in a shitty mood--but I'm kind of tired of this book. 

Day Fifty-Seven (DDRD 919): May 8, 2020

Read to page 240.

Day Fifty-Eight (DDRD 920): May 9, 2020


Read to page 250.

Day Fifty-Nine (DDRD 921): ⺟May 10, 2020⺟

Read to page 260.

Day Sixty (DDRD 922): May 11, 2020


Read to page 270.


Day Sixty-One (DDRD 923): May 12, 2020



Read to page 280.

Day Sixty-Two (DDRD 924): May 13, 2020



But despite that (↑) weariness, I have soldiered on. And the other day...or maybe it was earlier today? Things get a little bleary sometimes...I read an article online somewhere about books to read during the pandemic or some such nonsense, and at the end of it there was a little questionnaire...something like What are you reading? How's that going for you? And then you listed your contact information and they said that a reporter might could contact you. So I filled it in...with this book, and with a short statement about how all of the terrible shit happening now (politics, plague, disasters) had happened during the 16th century...in some cases even worse than what's going on now...and that since "we" survived that then, it gave me some small hope that we might survive this now.  And then I spent most of the day reading a book my #1Son had recommended to me (Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork...which was superb, by the way...especially if you care about autistic people), and as it was getting later I even had the thought, "Maybe I'll just take the day off from my Daily Devotional Reading." Which I have only done once since DDRD 1...and that was the day I went to the Emergency Room. But then I started thinking about that questionnaire and my responses to said questionnaire...and I picked up my bed and began to walk. And hey, check this shit out:

And finally, this:

"'The laws of Spain,' wrote the aging Rodrigo Vivero in about 1632, 'are like spiders' webs, catching only flies and gnats.'"
And in case that's too subtle, Fernand Braudel adds, "The rich and powerful escaped their toils and the only ones who became entangled were the unprivileged and the poor, 'los desfavorecidos y los pobres', a state of affairs not confined to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries." (290)

Now does that sound familiar or what?

Oh, yeah...read to page 290.


Day Sixty-Three (DDRD 925): May 14, 2020

Hey, look, ma: only 75 more days until Daily Devotional Reading Day 1,000! I have to admit it, I'm pretty excited about it. Going to have to be some kind of celebration. Involving cake, perhaps. Or maybe a nice Reuben sandwich.

Speaking of celebration...check this out:

Big wheels keep on turning. Read to page 300. Less than 200 to go in Volume II now.




Day Sixty-Four (DDRD 926): May 15, 2020

Read to page 310.

Day Sixty-Five (DDRD 927): May 16, 2020

Read to page 320.

Day Sixty-Six (DDRD 928): May 17, 2020

Read to page 330. Timed it, and it took 23 minutes. 

Volume II 489 - 330 = 159 = 16 days

+

Volume III 337 = 34 days

TOTAL 50 days

And then I'll have 22 days for whatever whatever. I'm thinking pretty hard about that Peat book that I bought in Ireland--Peat and Peat Cutting by Ian D. Rotherham. Not only did my son laugh at me when I bought this book...the BOOKseller laughed at me. They just don't understand the lure of peat, I suppose. This book is only 60 pages long, though, so I guess it's actually too short to fill the bill. All of the other books I have lined up for the DDR are more than I can handle in 22 days. Whilst poking around on the shelves, though, I did find The Monstrosity of Christ by Slavoj Žižek and Creston Davis, and that would be an interesting way to round out the first 1,000 days. It would also give a nice arc to it, in that I'd be returning to philosophy (more or less), which is where I began on Day 1. It's a tad "too long" at 300+ pages, but I think I could swing it. Strong possibility.

Day Sixty-Seven (DDRD 929): May 18, 2020

Read to page 340. Two things.

Thing 1: Why you should listen to your teacher in high school English class:

Thing 2: Stephen Miller's Wet Dream:

Day Sixty-Eight (DDRD 930): May 19, 2020

Read to page 350.

Day Sixty-Nine (DDRD 931): May 20, 2020


Read to page 360. Several interesting things.

From page 351, there's this:
"There can be no doubt that society was tending to polarise into, on the one hand, a rich and vigorous nobility reconstituted into powerful dynasties owning vast properties and, on the other, the great and growing mass of the poor and disinherited, 'caterpillars and grubs', human insects, alas too many. A deep fissure split open traditional society, opening up gulfs which nothing would ever bridge...."

That sounds kind of relevant, doesn't it?

Then there's this:

...from the picture facing page 359, which just goes to show that even the Folio Society needs better proofreaders. (The last line of the caption for the top picture is actually part of the caption for the bottom picture. In fact, the sentence is repeated in the caption for that bottom picture.

And there was this from page 360:

Tell me that that hasn't made its way into the Trump Playbook.

Day Seventy (DDRD 932): May 21, 2020

Read to page 370.


Day Seventy-One (DDRD 933): May 22, 2020


Read to page 380.


Day Seventy-Two (DDRD 934): May 23, 2020

Some interesting material on The Moriscos...of and about whom I previously had not heard. They were former Moslems who lived in Spain...until the government expelled them. Braudel noted that this wasn't racism so much as it was distrust for a people who steadfastly held onto their own culture...or, as the Spanish hierarchy saw it, "refused to assimilate." It made me think about Trump and Stephen Miller...how maybe their opposition to Mexicans, for instance, might actually be more like this hatred for those who "refuse" to assimilate than anything else. Which is, perhaps, just as bad as racism, but it seems to me that if nothing else, the motivation is different. It also raises questions about what it means to be a citizen of another country...perhaps questions which deserve to be raised and discussed in public forums today. It would no doubt lead to lots of venomous shit being loosed upon the world, but I think it could eventually lead to some better understanding if we had the guts for it.

Maybe.

Read to page 390--which means there are now less than 100 pages to go in Volume II.

Day Seventy-Three (DDRD 935): 🌞May 24, 2020🌞*


Speaking of Moriscos...

They stayed in my mind, so I did a little Googling around and found some interesting stuff. For instance, a book with the intriguing title This Happened in My Presence: Moriscos, Old Christians, and the Spanish Inquisition in the Town of Deza, 1569-1611, which was edited by Patrick J. O'Banion. Amazon had a Kindle Free Sample, so I read that, and it was quite interesting. Here's some stuff I made note of:

"While popular imagination associates inquisitors almost exclusively with the sadistic torture of those who challenged the status quo, these documents offer a better sense of the breadth of inquisitorial work, as officials in Madrid and Cuenca interacted (and disagreed) with one another and with the local representatives of the Holy Office in Deza."

"Rather than assimilating like the Judeoconversos, many of Deza’s Moriscos kept their Old Christian neighbors at a distance."

"Deza had between six and eight priests attached to the parish church." 

That seemed pretty generous for such a small town--at its peak, the population was only 1,600. (According to Wikipedia, the current ration is 1 priest to 2,000 parishioners.)

"Inquisitorial trials were not necessarily the horrific affairs imagined by popular culture. They were, in fact, more careful about following proper procedure than most other law courts in early modern Europe.53 Yet trials frequently stretched on for years, and, when defendants were believed to be withholding the truth, torture might be used. "

I was pretty interested in reading more, but the Kindle version goes for $18, so I'm still mulling that over. Meanwhile, I found a Google Books Preview which has some pages beyond what Amazon gave, so I'll have a look at that. Maybe that will be enough to satisfy my Moriscos hunger.

And if not, then there's this: whilst looking to see if the public library had any materials on the Moriscos, I found that there was a novel about their plight--The Devils of Cardona by Matthew Carr-- which looked interesting. Also took a look at this Matthew Carr fellow and found two interesting things: (1) apparently this subject is pretty important to him, as he wrote another book--Blood and Faith : The Purging of Muslim Spain 1492 (non-fiction)--about it, and (2) he also wrote a book entitled The Infernal Machine: A History of Terrorism, which, oddly enough, I purchased some time ago...but, alas, only read a few pages of. Maybe I will go back for it now that it's in my mind.

So. Might be some more of that, then.

Meanwhile...no more Moriscos in today's pages, as we have moved on to the Jews, who endured the same shitty treatment in Spain. Ah, White people. You just have to wonder, don't you?

Read to page 400.

You know, one of the things that reading all of the endnotes gives you is a sense of the immensity of this topic. So many times Braudel will write a comment after or before a note which says, in essence, "This is one of the best books on _____ that I have read." And the _____ will be some really obscure thing, like copper tea kettles manufactured in the first quarter of the thirteenth century southeastern Italy during the rainy seasons. It's just astounding. It makes you wonder how anybody ever writes anything, in a way--other than made-up shit, of course. And even there a lot of the time there are tons of research hours lying behind the lies.

Also, Braudel mentioned that the word "ghetto" originally came from the Venetian word for "foundry"--as in iron foundry. Which I thought was pretty darned interesting. And I believed Mr. Braudel, of course, but I checked on it anyway. Here's some Wikipedian confirmation:

"The word "ghetto" comes from the Jewish area of Venice, the Venetian Ghetto in Cannaregio, traced to a special use of Venetian ghèto, or "foundry", as there was one near the site of that city's ghetto in 1516. By 1899 the term had been extended to crowded urban quarters of other minority groups."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ghettoetymology

So there's that.

* It's my #1🌞's birthday. 


Day Seventy-Four (DDRD 936): May 25, 2020

Still on about The Jews. Just kiddin' about that sassy tone, by the way. But yes, there is more information about the Jewish population of the Mediterranean World during the sixteenth century. One aspect of which I found particularly interesting was Braudel's idea that the reason that Jews were drawn to things like banking and money lending was because their experience as outcasts in various European societies made them particularly well-suited to such enterprises--the fact that they had to be able to speak multiple languages (apparently 4-6 were common, and 10 or more not uncommon), the fact that they had to be able to adjust to different mores and customs, etc. If they hadn't been so poorly treated by so many other nations, they might not have developed that skill set. Which of course doesn't lessen the injustice or in some cases the horror of their poor treatment, but it does give some insight into the whole process.

Also, I was happy to see this bit:

Read to page 410. Which means only a week and a day left in Volume II if I stay on script. Pretty exciting, huh?


Day Seventy-Five (DDRD 937): May 26, 2020

Read to page 420. Thought this bit from page 415 was interesting:

"But were the Inquisition, the Catholic Kings, the various rulers of Spain and Portugal really the major forces responsible for a combat urged by the profound desires of the multitude?" 

Apply that to Trump and what do you get?  Mmm-hmmm. Pretty scary, huh?

In other news...I finished reading the Google Books 56 (of 265) page preview of This Happened in My Presence: Moriscos, Old Christians, and the Spanish Inquisition in the Town of Deza, 1569-1611, edited by Patrick J. O'Banion...and it was really interesting. Interesting in that I Would Like To Have Some More Of That. I also think that you could make a superb movie based on this book. Ah, if only I were thirty years younger and ten million dollars richer....  I also started reading Matthew Carr's The Devils of Cardona, which is a novel about the plight of the Moriscos vis-a-vis the Spanish Inquisition. It's looking pretty good. So I will read that, and then maybe I'll have had enough on the subject and can save some money. Time (and I) will tell.



Day Seventy-Six (DDRD 938): May 27, 2020


Here's a surprising thing:

Wish there were some photographs of that, but I suppose they've been lost in the intervening 500 years.

And here's an interesting thing. Check out this sentence structure:

I wish that I were man enough to diagram that one.

BTW, I also checked out the phrase "real regular clerics," and found, much to my surprise, that it meant something specific--to wit:

Clerics regular are those bodies of men in the Church who while being essentially clerics, devoted to the exercise of the ministry in preaching, the administration of the sacraments, the education of youth, and other spiritual and corporal works of mercy, are at the same time religious in the strictest sense of the word, and living a community life according to a rule approved by the Holy See.

In the Corpus Juris Canonici the term "clerics regular" is often used for canons regular, and regular clerics are classed by authors as a branch or modern adaptation of the family of canons regular. This is because of the intimate connection existing between the two; for while separated from the secular clergy by their vows and the observance of a community life and a rule, they form a distinct class in the religious state, the clerical, in opposition to the monastic, which includes monks, and hermits.

Clerics regular are distinguished from the purely monastic bodies, or monks, in four ways:

They are primarily devoted to the sacred ministry; not so the monks, whose proper work is contemplation and the solemn celebration of the liturgy.
They are obliged to cultivate the sacred sciences, which, if cultivated by the monks, are yet not imposed upon them by virtue of their state of life.
Clerics regular as clerics must retain some appearance of clerical dress. This does not forbid orders of Clerics regular to wear religious habits. It only requires that the habit of a cleric regular resembles clerical dress.
Because of their occupations, they are less given to the practice of austerity which is a distinct feature of the purely monastic life.


They are distinguished from the friars in this, that though the latter are devoted to the sacred ministry and the cultivation of learning, they are not primarily priests.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerics_regular

Which is (1) kind of cool, (2) makes me slightly more confused about this passage--is Braudel being a smart ass here? and (3) shows me, once again, as if I needed to be shown, that I can read carefully and still have no idea what the writer is actually talking about...even if I know all of the words. Which is why it is always helpful to read with other intelligent people. Man, I wish I could convince somebody to do these readings with me. Anybody? Hello? Is there anybody OUT THERE?

Fuck.

[39 @ 4/15/20]

BTW, read to page 430.

P.S. You know, I was just thinking...This Happened in My Presence: Moriscos, Old Christians, and the Spanish Inquisition in the Town of Deza, 1569-1611 is 264 pages long. That's not too far from perfect for the 22 days I have between finishing Volume III of The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II and DDRD 1000. Hmmmm. 



Day Seventy-Seven (DDRD 939): May 28, 2020

Read to page 440.

Saw this

on page 434 and was kind of surprised...I mean, we are talking about Martin Luther here, aren't we? Let's see...he lived at the right time...and he apparently didn't like The Turks much--"Luther posited that any Turk 'who earnestly believes in the Koran' is not worth being considered a human being."

(https://www.worms.de/en/web/luther/Lutherkritik/Luther_Tuerken.php) 

So...yep, I suppose it was him after all. Disappointing. (Ex-Lutheran here.)

And there was another Spalato sighting:

Tiny little thing, eh?

Day Seventy-Eight (DDRD 940): May 29, 2020

I hate to admit it...but ever since I saw the movie Gallipoli (which was probably when it came out, in 1981), I thought that the eponymous location was somewhere in Australia. No doubt it was a combination of Mel Gibson and marijuana which led me to this conclusion. But today, whilst doing my Daily Devotional Reading, there was a reference to said location...and there it was, in Turkey. Well, you live long enough and eventually you learn, right?

Also, there was this on page 449, which I thought was interesting:


"Cortese on arriving in Mexico burnt his boats; he had to triumph or die." 

That's something, isn't it?

Read to page 450.

And as the end of Volume II looms closer, I've been thinking harder about what comes after Volume III. I read a bit of The Monstrosity of Christ, and it was interesting, for sure...but it just wasn't what I felt like pursuing next. And I've also been reading a little bit of The Devils of Cardona, and finding it pretty interesting...and AbeBooks had a near fine copy of This Happened in My Presence: Moriscos, Old Christians, and the Spanish Inquisition in the Town of Deza, 1569-1611 for not too much ($20.09 for book plus tax plus shipping)...and I went for it. So there you have it. That should take me to DDRD 1000, and from there I will have lots of great stuff to choose from, since I'll no longer be trying to fit something into a certain number of days.

Just thought you should know.


Day Seventy-Nine (DDRD 941): May 30, 2020


Read to page 460.

One of the sub-sections was entitled 

And as soon as I saw those words, it hit me.

See, last night I was up until very late...past 1 am...watching the local news...because there were people walking through the streets of Louisville breaking windows, setting fires, destroying cars, spray painting historic statues. I wasn't worried about my own safety, since all of this was happening downtown, which is a long eleven miles from my front door. But I've lived in Louisville since 1980 (minus two which I spent in South Bend, Indiana)...and I was worried for the life of my city. And I was just stunned by the fact that there were people who took delight in destroying things like this. I didn't understand it at all.

But if Piracy is a Substitute for Declared War...well, it makes a lot of sense then, doesn't it? The people who are taking part in that street violence are at war. Not all for the same reason, but united in the fact that they are at war...and with an enemy who is much more powerful than they are. So since they can't fight a declared war, they commit acts of piracy. They strike back in the only way that they can. And to them, there is no difference between the white cops who shot and killed a woman who was sleeping in her own bed and the facade of the downtown Subway or the statue of King Louis XVI.

It doesn't make me any happier...but at least I can begin to wrap my brain around it.



Day Eighty (DDRD 942): May 31, 2020


Read to page 470. Also read the last "Figure" and decided to go ahead and finish off the last "Notes"--which together constitute a whopping 116 pages. So the last two days of Volume II readings will be Note and Figure free...which does smooth things out a bit. Reading a book with two bookmarks (which could really be three, after all) is not that much fun. So there.

Oh, I almost forgot this:

Specifically this:

Needless to say, I needed to find out what a "filza" was. Unfortunately, the usual suspect online dictionaries were no hope whatsoever.

But fortunately, Quranicanames had this:

"Filza is a non-Quranic Arabic name for girls that means “most beloved”. Its literal meaning is “piece of one’s being”, someone you love so much that they are like a part of your own self. In Arabic this usually refers to one’s children, especially in the phrase Aflaazu Akbaadiha.

"Filza also means “piece of gold”, “piece of silver”, or any other metal. It is not from the Quran but since it has a good meaning Muslims can use it. It is pronounced [(FIL)m] + [(Z)oom + r(U)n] and written as فِلْزَة in Arabic. In English it can also be written as Felza, Filza, Philza, Fylza."     (https://quranicnames.com/filza/)

But as interesting as that was, it still didn't seem to do me any good...other than the good of knowing that I would henceforth think of my children (even the boys) as Filza. 

So I looked some more, and somewhere along the line I got the suggestion of looking for it in the Italian language.

And in an Italian dictionary, I found this definition: "a string"...as in a string of pearls. Well...that's pretty fucking gross, isn't it? 



Day Eighty-One (DDRD 943): June 1, 2020


Read to page 480. Pirates all the way down. And a mere 9 pages left in Volume II...so of course I'm thinking about finishing it off today.

And?

Went for it. Got it. Thought these things were worth remembering:

"During every period, until at least the eighteenth century, economic progress was inevitably at the expense of the ever-increasing masses, the victims of 'social massacres'."

(483-484)

"It is possible to claim that the jiha-d or crusade was almost invariably encouraged by an unfavourable economic situation."

(486)

And how can you help but love a guy who does this--

--near the end of a scholarly tome?

(And btw, Agnadello is a reference to one of the great battles of The Italian Wars.)

And last but not least, this:

"Within Christendom, outbreaks of anti-Semitism appear to coincide with foreign wars. It was in times of economic depression that the Jews were persecuted throughout the Christian world." 

(487)

Sad to see that, at least in Braudel's eyes, so much of our history spins out of our wars. You'd think we'd be better than that, wouldn't you? 

Well...maybe not.

Onward to Volume III tomorrow. But I think I'm just going to keep it to myself for awhile, as I'm pretty sure that nobody else gives a shit about my notes on a history book. So...if you're here, thanks for your support. See you in the next life, maybe.