Quote of the Day

"If we believe absurdities

we shall commit atrocities'

--Voltaire

Came across this the day before yesterday.

If I'd known Voltaire was this good, I'd have read more of him.

 

Poison Springs Confederate battleground

So, I've been reading lately James W. Loewen's LIES ACROSS AMERICA. I'd thought this would be a sort of road trip, with Loewen driving cross country, making frequent stops to read those little historical markers you see all over the place--Loewen's point being that there's little or no standard for what passes as history in such markers.

In fact, it turns out some such markers are fairly innocuous, while others have agendas we shd be wary of.  

As the son of a historian who was way ahead of the curve when it came to embracing what can be called the Dee Brown revolution,  and the grandson on the other side of an old-school Southerner who wrote a book denouncing Reconstruction, this is all in the family, so to speak.

Yesterday, though, a passing reference to to Poison Springs State Park really threw me. For one thing,  I was a long-time Scout (an Eagle Scout. with palms. in the Order of the Arrow).

For another, I've been to Poison Springs. It's less than forty miles from my home town. Our troup went over there once, to build wooden plank walkways, along with tall blue signposts, returning for hikes there later on.

It's one thing to know that there was a Civil War battle site near where I lived when I was growing up. 

It's quite another to learn, as I did yesterday, that there were war crimes here: captive Union soldiers executed after the battle by the victorious Confederates.

And learning that has been deeply unsettling.

 Over the years I've become more aware of the links between the Boy Scouts and Confederate history. 

But it's going to take more than carefully worded accounts on recently erected historical markers for me to process this.

--John R

--current reading on the Kindle: Loewen's LIES ACROSS AMERICA

Susanna Clarke's nod to Tolkien

So,  the following, taken from one of Susanna Clarke's inimitable footnotes, ought to sounds familliar to readers of J. R. R. T.:

"The truth is that the brugh [fairy-mound] 

was a hole of interconnecting holes that was  

dug into a barrow, very like a rabbit's warren 

or badger's set. To paraphrase a writer of fanciful 

stories for children, this was not a comfortable

hole, it was not even a dry, bare sandy hole; it 

was a nasty, dirty, wet hole.

--THE LADIES OF GRACE ADIEU .176

--John R.

current reading: LIES ACROSS AMERICA by James W. Loewen

current audiobook: John Garth's TOLKIEN'S GREAT WAR

Christopher Tolkien Centenary Conference

 So, I'll be busy this weekend, attending the Celebration for Christopher Tolkien, who wd have been a hundred years old this week.  It's an online conference (webinar) hosted by the Tolkien Society via Zoom.

I'll be taking part, first as a member of a Q&A / Roundtable talking about editing Tolkien (e.g., my work on THE HISTORY OF THE HOBBIT).  Then I'll also be giving a talk whose official title is "Editing THE HOBBIT" but which might as well be "Christopher, Taum, and Me".

The list of speakers is impressive; pity that time zones mean some events starting as early as 3.a.m my time.  Fortunately they'll be recording presentations for folks who miss out to catch specific speakers later via recording.

My events, for those interested, are at 11.30 to 12.30  ROUNDTABLE with Dimitra Fimi, Peter Grybaukas, Andrew Higgins, and JDR.

EDITING THE HOBBIT, my other event, is at 1 pm and lasts for thirty minutes.

I know I'll be attending as many events as I can fit in and can stay awake for.

If you're interested, drop by and give it a look-see.

--John R.

Ghost Posts

So, here's a piece in The Guardian that explains a lot: 

Ghost jobs: why do 40% of companies advertise positions that don’t exist?

"A survey has revealed that the practice is widespread, with many companies going as far as fake-interviewing too"

This syncs up with a lot of anecdotal accounts but places it within a context and rationale:

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/oct/30/ghost-jobs-why-do-40-of-companies-advertise-positions-that-dont-exist 

Thoroughly reprehensible, but no solution presents itself, at least in the short term.

--John R.

Breakdowns in the system

So,  the past few days there have seen a few unrelated but similar events.

First up the Internet was down for the day, apparently due to theft rather than sabotage (that is, thieves cut the cables for the copper).

Second was the forty-five car smash-up on I-five between Seattle and Tacoma. No one killed, thank goodness,  though there were a lot of cars that needed towed away (seventeen I fotget).

Third, and most sinister of the three, someone tried to set fire to two ballot boxes, one in Portland and the other in Vancouver, Washington. No one hurt and only minimal damage, but distressing nonetheless.

--John R. 

We See Dracula (on stage)

So, today we traveled down to Tacoma to see a live preformance of DRACULA.  We'd seen it before, this being our third time, but it's  been a long time. 

The first was in the Milwaukee Public Library: a staging of the original stage play famously filmed a few years later starring Lugosi. It was by far the best of the three. It cleverly had the heroes suspect Count Dracula but rule him out because they're in England: his 'native soil' wd be hundreds of miles away; it's a real breakthrough for them when they realize he brough the dirt with him.  The mirror-smashing scene was also impressive.

The second was an amateur perforance in Elkhorn in which one actor --I think the one playing Van Helsing-- dominated the whole show, to its detriment. 

And the third was this one in Tacoma, more than twenty years later.  Renfield and Mina were really good, with Dr. Steward not far behind. Van Helsing, Jonathan Harker, and Miss Lucy did pretty well as well. In fact the only one I thought was lacking was Dracula himself. The actor had clealy seen LOVE AT FIRST BITE, and his slightly campy performance didn't fit particularly well with the rest of the cast.

So: well worth seeing, especially for the Renfield. Also, they combined Lucy's four suitors into one (Dr. Steward) and made her less the flirt in Stoker's novel and more the victim of fate.

--John R.

--current (re)reading: LADIES OF GRACE ADIEU by Suzanna Clarke

https://www.tacomaartslive.org/events/dracula/?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAD05WzRwcd0gXLbqXeZbfj53kaNW9&gclid=CjwKCAjwyfe4BhAWEiwAkIL8sD5J7fXK8MlxmhfzPBJQ0oEjgkJxdlbrq_6T55xCdrwvZF279rRl_xoC0asQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

P.S.: and, I shd add, we were fortute on the drive up to avoid the forty-five car pile-up 

forty-five cars i-5 washington