read, read, read

another year of indiscriminate reading, not quite as prolific as in some years past, mainly because of the time spent working on the woodruff chronicle ---

 

Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years” War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistence, 1917-2017 (2020)

Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning (2023)

***Peter Frankopan, The Earth Transformed: An Untold Story (2023)

Jonathan Kennedy, Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues (2023)

**Joshua Hammer, The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu, and their race to save the world’s most-precious manuscripts (2016)

**Richard Ovenden, Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge (2020)

*Ben Wilson, Metropolis: A History of the City, Humankind’s Greatest Invention (2020)

Adam Rutherford, How to Argue with a Racist: What Our Genes Do (and don’t) Say About Human Differences (2020)

**Barbara F. Walter, How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them (2022)

***Jeff Sharlet, The Undertow: Scenes From a Slow Civil War (2023)

**Hugh Howard, Architects of an American Landscape: Henry Hobson Richardson, Frederick Law Olmsted, and the Reimagining of America’s Public and Private Spaces (2022)

**James Crawford, The Edge of the Plain: How Borders Make and Break Our World (2022)

Kevin Kruse and Julian Zelizer, Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies About our Past (2022)

*Stacy Schiff, Cleopatra, A Life (2010)

**Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution (1972)

happy holidays

so, smiley left today for another stupid cruise, which they have styled a cruise to antarctica, which is on the big guy's bucket list, so they're taking a cruise to antarctica --- i'll see him again a couple of days after epiphany next --- in the meantime . . . . .

i have five pounds of delicious catholic fruitcake from the trappist monastery in kentucky and an endless supply of vodka from mac's down the street, and dog, and a shitload of books to read, so i will survive
 

passages redux and done

one of the only bits of monumental sculpture salvaged when st paul's cathedral in london burnt down in 1666 was this of john donne, which had been installed within a few months of his death in 1631

as of today, i have a living will, a dead will, and beneficiaries installed for this and that, but have not yet arranged for disposition of my "remains," as it were, nor for any death mask or monumental sculpture --- 

passages

today marks the eleventh anniversay of iris's death, in her own bed in the wee hours of the morning --- and tomorrow is dead john's birthday --- so here we are

Dame Judi Dench Masterfully Does A Shakespeare Sonnet | The Graham Nort...

it's been a minute

i have so neglected this stupid blog --- not that there is anything wrong with that --- i type and post pictures when i feel like it, and when i got something i need to bitch about in semi-public i guess --- but i got nothing really to bitch about beyond the tired old few: trump and blood-relations and friends who continue to support republican politics --- for me, that is a deal-breaker for any relationship ---- otherwise, life is really fine --- nightly visits from the juggler for snuggling and what not --- he is a total fool but at least very smart and semi-sane, and just about the kindest man i've ever met --- and i love him a lot --- 

UGA press's publication next fall of the coochee history remains on track, and i have wound up the columbus woodruffs' family history project to their satisfaction, and mine --- i might rework it into something publishable, should i get in the mood to do that, but for now it's their's  with a fork in it --- 

meantime, i continue to watch the toulouse requiem, as i call it, most evenings

and the animals continue to aggravate me

animals

all of the cats and dogs in my house have always gotten along --- at some level, body heat is body heat

from sinclair with kitty bob

to hershey sinclair dueteron with frieda

to guinness and dex

to kenny and dex

dog days of summer

great storm rolled through while ago --- 40 mph winds maybe and a lotta rain

Dog days bright and clear / Indicate a good year; / But when accompanied by rain, / We hope for better times in vain

coochee is resting or gestating or whatever, quietly --- but i'm deep in the weeds with the woodruff project

the juggler continues to keep me up late, almost every night, and almost always keeping it festive --- which i like lots better than bailing you-know-who out of foreclosure, for the umpteenth time --- some things fester to a head, and i think my relationship with him is near that point

 

jerusalema!

this made a lot of people happy during the covid lockdowns --- still does

   

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/07/world/africa/jerusalema-nomcebo-zikode-south-africa.html?smid=url-share

coochee redux

i have not appreciated the value of a literary agent until this coochee project — that was sorta built into NPS projects — i don't know what they paid her, but I don't think I could've/would've plowed through all the forms and permissions and what not that she has, which are just about done — left to my devices, it would have wound up in three-ring binders from kinkos — the narrative has survived relatively unscathed, i'm glad to say, but the fact that it is going to see print at all is to her and SNCA's credit entirely — 

swamped

 

the coochee history is mostly done but still a lot of permissions-to-publish for images and what not —my "Woodruff Chronicle," tracing their lives from Connecticut to Columbus is now back on the table, and going strong — james waldo woodruff (1879–1963) is the star in the last part

i'm supposed to be retired so all this writing and responding to people and what not is driving me a little crazy —

coochee

from UGA Press:

Great to chat with you earlier today. As promised, I'm writing to let you know that our Faculty Editorial Board unanimously (and enthusiastically) approved your manuscript, "A History of Sautee Nacoochee," for publication earlier this afternoon. Congratulations!

That means that we'll be ready to transmit the project to our managing editor to get the copyediting process started as soon as you submit the finalized manuscript and art program. I am expecting to receive the final MS and art program by 15 June 2023. If anything changes, please just let me know as soon as you know! As things sit, your book is slated to publish in our Fall 2024 season (think October-ish). If that presents a problem of any sort, just let me know.

 

coochee update

i revised the manuscript based on the reviewers comments, which were not many, and it passed the first editorial review on 11 may, with a second coming on 21 may — so far so good — it might be under contract in early june — and then copyediting, design, etc.  — wheeeeeee!

a history of sautee nacoochee

in early 2014, with me just a few months into  retirement, this project landed in my lap, courtesy of an old friend with whom i had worked in the 1990s — in july of that year, the local communnity association contracted with me for a comprehensive history of the valleys, part of a master plan in support of their mission to preserve the rural character of the area — it was the kind of local history i have always wanted to write: literally from the ground up — i started to work almost immediately and, because of "staff changes" and what not, wound up with a more or less free reign with the project — i submitted a "final" manuscript early in 2017, and thought I was done — but last year, they were back, getting serious about publication — they had hired someone to manage the process (thank the sweet baby jesus) — yesterday i learned that the reviewers for UGA press had recommended that that be made so — gah — count me semi-stunned

update!!! letter from the press's acquisitions editor and copies of the reviewer's comments, which were great! one said it was "the best submission I have read for UGA Press" --- it will go before the press's faculty editorial board in may for formal acceptance!

"help! i've fallen and i can't get up!"

i am swearing off making fun of old people falling over --- the last couple of episodes i've had made the point

last weekend, getting up at 3 in the morning to go pee, i fell over and banged the heck out of my head (one of dozens of such tough head-banging episodes that i have had, beginning when i was five or six), took most of monday in the ER (CT scan, etc) to find out that I didn't have a stroke, TIA, or whatever, or broken bones --- but my lower back was slightly sore, which i didn't realize had even struck anything --- monday to the doctor to see if there's kidney damage

he'll have something else to look at now --- thursday evening i started through the little gate that keeps dog off the bedroom carpet when it came out of its frame and fell over with me on top of it --- what a mess --- juggler watched it happen ---  

meanwhile the 20+ year-old replacement lens that fixed the cataract in my right eye has failed --- already had a "follow-up" appt with the ophthamologist person scheduled for friday afternoon, but i rescheduled for a couple weeks out --- whenever, they need to go ahead and give me a new lens

also too, i could use a new cardio-vascular system, kidney, and liver at least 

by and large, i'm not enjoying old age

olden times

an old friend who i first met living with dead john on piedmont road, ca. 1978, dropped by this evening, which he does once or twice a year --- he's brooklyn puerto rican, his other half is the upper piedmont of semi-redneck north carolina --- a wonderful impromtu meeting
 

trolling the garden

Trolls: Save the Humans by Thomas Dambo
 

r.i.p., john

gone five years now --- i will always miss him

haw haw haw

rome, toulouse, and verdi

Le Théâtre Antique d'Orange was built in Toulouse by the Romans in the first century CE --- in 2016 the city staged a performance of verdi's requiem here (one of my personal favorites), along with a wonderful series of images by the celebrated cartoonist Philippe Druilleton projected onto the rear wall ---

doncha know

One has either to take people as they are, or leave them as they are. One cannot change them, one can merely disturb their balance. A human being, after all, is not made up of single pieces, from which a single piece can be taken out and replaced by something else. Rather he is a whole, and if you pull one end, the other, whether you like it or not, begins to twitch. ~Franz Kafka

eek

the trip to peachtree corners to see the ophthamologist last monday was torture in every way, and i shan't want to go back out there again as long as i live if i can help it --- but at least the nice ophthamologist lady assured me that my retina or whatever is not falling out -- but we will keep that eye under observation, as it were --- 

the next evening, i was out walking dog, and as we started to cross piedmont at seventh, he started charging across the intersection, as is his want, and i stumbled and fell over --- dog stopped when i dropped the leash and just sat there, which he always does, but it took me two tries to get up off the pavement, and with oncoming traffic i was afraid i was about to watch the dog get run over --- that did not happen but i tore up my arm and, because of the way i fell, i should've broken my hip, but didn't --- weirdly the sciatica has been somewhat less troublesome since then

today dog and i walked down to chuck allen dr and the park for the first time since the sciatica kicked in --- nice weather, nice walk, and i did not have to crawl the last hundred yards back

quince, plum, and jonquil are rocking right now

happiness

 

yoko!

I'm waiting for a boat to help me out of here

Waiting for a boat to help me out

The boat that reached my shore was a toy boat

Waiting for a boat to help me out

I'm dreaming of a lake I've never seen before

Dreaming of a lake I've never seen

The lake I've seen last was a picture lake

Dreaming of a lake I've never seen

You who are

You who are

Help me out, help me out

Help me out of here

I'm thinking of a castle on atop a hill

Thinking of a castle on atop a hill

The castle I've been to was full of flies

Thinking of a castle on atop a hill

You who are

You who are

Help me out, help me out

Help me out of here

You who are

You who are

Help me out, help me out

Help me out of here

I'm waiting for a boat to help me out of here

Waiting for a boat to help me out

The boat that reached my shore was a toy boat

Waiting for a boat to help me out

You who are

You who are

Help me out, help me out

Help me out of here

You who are

You who are

Help me out, help me out

Help me out of here

i got issues

my left hip is crashing on me --- bummer

update: it's sciatica, which is right up there with shingles for aggravation and pain --- drugs and physical therapy are supposed to fix it, just not yet

and i've lost an arc of vision on the lower side of my right eye --- optic nerve is swollen and he wants me to go to a specialist in PEACHTREE CORNERS!!! where is that even located?