The ancient North Africans.
I’m speed reading through Herodotus for book club discussion on Monday. As I compile notes, I also like to read outside sources. Check out this re-blog which will serve as one of my installments of Herodotus notes.
Libya to the Egyptians and Greeks meant all of North Africa.
This is a map drawn by Herodotus himself. He names the Libyan people as the Nasamones, and interestingly, the Nile was believed to originated in the Atlas mountains instead of it’s real origin , a straight line southwards.
Foreign prisoners of Ramesses III: Libyan, Nubian, Syrian, Shasu Bedouin, and Hittite (The Hittites were an Indo-European people from Turkey).
A Libyan and a Nubian on king Tutankhamun’s staff.
And the mural of the races from the tomb of Ramses, from Belzoni’s illustration and the rather…
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An Autistic History
Title: Not Even Wrong
Author: Paul Collins
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Genre: Memoir/ Psychology
Length: 245 pages
I’ve journaled nearly twenty pages of commentary on this book. Now, having finished it, I’m not sure what I should share and what should be kept to myself.
Collins does a spectacular job sharing memoir with known history, diving into tales from the world and mixing it with tales from his personal world. The first few chapters are dedicated to his pursuit of Peter the Wild Boy and an existing desire to write a biography on the mysterious boy who was ‘rescued’ by King George. (Reference to the boy made in Notes and Queries, of course.) Collins later discovers his son is autistic.
The entire book is an ode to his son and his autism. An ode to their life, their relationship, the world of Autists.
Therefore a lot of information is shared regarding what that means. A lot of reflection on the gene pool it takes to cook up such a neurological anomaly that is an essential part of humanity as a whole. The trifecta being science, art, and math.
Collins writes on page 96:
Apparently we have been walking around with the genetic equivalent of a KICK ME sign:
my father: mechanical engineer
jennifer’s father: musician, math major
my brother: phd in computing
jennifer: painter
me
At this point, I remember taking my own personal inventory. My father is a civil engineer, not only that he was a musician and painter, and suffers from what I think is undiagnosed and extremely mild tourettes (also discussed in Collins’ book). My immediate cousins and family members on that side of the family are musicians and scientists. Some work in labs, some in an engineering field. Although I’ve been an English and History girl my whole life, much to my father’s chagrin, I was raised by and around extremely scientific minds. I think I get all the feelings and other eccentricities from my mother’s side. But in a parallel universe, had I somehow procreated with people I had dated in college rather than the love of my life whom I married – musicians, computer geeks, Synesthesiacs (also discussed in Collins’ book) – I think I was very close to wearing that KICK ME sign as well.
Looking at the world through the eyes of Collins’ research, I think many people have been close to wearing that sign. I think everyone should read through this book and see just how close. It’s enlightening. It’s scary. It’s beautiful.
There are so many amazing people through out history who have changed the face of humanity – the way we work – integral parts of society and science… and they were very likely autistic. Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Glenn Gould, Andy Warhol, Paul Erdos. These people are essential to who we are as a species today. These people have made our world more beautiful, even though they are very likely to be the same people described on page 109: “Imagine if you tried to pretend to understand people, but didn’t really. So you rehearse it all in your head: taking notes, analyzing every social action, trying to connect it all together.” I don’t have to imagine. I may not be a genius like Albert Einstein, I may not be as clever as Glenn Gould, and I’m certainly not nearly as eccentric as Andy Warhol – but I know all about rehearsing, taking notes, analyzing, and still feeling quite out of the loop. A little bit of understanding from the rest of the world goes a long way in my book – even though I’m not so good at understanding the rest of the world, I’m trying to be better about it.
“You know, it used to be that when I saw someone acting or talking strangely, or just being odd on the bus, I’d think to myself: What’s his problem? I still have that reaction. But now I stop, pause, and have a second thought: No, really, what is that man’s problem? There is a decades-long chain of events that created the person who are seeing.” – pg. 213
Paul Collins brings a little bit of humanity and the importance of curiosity and empathy into ALL his work. For that I adore him, and will always adore him, forever.
On that note, I want to check out the artwork of his wife. I love art. I love paintings. I am the CMO of an art company called Aoristos and I’m curious to see the style of art the spouse of my favorite author paints. If anyone knows and can provide reliable links – please do.
Literary Journal Monday
Today, I picked up The Arizona Quarterly. It was Volume 37 from the Winter of 1981, Number 4. The ISBN is 004-1610. I chose this one for the first essay listed on the cover – one on Montaigne, Melville, and The Cannibals. It’s by one Gorman Beauchamp (what a name) and spells out what I now realize it is that keeps me coming back to Melville time and time again, even though I’m always slightly dissatisfied with his work.
“[…] being a work of intrinsic interest and inventiveness as fiction-autobiography-anthropology-travelogue […]”
Beauchamp identifies all my favorite subjects and genres, then attributes them to Melville. Ah, I see now.
This entire installment is dedicated to Melville – every essay. A poem by a Housman piqued my interest, briefly, but it wasn’t A.E., it was another Housman.
If I were to purchase this (roughly $5), I’d house it next to The Secret of Lost Things so the Melville cronies can bond… so it can be near something else that reminds me to tackle Melville with more zeal. After all, it is something to revisit once I have tackled Melville more thoroughly.
Until then, I’ve tucked it back on the shelf at Good Books in the Woods – with the rest of the A’s in the Literary Journal area in the back of the Gallery – to be revisited as long as it remains there while my child frolics in the rock garden out back.
The Big Book for Peace
A Weekly Low Down on Kids Books
This picture is from BookMine – the one I took at GBITW didn’t take.
Title: The Big Book for Peace
This is where I normally list the authors and illustrators of a book… there were so many involved with The Big Book for Peace that I opted to take a picture of the title page instead:
I’ve been eying this for awhile now. It’s been perched on display in the kid’s section at Good Books in the Woods for months now. Why has no one picked it up? Why is no one buying this. It’s in a nice slip cover, it’s been taken care of. There’s some slight water damage that – as a book collector – I see no problem with, it’s ever so slight and does not take away from the magic of the book. It’s a nice, clean copy. It’s only $12.
I know why I haven’t purchased it – I’m completely overloaded with books AND have NO money.
But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to read it until someone else does decide to take this treasure home.
So today, I sat down with the kiddo, in a bookstore, in another person’s home – and my home away from home – and read her the first story in the book.
Filled with castles and kings as any good Lloyd Alexander story should be, The Two Brothers follows a tale of two men who split the kingdom their father left them in half. From the rubble of the fortress they grew up in, they build two separate castles. What begins as a sweet story between the kindest brothers ever evolves into a competition of who can build the better kingdom, each man filled with greed and a medieval ‘keeping up with the Jonses’ mentality.
So many times, the reader can see where each brother makes an unwise choice, continuing the bitterness. Until we arrive at this lovely illustration, which my camera has done little justice:
This story was kiddo approved (she’s three, but it is a nice tale for any age). I look forward to the next chapter of The Big Book of Peace.
So This is 30
It’s 9am. I’ve been up for over an hour. I’m clean. My coffee is being made. My three year old is asleep in MY bed and my husband is asleep on the couch. Nothing bad has happened; it is just the merry go-round musical chair – ahem – musical bed – way that we sleep (each one getting up and moving elsewhere a few times by morning).
A kind, old friend from school – kindergarten to be exact – posted on my facebook wall to have a happy birthday and read something for him. So today, I will absolutely do both of those things. My something? Paul Collins Not Even Wrong. It is a story about “A Father’s Journey into the Lost History of Autism.” No, my kid doesn’t have autism. I’m not even reading it because it’s about autism. I’m reading it because it is Paul Collins. And because it is my birthday. I’m reading it because I always save Paul Collins for something important, something special. He’s my favorite.
What better way to spend the Big 3-0 than with coffee and a good book? Oh, yes, I know I do that every morning. But I suppose that that’s the thing about being 30, I’ve become a little set in my ways.
My sister took me to Peli Peli on Thursday – one of my favorite restaurants – where we devoured shrimp cocktail and stuffed mushrooms and thought we had died and gone to heaven by dessert. That was for my birthday. It was a special treat.
Tuesday I’ll be starting a new bike club – specifically for cruisers that live in my neighborhood – so I suppose that’s a new leaf (turned from the bike club I started in July 2013 that has evolved and grown into something I had never imagined).
So this is 30 too… lunch with my sister at fancier restaurants than I would have gone to at 20. Bike clubs and organizing community activities – even if I’m not getting paid to do it. At 20 I would have only started something I was getting paid to organize and direct (Kung Fu Day Camp anyone?).
At 30 I am less busy, but possibly more involved. (Sounds odd coming from such a busy person, I’m sure.) At 30 I still sit down with coffee and a good book, but it’s more likely to be a memoir written by a parent than a piece of fiction about drug addicts and orphans (I vaguely recall reading White Oleander in my early 20’s). I have a copy of Herodotus that I’ve been devouring all week, but even that history book is a far cry from my business text books of college.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot this year. At 20 I was way hotter, in much better shape – I earned my 3rd degree black belt that year and was running about 5 miles a day. At 20 I had a pile of friends that I practically lived with, I was constantly surrounded by stimuli and activity. I worked three jobs. I went to school full time. I didn’t sleep. I still managed to party a lot. But I wouldn’t go back.
Now, I am just as broke all the time, still paying off my school loans, reading whatever I want for the most part, and writing novels. Now, I am homeschooling a three year old, savoring my quiet moments of coffee (because quiet is not come by with ease), and starting bike clubs. I’m alone with only a toddler for company fairly often, and running out and scraping up cash for dinner isn’t as easy as when you don’t have little person at your side. (I remember picking up shifts on the fly when I was waiting tables just to be able to eat for the weekend when I saw that grocery money was low, when I was 20.)
So… this is 30 and…
I think I like it.
A few months ago I wasn’t so sure I’d be able to say that today.
In Response to Book Riot – A Bella Swan Post
Kristen Stewart, actress, as Bella Swan in the Twilight Saga movies
Many moons ago, I posted this.
Today, I read this.
Of course, I have something to say about it all… of course.
So here it goes:
Of course we envy Bella’s apathy. Of course we wish we could float through life allowing everyone else to make decisions for us. Of course. Why? Because it’s simple. It’s easy. You are not responsible for your actions if you’re merely a reactor, if you function by being completely nonfunctional – always being taken care of.
Ruminate on that thought. Embrace it. Now revisit Bella’s story…
What if Edward had become an abusive drunk? What if her friends were not so nice or trustworthy? What if all these fabulous adventures she just allowed to happen to her throughout the series, what if all this apathy, had come back to bite her in the butt? Being a helpless twat doesn’t sound so awesome anymore, does it?
Ultimately, we like Bella Swan because everything worked out for her. Her personality and choices are acceptable because there is a happy ending. Put the same traits on someone with a not-so-happy ending and we’d blame them, shake our finger at her blatant disregard for taking care of herself and heeding wise council.
I appreciate this Book Rioter’s post about changing thoughts and opinions on a character. I appreciate that she identifies with Bella Swan, that she envies her in some ways. That’s her right and the beauty of books – everyone gets a little something – take what you like and leave the rest.
But me as a teenager, I think, would have found Bella just as repulsive a character as I found when I read it as a married adult. Mainly because she was disobedient, a poor student, and was relying on the love of her life to scoop her up. All things that a teenager probably *wants* to do, but as a teenager (more so than as an adult), I did not allow this line of thinking in myself because I saw time and time again in others how self-destructive it could be when life spun out into the wrong direction.
I was blessed enough to actually marry the boy I loved in high school – a lot of people I knew did – but I wasn’t counting on this. There is nothing wrong with being in love. There is no shame in the desire of your heart to ultimately be a wife and mother. I don’t knock that one bit. But please, please, prepare for another scenario.
Be the best student you can be. Train for something – learn a trade. Be capable of paying your own bills and keeping a roof over your own head. That is something that I didn’t get from Bella Swan, not in the slightest, not one bit. Bella Swan expected her fantastical boy to sweep her off her feet and had no secondary plans. This, ladies and gents, disturbs me, no matter how much I, too, may envy her apathy at times.
You don’t have to be a control freak to take control of your life and your future; and you don’t have to be apathetic to fall into the desires of your heart.
Literary Journal Mondays
Remember the zine movement? (No? Visit Snapdragon Zine Fair) Ah, the 90’s and early 2000’s. Except that’s not where it started. No, it began long ago, and still goes on, in Literary Journals.
McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern comes to mind.
But do you remember Granta? (or Paris Review, or Soho Square, or The Quarterly, or countless others?)
My eyes tend to rest on Granta when I’m in a bookstore. Such colorful spines… printed by Penguin.
Today, #24 Inside Intelligence pops out at me… “Her Majesty’s Government does not want you to know about the life of Anthony Cavendish,” the cover reads. There’s a huge circular stamp in the bottom right corner: BANNED IN BRITAIN. How do you pass that up?
What follows is a spirited and creative journalistic effort to share news in the form of intelligent literature. Photographs and interviews you wouldn’t get in a newspaper, writing worthy of Pulitzers (and sometimes even written by Pulitzer winners). Just in Granta #24 alone, Philip Roth, Peter Carey, Tobias Wolff, Bruce Chatwin, and E.L. Doctorow all grace us with their presence.
The world of literary journals is a fascinating and amazing one that goes back centuries.
Paul Collins wrote an essay called “121 Years of Solitude” for Bookmark Now about his own journeys through a literary journal called Notes and Queries: A Medium of Intercommunication for Literary Men – a weekly magazine from the Victorian era. Collins’ memoir-like essay of his time spent in the Portland, Oregon library is one I dive into regularly, envious of his access and ability to take time to develop a daily library routine. Bus rides downtown, coffee, grand staircases, Notes and Queries, the entire endeavor sounds heavenly to me.
I don’t have time in my life – or the ability, as a mom of a three year old – to replicate a similar endeavor right now. But, the idea of taking an extra 30 minutes to an hour each Monday to peruse a literary journal that graces the shelves of my existing Monday routine (Good Books in the Woods) sounds plausible.
So here’s to Literary Journal Mondays – may they be more consistent than my Weekly Low Down of Kids Books (which happens sporadically throughout most months instead).
Herodotus Notes Continued
Session Two – in which I sat outside in the beautiful Sunday outdoors of a Valentine weekend, drank my coffee, and devoured some history while the kiddo painted. Like so,
Yes, she paints with TWO hands, and doesn’t even have to look at the canvas, she is that awesome. Also, I have x-ray vision and can read through the book boards. Not really, I just really like the front cover of the Histories edition I’m reading from.
Today, while I was reading, I got caught up in a bit about the sacred animals of Egypt. Herodotus takes time to discuss this topic in a bullet point type fashion and very little detail. I suppose he had so much information to relay that this was not high on his list of things to be extraordinarily well researched. He simply mentions which ones are sacred and plods happily along with his narrative.
Except he mentions otters.
Otters were sacred to the Ancient Egyptians.
Otters are in my top ten list of favorite animals of all time.
However, most of my adoration comes from watching them for prolonged period of times at the zoo, or in sharing adorable pictures of them with my friends on facebook… like these ones on the right caught kissing. (How adorable is that?!) I actually know very little about otters, much less that they are native to Egypt. I am a little bit obsessed with Ancient Egypt and consider myself a very amateur budding Egyptologist of sorts [very, very amateur who buds quite slowly]. Somehow, until now, the otters have escaped me.
The World Book Encyclopedia describes an ottter as a “fur-bearing animal that spends much of its time in the water.” They are flesh-eaters and hopelessly cute. Of course, I’m drawn to them – but the encyclopedia offers no explanation or even reference to the fact that the Ancient Egyptians would care.
So, of course I google it and find this. If you’re not in a link hopping, article reading mood, I shall spare you and share only this highlighted introduction paragraph:
Four otter species occur in Africa. The Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) occurs only in the rivers rising in the Atlas mountains. Three species are endemic to Africa: The Cape clawless otter (Aonyx capensis), the Congo clawless otter (Aonyx congica), and the spotted-necked otter (Lutra maculicollis). Throughout the high rainfall regions (i.e. within the 500 mm isohyet) of sub-Saharan Africa at least one of these species, often more, can be expected to be present. Otters are absent from only six countries on the African continent: Djibouti, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Somalia, and Western Sahara. With the exception of Egypt, these counties probably do not have sufficient permanent water for otters.
Absent from Egypt. Still sacred to Ancient Egyptians.
Of course, this led me to more questions. More googling. (And even more plans to visit a bookstore and the library in search of answers as soon as humanly possible .) Which led to this little gem… Otter or Mongoose?.
Despite my extensive personal library I am constantly shocked by what is not in it – and I have nothing on otters… or mongooses for that matter.
I also have nothing on Queen Tomyris of the Massagetai and she, too, though not as thoroughly as the otters, piqued my interest today. How have I not heard of this woman? This semi-psychotic warrior queen who is responsible for the death of Cyrus the Great. Obviously, I need a biography on her stat. Well, not too stat, as I’m currently in the middle of The Life of Charlotte Bronte and I’ve yet to finish a whole host of other fabulous biographies that are piled around the house. Rest assured, however, I have taken note in my handy dandy notebook of all things Ancient History and Queen Tomyris will not be forgotten. The wonderful thing about scholarship is that there is always more to study. The terrible thing about scholarship is that I have to be patient with myself knowing that I can only read as much as I can read in a day and that there will always be more to read.
Finally, Part Three
Yep, still talking about this.
I finished Committed last night just before bed. I let it settle in my mind. I avoided circular obsessive thoughts about it – circular, obsessive thoughts are usually how I handle most things from something someone said that day to mortgage payments to the last few sentences of whatever book I have just read (thank you, Codependent No More).
Amazing how I was able to sleep when I took some deep breaths and let it go. I’ll think about it tomorrow. I never tell myself I’ll think about it tomorrow. I always just think about it until tomorrow. This typically evolves into some kind of extreme emotion by morning – what Gilbert quotes the Gottman’s as calling “flooding.”
That being said, I don’t have any stunning perspective or revelation now that I have finished the book. I merely have some quotes that struck me as notable. So notable that I didn’t just underline them in the book like a maniac, I actually copied them down into my journal.
“My mother herself had probably given up long ago trying to draw tidy ultimate conclusions about her own existence, having abandoned (as so many of us must do, after a certain age) the luxuriously innocent fantasy that one is entitled to have unmixed feelings about one’s own life.” – pg. 201, Committed
Me of excessive and obsessive thought who feels passionately one way or another on almost EVERY topic found this relieving. Lately, I have felt passionately about opposing thoughts – as in I feel BOTH sides passionately and have felt that this means there is something wrong with me. Apparently what I have seen as the ultimate sin – a conflict of beliefs and ideas and feelings – are just the growing pains of adulthood.
“If there is one indignity I shall never endure gracefully, it is watching people mess around with my most cherished personal narratives about them.” – pg. 206, Committed
Yes! This enrages me! And that is ridiculous. Gilbert may profess to never endure it gracefully, but that is definitely an aspect of my character I want to learn to change. It was roughly around this point of my reading that Annie Lennox started singing “Fool on the Hill” with Paul McCartney in the front row of the audience on TV and I decided that there will be sins I can’t kick, feelings I can’t change, that I will take to my grave. But enduring other people being themselves, even if it is not how I view them, gracefully is something I would like to be able to do sometime. The thoughts and the song and Annie Lennox may be unrelated, but forever in my mind they will be synonymously seared into my brain… don’t be a fool, summon your grace.
There was also a bit about porcupines that intrigued me. It’s a blurb Gilbert writes about another author’s work, Deborah Luepnitz’s Schopenhauer’s Porcupines:
“[…] Arthur Schopenhauer told about the essential dilemma of modern human intimacy. Schopenhauer believed that humans, in their love relationships, were like porcupines out on a cold winter night. In order to keep from freezing, the animals huddle close together. But as soon as they are near enough to provide critical warmth, they get poked by each other’s quills. Reflexively, to stop the pain and irritation of too much closeness, the porcupines separate. But once they separate, they become cold again. The chill sends them back toward each other once more, only to be impaled all over again by each other’s quills. So they retreat again. And then approach again. Endlessly. ‘And the cycle repeats,’ Deborah wrote, ‘as they struggle to find a comfortable distance between entanglement and freezing.’ ” – pg. 223, Committed
I read that and immediately thought of heroine and addiction. No, I’m not a heroine addict. But I’ve seen them in action. And if I’m to be honest I have a tendency to feel like one in regards to the people I care about the most – all of whom I can count on fewer fingers than I have on one hand.
Gilbert’s book is lovely. I’m sorry I sharked her memoir and made it all about me. I hope if she ever stumbles across this blog, she will take it with a grain of salt and not see me as a pirate of some kind. I recommend reading this book, regardless of what you thought about the more famous Eat, Pray, Love.
If I’m to get one over all message from ALL of my reading this weekend/ week, it is this:
I really needed to get this message.
Anakalian Whims 