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ingek73 · 1 year

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India archive reveals extent of ‘colonial loot’ in royal jewellery collection

File from India Office archive details how priceless items were extracted from colony as trophies of conquest

by David Pegg and Manisha Ganguly

Published: 14:00 Thursday, 06 April 2023

Five years ago, Buckingham Palace marked its summer opening with an exhibition celebrating the then Prince Charles’s 70th birthday with a display of his favourite pieces from the royal collection, Britain’s official trove of items connected to the monarchy. “The prince had a very, very strong hand in the selection,” the senior curator said.

Among the sculptures, paintings and other exhibits was a long gold girdle inlaid with 19 large emeralds once used by an Indian maharajah to decorate his horses. It was a curious choice to put into the exhibition in light of the violent means by which it had come into the hands of the royal family.

Emerald girdle of Maharaja Sher Singh, c 1840. Photograph: Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2023

As part of its Cost of the crown series, the Guardian has uncovered a remarkable 46-page file in the archives of the India Office, the government department that was responsible for Britain’s rule over the Indian subcontinent. It details an investigation, apparently commissioned by Queen Mary, the grandmother of Elizabeth II, into the imperial origins of her jewels.

The report, from 1912, explains how priceless pieces, including Charles’s emerald belt, were extracted from India as trophies of conquest and later given to Queen Victoria. The items described are now owned by the monarch as property of the British crown.

Plundered stones

To fully understand the context behind the jewels, and their place in India’s history, it was necessary to visit the archives.

A journal records a tour in 1837 of the Punjab area in north India by the society diarist Fanny Eden and her brother George, the governor general of the British Raj at the time. They visited Ranjit Singh, the maharajah in Lahore, who had signed a “treaty of friendship” with the British six years earlier.

The half-blind Singh wore few if any precious stones, Eden wrote in her journal, but his entourage was positively drowning in them. So plentiful were the maharajah’s gems that “he puts his very finest jewels on his horses, and the splendour of their harness and housings surpasses anything you can imagine,” she wrote. Eden later confided in her journal: “If ever we are allowed to plunder this kingdom, I shall go straight to their stables.”

Twelve years later, Singh’s youngest son and heir, Duleep, was forced to sign over the Punjab to the conquering forces of the British East India Company. As part of the conquest, the company did indeed plunder the horses’ emeralds, as well as Singh’s most precious stone, the legendary Koh-i-noor diamond.

The queen mother’s crown sits on top of the coffin during her funeral in 2002. Photograph: Dan Chung/The Guardian

Today, the Koh-i-noor sits in the crown of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, on display at the Tower of London, and it has become an emblem of Britain’s tortured relationship with its imperial history.

Anita Anand, a journalist and historian who co-wrote a book titled Koh-i-noor on the diamond, said it was “a beautiful and cold reminder of British supremacy during the Raj”, the period between 1858 and 1947 when India was ruled by the crown.

“Its facets reflect the fate of a boy king who was separated from his mother,” Anand said. The stone too was “taken far away from his home, recut and diminished”. Anand said: “That is not how India sees itself today.”

Buckingham Palace is plainly aware of the sensitivities surrounding looted artefacts. After the Indian government let it be known that for Camilla, the Queen Consort, to wear the Koh-i-noor at Charles’s coronation would elicit “painful memories of the colonial past”, the palace announced she would swap it for a less contentious diamond.

But, as was discovered by Queen Mary, the Koh-i-noor was not the only gem taken from Singh’s treasury to have found its way to the British monarchy.

Royal with a pearl necklace

Among the jewels identified in the document found by the Guardian is a “short necklace of four very large spinel rubies”, the largest of which is a 325.5-carat spinel that later came to be identified as the Timur ruby.

Its famous name is erroneous: research by the academic Susan Stronge in 1996 concluded it was probably never owned by Timur, a Mongol conquerer. And it is a spinel, a red stone similar to, but chemically distinct from, a ruby.

Elizabeth II was shown handling it in the 1969 BBC documentary Royal Family, and was clearly acquainted with the myths surrounding it. “The history, of course, is very fascinating. It belonged to so many kings of Persia and Mughal emperors, until Queen Victoria was sent it from India,” she observed.

The Timur ruby necklace, 1853. Photograph: Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2023

The queen was never pictured wearing the item. However, she may have worn another of the Lahore treasures, identified in the India Office report as “a pearl necklace consisting of 224 large pearls”.

In her 1987 study of royal jewellery, Leslie Field described “one of the Queen Mother’s most impressive two-row pearl necklaces … made from 222 pearls with a clasp of two magnificent rubies surrounded by diamonds that had originally belonged to the ruler of the Punjab” – almost certainly a reference to the same necklace.

The queen wearing pearls at the Royal Opera House in 2012. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

In 2012, Elizabeth II attended a gala festival at the Royal Opera House in London to celebrate her diamond jubilee. Photographs showed her wearing a multi-string pearl necklace with a ruby clasp.

Were these Ranjit Singh’s pearls? There was speculation they may have been, though Buckingham Palace was unable to confirm either way.

Queen Mary’s interest appears to have been prompted by curiosity about the origin of some of her pearls rather than any moral concern about the manner in which they were obtained. But a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said slavery and colonialism were matters that “his Majesty takes profoundly seriously”.

Shashi Tharoor, formerly an undersecretary at the United Nations, and currently an MP in India, said: “We have finally entered an era where colonial loot and pillage is being recognised for what it really was, rather than being dressed up as the incidental spoils of some noble ‘civilising mission’.

“As we are seeing increasingly, the return of stolen property is always a good thing. Generations to come will wonder why it took civilised nations so long to do the right thing.”

#abolish the monarchy #queen elizabeth ll #king charles the cruel #brf #colonialism #koh i noor #cost of the crown #the guardian #british royal family #imperialism

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threewaysdivided · 2 years

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do you have any favorite dp or young justice fics you would recommend to your readership? or even fics outside of those two fandoms.

thank you! deathly weapons is one of my favorite things to read- and i especially love reading your meta on the subject- so anything you’ve read that you think is great/ has an interesting premise would be cool to see.

(Young Justice: Deathly Weapons)

💜🤍🖤 Thank you as well!

I’m always astounded and delighted when people tell me they're rereading Deathly Weapons or anything else I wrote. To me, one of the elements of a good story is it being something that you can return to, and it’s lovely to hear that I’m doing something right on that front.

(Also I’m just so humbled that you would give my story your time like that. I put a fair bit of my own time into Deathly Weapons, but that’s still a little piece of your life in return and it’s just… amazing.)

For me writing and meta are things that kind of ouroboros together. I tend to engage with stories in a very inquisitive/ interrogative way - I want to understand the characters/ events/ world it’s trying to create as well as the mechanics behind the curtain - and I have a special place in my heart for stories that were constructed with enough thought to reward that kind of curiosity. Which then reflects in my own writing and the behind-the-scenes planning work I do to make sure things hold up to inspection by other puzzlers.

3WD's Meta Collection

Young Justice Season 1 (and also DW) Let’s Analyse the Light | A Different Take on Martian Bigotry

Actually Critical YJ Analyses Masterpost | Invasion: a Detailed Dissection | Antithesis of Heroism (Bonus Rhyme)

And now…

Fanfic Recommendations

This one is actually a bit of a challenge for me because I consume media (and analysis) quite widely across a lot of fandoms. I tend to draw eclectic inspiration from my whole ‘source-pool’ and its meta-patterns, so it’s hard for me to point to any one thing and say: ‘that specifically inspired part of DW’.

It’s also a little tricky because Deathly Weapons was partly inspired by me having some specific itches that I couldn’t find any stories to scratch. “People won't write the books I want, so I have to do it for myself” and so on and so forth. If you would like to make any recs based on DW then please do so, I would love to see them.

That said, my FFN Favourites and AO3 Bookmarks double as general recs lists - I tend to use my bookmarks/faves as quick-access for stories I want to revisit, so you can take anything on there as something I would potentially recommend to other people.

What I’d like to do now is give a more specific list of stories that are somewhat DW-adjacent or are doing interesting things with their premise/execution/characterisation:

Danny Phantom

Alibi (FFN) by MyAibou Gen | Complete | Post series (no PP) He was Dash Baxter. Football star. King of Casper High. The world was supposed to have been his oyster for at least another decade. So how did he end up in the basement lab of FentonWorks working for the dad of the kid he used to beat up in high school? And how far would he stick his neck out to protect that kid and whatever secret he was hiding from the government?

A Ghost Story (FFN) by Cordria Gen | Complete | Slowburn mystery AU Maddie finds a strange toy airplane in a field, and it leads her to learning some very interesting things about her family.

You know how I said I can’t usually point to something as direct inspiration for DW? This is one of the exceptions: Maddie’s realisation very much inspired Robin’s similar one in CH12: Answers.

What Little Girls are Made Of (AO3) by Haiju Gen | Complete | Dani-centric reveal fic Phantom and his younger double save Amity Park from a monstrous ghost, nearly destroying themselves in the process. The Fentons have always hunted ghosts; now it's time to save one.

Young Justice

Before we begin, I would like to share this AO3 filter I use for YJ fics published pre-2019. It won’t pick up any still-updating fics or older fics that might have migrated to AO3 since, but if you want to revisit what the fandom felt like before the Fire Nation attacked then this will come pretty close.

Age of Heroes (AO3) by VelkynKarma Gen | Complete | Zombie Apocalypse AU The apocalypse has come and gone and the Age of Heroes is long since over. There’s not much left to live for, but Wally’s never been one to give up without trying, and maybe there are still a few miracles—and heroes—left in the world.

The Fedora Verse (AO3) by itsxandy Gen | Series | Complete | Villain!Wally Elseworld Wally West is the newest, fastest thief in Central City. His biggest offense so far? Making crime look this good.

No One Said Flying Was Easy (AO3) by Wrtrmd2 Gen | Complete | Robin origin story Eight year old Richard Grayson has just watched his parents fall to their deaths. Hurting and alone, he struggles to adjust to the new life he's thrown into. Bruce Wayne takes him in, but seems to have no idea what he's doing. Can they help each other put the pieces of their broken lives back together?

Morals (FFN) by WonderWalrus Spitfire | Complete | CW: graphic depictions of violence When a mission takes a turn for the worse, Wally is captured by Shadows and held captive in a secret base. Alone and afraid, he finds himself talking to the only person who will listen: the blonde archer guarding him who refuses to give her name.

Coming of Rage (AO3) by BlackFriar Gen | Complete | CW: graphic depictions of violence Batman is infected with rage, leading Robin and Kid Flash on a mad dash through Gotham to find the cure before Batman destroys either himself…or someone he cares about.

Danny Phantom x Young Justice (or Teen Titans)

Turning Tables (FFN) by Blackwolfhunting TT x DP | Gen | Complete | Post TUE AU | CW: experimentation When the Teen Titans face a new apprentice from Slade, what are they to do especially when this one can turn Invisible and hide from their sights. Though they receive surprising help that just might help reveal the mystery around this new apprentice and why exactly he hates one Vlad Masters' guts.

Shoutout to this as the first proper fanfiction I ever read and the one that started me on the path into fandom. If you’re wondering where ThreeWaysDivided began, you can look here. (I ask that you not hold it against them: they knew not what would happen and no doubt meant well).

Unfair Justice (FFN) by Daruku Janubu DP x YJ | Gen | Discontinued |CW: Post-dissection fic Within the cargo box of a missing truck, the team found something that would redefine their view on justice. For sometimes, believing you are doing what is right makes innocent people suffer; and sometimes, saving people's lives is not enough to make you their hero.

Not the first YJ x DP fic I ever read but this is the first one I remember really sticking with me. Warning for heavy content but lovely style. Also, coincidentally, by the artist who drew the cover which first enticed me into checking out Turning Tables. Because life, like fic, is sometimes very well written.

The Heart of a Hero (FFN) by Rookey DP x YJ | Gen | Hiatus/ Discontinued | Post TUE AU With the whole world blaming him for an accident that killed thousands, Danny Fenton finds himself living day-to-day in a rather peaceful city he thought to be widely overlooked by the Justice League. But the heart of a hero knows no bounds, and Danny finds staying hidden to be much harder than he anticipated; especially when Happy Harbor isn't nearly as "overlooked" as he thought.

Control (FFN) by nikodark DP x YJ | Gen | Abandoned | CW: kidnapping & violence Dick Grayson gets kidnapped a lot. A whole lot. We all know that tired trope. But this time he gets kidnapped by a ghost.

The Half-Finished, Half-Assed Guide to Being Half-Dead: By a Half-Ghost (AO3) by ItsyBitsyBatsySpider DP x YJ | Gen | Ongoing Dick Grayson is thrown into a world he didn't even know existed, with powers that he can barely understand, and Danny Fenton did not expect to become a ghost mentor when the Justice League came knocking on his door.

Red Eyes (FFN) by art-is-a-bang-yeah DP x YJ | Gen | Complete | Post TUE AU | CW: abuse During a benefit Bruce and his charge meet Vlad masters and his son Daniel, a boy with blood red eyes. When Bruce notices a few things seem off about the teen, he decides he should investigate and what he discovers is much darker than he thought possible.

Ghost of A Chance (AO3) by MirrorandImage TT x DP | Gen | Complete | CW: PTSD & former abuse At a financial gala, Robin finds a curious girl who only has one thing to say: "Tell Danny I'm alive."

Other fandoms and crossovers

E.Nigma Investigations (AO3) by Gh0stWriter, zorasublime (Dr_Skeletons) Batman Elseworld | Gen | Series | Quasi-1940s Noir Mystery Recently-reformed and even more recently-released from Arkham Asylum, Edward Nigma is struggling to find work as a Private Eye. A changed Gotham greets him; marred by the scars of a harrowing catastrophe that put real fear into the public and shifted the dynamic of the Rogues. Cobblepot is on the rise and, with the Joker leaving burned bridges in his wake, the city's underworld is more dangerous for Harley Quinn than she wants to believe. Police, doctors and former friends on all sides, suspiciously-specific fires breaking out in the slums and Whispers of something more horrifying on the horizon. What a time to try to go straight.

What the Cat Dragged In (AO3) by Kryal Miraculous Ladybug x Early MCU | Gen | Complete Tony's pretty sure it's written into cosmic law somewhere: superheroes are not supposed be cute. Apparently, no one's told these two. He’s okay with that.

They're Us (FFN) by Goldenbrook15 Young Justice x Justice League Unlimited | Gen | Abandoned When Young Justice’s Team land themselves in another dimension by accident and then manage to escape the entire Justice League (who strangely don't know them at all) and flee into the world outside, Batman can only come to one conclusion, "They're us, from a different world."

Happytown (AO3) by TMBrown Zootopia | Gen | Complete | Buddy-cop investigation A special assignment leads Judy and Nick into a tangled web of history in Nick's childhood home, while Judy deals with the consequences of her fame back in Bunnyburrow.

Good Neighbors (AO3) by PitViperOfDoom My Hero Academia | Gen | Series | Complete | Leverage AU Sometimes you miss your calling, but that doesn't mean you won't find it again in an unexpected place.

the family brooklyn (AO3) by tactfulGnostalgic Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse | Gen | Series | Complete A series of fics set in the Spiderverse, about home and its variations.

Developmental Milestones (AO3) by audreycritter Batman (comics) | Gen | Complete | OC Centric Dr. Kiran Devabhaktuni is a neurosurgeon. He's the neurosurgeon that cut a tumor out of Bruce Wayne's skull. At first, Dev was just coming around for tea with Alfred. But somehow he's now working as the doctor for the Wayne Family. And the Wayne family? Also the Batman Family.

I don’t usually recommend OC-centric fics but Dev is one of the best support characters I have ever encountered. 10/10 very good Batdoctor.

Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach (AO3) by Nnm Good Omens (TV) | Gen | Complete As soon as Aubrey Thyme, psychotherapist, had opened her office door and seen her new client, Anthony J. Crowley, sitting in her waiting area, she was observing and assessing him. At first glance, she paid attention to the following: --His clothing was expensive and stylish; --He wore very strange but noticeable cologne; --His relationship to the seat he occupied could only, very loosely, be described as “sitting;” --He looked angry; --He was wearing sunglasses. What Aubrey Thyme, a professional, thought, upon first seeing her new client was: you’re going to be a fun one, aren’t you?

Other media recs

Going to finish off with a little tangent (as is my wont). Sometimes I get the sense that Deathly Weapons is built a little different from the average crossover fic, and I think part of it is that I draw a fair bit of inspiration and stylistic influence from traditionally published media across a bunch of genres. Here are a few of those:

Works that directly influenced Deathly Weapons

The Millennium Trilogy Book Series | Mystery/ Modern Noir | Trilogy | Complete | CW: MA15+ Millennium publisher Mikael Blomkvist has made his reputation exposing corrupt establishment figures. Enigmatic delinquent security specialist Lisbeth Salander is a genius computer hacker who tolerates no restrictions placed on her by individuals, society or the law. They were men who hated women, and she was the woman who hates men who hate women.

This is one of my favourite mystery/ crime series and provided a fair amount of inspiration for DW in terms of structural, tonal and stylistic elements (especially in chapters like the Prologue and Phenomenon). People familiar with this series might recognise some direct stylistic homages in future chapters. Trigger warning: This series deals heavily in subjects of bigotry (especially misogyny), abuse (personal, sexual and institutional) and violence against women, and includes explicit depictions and discussions. MA15+, reader discretion is advised.

The Kingkiller Chronicles Book Series | Fantasy | Trilogy | Incomplete (2/3 Published) I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep. My name is Kvothe. You may have heard of me

One of my favourite fantasy series, and a big inspiration in terms of prose and style as well as some character dynamics. Fans may recognise direct homages in some of DW’s chapter titles, such as Roads to Safe Places and Ill-Lit Ships.

The Book Thief Book | Historical Fiction | CW: War, Nazism/ Antisemitism, Death It’s just a small story really, about, among other things: a girl; some words; an accordionist; some fanatical Germans; a Jewish fist-fighter; and quite a lot of thievery. I saw the book thief three times.

This book has my all-time favourite prose in terms of lyricism and imagery, as well as its ability to speak to loss and find beauty in the human condition even under horrific circumstances. I sometimes re-read it as part of preparation for writing emotionally heavy chapters like Roads to Safe Places, and fans might recognise some direct stylistic homages.

Avatar: The Last Airbender TV Series (Animated) | Fantasy/ Martial Arts In a war-torn world of elemental magic, a young boy reawakens to undertake a dangerous mystic quest to fulfill his destiny as the Avatar, and bring peace to the world.

What can I say about A:TLA that hasn’t already been said by a million other writers and story analysts? I certainly took some structural and emotional cues from this show and the discussions around it when planning DW’s overarching story.

Other ones you might like

I’m going to bundle Psychonauts 2, Leverage and Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse together as I have discussed them at length in another recommendation post but if you enjoyed any of the story flavours in Young Justice Season 1 then these will probably scratch some similar itches.

If you like young adult spy stories that are played more for tension/ intrigue than fantasy then you may enjoy the Alex Rider book series. I reread the first book, Stormbreaker, while working on the last third of the Black Gold mission.

The Bartimaeus Sequence is a very entertaining series of YA Urban Fantasy political intrigues featuring magic and demons, narrated mostly by a djinn who has some pointed comments to make about humanity. Those who like their Urban Fantasy with intrigue/ crime elements, villain protagonists and/or banter may also like the Artemis Fowl series (YMMV on the last 2 books, which were written later and somewhat divisive for their shift in style and focus).

Speaking of morally ambiguous intrigue-heavy Urban Fantasy, the Death Note manga is a fun cat-and-mouse murder-thriller between two ruthless strategists.

Fullmetal Alchemist is another deservedly well-renowned modern fantasy manga with mystery/ political intrigue elements, which has some broad-strokes overlaps with A:TLA in terms of structure, tone and general thesis on humanity.

Spiritfarer is a cozy indie management game about dying. This might seem like a bit of a dark horse offering but a major component of DW Arc II’s planned main character thread is about the journey through (and specificity of) grief. If that is something you enjoy then Spiritfarer is a concentrated dose of that in an exceptionally executed, insightful, gentle and touching form, with a gorgeous soundtrack.

Another dark horse offering coming in to land (heh) is Air Crash Investigations (also known as Mayday: Air Disaster), a documentary series about aviation forensics. As discussed here, it’s a very good example of fair-mystery style investigative storytelling grounded in human tragedy - especially from Season 11 onwards. Fair warning: if you have issues with planes or flying then you may want to tread carefully here.

And with that I think we’ll stop for now. Hope you find something you like in the list. Please feel free to add on any recs of your own!

#also shoutout to Keys to the Kingdom and Dragon Booster who I was knocked flat to realised parts of DW's climax/ending was riffing on #young justice: deathly weapons #young justice #danny phantom #fanfic reccomendation #fic recs #YJ fanfic recs #DP fanfic recs #YJ Meta #DP Meta #mygoldfishateit #3WD Answers

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loveoversense · 2 years

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So I'm reliving my middle school obsession with Vampire Academy with the show and am, honestly, loving it. The more diverse cast? All the queer shit? Absolutely up my alley! More thoughts under the cut because spoilers for both the books and the series so far~ (beware! really long rambly post filled with some oversharing on my part coming up! But if you want to dump your erratic thoughts on the show somewhere, my messages are available! Would love to talk about it and share thoughts with someone lol)

Okay, so mainly gonna be going off about episode 7, might come back later for thoughts on the earlier eps and some are sprinkled throughout this post as well. I saw a post somewhere before about how someone couldn't see how the Victor we'd been introduced to in the first 6 eps could be the one to pull a Natalie so to say and do that to one of his own daughters. And I don't think they necessarily will pull out Natalie, or even if they do, they have now set it up perfectly. Victor will be going through the trials, ostensibly, and now, he's lost so much in pursuit of being King, he's lost his daughter, perhaps his husband too, depending on how this all unfolds. If he feels he will lose his shot at being King, after having lost everything else, I could see it make perfect sense that he gets desperate enough to put Lissa through what happens in the books in order to get her to heal him so he can become King. After all, giving up this? After losing everything else dear to him? Victor is convinced of his cause, and passionate and determined as we've seen so far. He totally would.

Typing this and immediately also felt like adding a disclaimer that I think it is a slightly off colour allegory to real world politics to have the whole 'yes elementalist aka rightwinger extremism is bad BUT ALSO LEFTISTS/UNIONISTS (is that what the queen called them?) CAN BE OVERZEALOUS AND BAD YEAH?' trope like i' m kinda annoyed by the forced centrism we see in media every time they touch on a political issue anywhere, especially because like, Victor/the unionists' 'radical' philosophy is that maybe don't send actual children out to die? And also maybe people shouldn't made to breed like animals against their will? And, and here's the wild part, maybe minorities - I mean dhampirs- are people too who have rights and we've been treating them badly? Right like what part of that philosophy/the current political climate suggests that there are actual people in power who stand for minority rights who are like, torturing people to get the point across? What situation in our society makes you believe that that is somehow a warning of equal footing with the actual, physical, tangible threat from right wing governments-I mean elementalists- that POC, disabled, queer and otherwise disenfranchised communities - I mean dhampirs- experience daily?

Okay I realise I just went on a tangent, but I promise I do really enjoy the show! I just have... Notes.

Adrian! What a guy, loved seeing him pop-up this early. Immaculate vibes. I never got round to reading Bloodlines so I only know the generic lines, but I love how it's a more subtle drunkenness that's being played. Like he's woozy and off kilter but he's not stumbling into every corner. Which kinda fits? Adrian is self-medicating, has been doing so for a while, it's a skill he developed. Drunk enough to take the edge off, not too far gone in moments he needs some clarity, especially on a mission this important. Also, this man's facial expressions are A+. I live expressive faces, I have have it too. Can't way to see him rile up Dimitri as he continues flirting with Rose.

And then, the OTP that got me into fanfiction. No really. I discovered fanfic through Vampire Academy on fanfiction.net (my first ever fic that I wrote was indeed my own rendition of Last Sacrifice when the book hadn't come out yet and true to form, I never finished it and it is terrible, which, it was written by a 13-year-old, so fair enough) , and through there I got to Tumblr, and here we are more than 10 years later. Time really flies.

I also just remembered, and omg what a wild ride this post is turning out to be, that it was a VA fanfic that made me first realise I wasn't straight. I didn't have the correct terminology yet, but it must have been at 14 or so that I read a fic that wasn't centered on Rose and Dimitri, but Rose and Lissa. And I distinctly remember lying in bed, reading this fic, and just going "Oh. I am not straight." mind you this was during puberty which is hard enough as is and I didn't exactly have great queer rep in my life, I believe this was even before we had Glee to watch, so I wasn't as thrilled with this revelation at the time, but none the less, it happened. And the good news, these days I'm absolutely thrilled to be a raging bisexual. Which actually makes for a lovely little bridge back to the actual subject at hand!

The absolutely gorgeous couple that is Rose and Dimitri. All the props to Sisi Stringer and Kieron Moore for their excellent faces and the acting they do with them! You're both very hot and I hope you know it and also you do the acting good! Love the chemistry, the playfulness they gave the couple, the tenderness they introduced and the way they set up the dynamic. Live how they out to words why Dimitri clings to a system that is actually really fucked up. He's coping, in the only way he knows how. He doesn't trust himself, and this system has such clear rules that no matter how fucked up those rules are, he knows where every line is, and thus he can stay far far away from them and beevr even risk crossing them. Until of course he meets Rose, and suddenly he wants something more than not to cross the line, he sees that crossing those lines might actually give him good things as well. Ugh.

Also saw another post, not that I don't love when my fave characters are happy but also, as any storyteller, I like it better when they suffer. They can be happy later! For now gimme all the juicy drama~ makes the tender apologies and getting back together all the more sweet afterwards.

Also Daniela, love your take on Lissa, just trying to do the best she can for her friend whom she lives more than anyone, so she's pushing her away because she thinks that's the only way to protect her. Ouch. Calling me out there but so beautifully portrayed.

Also am I just terminally pessimistic or was there anyone else that saw the kid with the football and went "Ahh look! Cannon fodder!" (is this a generally known term? I use it to refer to characters, purely created to be killed of at a certain point. Probably not an official literary term, but I've always lived it for its evocative ability).

Also just a lot of love for the political intrigue. Setting this up as a major plot line from the start was smart I believe. I am curious to see whether the idea for the storylines will be that we get the first trials and Tatiana wins, and then she follows her fate in the books, and we get a new round in what would be like 3 or so seasons where Lissa competes in the trials, or if they plan to enter the Lissa/lost dragomir storyline this early on. I don't think so honestly.

Also im betting that season 1 ends with Rose and Lissa making their grand escape which, with Rose and Dimitri being ~entangled~ already would make that reunion even juicier. I really hope they get at least a few seasons to tell this story, I think some really cool things could be done with it!

Also! They curse! Lots! I love it!

#vampire academy #1x07 #Beyond the wards #Romitri #my thoughts #I ramble I'm sorry #peacock #rose hathaway #dimitri belikov #lissa dragomir #adrian ivashkov

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goosebumpsbookclub · 2 months

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Let's Get Invisible

Is this book scary? I mean, no, not really. But kind of? Existentially?

This story takes place almost entirely in a single room, like that one M. Night Shyamalan movie about getting stuck in an elevator with the devil or whatever (never saw it). That sounds boring, and on some level it is, but there's something compelling about a group of characters trying to define and unpack what they're (not) seeing. How do they view themselves? Each other? Society, science, gender, power, the U.S. military? No, really. The goddamn military.

Regular boy child Max has some friends over his birthday. They--along with Max's brother Lefty, whose defining trait is his lefthandedness, which you bet your butt will be relevant later--find a big ol mirror in the attic, and when Max turns on the light above it, he disappears. They become fascinated with it; Max and Lefty return that night to try it again, and they notice that the longer they stay invisible, the longer it takes them to reappear after turning the light off. Foreboding! But they're middle schoolers, so they haven't learned about foreshadowing yet.

Max's friends return and they challenge each other to stay invisible as long as possible, as staying invisible saps their energy. I thought this part was actually pretty neat and atmospheric: Max describes the light "pouring over me, surrounding me. Pulling me." When Zack goes to turn off the light, he "was blurred in shadows. He stepped through dark shadows, on the other side of the light." Foreboding. And kind of VanderMeerian in a way I really like!

Erin suggests Max enter the mirror in the school science fair, which is a frankly insane idea. This is followed by one of the most interesting exchanges in the book:

"They’ll take it away to study it. Scientists will want it. Government guys will want it. Army guys. They’ll probably want to use it to make the army invisible or something." "Scary," Erin mumbled thoughtfully.

Whoa, okay! Anti-military king R.L. Stine.

The children continue their ill-advised mirror activities. Max hears a voice whispering his name at night; Lefty stays invisible for too long and starts acting all freaky, which is to say polite and non-annoying. When Max's friends return, the same thing happens to them. Max thinks they look different, but he can't put his finger on how. They force Max to go invis', and he sees dozens of faces--including his friends Erin and Zack--floating and yelling something he can't hear. Okay, that's decently creepy. Max's own reflection tells him they're going to switch places. "Are you so afraid of your other side, Max? That's what I am, you know. Your other side. Your cold side."

Which, Christ. There's a lot to unpack there.

Max runs and escapes the mirror. Before Erin and Zack can make him go invisible again, Lefty pops up and throws a softball, a thing he's always doing, and seemingly accidentally breaks the mirror. Erin and Zack are restored to their regular non-freaky selves and Max is saved! Yay! Screw mirrors! But when the two brothers go outside to play catch, Max notices that Lefty... is throwing the ball with his right hand.

Dun dun dun. Etc.

Is it weird that this is maybe my favorite 'bumps so far? First of all, this is the first book to have bits of writing that I actually really like, stylistically. There's the unsettling mirror-invisibility-realm, and also this line when Max escapes it: "I came bursting out of the mirror, into the tiny attic room, into an explosion of sound, of color, of hard surfaces, of real things." That's evocative! I enjoy it!

And then there are the Themes™. I think the meanings I find in these books are generally not ones Stine meant to be there, but this one seems pretty intentional. Like, I kind of think R.L. Stine, author of Goosebumps, might have read some Carl Jung? Jung wrote about the idea of the unconscious "shadow self," the repressed self. These kids are frightened of the parts of themselves they don't want to acknowledge, the parts that maybe they feel will come to define them as they get older. Their "cold side"--the side of them that is, like reflection-Lefty, polite and scheming and no longer full of wonder, overtaken by the cynical desire to wield power. They're afraid of being changed, of adulthood trapping their child selves away behind glass, only to be looked at, no longer real. And afraid, too, perhaps, of their friends changing in the same way, until, for reasons they can't quite understand, they no longer recognize each other.

They're also afraid of the military industrial complex. Me too, guys.

Cover: It is what it is. Look, it's hard to make a mirror scary. At least there's a creepy spiderweb in the corner. 1.5/5.

Scare factor: I don't know, man. Nobody throws a flashlight and busts a vampire's head open, but the bits in the mirror-realm are genuinely unsettling and cool. 3.5/5.

Olivia Newton-John factor: Excellent. The most Newton-Johnesque Goosebumps title thus far. 5/5.

#hello to my new followers I AM still doing this lol I'm just slow #goosebumps #r.l. stine #let's get invisible #long post

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xtruss · 1 year

Text

Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images/EPA/Shutterstock

Cost of the Crown: India archive reveals extent of ‘colonial loot’ in royal jewellery collection

File from India Office archive details how priceless items were extracted from colony as trophies of conquest

— By David Pegg and Manisha Ganguly | Thursday April 6, 2023

Emerald girdle of Maharaja Sher Singh, c 1840. Photograph: Royal Collection Trust/© His Majesty King Charles III 2023

Plundered Stones

To fully understand the context behind the jewels, and their place in India’s history, it was necessary to visit the archives.

The Queen Mother’s crown sits on top of the coffin during her funeral in 2002. Photograph: Dan Chung/The Guardian

But, as was discovered by Queen Mary, the Koh-i-noor was not the only gem taken from Singh’s treasury to have found its way to the British monarchy.

Royal with a Pearl Necklace

The Timur ruby necklace, 1853. Photograph: Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2023

The Queen wearing pearls at the Royal Opera House in 2012. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

In 2012, Elizabeth II attended a gala festival at the Royal Opera House in London to celebrate her diamond jubilee. Photographs showed her wearing a multi-string pearl necklace with a ruby clasp.

Were these Ranjit Singh’s pearls? There was speculation they may have been, though Buckingham Palace was unable to confirm either way.

“As we are seeing increasingly, the return of stolen property is always a good thing. Generations to come will wonder why it took civilised nations so long to do the right thing.”

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aboutanancientenquiry · 1 year

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Great Thinkers: Herodotus

I reproduce below the introductory text on Herodotus from the series “Great Thinkers” of the Foundation for Constitutional government ( https://thegreatthinkers.org/ ). Now, this Foundation is an American conservative charity organization. But the truth is that their ‘Great Thinkers” series on the great thinkers of political and social philosophy is a good one (they even include an informative, serious, and rather objective introduction to the work of Karl Marx -https://thegreatthinkers.org/marx/introduction/ , a thing which is very rare and remarkable for American conservatives, who generally have a very superficial and distorted understanding of Marxism and see usually Marx just an embodiment of negativity, envy, and evil).

Anyway, here is the introduction of “Great Thinkers” to Herodotus:

“GREAT THINKERS Herodotus

Introduction to the Work of Herodotus

Herodotus wrote only one book, known today as the Histories. The Greek word that forms its title, historiai, from which our word “history” derives, means inquiries—and so a more accurate title might be the Inquiries of Herodotus of Halicarnassus. The first great work of literary prose to be written outside of the Biblical tradition, the Histories is not only the forerunner of all discursive writing in the Western canon, but it is also the most complete surviving document of Pre-Socratic thought, the writings of the other Pre-Socratic thinkers being fragmentary.

Overall, the Histories narrates the events culminating in the great Persian Wars between the city-states of Greece and the empire of Achaemenid Persia. In the earlier portions of the work, the historical (or mythical) account is interspersed with descriptions of the customs and beliefs of various peoples, including the Persians, the Greeks, the Scythians, the Egyptians, and others, focusing particularly on their distinctive piety and its relationship to politics and war. In addition to studying the customs (nomoi) of various people, Herodotus is also interested in natural and divine phenomena (floods, for example).

For Herodotus’ unremitting focus on the mythological or wondrous, Thucydides roundly criticizes him. In Thucydides’ prefatory pages, commonly known as the Archaeology, Thucydides even identifies several Herodotean “errors,” although he never mentions Herodotus by name. Although Herodotus’ stories may be false in certain particulars, however, they may also reveal the horizon of the peoples that he was studying, and so accurately record the internal view of their beliefs. Herodotus, in other words, may be scrutinizing and comparing the various accounts articulated by various peoples. Indeed, Herodotus’ focus is not so much on difference as on the common human nature that generates so many interesting variations, and which can be explored thoroughly only through its many manifestations.

The Persian Wars and the Structure of the Histories

Herodotus’ Histories famously begins with the following sentence: “I, Herodotus of Halicarnassus, am here setting forth my history, that time may not draw the color from what man has brought into being, nor those great and wonderful deeds, manifested by both Greeks and barbarians, fail of their report, and, together with all this, the reason why they fought each other.”

This sentence is programmatic for the work as a whole, which can be divided roughly into two major parts—an account of the wonders and peoples of the world, barbarian and Greek, which occupies the first half of the Histories, and then the relations between Greece and Persia leading up to and through the Persian Wars, which dominates Books Five through Nine. The primary narrative arc traces eighty years. It begins with Cyrus’ (and Croesus’) rise to power. Cyrus was the first Achaemenid king and founder of the Persian empire, while Croesus was the Lydian king whose march against Cyrus, according to Herodotus, caused the Achaemenids to turn their attention to Ionia and to the Greek mainland. It concludes with the battle of Mycale, which, along with the battle of Plataea, ended the second Persian invasion of Greece, with the Greeks victorious.

Structured around the first four Achaemenid kings—Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius, and Xerxes— and their military campaigns against various peoples, the Histories contains a multitude of ethnographic digressions, which make up many of the most striking and memorable parts of the text. There is a clear overlap between these two parts of the Histories: the wonders and peoples that Herodotus describes are those encountered by the expanding Persian empire, an expansionism that ultimately led to the Persian Wars. The two themes, however, do not always appear to be integrated, which is sometimes considered a reason to think our text is not in the final form intended by Herodotus.

Another possibility, however, is that Herodotus intends his readers to think through these connections. Seen in this light, the perplexities would represent not inconsistencies but rather stimuli to the education of the attentive reader. It is also important to note that there is sometimes little correlation between the length of digressions on particular countries and the importance of those countries in the Persian Wars. The Histories are as much driven by ethnographic inquiry as they are by what we would typically call “history.” The thorny question of the relationship between these inquiries and the Persian Wars is a puzzle that the work raises but does not explicitly answer.

Modern editions of Herodotus follow the medieval manuscript tradition in dividing the Histories into nine books. These divisions, and the ascription of each book to one of the nine muses, can be attributed to the librarians of Alexandria and is first attested in the first century BCE. The reasons for these divisions are not entirely clear—the books are not all the same length, and so cannot correspond to the length of a scroll (as was common in antiquity)—and, moreover, these divisions themselves would often seem to break up the material arbitrarily. Herodotus himself clearly considered his narrative to contain a number of different logoi, or accounts. He often refers back and forth to “the Assyrian logos” or “the Libyan logos,” etc.

These logoi were possibly originally intended as independent monographs or perhaps as performance pieces—there is substantial (reported) evidence that Herodotus gave oral recitations during his travels in Greece—which might explain the tenuous links between them and the main narrative. Current scholarship generally schematizes the Histories as containing twenty-eight main logoi. These are not, however, the only digressions in the work. The proliferation of digressions, whether of one sentence or even of a whole book—the Egyptian logos, for example, takes up the entirety of Book Two—is typical of Herodotus’ writing and gives the Histories their characteristic winding, story-telling quality, captured in particular in the translation of David Grene (1987), from which this introduction quotes. Although the thread may sometimes be hard to follow through the wealth of details and anecdotes, the fundamental narrative of the conflict between the Greeks and the barbarians is consistently maintained and suggests an overarching authorial intention.

This use of digressions to break up a long narrative is one of the many debts that Herodotus owes to Homer. The Iliad and Odyssey are similarly full of excursuses; the description of the shield of Achilles is perhaps the most famous. Homeric qualities can indeed be found in major elements of Herodotus’ writing, including the introductory proem. Herodotus, however, unlike Homer, writes in prose, not poetry. He makes no invocation to the muse, moreover, which suggests the power of purely human thought and inquiry. An even more basic debt to Homer is his choice of subject matter. Homer’s theme of war between Greeks and barbarians is the direct precursor of Herodotus’ discussion, and signaled in the Histories by the work’s opening discussion of the retaliatory “abduction of women” between Greece and Asia, including of course Helen of Troy, over whom the Trojan War was (allegedly) fought.

The Histories ends abruptly with Cyrus the Great’s comment that “soft lands breed soft men” and the subsequent Persian decision to continue to live and rule from the mountains. Although this maxim of geographical determinism is not an inappropriate ending to Herodotus’ ethnographic observations, it is sometimes believed that the work remains unfinished. The main narrative ends in the previous chapter with the phrase “and nothing else happened that year” (IX, 121), leaving this short passage tacked on. It is probable, however, that Herodotus did intend to end with the events of 479. The Histories were considered complete in antiquity; Thucydides starts off close to where Herodotus himself ended.

Autopsy and Accuracy

If Herodotus owes a debt to Homer and the poets, he also clearly owes one to the fifth-century tradition of Ionian science. Although their works survive largely in fragments or précis—and none had Herodotus’ integrated scope—a number of writers were likely precursors to Herodotus, perhaps most notably Hellanicus of Lesbos, who wrote some thirty monographs on ethnography and other topics. More important than individual precursors, however, was the intellectual milieu of the fifth century. Herodotus’ emphasis on evidence and autopsy is shared with the early medical writers of the Hippocratic corpus, for example. And his combative rhetorical style is reminiscent of the Sophists. Indeed, some of the dialogues that Herodotus presents—for instance the famous discussion of the nature of the regime between Darius and his fellow conspirators (III 80–3)—remind one of the set piece rhetorical debates for which the Sophists were famous.

Herodotus presents his analytical method openly and candidly. He distinguishes between autopsy—“seeing for oneself,” or first-hand knowledge—and akoe—oral testimony, or things “heard by report.” He manifestly prefers the first to the second, although he accepts, and interrogates, the latter when he has no personal knowledge of a particular issue. As already mentioned, he sometimes reports what people say because it reveals what they actually think and not because he is somehow credulous. At times, he even tells the reader that he was unable to obtain certain information, and he occasionally presents and adjudicates between various sources and accounts. The overall impression is that of a careful and credible reporter, as well as someone who has an abiding curiosity about the world.

Herodotus’ veracity or accuracy is perhaps the most disputed aspect of his writing. Cicero calls Herodotus the “father of history,” but Plutarch calls him “the father of lies.” Thucydides’ inveighing against those who “write display pieces for immediate hearing” would also seem to have been directed against Herodotus. Moreover, external sources reveal some startling inaccuracies in the Histories. For example, Herodotus mistakenly says the pass at Thermopylae runs north to south (VII 176, 3), while his account of Upper Egypt in Book II is so notorious for its many errors that some question whether he travelled to Egypt at all.

On the other hand, Herodotus is at times astonishingly accurate. Perhaps the most famous example comes when he recounts the report of Phoenicians who circumnavigated Africa and noted that at a certain point the sun started to appear on the right (IV, 42, 4). Herodotus himself comments: “Some may believe this, but I do not.” Modern exploration has, of course, confirmed that this is indeed the case in the southern hemisphere. More prosaically, six out of the seven names he gives for Darius’ conspirators are confirmed by Darius’ inscription at Bisutun, suggesting a reliable Persian informant (III 7, 1–3), and even one of his most outré accounts, that of the ants who dig for gold (III 102, 5), has been rescued by recent scientific speculations (that suggest the ants may, in fact, have been marmots).

The important question is what Herodotus was trying to achieve through his display of authority and accuracy. Plutarch’s view was that it was a rhetorical strategy, used to gain unjustified credibility for, essentially, mendacious testimony. Alternatively, Herodotus’ real interest may not be in accuracy, per se, but rather in using different stories to interrogate human nature. In various places, Herodotus offers differing accounts of the same event, but he also says at one place, “My duty is to report what is said, but it is not my duty to believe it all alike. May this rule govern my entire work” (VII 152, 3). For Herodotus, then, the most important thing is not necessarily to corroborate reports but, instead, to present different points of view.

Is Herodotus a Cultural Relativist?

If Herodotus suggests that “everywhere custom (nomoi) is king” (III, 38), does that make him a cultural relativist in the common sense of that term? Not necessarily, but it is a fair thesis to entertain. Custom may be king, but there may nevertheless be natural limits or natural currents running through the customs of various peoples, for human nature may not be infinitely plastic. Herodotus’ interest in Greeks and barbarians may even reflect a desire to shed light on the unexamined assumptions of Greekness itself, since his initial readership would naturally be Greek. His comparative project may therefore have a non-parochial intention: to liberate the Greeks themselves (or certain of his Greek readers, at least) from the shackles of unreflective custom.

Happiness, Morality, and Piety

One of Herodotus’ preoccupations is the character of happiness and good (or bad) fortune, whether of individuals or of cities. Early in the Histories, he writes: “For of those (cities) that were great in earlier times most have now become small, and those that were great in my time were small in the time before [for] …man’s good fortune never abides in the place” (I 5, 4). One question is then the source of good fortune.

In Herodotus’ so-called Lydian logos, the Athenian Solon (one of seven wise men of ancient Greece) offers a rumination on fortune, happiness, and the god to the wealthy Lydian king Croesus. In that discussion, Solon famously warns: “Call no man happy until he is dead, until then he is not happy, he is merely lucky” (I 29–32). Some have claimed that this is the Herodotean vision of human life itself, that happiness must be looked for only at the end of life, because fortune, fate, or the divine can always intervene to bring the ostensibly happy man to sadness and ruin. Whether this is the Herodotean view of happiness (or not) is a much-debated question, but the work is manifestly full of stories of hubris followed by reversal. Of course, this leads to the question of whether the reversal is a divine response to transgression, the natural result of purely human overreaching, or, indeed, purely chance.

Conclusion

Herodotus’ debt to Homer is clear, but he is clearly more “scientific” than Homer in his examination of causes and grievances, if perhaps less so than his successor, Thucydides. Herodotus is one of the first Western thinkers to consider deeply and comprehensively the wide range of human experience for good or ill, as well as the relationship between human beings to the divine. “This is the bitterest pain among men,” Herodotus writes in one of his final thoughts, “to have much knowledge but no power” (IX 16, 10).

For further reading, see:

Seth Benardete, Herodotean Inquires, South Bend: 2008.”

Source: https://thegreatthinkers.org/herodotus/introduction/

Very good introductory text on Herodotus and his importance as a thinker. Concerning the question of the accuracy and reliability of Herodotus’ reports, I remind that, as Jennifer T. Roberts puts it (in Herodotus-A Very Short Introduction, OUP):

In the end, the amount of accurate information in The Histories is amazing in light of the many obstacles that stood in the way: vast distances, language barriers, malicious or good-humored deceptions by local informants. Ongoing archaeological investigation in many parts of the world continues to confirm the truth of much of what we find in Herodotus; the Scythian burials are just the tip of the iceberg. Egyptologists continue to be astounded by how much Herodotus got right. Specialists who can read languages that stumped Herodotus have discovered that the ancient texts confirm his findings more often than they refute them. And some of what Herodotus reports could, if false, have easily enough been refuted by his fellow Greeks. Some of his detractors have zeroed in on his numbering of the Athenian dead at Marathon as 192, no more and no less, maintaining that he invented the precise number to add versimilitude to the notably small number of men he claims the Athenians lost. But the Athenians knew very well how many men were killed there. Their names were recorded in funeral markers: the inscription commemorating the dead from the one-tenth of the Athenians who belonged to the Erechteid tribe has now been discovered, and it seems to bear 25 to 30 names, a figure which could confirm total casualties of about 200 for the battle.

Concerning more particularly Egypt, virtually no scholar doubts today that Herodotus did visit Egypt. And I don’t think that one could say that Herodotus’ account of Upper Egypt is “so notorious for its many errors”, as the introductory text above claims. The truth is that Herodotus’ account of Upper Egypt is vaguer than his account of Lower Egypt, but this is rather normal, as Herodotus must have moved mainly in the Delta and Memphite areas (it is believed that his main Egyptian priestly sources were Memphite priests) and his visit to the South of the Persian-dominated country must have been brief (on Herodotus in Egypt see the classic commentary on Book II of A. B. Lloyd, but also Rogério Sousa ‘Herodotus’ Memphite sources”, in Ethnicity and Identity in Herodotus, edited by Thomas Figueira, Carmen Soares, Routledge 2020, and the collective volume L. Coulon- P. Giovannelli-Jouanna- F. Kimmel-Clauzet (editors) Hérodote et l'Égypte. Regards croisés sur le Livre II de l'Enquête d'Hérodote, Actes de la journée d’étude organisée à la Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée – Lyon, le 10 mai 2010. Lyon : Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée Jean Pouilloux, 2013).

#herodotus #the histories #great thinkers

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therealvinelle · 3 years

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I've always wondered this, but what do you think the Cullen's political viewpoints would be, given their individual backgrounds? if vampires don't change after they turn, then surely they would all be extremely racist (especially Jasper). would this not come up at some point? they aren't like the Volturi because the Volturi are too old to care, but the Cullens are young enough that they have been brought up with opinions on stuff like sexism, racism, homophobia and the like.

Oh fuck.

You get an early answer because otherwise I'll just chicken out and delete this one, pretend I never saw it.

UMMM.

Since I'm guessing you meant American political viewpoints, we need a disclaimer. I am not American, and not too knowledgeable about your politics. Not just in the sense that I don't follow the day-to-day drama, but as I am not an American citizen there are several things I don't know, can't know because I've never lived in your country and therefore can't know what the effects of living in a country ruled by American policies is like. What I do know is based off of the news in the foreign section, social media (by which I mean tumblr posts), and Trevor Noah's Daily Show.

I am an outsider looking in.

Which is really rather appropriate, since the Cullens are too.

The Cullens go to high school and college, Carlisle works, they pay taxes, they own real estate, and submerge themselves in American culture. Esme, Edward, Rosalie, Emmett, and Bella are young enough that this is in many ways their world, and apart from timeouts they've more or less spent their entire lives, human and vampire, integrated into American society.

Not fully integrated, mind you, they do what they need to to fit in and get to school or, in Carlisle’s case, to work. They go no further. No extra-curriculars for the kids, no book clubs for Esme, no game nights for Carlisle. They walk parallel to humans, not among us.

In addition to this they're obscenely rich, which puts them another thousand miles from the experiences of your average American. They won't deal with the health system, which means healthcare is a non-issue, they're not going to need welfare or other social programs, unemployment is another non-issue. Name your issue, and the Cullens don't have personal stake in it. Even the climate crisis won't be a problem for them the way it will for us.

What I'm trying to say is, American political issues are a concept to them, not a lived reality. Just like they are for me. So hey, you made a great choice of blog to ask.

I'll also add here that you say the Volturi are too old to care, and I agree- from an ancient's point of view, racism is a matter of "which ethnicity are we hating today?", and it all looks rather arbitrary after a while. Same with every other issue - after a while it all just blends together into "what are the humans fighting over today? Which Christian denomination is the correct one? Huh. Good for them, I guess."

I can't put it any better than this post did, really. The Volturi are real people, humans are nerds and tumblr having Loki discourse. Aro thinks it's delightful and knows entirely too much about Watergate (and let's be real, Loki discourse as well), but the point I wanted to get at is that politics really don't matter to vampires.

And I don't think they matter to the Cullens either.

So, moving on to the next point while regretting I didn't put headlines in this post, I'll just state that I don't think vampires' minds are frozen. Their brains are unable to develop further, and they can never forget anything, but... well, this isn't the post for that, but in order for this to be true of vampires they would barely be sentient. They would not be able to process new impressions, to learn new things, nor to have an independent thought process. Yes, we see vampires in-universe (namely, Edward, who romanticizes himself and vampires) believe they're frozen and can never change, but there is no indication that this is a widespread belief, or even true. Quite the contrary - Carlisle went from a preacher's son who wanted to burn all the demons to living in Demon Capital for decades and then becoming a doctor and making a whole family of demons. Clearly, the guy has had a change in attitude over the years. Jasper, in his years as a newborn army general, slowly grew disenchanted with his life and developed depression. James initially meant to kill Victoria and hunted her across the earth, then became fascinated and changed his mind about it.

Had these people been incapable of change, Carlisle would still be hating demons, Jasper would be in Maria's army, and James would still be hunting Victoria.

It goes to follow, then, that they are able to adapt to new things.

The question is, would they?

Here I finally answer your question.

So, we have these people who don't really have any kind of stake in politics, who keep up to date all the same (or are forcibly kept up to date because high school) and are generally opinionated people.

Where do they then fall, politically?

(And this is where you might want to stop reading, anon, because I'm about to eviscerate these people.)

Alice votes for whoever's gonna win. She also makes a fortune off of betting each election. Trump's 1 to 10 victory in 2016 was a great day to be Alice. MAGA!

The actual policies involved are completely irrelevant, she does this because it's fun. Election means she gets to throw parties. Color coded parties for the Republican and Democratic primaries, and US-themed parties for Election Night! (Foreigner moment right here: I at first wrote "Election wake" before realizing that's not what y'all murricans call it.)

Alice loves politics. Doesn't know the issues, but she sure loves politics.

Bella votes Democrat. She actually knows about the issues, and cares about them. This girl is a Democrat through and through.

Carlisle doesn't vote. I can't imagine it feels right. Outside of faked papers he's not a US citizen, this is meddling in human affairs that he knows don't concern him.

More, this guy has never lived in a democracy.

In life, Carlisle lived under an absolute monarchy that, upon civil war, became an absolute theocracy. From there he learned that vampires live under a total dictatorship.

For the first 150 years of his life, democracy was that funky thing the Athenians did in history books thousands of years ago, no more relevant to him than the Ancient Egyptian monarchy is to me. Then the Americans, and later other European countries started doing this.

Good for them.

There's this mistake often made by those who view history from a... for lack of a better term, a solipsistic standpoint. A belief that the present day is the culmination of all of history. “My society is the best society, the most reasonable society; all the others had it backwards. Thank god we’re living in this enlightened age!”

The faith in our current system of government is one such belief. We (pardon me if this doesn’t apply to everybody reading this post) have grown up in democracies, being told this is the ultimate form of rule, and perhaps that is true - but remember the kings who have told their subjects they had were divine and the best possible ruler based on that. Remember also that most modern democracies haven’t actually been democracies for very long at all, America is the longest standing at some 230 years (not long at all in the grand scope of things) and they have a fracturing two-party system to show for it.

Every society, ever, has been told they’re the greatest, and their system of government the most just. Democracy is only the latest hit.

This is relevant to Carlisle because he’s immortal and decidedly not modern. Democracy has not been installed in him the way it was the rest of the Cullens, Jasper included. To him- well, it’s just not his world. He has no stakes in our human politics, and as he is older than every current democracy and has seen quite a few of them fall, he’s not going to internalize the democratic form of rule the way a modern human has.

I think the concept of voting is foreign to him.

It requires a level of participation in human society that he’s simply not at. He does the bare minimum to appear human so he do the work he loves, but nothing more, and I find that telling.

As it is I think he'd be iffy about his family doing it. He won’t stop them, but in voting they’re... well it’s kind of cheating. They’re not really citizens, none of this will affect them, and by voting they’re drowning out the votes of real human voters. He does not approve.

Edward votes Democrat. He's... well he’s the kind of guy who will oil a girl’s bedroom window so he can more easily watch her sleep without being discovered, justifying it to himself as being okay because if she were to tell him to get lost he’d stop immediately. Same guy is so sure that he’d leave and never return again if she wanted him to, except this is the man who returned to Forks to hang around his singer, knowing there was a significant chance he might kill her. To say nothing of his Madonna/Whore complex, or of the fact that he tried to pimp out his wife twice, and was willing to forcibly abort her child.

This guy is very much in love with chivalry, with being an enlightened and feminist man who supports and respects women, while not understanding the entire point of feminism, which is female liberation.

He votes Democrat because he’s such an enlightened feminist who cares about women’s rights.

Emmett doesn’t care to vote, but if he has to he votes Republican. The guy is from the 1930′s, and has major would-be-the-uncle-who-cracks-racist-jokes-if-he-was-older vibes.

Esme doesn’t vote, that would require getting out of the house.

More, I just... can’t see it. I can’t see her being one to read up on politics and The Issues, period, but if she has to then I doubt she’d be able to decide.

Jasper doesn’t vote. Alice can have her fun, he does not care.

There’s also the whole can of worms regarding the last time he went to bat for American politics.

I imagine he stays out of this.

Renesmée doesn't vote. She has no stock in the human affairs. Who would she vote for, on what grounds? When Bella tries to pull her to the urns, she points out that she's three years old.

Rosalie, guys, I’m sorry, but that girl is definitely gonna vote Republican. Perhaps not right now as it’s become the Trump party of insanity, but the Mitt Romney type of Republicans? Oh yes.

And for the record, yes I imagine she does vote. To step back from politics would be another way she was relinquishing her humanity, and that’s not allowed to happen. So, yes, she goes to the urns, less for the sake of the politics involved and more because like this, she’s still a part of society in some way.

Now, onto why I think she’s Republican, I think it’s both fiscal and social.

This girl was the daughter of a banker who somehow profited off of the Depression, and who then became part of a family with no material needs that would soon become billionaires thanks to Alice. Poverty to Rosalie is a non-issue, as it is I imagine she views it as a much lesser issue than what she’s had to deal with. The humans can pull themselves up by their bootstraps, Rosalie’s infertility is forever.

Rosalie’s empathy is strongest when she’s able to project onto others, and she won’t be able to project onto the less fortunate at all.

Then there’s the fact that the Republican party is all about traditional family values, and pro-life.

Rosalie, a woman from the 1930′s who idolizes her human life and who‘d love nothing more than to get to live out this fantasy, is down for that. And as of Breaking Dawn she’s vocally pro-life, so there’s that.

This all being said I don’t think Rosalie cares to sit down and fully understand these politics she’s voting for, the possible impact they’ll have- that’s not important. What’s important is what voting does for her.

TL;DR: I bet anon regrets asking.

#long post #twilight #twilight vampires #twilight meta #twilight renaissance #politics #history #twilight history #carlisle cullen #alice cullen #bella swan #renesmée cullen #jasper hale #rosalie hale #emmett cullen

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serpent-of-the-silver-plumes · 3 years

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would you mind talking more about bart and unreliable narration? I always hear people say unreliable narration but I've never seen any concrete examples from media I actually consume so I'd love your thoughts

Oh absolutely!! I actually wrote a thing about this a while back but then went 'this is not well written' and it got buried in my drafts, so I’m glad to have an excuse to pull that up and rewrite it. (Also sorry, this got really long.)

Basically, at one point I was listening to a podcast (Be the Serpent, ep 4), and they categorize different kinds of unreliable narrators into three types: the narrator who knows they are lying to you, the narrator who is lying to themself (and therefore you), and the narrator who is lying because they are missing some key information. I would argue that the three main pov characters of the Bartimaeus Trilogy each represent a different type of these unreliable narrators.

Going in backwards order, Kitty is the narrator who lies because she is missing some key information, at least until the third book. As a commoner, even one who is part of a resistance movement, her knowledge of magic is extremely limited and biased. Were we to go off of her point of view alone, we would get an inaccurate view of this world and the power dynamics that exist within it: that magicians are somehow special in holding magic and that they have evil demons who work alongside them in shared mischief/hunger for power/whatever.

However, because the books include other points of view, the full impact of that unreliability is not realized.

Similarly, Nathaniel lies to himself, especially in the later books. He ignores how much he personally contributes to upholding a system that depends on the oppression and slavery of other sentient beings, and squashes down the last traces of his moral compass. I don’t think he ever really questions the system of government or if it should be there and work the way it does.

To some extent, we do see through his unreliability as well, because Bartimaeus is around to keep a check on him and tell the reader that no, the magicians and their imperialism are bad, that spirits have very good reason to hate humans, and give us other world building details that contradict what Nathaniel believes.

But some of it is about what is going on inside Nathaniel’s own head, so there is also a lot that can’t be fully seen by an outside perspective that has to be assumed by the reader. Like he will deny the sentimental feelings he has towards Ms. Underwood and the guilt he had over Kitty’s supposed death and the fact that he even remotely cares about Bartimaeus, but actions speak louder than words.

Because both of these characters’ unreliability stem from a lack of understanding, having other perspectives in the book in some ways cancels out their unreliability, and actually ties their unreliability more to their character development than as a plot/narration device. Kitty grows more reliable throughout the series while Nathaniel gets less so until the end. This doesn’t make that unreliability useless though, especially in a series aimed for children. By getting each character’s point of view, we can see where they are coming from and how the knowledge and views they have affect the way they act, but there is also someone else to point out how they are wrong, to make you question how true what each individual says is.

Bartimaeus is entirely different from the first two characters. His narration is told in first person, unlike Nathaniel and Kitty’s third person. He talks directly to the reader and goes off on tangential footnotes that are not necessarily part of the events currently happening in the story. Because of this narration style, he also has the power to lie more directly to the reader than any of the other characters.

Given his life, it is understandable how he has gotten into the habit of lying. Every moment of his existence on Earth is spent under the power of someone else, so he lies in order to protect himself. There are some instances where he lies to his masters in order to escape punishment or to lead them into danger so he can be set free, but he also lies about his feelings because he cannot afford to be emotionally vulnerable.

For the most part, I think it can be assumed that the dialogue and most actions that happen in his pov chapters are told as they are, since much of that lines up with what goes on in the other characters’ perspectives, and also there are at least a few things that show him in a less-than-flattering light that he would probably leave out or change if he could. Instead, the lies he tells are largely about his past and his emotions, often done through exaggeration or omission, and cannot be collaborated by others.

When lying about his past, Bartimaeus frequently exaggerates his prestige and role in history. In Ptolemy’s Gate, Bartimaeus says that he talked to King Solomon about Faquarl’s tendency to brag about his historical importance. Even beyond the obvious irony, in the prequel we see Bartimaeus’s time at Solomon’s court, and while it isn’t technically impossible for him to have talked to Solomon about Faquarl, the timing and circumstances make it extremely unlikely. Although his other stories cannot be proven or disproven with what we know, this instance and his general tendency to brag outrageously makes it very likely that Bartimaeus at the very least embellishes.

However, despite being super showy about his past, Bartimaeus doesn’t actually include much important information. He very rarely talks about his great feats as a thief or assassin or anything else. When he lists his accomplishments, he describes building walls and talking to important historical figures. There’s a post somewhere (if I find it, I’ll link it) that explains this as being a way for Bartimaeus to try to take control of his reputation and therefore his life; by associating with safer jobs, he is less likely to be summoned for very dangerous and morally reprehensible jobs.

He does generally try to portray himself as clever and collected and just generally more cool than he actually is. There’s a moment at the end of the first book where he describes himself as trying to calm Nathaniel who is freaking out, and then the next chapter is from Nathaniel’s pov which describes him as being the calmer one while Bartimaeus is a fly anxiously buzzing around.

I don’t remember the exact line, but in the second book there’s an exchange that goes something like this:

“____” I said calmly.

“Stop your whimpering,” Kitty said.

The way Bartimaeus portrays himself is straight up contradicted by the more factual account of the words and actions of someone else. And presumably there are plenty of other times that we do not see contradictory evidence where Bartimaeus straight up lies about how he is reacting to something.

But one of Bartimaeus’s most unreliable points centers around humans. Throughout the books, he constantly talks about the ways he has killed and would like to kill his masters, if given the opportunity. Nathaniel is an exception, one that Bartimaeus does admit to the reader, but even in the third book when he talks the most about how he would kill Nathaniel or even join a demon rebellion if Faquarl offered right then and there, Bartimaeus does not actually follow through on these threats when he gets the chance. Despite all of his talk about how much he hates humans, Bartimaeus has as much of a positive relationship he can have with as many humans possible, given the circumstances.

A lot of his unreliability centers around Ptolemy, which is what some of Bartimaeus’s biggest lies of omission are about. In the first book, we do get the sense that Bartimaeus has a soft spot for at least some humans. His excuses of saving and looking after Nathaniel in order to avoid Indefinite Confinement, while likely not entirely false, do fall a bit flat. We even get a mention of “a boy I had known once before, someone I had loved.” Although this is not explicitly connected to Ptolemy at this point, mentions of brown skin and the Nile make a pretty obvious connection to Ptolemy, especially as Bartimaeus describes taking on Ptolemy’s form several times later on. There is a less obvious hint too, “I sat on the ground, cross-legged, the way Ptolemy used to do.” Even without knowing much about what kind of relationship Bartimaeus had with Ptolemy, that kind of detail shows ‘a devotion to detail that could only come with genuine affection, or perhaps even love.’

It isn’t until the third book until we learn anything substantial about his relationship with Ptolemy, and even then he doesn’t tell the whole story. The fandom jokes about how Bartimaeus just casually mentions in a foot note that he prefers a lioness form because the manes are annoying, and it’s not until the flashback that you find out that the mane is part of what got Ptolemy killed. And even with the flashbacks, you still never see the time that Ptolemy visited the Other Place.

There are a lot of posts on this site that talk about how Bartimaeus absolutely was idealizing Ptolemy, and how there’s some evidence that he isn’t the perfectly sweet never-did-anything-wrong innocent child that Bartimaeus describes him as (notably that part where he was vaguely annoyed that people kept coming to him to ask for help and interrupted his research). Not that Ptolemy secretly sucks or anything, but it’s really easy to let nostalgia skip over the less dramatic details of Ptolemy being an actual human being with flaws.

In summary, I would argue that all of the trilogy protagonists are unreliable narrators to varying extents, and Jonathan Stroud is a genius for how he manages to make it all work.

#bartimaeus #nathaniel #ptolemy #kitty jones #my post #kitty #unreliable narrator

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cahir-cathere · 2 years

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A timeline for Fringilla

I am going to preface this by saying that trying to sort out the timeline for any Witcher media is an absolute disaster-- there's a ton of conflicting information! Because this is show based, I'm using Netflix's established timeline-- which can be found here-- however for supporting information I will be referencing back to the books and games.

Anything in green is either canon or highly likely; anything in blue is a little more conjectural in nature. I've also included an estimate for Fringilla's age in parenthesis () next to the dates.

ca. 1190: Fringilla born.

As per the Netflix timeline, Yen was born in 1192, and as she and Fringilla were in the same class, presumably they are around the same age. I like to think that Fringilla is a few years older, as this explains her feelings of inferiority as Yen starts to excel.

1206: Education at Aretuza begins. (~16)

Again, this is based on Netflix's stated timeline.

1210: Graduation from Aretuza; assigned to Nilfgaard. (~20)

The series describes Fergus as being both "effective" and easily suggestible-- a very accurate assessment. Over the course of his reign (as we'll see below), Fergus did accomplish many military victories, but he didn't lead with a steady hand. He was over-reliant on the expertise of others, vindictive, and uncaring. For the Brotherhood to have any influence at all in Nilfgaard, the court mage assigned there would have to have been very assertive... which, we know Fringilla wasn't in her youth. Instead, Nilfgaard's generals had the king's ear.

1216: Nilfgaard invades *Etoloa (~26)

With Fergus relying on support from Nilfgaard's military instead of its mages, its expansion continued. In 1216, it invaded and utterly decimated the kingdom of Etoloa in a particularly brutal war that left the region devastated. Fergus made an example of Etoloa-- a message that was received, as the nearby kingdom of Vicovaro, knowing they would be next, elected to willingly join the Nilfgaardian empire soon after.

*(Etoloa is spelled as Etolia in the role playing games, however it appears written as Etoloa on the maps used for the Netflix series, so that's the spelling I'm using.)

1226: Nilfgaard invades Gemmera (~36)

Next, Nilfgaard set its eyes on Gemmera, one of the largest producers of dimeritium in the south. With the support of its two newest provinces, Etoloa and Vicovaro, Nilfgaard invaded, and won itself even more land.

1228: Unrest and political dissent intensify (~38)

Fergus's warmongering was not universally popular, especially if his victories came at the cost of regular citizens' quality of life, which seems likely given what we know about him previously wasting the kingdom's money "while his people starve[d] to death" (S1E3). Philosopher Vysogota or Corvo wrote a scathing manifesto railing against Fergus and his government, and sparked a potential uprising as grievances were aired. Fergus responded by convicting Vysogota and his supporters of treason, executing those who didn't flee.

1237: Fergus is deposed; Emhyr forced to flee (~47)

Eventually, Fergus's over-reliance on the military came back to bite him, as one of his own generals staged a coup, with the support of several aristocrats.

(The Usurper's name and identity are never confirmed in the books; the detail about him being one of Emhyr's generals comes from Gwent/the RPG.)

At first, the Usurper tried to force Fergus into willingly abdicating by torturing his son Emhyr, but Fergus refused. Instead, the Usurper had his mages curse Emhyr, and he took the throne by force, killing Fergus.

ca. 1245 - 1249: Fringilla is imprisoned (~55-59)

Now, we're getting into truly speculative territory here. We know that sometime after the Usurper's ascension, he started imprisoning mages, but I think that Fringilla avoided this fate, at least for a little while. In the books, she mentions briefly meeting Cahir when he was around seven, which would imply that she managed to stay free a few years after the takeover. We don't have an official year of birth for Cahir, but in Time of Contempt (which is set in 1267) Geralt estimates that he's "no older than 25", which would put him as being born around 1242. However, the Netflix series has condensed the book timeline considerably, so it's possible that as a result they intended for Cahir to be around 25 at the start of the series, in 1263, which would put his birth year closer to 1238. This gives us a timespan from 1245-1249 for this meeting to take place.

Now, all that we really know for certain is that Fringilla was imprisoned before Emhyr's return in 1257-- we don't know exactly how long she was trapped in the playhouse. She says that she was there for "years" (S2E2), and I personally think that a 8-11 year span of time would track well with Fringilla's attitude in the present. To me, she seems out-of-step with her surroundings and her place in the world, which would make sense if she spent almost an entire decade imprisoned.

1257: Emhyr returns and ousts the Usurper; Fringilla freed (~67)

Per Fringilla and Cahir's conversation in S2E6, she was still imprisoned when Emhyr returned to Nilfgaard, and was only released after he dethroned the Usurper. Fringilla says that it took her "a while to be freed," which implies that Emhyr carefully vetted all political prisoners before their release.

1263: Invasion of Cintra (~73)

And now we're at S1E1! This is where the official, present-day timeline for the series begins, all of which is on the Witcher Netflix site. So for now, this is where we're stopping-- if anyone wants, I can attempt to make another covering the present-day events, but that's a project for another day!

#the witcher #the witcher netflix #fringilla vigo #the witcher timeline #the witcher meta

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lilyaquarius · 2 years

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HTTYD Nine Realms (potential fanfic fuel)

Dragons: The Nine Realms does have some genuine potential but if I may, here's a few changes I'd make from what I've seen.

1.) Have Dr. Kullerson be an archeologist/historian who specializes in Viking history.

It makes far more sense to me story wise. The previous movies and franchise dealt with Vikings and their culture. That wasn't a tiny period in history, that lasted from roughly 790's-1060's CE. There is a lot of ground to cover and Tom's mother could be someone who specializes in Berkian Viking history. Having her be the historian gives writers someone who can give a useful exposition to people new to the franchise while also helping to expand world building.

She'd ask questions like: How did the Viking's go from hating Dragons for over several generations to (what looks like) effectively worshipping them in the span of a single generation? Why did they move from old Berk to new Berk? Where are there ships? Was Hiccup Haddock real or was he a mythical figure like King Arthur? Etc. Etc.

The potential is fascinating because we learn more about what Hiccup, Astrid and the other dragon riders did later in their lives. A big episode could be finding their tomb and all the maps, journals and wellspring of information he wrote down that were spared for future generations.

2.) The Nine Realms are different hidden worlds that the team goes to find.

Hiccup was a Viking, they sailed around the world. Its not impossible to believe that he and Astrid traveled across the globe and learned of other hidden worlds. Hence the series title, Nine Realms. He made a map so that future dragon riders, i.e. Zephyr and Nuffink, can continue protecting the dragons. Which could lead to a whole wealth of storylines that can have Tom traveling the world and meeting other kids like him who learned about the dragons and are protecting them.

3.) The story doesn't need an overarching villain, but there are plenty of potential antagonists

HTTYD and its TV Series had it easy in that regard, since they could use antagonists from the books or just create dragon hunters as enemies. Here, Nine Realms doesn't necessarily need a Viggo, Johann or Bludvist. You can have someone who just hates dragons for the sake of it or for profit but the show shouldn't just do something boring like "Evil Dragon Hunting Group tm". It could be interesting to see the kids fighting against government officials, companies who would try to steal or exploit the dragons, Zoo's and theme parks, and even have antagonists that aren't against dragons per se, but rather concerned about reintroducing a species that hasn't been seen for serval hundred years and how that could negatively impact the current ecosystem.

These wouldn't be easy antagonists with easy solutions, or one dimensional villains. The kids would have to think hard and work together to defeat them, the way Hiccup and the riders did with their enemies.

4.) Dragons have been existing in the world as we know it, we just don't know because they are good at hiding.

One serious complaint I've found from fans point out how it could be even possible that after 1300 years the dragons could survive after living in the hidden realm for so long. My answer, they've been leaving the hidden world on and off, they've just been good at hiding. Believe it or not, there are plenty of unexplored places in the world that humans haven't been to or rarely venture to. Forrests, lakes, jungles, underwater caverns, the ocean. It's not impossible to believe.

Those are just a few ideas, I may add more later. What are other peoples thoughts on this? What would you add, change or recommend?

#HTTYD #httyd rtte #httyd series #dragons the nine realms #Dragons #hiccup #dragon rider #how to train your dragon #how to train your dragon 2 #how to train your dragon: the hidden world #hiccup horrendous haddock iii #hidden world

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didanawisgi · 3 years

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Martin Luther King Jr., Guns, and a Book Everyone Should Read

BY JEREMY S. | JAN 15, 2018

“Martin Luther King Jr. would have been 89 years old today, were he not assassinated in 1968. On the third Monday in January we observe MLK Jr. Day and celebrate his achievements in advancing civil rights for African Americans and others. While Dr. King was a big advocate of peaceful assembly and protest, he wasn’t, at least for most of his life, against the use of firearms for self-defense. In fact, he employed them . . .

If it wasn’t for African Americans in the South, primarily, taking up arms almost without exception during the post-Civil War reconstruction and well into the civil rights movement, this country wouldn’t be what it is today.

By force and threat of arms African Americans protected themselves, their families, their homes, and their rights and won the attention and respect of the powers that be. In a lawless, post-Civil War South they stayed alive while faced with, at best, an indifferent government and, at worst, state-sponsored violence against them.

We know the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision of 1857 refused to recognize black people as citizens. Heck, they were deemed just three-fifths a person. Not often mentioned in school: some of that was due to gun rights. Namely, not wanting to give gun rights to blacks. Because if they were to recognize blacks as citizens, it…

“…would give to persons of the negro race . . . the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, . . . and it would give them the full liberty of speech . . . ; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.”

Ahha! So the Second Amendment was considered an individual right, protecting a citizen’s natural, inalienable right to keep and carry arms wherever they go. Then as now, gun control is rooted in racism.

During reconstruction, African Americans were legally citizens but were not always treated as such. Practically every African American home had a shotgun — or shotguns — and they needed it, too. Forget police protection, as those same officials were often in white robes during their time off.

Fast forward to the American civil rights movement and we learn, but again not at school, that Martin Luther King Jr. applied for a concealed carry permit. He (an upstanding minister, mind you) was denied.

Then as in many cases even now, especially in blue states uniquely and ironically so concerned about “fairness,” permitting was subjective (“may issue” rather than “shall issue”). The wealthy and politically connected receive their rights, but the poor, the uneducated, the undesired masses, not so much.

Up until late in his life, MLK Jr. chose to be protected by the Deacons for Defense. Though his home was also apparently a bit of an arsenal.

African Americans won their rights and protected their lives with pervasive firearms ownership. But we don’t learn about this. We don’t know about this. It has been unfortunately whitewashed from our history classes and our discourse.

Hidden, apparently, as part of an agreement (or at least an understanding) reached upon the conclusion of the civil rights movement.

Sure, the government is going to protect you now and help you and give you all of the rights you want, but you have to give up your guns. Turn them in. Create a culture of deference to the government. Be peaceable and non-threatening and harmless. And arm-less, as it were (and vote Democrat). African Americans did turn them in, physically and culturally.

That, at least, is an argument made late in Negroes and the Gun: the Black Tradition of Arms. It’s a fantastic book, teaching primarily through anecdotes of particular African American figures throughout history just how important firearms were to them. I learned so-freaking-much from this novel, and couldn’t recommend it more. If you have any interest in gun rights, civil rights, and/or African American history, it’s an absolute must-read.

Some text I highlighted on my Kindle Paperwhite when I read it in 2014:

But Southern blacks had to navigate the first generation of American arms-control laws, explicitly racist statutes starting as early as Virginia’s 1680 law, barring clubs, guns, or swords to both slaves and free blacks.

“…he who would be free, himself must strike the blow.”

In 1846, white abolitionist congressman Joshua Giddings of Ohio gave a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, advocating distribution of arms to fugitive slaves.

Civil-rights activist James Forman would comment in the 1960s that blacks in the movement were widely armed and that there was hardly a black home in the South without its shotgun or rifle.

A letter from a teacher at a freedmen’s school in Maryland demonstrates one set of concerns. The letter contains the standard complaints about racist attacks on the school and then describes one strand of the local response. “Both the Mayor and the sheriff have warned the colored people to go armed to school, (which they do) [and] the superintendent of schools came down and brought me a revolver.”

Low black turnout resulted in a Democratic victory in the majority black Republican congressional district.

Other political violence of the Reconstruction era centered on official Negro state militias operating under radical Republican administrations.

“The Winchester rifle deserves a place of honor in every Black home.” So said Ida B. Wells.

Fortune responded with an essay titled “The Stand and Be Shot or Shoot and Stand Policy”: “We have no disposition to fan the coals of race discord,” Thomas explained, “but when colored men are assailed they have a perfect right to stand their ground. If they run away like cowards they will be regarded as inferior and worthy to be shot; but if they stand their ground manfully, and do their own a share of the shooting they will be respected and by doing so they will lessen the propensity of white roughs to incite to riot.”

He used state funds to provide guns and ammunition to people who were under threat of attack.

“Medgar was nonviolent, but he had six guns in the kitchen and living room.”

“The weapons that you have are not to kill people with — killing is wrong. Your guns are to protect your families — to stop them from being killed. Let the Klan ride, but if they try to do wrong against you, stop them. If we’re ever going to win this fight we got to have a clean record. Stay here, my friends, you are needed most here, stay and protect your homes.”

In 2008 and 2010, the NAACP filed amicus briefs to the United States Supreme Court, supporting blanket gun bans in Washington, DC, and Chicago. Losing those arguments, one of the association’s lawyers wrote in a prominent journal that recrafting the constitutional right to arms to allow targeted gun prohibition in black enclaves should be a core plank of the modern civil-rights agenda.

Wilkins viewed the failure to pursue black criminals as overt state malevolence and evidence of an attitude that “there’s one more Negro killed — the more of ’em dead, the less to bother us. Don’t spend too much money running down the killer — he may kill another.”

But it puts things in perspective to note that swimming pool accidents account for more deaths of minors than all forms of death by firearm (accident, homicide, and suicide).

The correlation of very high murder rates with low gun ownership in African American communities simply does not bear out the notion that disarming the populace as a whole will disarm and prevent murder by potential murderers.

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimated 1,900,000 annual episodes where someone in the home retrieved a firearm in response to a suspected illegal entry. There were roughly half a million instances where the armed householder confronted and chased off the intruder.

A study of active burglars found that one of the greatest risks faced by residential burglars is being injured or killed by occupants of a targeted dwelling. Many reported that this was their greatest fear and a far greater worry than being caught by police.48 The data bear out the instinct. Home invaders in the United States are more at risk of being shot in the act than of going to prison.49 Because burglars do not know which homes have a gun, people who do not own guns enjoy free-rider benefits because of the deterrent effect of others owning guns. In a survey of convicted felons conducted for the National Institute of Justice, 34 percent of them reported being “scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim.” Nearly 40 percent had refrained from attempting a crime because they worried the target was armed. Fifty-six percent said that they would not attack someone they knew was armed and 74 percent agreed that “one reason burglars avoid houses where people are at home is that they fear being shot.”

In the period before Florida adopted its “shall issue” concealed-carry laws, the Orlando Police Department conducted a widely advertised program of firearms training for women. The program was started in response to reports that women in the city were buying guns at an increased rate after an uptick in sexual assaults. The program aimed to help women gun owners become safe and proficient. Over the next year, rape declined by 88 percent. Burglary fell by 25 percent. Nationally these rates were increasing and no other city with a population over 100,000 experienced similar decreases during the period.55 Rape increased by 7 percent nationally and by 5 percent elsewhere in Florida.

As you can see, Negroes and the Gun progresses more or less chronologically, spending the last portion of the book discussing modern-day gun control. It’s an invaluable source of ammunition (if you’ll pardon the expression) against the fallacies of the pro-gun-control platform. It sheds light on a little-known (if not purposefully obfuscated), critical factor in the history of African Americans: firearms.

On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I highly recommend you — yes, you — read Negroes and the Gun: the Black Tradition of Arms.

And I’ll wrap this up with a quote in a Huffington Post article given by Maj Toure of Black Guns Matter:

https://cdn0.thetruthaboutguns.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/huffpo-maj-toure.jpg”

#books #black history #history #american history #Guns #civil rights #constitution #supreme court #gun control #martin luther king jr.#dread scott #concealed carry #concealedcarry #everydaycarry #gun confiscation

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nordleuchten · 3 years

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La Fayette in Prison - Part 1 - Wesel

Wesel was the first prison that La Fayette was incarcerated in for an extended period of time. Wesel was, and still is today, a well known city in Germany (back than in Prussia) near the river Rhein. The fortress of Wesel housed the prison, the Zitadelle, and has been turned into a museum and can be visited. The achieve of the city is also housed within the former fortress. The Homepage of the museum cites La Fayette as one of the most famous inmates.

There are different account of how La Fayette and his fellow inmates were brought to Wesel. Some sources claim they drove in a carriage, but most state that they drove in an open cart “like common criminals”. This second method would be a huge affront because the social hierarchy of the day also applied to the system of jurisdiction. A farmer or labourer would be treated way different than a Marquis or Officer. Nevertheless, the cart as a mode of transportation can not be ruled out or said to be an exaggeration by some biographers because we know that the prisoners were transported from Wesel to their second prison in Magdeburg in a open cart – something that actually was greatly appreciated by the prisoners because they had previously been confined to their small and stuffy cells day in and day out. The group persumably also travelled by boat down the river Rhein in order to reach Wesel.

La Fayette, when he fled, was accompanied by a servant, Augustus, and a valet, Pontennier. One of these men appear to have stayed with him for the entire duration of his imprisonment whereas the other man left him after some time or better, was forced to left him. Many sources use the words “servant” and “valet” interchangeable, what makes it hard to say which one stayed and which one left. It seems though, as if Augustus was the one who remained with La Fayette.

Once the group of prisoners arrived in Wesel, La Fayette himself described their circumstances as follows:

“For three months the prisoners were strictly guarded and watched at Wezel, in prisons strongly barred , with double doors secured by locks and padlocks, cut off from all communication, and so completely separated from each other, that when Latour Maubourg, informed, through the indiscretion of one of his gaolers, that Lafayette was seriously ill, asked permission, as the dearest friend which that person had in the world, and one so nearly within reach of him, to receive his last sigh, the answer was, “that it could not be allowed.” The prisoners having complained of being thus cut off from all communication, even with their nearest relatives, a report to that effect was made to the government. Shortly after, the commandant and a notary presented themselves to Lafayette, and gave him a paper from the King of Prussia, inviting him, as the means of bettering his position, to give counsels against France. “The King of Prussia is very impertinent, ” was Lafayette's reply. Availing himself of a permission accorded to them of writing to the king's adjutant - general, Lafayette informed him “that he was far from denying the share he had taken in the revolutions of America and France; “and, speaking of the constitution which had been acknowledged by the powers now combined against it, he predicted, “that this hatred against liberty, with royalty or without it, would only serve to swell the number of republicans .”

There are other accounts from the time at Wesel but since we have La Fayette’s primary account, I will use the other accounts from later biographers only to supplement some details.

A few things to La Fayette’s account though. La Fayette refers to him being very ill – illness would go on to be a reoccurring theme, not only for La Fayette but also later for his family and the other prisoners. There was a want of fresh air, exercise, psychological comfort, items for personal hygiene and the food was apparently also bad. He recovered eventually but his health remained somewhat frail long after he was finally released from prison. Furthermore there is this line where La Fayette describes how he had "the means of bettering his position". He does not elaborate too much on this subject but what happened was that the Prussian King acknowledged that his treatment of La Fayette was not good nor according of his status. He offered La Fayette, until recently a French General with a field command, to treat him better if he would only pass the plans of the French armies (and everything else that he would happen to know) on to the Prussian authorities. La Fayette refused most emphatically.

What also strikes me, is just how scarred the Prussians were, that La Fayette (or any of the other prisoners for that matter) might escape. During his tribunal in Luxemburg, shortly after his arrest and prior to his confinement in Wesel, it was stated that "(...) Lafayette's existence was incompatible with the safety of the governments of Europe". The Prussians and Austrians seem to have been generally afraid of his possible influence.

The Governor of the prison in Wesel was in 1792 Lieutenant-General Alexander Friedrich von Woldeck, a high-ranking Prussian officer. The guards in the prison had the strict instruction not to communicate with the prisoners under any circumstance and to not answer them any of the question they might have.

So, now La Fayette and the others were all secured and under lock and key in Prussia. Splendid. But what to do with them in the future. Here is an account from Samuel Lorenz Kanpp’s book Memoirs of General Lafayette: Embracing Details of his Public and Private Life:

"At Wesel, the populace were permitted to insult them in the most savage manner. Here they were put in irons, placed in separate cells in the castle, deprived of all intercourse with each other, and told that the King intended to have them hanged as wretches who deserved no favour.”

Before we move on to the part were La Fayette should be hanged, let me say a few words about him being put in irons. Being put in irons was, as we all surely can imagine, a horrible, dehumanizing and cruel practice. We know that La Fayette was during some parts of his imprisonment held in irons, particularly during his time in Olmütz. He himself never mentions being held in irons in Wesel but it could very well have happened without him mentioning it.

Even if the Prussian King and the Austrian Emperor would have loved to see La Fayette hang (and I do not doubt that, the Duke of Saxe Tschen also threatened to execute La Fayette via hanging), that was never really a political option for them. Instead they ultimately planned to return La Fayette to the French King after the Revolution had ended. Here is what William Short, the American Minister Resident to the Netherlands, wrote to Thomas Jefferson on September 28, 1792:

“The Marquis de la fayette and his three companions who were members of the assembly, remain in the Chateau de Wesel. I cannot doubt from what the Imperial Minister here has told me that it is the intention, should the [French] King be restored, to deliver them up to him. Whether they would do it to his successor I cannot say, but suppose it infinitely probable if he should be one of his brothers. Nobody can question in that case that it would be adding to the violation of the most sacred right (which has been already committed with respect to these prisoners) the infamy of delivering up to be assassinated by his enemies an helpless individual, in the person of the Marquis de la fayette. (...) I have in private and inofficial conversations with the Imperial minister here endeavoured to find out what degree of importance his court attached to the Marquis’s imprisonment and it has been by no means encouraging for his friends—as he said it depended altogether (as far as he in his private capacity could judge) on the importance which the King of France could be supposed to attach to having the Marquis in his possession when restored to his throne. He told me however he would write to Vienna and procure more precise information which he would communicate to me. There was of course nothing official either on one side or the other.”

Now, what is so special about this letter? This letter illustrate three things. First, the diplomatic endeavours of the Prussian and Austrian court. Second, the actions undertaken by the American ambassadors and consuls in Europe in order to help La Fayette and his family. Last but nor least, the letter illustrate that the Americans where aware of La Fayette’s present whereabouts. As time went by and La Fayette was brought from one prison to the next, his friends often lost track of him for some time. They did not know where he was and even if he was still alive or if he had died in prison or even had been executed.

Such was La Fayette's stay in Wesel. He stayed there for a relatively short time, arriving on September 19, 1792 and being transferred to Magdeburg on December 22, 1792. But before we go further into detail concerning his time in Magdeburg, one last general thing. La Fayette and his fellow officers were captured by Austrian forces. Why then was he first imprisoned by the Prussians? Prussia and Austria were in the past constantly at each others throats. They hated each other – but during the French Revolution Prussia and Austria started working together against a common enemy. The Austrians captured La Fayette but the nearest and best guarded prison was the Prussian fortress in Wesel and with that the court in Vienna handed La Fayette over to the Prussians and the Prussians agreed to take him in.

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btzone · 3 years

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Commonality of Buck-Tick member names

I was thinking that if you’re not Japanese, you might not know how common or rare the various Japanese names are. For Buck-Tick, the names of the band members are fairly common first names and surnames, not really anything unusual happening there. No native speaker should have trouble reading their names. However, the most interesting thing to note is that Hisashi’s kanji is not usually how one would think to read that name, which is how it ended up that on their very first release on an independent label, his name was typo-ed as Kotobuki instead of Hisashi. (To keep that kanji and reading, it is likely to add one more kanji to make Hisashi, much like how Atsushi’s name is 2 kanji.) Our Hisashi Imai is not the only one with that kanji and name reading, but it’s not the default way to read it. This is why when you fill out forms in Japan, you not only write your name’s kanji but you also write down how to read it because you never know what combos a parent came up with.

Some basic info about their surnames, such as how common it is and where in Japan is it most common. Excluding Hokkaido and Tokyo as the majority of people who live in those two places are “immigrants”, so to speak, and not native for several generations. (If you meet someone from those 2 places, ask them where their grandparents are from.) I need you to be able to track your family history in that general area for at least 150-200 years in Japan to call you a native of that region, sorry. (If you can’t claim that you’re the 19th generation descendant of so-and-so, what is your worth?) This sort of tracking is quite easy to do in Japan because we have family registry books that note the genealogy (patriarchal because who needs to remember the names of women) and also serves as a way of establishing citizenship. It’s also fairly common IMHO for the history of a surname to be like, well 1000 years ago this person did something good for the emperor/king so they were granted a gift and the gift was this name and some land. But, I digress. (Trust me, this whole paragraph is hilarious if you’re Japanese with a sense of humor because it’s true.)

Focusing on family names here. No info on their first names as I looked up what were the most common names given to boys in the years the members were born and though their names are common enough, only one of the members have a name in the top 10 most popular boys names for the year they were born. Takashi (same kanji as B-T member; real first name of Toll) was the 9th most common name given to a boy in 1962 (same year as Takashi the drummer). Yutaka gets an honorable mention. Yutaka (same kanji as B-T member) was the 3rd most common name given to a boy in 1962 and 1963; the 6th most common name given to a boy in 1964; the 7th most common name given to a boy in 1965 (Yutaka the bassist was born in 1967). Minor note: though the kanji is different, Atsushi was the 10th most common name given to a boy in 1968 (Atsushi the singer was born in 1966). To the rest of the band members, don’t feel so bad as my name isn’t in the top 10 either! And who can even read child names today. It’s crazy, right? (mic check, um, can I get a chuckle?)

What is not so commonly shared and do not expect to ever know this stuff is the family crest. The family crest is VERY specific to the son that you descended from. Japan be like, “We can’t have each of George Foreman’s kids named George AND have the same family crest!” This ain’t no google search thing. This ain’t no ask a librarian. This is in the family genealogical book and the only people who get to see that is family. Sure, there’s crests online. But don’t think that’s your crest or your favorite celebrity crest. That’s just some common crest that made it’s way to a scanner. Also, if you study a craft, it could be that craft is from a “school” that passes on a pseudonym once you’ve mastered the craft, complete with kanji and crest so unless you know the master’s birth name, you’re not even looking in the right direction. Example, one year someone with the same family name and kanji as mine got really famous in Japan and even made international headlines. Like, you’ve probably heard of this person famous. My mom was curious if we’re related (internet says there’s only 5400 of us so maybe) and while she was visiting relatives, happened to find out that we have different family crests, thus she gave up the search and declared we are not related. (She did not want to bother to go back 19 generations or so to the story of the king who passed out names.., see paragraph 2 above.)

On to the names! For reference, all Buck-Tick members are from Gunma prefecture. Japan has a population of 126,476,461 people. The most common surnames are Satō, Suzuki, Takahashi, Tanaka, Itō, Watanabe, Yamamoto, Nakamura, and Kobayashi. Each of those surnames have over 1,000,000 people with that name residing in Japan. What’s a rare surname? Something with either 1 or 4+ kanji. (Except Hayashi.) They exist but. Really rare surnames? Well, those would be the names the Japanese government declared cannot exist anymore so those names tend to exist only outside of Japan. (Happened to one part of my family so I know this shit exists. Only 460 left. How did they get away with it? And how can I get hanko with this?)

Name info source: https://myoji-yurai.net/

桜井 (sakurai) literal meaning: cherry blossom-well (like a water well) This kanji for Sakurai is ranked #106 for most common surnames in Japan. This is the most common kanji for Sakurai. It is commonly found in Kanagawa, Saitama, and Chiba prefectures. (Kanto region) For cities, Takasaki, Gunma and Uonuma, Niigata have the most people named Sakurai. Roughly 172,000 people in the entire nation are named 桜井. In Gunma, almost 5% of Kanna town has this surname. Other famous Sakurais? Argh, someone in The Alfee. Better than that, Ao from Cali≠Gari.

櫻井 (sakurai) Same name as above, just different cherry blossom kanji (older version). This kanji for Sakurai is ranked #813 for most common surnames in Japan. It is commonly found in Kanagawa, Aichi, and Chiba prefectures (Kanto and Chubu regions) For cities, Takasaki, Gunma and Akashi, Hyogo have the most people named Sakurai. Roughly 23,600 people in the entire nation are named 櫻井. (The people who couldn’t be sussed to simplify their kanji.)

今井 (imai) literal meaning: now-well (like a water well) This kanji for Imai is ranked #75 for most common surname in Japan. This is the most common kanji for Imai. It is commonly found in Kanagawa, Saitama, and Aichi prefectures. (Kanto region) For cities, Gero, Gifu and Ichinomiya, Aichi have the most people named Imai. Roughly 212,000 people in the entire nation are named 今井. In Gunma, 20% of Ueno village has this surname. Other famous Imais? Miki Imai, singer, wife to Tomoyasu Hotei. 星野 (hoshino) literal meaning: star-field This kanji for Hoshino is ranked #147 for most common surnames in Japan. This is the most common kanji for Hoshino. It is commonly found in Gunma, Saitama, and Kanagawa prefectures (Kanto region). For cities, Kiryu, Gunma and Nagaoka, Niigata have the most people named Hoshino. Roughly 137,000 people in the entire nation are named 星野. In Gunma, almost 36% of Katashina village has this surname. Other famous Hoshinos? Gen Hoshino wrote a song during the pandemic that got very popular and even Hisashi Imai posted a video of him playing along to that song.

樋口 (higuchi) literal meaning: gutter-mouth This kanji for Higuchi is ranked #132 for most common surnames in Japan. This is the most common kanji for Higuchi. It is commonly found in Fukuoka, Osaka, Niigata, and Kanagawa prefectures (Kansai to Chubu regions) but it’s safe to say it is common throughout all of Japan except for Okinawa. Roughly 146,000 people in the entire nation are named 樋口. In Gunma, there’s roughly 1,000 people named Higuchi in Takasaki and guess where our bassist is from. Other famous Higuchis? How about Yutaka Higuchi the figure skater.

Yagami...the stage name of the drummer. He never writes this in kanji but I imagined that if he did, he would write it as 八神. Or did he write it like that once so that’s why I imagine it that way? Anyway, there’s many possible kanji variations and I was surprised that the most common way to write it is actually 谷上. (For me, I’m like is that Tanuye? Taniue? because I’m Okinawan and we have weird place names.)

#buck-tick #kanji is weird but people are weirder

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citylightsbooks · 3 years

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A Women’s History of City Lights: Interview with Nancy J. Peters

We'll be celebrating Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s 102nd birthday on March 24, and what better way to remember his legacy AND to mark Women’s History Month, than to honor Nancy J. Peters, Lawrence’s business partner, friend, and longtime comrade at City Lights Books. While Ferlinghetti certainly deserves all of the accolades he’s received, the fact of the matter is there would literally be no City Lights without Nancy Peters. Beyond shepherding City Lights through various fiscal crises and providing the steady anchor that allowed Ferlinghetti to travel the world as a poet and activist, Nancy's vision as an editor and acumen as a publisher were a vital key to the success and longevity of City Lights Publishers.

***

City Lights: How did you come to know what City Lights was? How did you meet Lawrence Ferlinghetti?

Nancy Peters: In Greece in the early 1960s, I became friends with Nanos Valaoritis and Marie Wilson who were at the center of an international bohemian/surrealist community. They had a large home which was always full of traveling writers and artists whom they made welcome. The Beat writers were among their guests, and City Lights was frequently talked about as a place everyone would meet up someday. I met Philip Lamantia there and in 1965 he introduced me to Lawrence in Paris at one of Jean-Jacque Lebel’s anarcho-surrealist festivals of free expression. Before a riotous crowd Lawrence gave a show-stopping rendition of his “Lord’s Prayer.” I was impressed by his powerful stage presence. Later that year, when Philip and I were living in Andalusia, Lawrence wrote Philip, asking for a selection of poems for a Pocket Poets Series volume. We corresponded some while we were putting the book together, but I didn’t see him again until 1971 when I moved to San Francisco.

I’d been working as an executive-trainee librarian at the Library of Congress in the fall of 1968. In April, Martin Luther King was assassinated and the impassioned protests that ensued left Washington neighborhoods in ruins. There was shockingly little assistance to residents from the government and my part of the city was under military surveillance, helicopters hovering over my apartment through the night. A Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam took place in Washington the following year. Over 750,000 people peacefully demonstrated. In a small way, I was involved in the planning and, during the protests, my apartment was crammed with fellow activists.

The Library of Congress was an amazing, fascinating place with compatible co-workers from all over the world—thousands of book people all in one place. However, the mission of the Library is to serve Congress, and the institution was a huge conservative bureaucracy serving a conservative and ineffective Congress as I saw it. I believed that if I stayed there I would have little contact with actual books or opportunities for civic activism.

So I moved to San Francisco, where Philip was living and urging me to come, and spent an enormous amount of time at City Lights while I was job hunting. It seemed like paradise, such a stimulating atmosphere where people could sit down to read, share ideas, and have conversations about books, politics, art. One day in early 1971 when I was walking down the street in North Beach, Lawrence hailed me and asked if I would like to help him with a bibliography of Allen Ginsberg’s writings. After just a brief meeting at the publishing office, Lawrence went to Europe and his editorial assistant Jan Herman suddenly decided to move to Germany. Jan showed me how all the editorial work was done in the office, told me Lawrence “wouldn’t mind,” and so I found myself beginning an exciting new career in publishing.

What was your experience taking over as executive director and co-owner in 1984?

The store back then employed seven people: six men at the bookstore and one (me) at the publishing branch. So “executive director” is far too grand a title. City Lights was a small, failing organization by 1982. The store was not founded to make profits for the owners and it never did make a profit. Breaking even was the goal. But every year the losses mounted and there came a time when there were very few books left on the shelves. No one had seen a customer venture downstairs to the lower part of the store for many months.

At the time, Lawrence was immensely popular and in great demand as a performer and a speaker, so he was traveling much of the time, visiting foreign colleagues, living abroad, finding new writers to translate. At this low point in the store’s history Lawrence told me in a frustrated moment that if I’d like to own City Lights, he would give it to me outright if I would run the business, freeing him to do all the other things he wanted to do. I declined, but told him I would be honored to be his partner. Theft was seriously addressed, and a protracted payment plan was agreed to by Book People, the East Bay employee-owned distributors who extended us credit for a generous period. Savvy booksellers Richard Berman and Paul Yamazaki headed the re-stocking plan. The three of us would go every week to Book People and Lou Swift Distributors to collect enough books to sell the following week. As time went on, everybody at the store consulted book catalogs and took on the responsibility for buying subject sections. I envisioned a participatory structure. If not a co-op, I wanted a bookstore where all the staff had responsibilities and power.

Why the decision not to have multiple bookstore locations around SF?

At one time we seriously considered additional locations. We explored sites in San Francisco’s Mission district and visited city officials in San Jose to talk about a second store there. But our resources were limited, and we were concerned about the time and money that would be required to create a sister store that would embody the same spirit and ethic as the original. During my time as director, the evolving challenges from chain stores and especially Amazon made beginning a new store a very risky enterprise. In retrospect, so many independents were closing that we decided to invest in our present, iconic location. In retrospect I think it was a good decision after watching attempts by other stores fail to duplicate their success elsewhere.

How has North Beach changed, how has it stayed the same? With the exodus of Big Tech and falling rents, how do you think that will affect North Beach and San Francisco in general in the future? Will there be “a rebirth of wonder”?

North Beach when I came to SF was a small bohemian village, where neighbors shared meals on their flat rooftops watching the sun set over the Bay. My rent was $125 a month, cheap even then. City Lights and the Discovery Bookstore (used books) next door to Vesuvio were key places to spend an evening. Two large Italian grocers delivered (no charge) bags of groceries up four flights of stairs to my apartment. The neighborhood was full of inexpensive Basque, Italian, and Chinese restaurants, and many cafes, many of which seemed unchanged since the 19th century. Change happens, and City Lights is well prepared for the future. It’s never easy to predict how things will develop, but the feeling of a lovely Mediterranean town persists, with the wooden buildings painted pastel colors, and the shimmering sea light on misty days. I feel certain that the light of City Lights will prevail for a long time to come.

Do you feel that your gender had any impact on your experience during your 23 years as director? Do you have any comments about women in bookselling or publishing in general?

Gender always has an impact. The Beat movement was certainly male focused. Even though the undaunted Diane di Prima was recognized, she was never enthusiastically supported by the inner nucleus of Beat poets. It was a long time before the Beat women came into their own. From the start, Lawrence, who insisted he wasn’t a Beat, had eclectic tastes and was open to women’s poetry. He admired Marianne Moore and Edna St. Vincent Millay as much as he did T.S. Eliot, Jacques Prévert, and Allen Ginsberg. In the Pocket Poets Series, he’d published di Prima and, very early in the series, both Marie Ponsot and Denise Levertov.

Women’s rights and opportunities are always vulnerable and cyclic. The Women’s Movement of the 1970s was very powerful and widespread, its impact on women’s lives enormous. At City Lights we hired more women; we published more women. There have always been outstanding women in publishing and bookselling, and during that time increasingly more women writers were published, reviewed, and were given accolades and awards. Women opened general bookstores and women’s bookstores, founded feminist and lesbian presses. It was a thrilling development, to see so many marginalized writers, and not just women, finding established publishers or creating their own presses. Together they created a larger, much more diverse national literature.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with many talented women at the bookstore. And in the publishing branch: Stella Levy, Kim McCloud, and Patricia Fujii. Gail Chiarello collected and edited our bestselling Bukowski stories. Annie Janowitz proposed the timely Unamerican Activities, and Amy Scholder brought us classics by Karen Finley, Rebecca Brown, and others. I’m happy to say that Amy Scholder is again working with City Lights as an editor.

When did you meet the now current publisher and executive director Elaine Katzenberger? What was her position at the bookstore? When did you know that she was the right person to take over as director?

Ah, Elaine, the woman who can do everything! Elaine began at the bookstore sales counter, then reorganized files and the store accounts, and very soon excelled as a book buyer. She had a great feeling for good writing, so I asked her to become an editor and she immediately began adding excellent books to City Lights’ list. She’s smart, witty, multitalented, and politically astute. We are very lucky to have her at the helm.

What is your understanding or vision of what of City Lights is and what it could be? How has Lawrence’s passing impacted this?

Lawrence’s democratic inclusiveness made him the best-selling poet in the U.S. His moral principles, his courage and resilience are a model to be emulated. He conceived City Lights as an educational institution that would open minds to explore and relate to the world through books. “One guy told me he’d got the equivalent of a Ph. D just sitting in the basement reading all our great books,” he often reminded us.

His “literary gathering place” was to be a fulcrum of San Francisco cultural experience, where our bookselling and publishing could amplify the voices of diverse experiences, connect with other creative communities, and serve as a center of dissent and, at the same time, a force for creating a better society.

Lawrence’s vision will continue to be our guiding light. An optimistic realist, he believed that City Lights would long endure as the co-creation of all the dedicated people who work here and make it what it is.

#nancy peters #lawrence ferlinghetti #womens history month #city lights bookstore

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awed-frog · 4 years

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“The big flaw with this is that it completely misunderstands who JK Rowling is and why she wrote the books. Simply put, this novel is a Christian tale. You miss that, you miss the entire point of everything it has to say.” Elaborate? Sounds interesting and I haven’t heard that before.

Well - I love this to bits and sort of wrote my thesis about it, so here we go.

Basically, you’ve got several kinds of heroes, but ‘left-wing hero’ is almost a contradiction in terms (more on this later). There’s your average Greek hero, whose status as a hero is more of a social class than it is a job and who generally doesn’t have any morally redeeming qualities (have you met Theseus?). Then there’s the medieval Christian hero - he comes in different flavours, but what’s relevant here is the Perceval model: basically the village idiot, whose only power is his good heart and who has no desire to challenge the status quo (because kings are divinely ordained and also poets tend to work for them, so ‘That vassal guy of yours has rescued yet another damsel’ story is going to be better received than ‘Your tax system is corrupt and this knight will now implement direct democracy’). Next you have the modern superhero, who was born in a very different historical context (the vigilantism of 19th century US) and as such has very different priorities. Namely: in his world, there is no higher authority and it’s up to him to use his superior skills to be judge and executioner so he can protect the most vulnerable. This understandable but toxic narrative will later get mixed up with WW2 and then the rampant capitalism of the last 30 years, resulting in the current blockbustery mess.

Anyway - if you’re a Western writer, it’s basically impossible to escape these three shaping forces we’ve all grown up with (classical Antiquity, Christianity, and US-led imperialism/capitalism), so most books and movies of the last forever decades can be analyzed through this lens. In the case of JK Rowling, what you have is a Christian author who openly used her YA series to chart out her own relationship with God. This is not a secret, or a meta writer’s delusion, or anything: she’s discussed it in several interviews. Her main problem, which is most believers’ main problem, is how to reconcile her faith in a benevolent God with the suffering in her daily life; and something she’s mentioned more than once is how her mom died when she was 25, and how this was very much on her mind especially when she was writing Deathly Hallows.

Now, I don’t want to write a novel here, so I won’t analyze the entire series, but what it is is basically a social critique of British society, mixed up with Greek and Roman elements in a cosmetic way only, and - crucially - led by an extremely Christian hero.

In every way that matters, Harry Potter is a direct descendant of Perceval: he’s someone who’s grown up in isolation as the village idiot (remember how he was shunned by other children because he was ‘dangerous’ and ‘different’), randomly found a more exciting world of which he previously knew nothing (he’s basically the only kid who gets to Hogwarts without knowing anything about the magical world, just like Perceval joined Arthur’s court after living in the woods for 15 years), and proceeded to make his mark not because of his innate powers or special abilities (he’s average at magic, except for Defence against the Dark Arts), but because he’s kind and good and humble. And in the end, he willingly sacrifices himself so everyone else can be saved: a Christ-like figure who even gets his very own Deposition (in the arms of Hagrid, the closest thing to a parent his actually has).

(This, by the way, was the only reason why Hagrid was kept alive. JK Rowling had planned to kill him, but she absolutely wanted this scene - one of the most recognizable and beloved image in Christian art - in the books.)

And even if he ultimately survives his ‘death’ (like Jesus did), Harry refuses the riches and rank he was surely offered and chooses to spend his days in middle-class obscurity as a husband and father (if I remember correctly, Harry and Ginny’s house isn’t even big enough for their three kids). And no, of course he doesn’t stand for anything or challenges the status quo: that’s not his job. His job, like Jesus’, was to defeat evil by offering himself up in sacrifice; and the entire story - especially the last book - is a profound, intimate, and very moving reflection on faith.

(“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's”, remember? It’s not your job to change anything in the temporal, material world; your job is to nurture your immortal soul and prepare it for the true life that comes after death.)

Like - I don’t know how it was for younger readers, but for me, reading Deathy Hallows as an adult, it wrecked me. Even as an agnostic, I read it over and over again, and I kep finding new meaning in it. The whole thing is basically a retelling of the Book of Job, one of the most puzzling and beautiful parts of the Old Testament. That’s when Harry’s faith in God Dumbledore is tested, when his mentor, the cornerstone of his world, disappears; when Harry has to decide whether he’ll continue to believe in this absent, flawed figure despite all the bad things he keeps uncovering or give up his faith - and thus his soul - completely. The clearest, most startling moment exemplifying this religious dilemma is when Harry decides not to go after the wand. Getting it is the logical thing to do, the only way he can win, but Harry - while mourning Dobby - decides not to do it. That’s when he recovers his faith, and starts trusting his own kindness and piety (whatever happens, he will not defile a tomb) over everything else.

Another key moment is King’s Cross - here, and once more, Harry forgives his enemy, thus obeying Jesus’ commands. He sees Voldemort, the being who took everything from him - and he pities the pathetic, unloved thing he’s become. This is what sets him apart from everyone else and what makes him special: not his birth, not his magic, not some extraordinary artefact - but simply, like Dumbledore puts it, that he can love. After everything that’s bene done to him, he can still love; not only his friends, but his enemies. He forgives Voldemort, he forgives Snape, he forgives Malfoy, he forgives Dudley; and I see so many people angry about this, ranting about abuse victims and how hate is a right, but I think they’re missing the point. This is a Christian story; from a Christian perspective, your enemies need love more than your friends do.

(“It is not those who are healthy who need a physician” and all that.)

And in any case, a hero is inherently not left-wing. The whole trope relies on three rock-solid facts: the hero is special, and he can do something you can’t, and that gives him the right or the duty to save others who can’t save themselves. Whether it is declined in its Christian form (the hero as self-sacrificing nobody) or in its fascist form (the hero as judge and king of the inferior masses), that is is the exact opposite of any kind of left-wing narrative, where meaningful change is brought about not by individual martyrdom or a benevolent super-human, but by collective action.

So, yeah - Harry changes nothing and is not the leader of the revolution, but it’s unfair to link this to JK Rowling’s politics. It’s just how the trope works. And, in fairness to her, many kind and compassionate authors who write books concerned with social justice tend to lean towards this kind of hero because the only workable alternative - the fascist super-hero - is way worse. Had Harry been that, for instance, he would have ended up ruling the wizarding world. Would that have been better for its democracy? A 19-year-old PM who knows nothing about the law or justice or diplomacy? A venerated war hero drunk on power? Instead, JK Rowling chooses the milder way out: Harry and his friends do change the system - little by little, and within the limits of the genre. Hermione becomes the equivalent of a human rights lawyer, while Harry and Ron join the Aurors (and I know there’s a lot of justified suspicion towards law enforcement, but frankly having good people in their ranks is still the only way to move things forward. It’s been years and I still haven’t heard a practical suggestion as to how a police-less nation would work). As for the government, it is restored to a fairer status quo - again, not the revolution many readers wanted, but also not the totalitarian monarchies or oligarchies or the super-hero’s world.

And as to how one can write a story that’s actually revolutionary - I don’t exactly know. Some writers rely on multiple narrating voices to try and escape the heroic trope; others work on bleak stories which point out the flaws in the system and stop short of solving them. I guess that, in the end, is one of the problem with left-wing politics: they’re simply less eye-catching, less cinematic. On the whole, it’s dull, boring work, the victories achieved by committees and celebrated with a piece of paper. From a literary point of view, it just doesn’t work.

#ask #harry potter #hp #meta #jk rowling #tropes #heroes #literary tropes #ancient greece #superheroes #the jesus fandom #writers problems #right vs left #politics #again i don't hold it against it #i think it works beautifully #and has a lot to offer to non-believers as well

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