Jan 2010
Knowlton in print again!
01/28/2010 10:10
To the right, a title page from Knowlton's Fruits of Philosophy, from the article. Note the origin and date: Philadelphia, 1839. The little pamphlet got around!
Gaiman on genre
01/24/2010 08:57
First part of a Neil Gaiman interview, on MIT's TechTV. Talks a lot about genres, and roots. Thanks to Boing Boing for calling it to attention again. Second part here too.
Week 1
01/23/2010 09:12
I read a couple of anthologies over the last several days. Didn’t need to read everything in them, but I found several really good articles. It’s helpful, the way articles make the author distill it down into the point s/he thinks most important. Pointed me to a couple of historians I hadn’t known before. And, it’s interesting how the need to move quickly forces authors to make theoretical assumptions that reveal their underlying philosophy, maybe more than they would in a book-length work. I really don’t like the articles that claim a lot without evidence -- even if the author has already been over that ground in a book. It just seems too arbitrary. I’ll have to keep that in mind when I write. Even for the general public -- I think they need to see (and maybe be reminded) that authorial claims need to be supported by data and interpretation.
I hesitate to double-post some of the “reviews” I’m writing of these books, even if they seem to fit in both the rural and radical slots. Maybe that goes back to my personal history, in the computer biz when entire systems contained less memory than some of the web-pages I have up there! But it’s good (for me) that a lot of these readings seem to have something to tell me about the development of radicalism in America and the history or mythology of the country. This week, the “Jeffersonian agrarian” myth is especially prominent. Christopher Hill provides what is for me almost an ancient history background, but which seems to lead directly to Benjamin Franklin (I also listened to an audio-book of Walter Isaacson’s biography). The Davis anthology had clues about people in the Revolution and early Republic I should look into. Barron’s classic study of those who stayed behind is a reminder to me about setting and characters. And the contrast between Kulikoff and Taylor in Young was instructive. I’m going to read them both.
Maps and Time
01/08/2010 22:07
Comparing maps is fun. Visual information sometimes beats the hell out of numerical, doesn’t it? So I’ve been thinking about cities and the countryside, as they’ve been changing over time. In America, that means as people settled the frontier (that is, as whites displaced the natives), and populations increased. Farms, villages, towns, cities. When did they arise? What did people go there expecting? How did those expectations change over time (as technology like telegraphs and railroads changed the space/time arrangements...and as new people came, who maybe hadn’t been party to the original reasons for moving. Who maybe were fed a story that didn’t completely match up with the reason the original people moved...)
Anyway, there was a certain pattern of settlement in, say, 1900. (this map is a piece of one available here)You could look at the numbers and compile a population density map that would tell you something about where lots of people lived, and where only a few lived (it was still up to you to figure out why).
Then, in 2008, using a completely different set of criteria, a different group of people (in government agencies) made a new map (available here). It too says something about where people live. This time, by way of metropolitan and “micropolitian” areas, measured on a county-by-county basis, more-or-less from population density. Or, from total population, which amounts to the same thing.
When you look at the two maps, you notice that they’re similar, but not identical. When you put them one on top of the other (It's cooler when you can use Photoshop's sliders to mess with the opacity of the layers, but hopefully you get the idea), you see some places where there are lots of people now, that weren’t there a hundred years ago. More interesting, you see some places where there used to be lots of people, but now there are not. What does that mean?
In the case of the four little dots in southern Iowa marked “V” (for 45 to 90 people per square mile), there seem to be stories behind these places. The one immediately southwest of Ottumwa is Centerville. Once upon a time it was a booming coal-mining town. The one near Des Moines is Creston. It was a “shop town” for the Burlington Northern Railroad.
The one in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is where the big copper mines at Houghton, Hancock, and Calumet were located. Nothing there anymore but trees. So, you get the idea. It’s change over time. The question is, are there interesting stories underneath?
In the case of the four little dots in southern Iowa marked “V” (for 45 to 90 people per square mile), there seem to be stories behind these places. The one immediately southwest of Ottumwa is Centerville. Once upon a time it was a booming coal-mining town. The one near Des Moines is Creston. It was a “shop town” for the Burlington Northern Railroad.
The one in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is where the big copper mines at Houghton, Hancock, and Calumet were located. Nothing there anymore but trees. So, you get the idea. It’s change over time. The question is, are there interesting stories underneath?
Bradlaugh in cartoons
01/05/2010 09:44
From May 9 1883 Judy, or The London Serio-Comic Journal, p. 226
"Bradlaugh" is apparently a proper noun among Londoners, meaning irreligious. "Are you a religious man?" "No, I believe in Bradlaugh." And his face is recognizable enough to be funny on the dog.
More like this at http://www.bradlaugh.com/primary/primary.html
"Bradlaugh" is apparently a proper noun among Londoners, meaning irreligious. "Are you a religious man?" "No, I believe in Bradlaugh." And his face is recognizable enough to be funny on the dog.
More like this at http://www.bradlaugh.com/primary/primary.html
