A Cornucopia Of Books

 As usual, between gifts and books I purchased with gifts (including the Great Book Hunt), I started out the year with reading list already in hand.  

Mollison (Permaculture 2) and Brown (Dirt To Soil) come recommended to me from Friend of this blog Leigh Tate:

Nighean Gheal bought me these for Christmas.  She is interested in fashion and clothing, so I have received several books from her over the years on Japanese fashion.  The book of Japanese plays fills in a gap in my knowlege:

Osprey Publishing does some of the best work I am aware of in terms of military history and armor/arms; their books are great references.  The two budo books (Classical Budo, Classical Bujutsu) are by Donn Draper, considered an early pioneer in martial arts writing post World War II.  The last book, As I Crossed A Bridge of Dreams was unknown to me, but is a diary by a 11th Century woman in Heian Japan along the lines of Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book or in the time and style of Murasaki's The Tale Of Genji.  The fact that even though it is was both used and somewhat older it was still at full price suggest something rare and fun.

I was able to find the Loeb Classical Library's 3 volume set of Seneca's Moral Essays sold together for 2/3's of what the new books would have cost - all with their dust jackets, all covered in dust jacket covers, in perfect condition:

History:  Victor Davis Hanson (War of the Ancient Greeks) is always a treat no matter what he writes.  The Lives of the Stoics is in theory a high level review of stoicism, something I picked up an interest in last year.  Paul Rahe's book  Classical Sparta is the only one of the series of his four volume work "The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta" that I have not been able to find used in either stores or on-line; I finally had to by it new.  And of course, what is a library with a history of the Ostrogoths?:

Traditions Of Christian Spirituality is a series starting in the 1990's which originally covered various traditions in the Catholic church (I have the books on the Cistercians and the Carmelites).  They are a wonderful introduction to the various sub-units and include both history and a sampling of the literature of that sub-group.  Apparently they had branched out into other Christian traditions; I bought one on Celtic Christianity (Journey On The Edges) and the Orthodox church (Standing In God's Holy Fire):

Thus, I entered the New Year with eighteen books to read which, along with the four I had purchased in December, started the year with twenty two - about a quarter of what I usually read in a year.

Bonus Round 1:  Perhaps to the surprise of no-one, I have a book allowance for myself.  This came in January.  I have been eyeing it for month (some readers may recall I have often quoted parts of Olivier's book The Roots of Christian Mysticism):

Bonus Round 2:  In November 2022, I also supported the Permies Kickstarter to support a video of permaculture based on the work of Masanobu Fukuoka (One Straw Revolution).  As a thank you for that support, I received the following electronic bundles:

- 3D Plans for a Pebble Style Rocket Mass Heater

- EZ Cob Rocket Stove

- A chapter from Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist

-  Thermophilic Compost for Garden or Home

-  Wheaton's Video Series on Gaia's Garden

- Building a Better World

- Huglekultur: The Ultimate Raised Bed Gardening

- Together Resilient

- Learning to Spin with a Drop Spindle

- A Year In An Off Grid Kitchen

- Guide to Qualitative Assessment of Soil Microbiology with the Microscope

Bonus Round 3:  As part of my Christmas present to myself, I also bought the Permies 2022 Bundle:

- 5 Acres & A Dream The Sequel, chapter 6: "Food Self-Sufficiency: Feeding Ourselves"

- Hotbed Plans + Self Heating Winter Greenhouse

- Understanding Roots

 -From Home to Small Town Homestead

- 3 issues of Tiny House Magazine (Issue 115, Issue 118, Issue 119)

-The Hugelkultur chapter of Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist from Michael Judd

- Clean With Cleaners You Can Eat

- Joel Salatin's Successional Success - Fields of Farmers

 -Planting for Bees video

 -High Performance Gardening

  -Companion Planting Guide

- The High Art and Subtle Science of Scrounging

- Cook with What You Have

- Neal Kinsey's Hands-On Agronomy Video Workshop from Acres USA
- A Guide to Buy it Once Cookware

- Together Resilient

- Harvesting Rainwater for your Homestead in 9 Days or Less

- The Weekend Homesteader: Winter

- 6 Ways to Keep Chickens

- 19 Skiddable Structures

- Permaculture Playing Cards

- Tour of Wheaton Labs, the Movie

- Paul Wheaton's Permaculture Thorns Presentation

- Round Wood Timber Framing: the Berm Shed Movie

- Care and Feeding of Rocket Mass Heaters

 - Hugelkultur microdoc

- Introduction to Welding in 47 Minutes movie

- Welding a Grate to go on Top of a Portable j-tube

- 21 podcast review of Sepp Holzer's Permaculture from Paul Wheaton

- Permaculture Thorns – A Book About Trying to Build Permaculture Community

I would love to say that I am not planning to buy anything else this year, but I likely would be lying...

A 40th Friendiversary Celebrated

As longer time readers of this blog may recall, last year I, along with my friends The Actor and Uisdean Ruadh, celebrated our 40th year as friends.  This sort of thing seems to happen less and less, at least in my own life - I cannot think of anyone else that would come close to that amount of time these days - so we had fully intended to make plans to celebrate.

Then, of course, life happened.  Uisdean Ruadh and his mother both got expelled from their homes and then relocated.  Not too long after that, TB the Elder passed.  Then Summer ended and we all got trapped back into the web of the common work week.

Until this past Monday when a combination of factors - me being at The Ranch and all of us having a day off - presented itself.  And so, we celebrated.

"Celebrated" is a pretty elaborate term for what we actually did.  

We all met at the high school we graduated from to walk around and take pictures.  The school still looks somewhat the same in form, although they have added buildings where parking and basketball courts used to be and entire buildings have been pulled down and rebuilt.  We could still reel off the names of teachers we had and where they taught.  We took our picture in front of the theater which was really the center of our existence during high school as well as the music building (or at least where the music building is now).

The day was overcast but not terribly rainy and because of the holiday, we had the campus largely to ourselves, which both made for good pictures and good memories.  We crossed the paths and streets we had undoubtedly run or walked hundreds of times in years gone by - for me at least, this was the first time in almost forty years I had done more than just drive by the campus.

After our visit and photo shoot, we adjourned to a local lunch place where we ate lunch, divided up a box of forty cookies (our celebratory portion), and talked.  The talk was perhaps a little more about high school but was much more about the now:  how children were doing, our health, options about what we were thinking about doing after "work"  - the sorts of things friends discuss when they are together.  By common unspoken consent, we largely avoided current events and the real world (we always try to), as it can create issues where there need be done.

We parted after lunch - the Actor to continue his work of chain-sawing downed trees, Uisdean Ruadh and I back to The Ranch where visited for another two hours and watched the rain fall.

It was a good day.  And almost the perfect way to celebrate forty years of being together.

The Collapse LXXXVIII: The Sabbath

20 April 20XX +1

My Dear Lucilius:

Another Sunday has come and gone. Yes, I went to church yet again (once again, the pews were full). Yes, I may or may not have had another brunch with Young Xerxes and Stateira and her mother (whom, apparently, I rather had come up with her own name, it appears). After that, the day was spent with what would have been formerly called “puttering”, but now probably goes more by the moniker “surviving” – tasks at hand in the greenhouse and in The Cabin proper to get ready for what I am hopeful will finally turn over into a useful Spring.

The fine thing about such small level tasks is that it allows the mind to work while the body is performing useful tasks. With nothing but time (and small tasks) on my mind, I found myself how I was spending my time on this Sunday, specifically on the concept of a Sabbath.

One of the great discussion we had once was on the Sabbath. I wonder if you recall it now: it was early Summer when the heat had still not arrived. We had both had our cider – perhaps a little more than we should have! - and were discussing our understanding of Sunday worship. You were ardently arguing your side and your practice, I was ardently arguing mine. What we came to an agreement on was that 1) Worship should always be part of the Sabbath; and 2) Rest should be some part of the Sabbath. We quibbled on what else fell into the “do/not do” category: I tried to abstain from electronics which you thought was no different from listening to the radio while driving to or from worship, you abstained from significant outside efforts, which I viewed as the opportunity to “get things done”.

I recalled that discussion as I went about my tasks in the cool wind (oh, but Spring is coming Lucilius. I know it), looking back towards the small town I have called home now for some years with the drifting smoke and sounds of children playing outside and dogs barking and the muffled sounds of work. What, I wondered, is the place of the Sabbath in this new world we find ourselves in?

One can argue that we face a similar situation as the Israelites (anciently) or sub-populations like the Mennonites (more recently) in that we are rapidly finding ourselves in an agricultural/survival environment. If no-one paid attention to St. Paul’s admonition “He who does not work, let him not eat” before, I doubt there are any disbelievers now. The amount of effort to do the things needed for survival is now a never ending, 7 day a week sort of job where daylight means the opportunity to get more done or in place.

What place, then, has the Sabbath?

For three weeks running now I have attended church (something I have not done regularly in years) and attended a meal with others. By the time we were done it was perhaps 1 PM. At this time of year, I easily still have 6-7 hours of useful daylight left. What part of that should be used as the other days of the week, and what other part in rest and refreshment?

I suspect it is a sliding scale of course: some times there is much to be done (and that can be done), sometimes there is little. But what occurs to me is that every Sabbath, it is valuable to take at least some time – 30 minutes, an hour – and simply “rest”. Rest, of course, to me is reading or writing; to you it was sitting and listening to your beloved radio programs. It is probably different for everyone. But I think the kernel of the practice, even in these times, is to set aside some period where we are to turn away – however briefly – from the vicissitudes of the world and seek some quiet and inner enjoyment.

We were such a busy society before, always spending every minute of the day doing things. Our relaxation often became just another task we had to accomplish. I wonder, Lucilius, how our view of that has changed now.

Your Obedient Servant,

Seneca

Old English: A Historical Background - From Rome To Abandonment

(Author's note:  History is a wide ranging discipline which in some senses can be fluid as we learn new things and in some cases is solid as we choose to interpret events and findings in light of our own day, not the day in which it happened.  Individuals spend their whole lives studying these things.  My very concise overview is meant as nothing more than that:  an overview to give background.  All errors and omissions remain my own.) 

The province of Britain circa 5th Century A.D. had a problem.

Britain, as you may recall from your breezy view of it through Western Civilization history, was originally "visited" by Julius Caesar (before his tragic accident at the Forum) in 55 B.C. and a Roman sphere of influence created.  This was followed up by the outright invasion of Britain by the Emperor Claudius in 44 A.D.  There were some awkward moments - Boudicca's Rebellion in 70 A.D. created a bit of a stir, and well as grumpy  tribes beyond the periphery, causing the Emperors Hadrian and Septimus Severus to "build (and then rebuild) that wall" which we know as Hadrian's Wall- but the what was the Celtic culture became what has been referred to as the Romano-Celtic British:  archaeologists have found houses, farms and towns that would be not be out of place in any other corner of the Empire.

Times change, though.  Britain was never quite the heartland of the Empire the way Gaul or Egypt was.  Everything - troops, supplies, etc. - had to travel at some point via ship to cross the Channel.  And it was not just supplies that came by seas.  Starting in the late 3rd Century, Saxon pirates (emulated later by their Norse cousins) began raiding the Eastern (soon to be called "Saxon") Shore.  From the West, the Gaels from Ireland raided as well - the word for the inhabitants of that island, Scoti, would eventually come to form the name of a certain state to the North).  And to the North, the Picts (perhaps Celtic, perhaps not - the jury is still out) were a constant threat. In 367 all three peoples attacked Britain - which were all pushed back, but it was starting to become apparent that the Rome could not longer support Britain as it had in the past.

What accelerated the issue was the fact that generals began to get minded of becoming emperors.  And emperor's needed armies in those days to "convince" the other generals or rulers who thought they were going to do the same thing.  And so, at least two generals - Magnus Maximus in 383 A.D. and Constantine III in 407 A.D. - stripped the troops from the province and set off for Gaul and (in theory) Rome.  With the disappearance of the legions in 407 A.D., they were never to return again.

Not that the Roman Empire did not have a lot going on elsewhere at this time.  In 376 A.D. the Goths had crossed the Danube in Winter and began to "make themselves at home".  And it was not just Magnus Maximus and Constantine III that were vying for promotions - other generals with other "good ideas that needed a trial" were also seeking to gain the The German invasion of the Alans, the Vandals, and the Suebi began in 410 A.D., resulting in what would ultimately be called "The Sack of Rome".

And so, in the years 410 -411 A.D. (at least, so the common legend goes), the inhabitants of Britain sent a request to the then reigning emperor Honorius for relief.  The Emperor, hold up in a castle while the the countryside was being overrun by the Germans, wrote back to the Romano-British civitates (cities) that they now needed to look to their own defense.

Works consulted:

Blair, Peter Hunter:  Roman Britain and Early England 55 B.C. - A.D. 871.  WW Norton and Company:  London, 1991.

Nicolle, David:  Arthur And The Anglo-Saxon Wars.  Osprey Publishing:  Hong Kong, 1984

MacDowall, Simon:  Germanic Warrior 236-568 AD.  Osprey Publishing:  Hong Kong, 1996

Wikipedia:  End of Roman Rule In Britain, Honorius, Constantine III

A Simple Life

 

On Discussions

 Last week, Friend of this blog Old AF Sarge at Chant du Depart  posted what essentially was an "Open Mic" post on a particular subject (war, in this case).  The link is here if you are curious (again, not something we discuss generally), and the point of this post is not the subject of that post, but rather the content of the commentators.

This, in theory, was the sort of post where things can go horribly wrong:  a potentially contentious subject, a "Go discuss" imperative, and (from what I could see) minimal editorial intervention.  A total of 50 comments and responses.  

Not one angry or contentious response.

Part of me - that vaguely sarcastic, ironic part of me that sometimes feels like the funny things that are funny in my head should be said out loud, which never works out well for me - thought about posting something along the lines of "What is this?  Reasoned, rational debate among peers without anger or name calling? Heresy!  What sort of site are you running, Sir?"  (The better part of me restrained myself, of course).  But for not posting it, it was true.  Here, in essence, was actual discussion happening around a subject that can stir strong emotions (and language).

How, by the grace of God, did this happen?

We are in increasingly short supply of such things, in the electronic world and in the real world (Thankfully not at this site, of course.  Every one here is exemplary).  The ability to simply say "Here is a subject we may need to talk about" and have people actually talk about it from their point of views without everyone making ad hominem attacks or stating "You are a ______ (fill in the blank)" with no support is what, from all I can tell, passing for "debate" these days.

The whole thing is rather sad.

I am not the sort of person that reacts to this kind of environment well at all.  Long ago, a college professor told me that I did not really debate, I simply put facts out there and assumed everyone saw things the way I did based on the evidence (to be fair, he was correct).  And I certain cannot deal with the escalation in volume and body language when someone tries by verbal force to make the point they cannot make with logic.

If I had to picture us now, I almost see us as people that are rent by wounds not physical but verbal and instead of working to bind them up, continue to go on rending because at this point, there is nothing else we know how to do. 

There is another side of course, the side represented by the fine discussion at Sarge's site, the part where people can be rent by wounds but people are respectful of rending others and in some cases are actively working to bind up those rents.  They are not nearly as noticeable because (frankly) quiet is not as nearly as powerful as loud in the public arena.  

The unfortunate reality of rent wounds is, of course, that one will actively bleed out at some point while those that have been quietly binding up those wounds will continue on, working quietly and quite often in silence and the background.

Lectio Divina: Meditatio and Comtempatio

 Last week in my general post on Lectio Devina (Divine Reading), Leigh of Five Acres And A Dream had asked the following question:

"I would be interested in understanding the difference between meditation (meditatio) and contemplation (contemplatio)."

The following is my understanding of these concepts. Any and all errors remain my own.  Of note, I have found the book Praying the Word:  An Introduction to Lectio Divina by Enzo Bianchi to be extremely helpful in this matter.

Meditatio:  Meditation.  From Bianchi's work:

"Reflect on the text with your understanding, enlightened by God's own light.  As you proceed, you may want to make use of some aids....Chew the word over in your heart and apply the message to yourself, to your life situation....Focus on Christ.  Reflect on Christ who dwells within you and not just on yourself alone.  It is he who will transform you".

Contemplatio: Contemplation.  Again, from Bianchi:

"You are now in partnership with the Lord.  Try to see everything through his eyes:  yourself, other people, life events, history, every creature, and the whole world.  Contemplation is seeing everything and everyone through God's eyes...

Simplified, meditation is when I reflect on the Word and seek to understand it; contemplation is when I apply the Word to my life as God would have me see it.

Perhaps an example is in order.

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Matthew 6:19-21)

Meditatio:  I read and re-read this passage several times.  I have found if I read it out loud, it forces me to slow down and actually listen to the words.  I consult any concordances or Bible aids (I have both in mine, a New King James version) for commentary on the passage.  In this case, of interest is the word "treasures" - thesauros  in the Greek - which means not only treasure, but store, treasure box, storeroom.

Contemplatio:  I think about the passage and see what sticks out to me, what calls out in my mind.  For example, in this passage Christ is talking about "treasures", which seems to indicate (based on what can happen to it - thieves, rust, moths) as physical treasure - which is usually how it is translated.  But as I think about it, treasure is (to me, anyway) not just found in physical things.  It is found in other things as well:  Friendship.  Education.  Physical Health.  Family Relationships.  These are all "treasures" as well - how do I lay them up in Heaven as well?  (I do not have a firm answer to this yet).

In short:  Meditation is where I think over the verse itself in multiple different forms and fashions. Contemplation is where I take the verse and work to apply it to my own life, trying to understand it as God would have me apply it to my life.

Capella Romana: Prokeimenon

 One of the apps on my phone that I have come to enjoy is Ancient Faith Radio, specifically the music portion.  They play various portions of the Orthodox service (in English and Greek). On the whole, I find it much more expressive and engaging than what seems to pass for worship music in most modern churches.

During my listening, I was introduced to the group Capella Romana, a "professional vocal ensemble that performs early and contemporary sacred music in the Christian traditions of East and West".  The music in question was Orthodox Greek Chant, which strikes me as similar to Western Gregorian chant but with a more soaring harmonies.

They have given performances in which their voices were electronically adjusted to give a sense of what the sound would have been like if it had been sung in the Hagia Sophia, the Church of Holy Wisdom built by the Eastern Emperor Justinian (and not used as such since the conquest of Constantinople in 1453).  Below is a portion of that concert (run time 5:40).  The particular song is the Prokeimenon (typically sung before a Scripture reading).

Ranking Goals: A CARVER Approach

In a comment on my entry on my 2023 goals, friend of the blog and PEZ master John Wilder asked the question "Which (goals) are the most important"?

It is a fair question, as my list is fairly long.  For once, I actually have an answer.

Some years ago I was introduced to the idea of a CARVER in Richard Machowicz's book Unleash The Warrior Within (2002 edition).  Machowicz was a Navy SEAL and adapts the mindset and tools to average lives like my own (as a note, I have read more than one book authored by a Navy SEAL; I still find Machowicz's book very approachable).  CARVER is an acronym (comments taken from Machowicz's book):

Criticality:  How vital to this is the overall mission?  If I hit this target, is going to contribute to achieving ultimate victory?

Accessibility:  How easily can I get to this target?  How easy is it for me to hit this target?

Recognizability:  How easy for me is it to find this target?  How easy or difficult is it for me to recognize the things I need to do in order to knock down this target down?

Vulnerability:  What is the degree of force needed to destroy the target?  Can it be easily finished within a certain time frame?  What is the extent of the resources to knock down this target down?

Effect on the Overall Mission:   To what degree will the destruction of this target affect my enemy?  How much closer will this get us to ending the war?

Return on Effort (Recuperability):  Can the enemy recover from the destruction of this target?  If so, how long will it take?  What is the return on the initial investment of resources, and when will I see it?

One takes each of these categories and ranks them from low/hard to achieve or recognize (1) to high/easy to achieve or recognize (5).  A simple total at the end of the matrix and voila!  One has a ranking system.

It is obviously not designed for war in this case, and a couple of caveats have to be applied. The first is that one has to be ruthlessly honest about the assessment of each goal and each item.  The second is that one has to accept a certain amount of "fluidity" in the assessment; these are at best your own assessments that may change.

This is a sample of what my template looks like.

I have to confess I very much like this tool.  To the extent that you are ruthlessly honest, the tool makes it very easy to assess things side by side as the numbers are the numbers.  One can be surprised by what actually rises to the "top" as most important based on the criteria (like most things, this usually takes me 3-4 rounds).

In my case, this exercise gave me the following top five goals:

1)  Weekly Date Night/Activity with The Ravishing Mrs. TB

2)   Practice Lectio Divina and prayer for 30 minutes a day

3)  Increase Maximum Weight on Bench Press, (Safety Bar) Squat, and Deadlift

4)  Aerobic training for Hike in August to include at least a 5K run

5)  Industry certification

The first four did not surprise me.  The last one did, as it beat things like Iaijutsu, Writing, and many other activities.  Why?  I think because of the combination of it being a discrete task and the fact that indirectly, it helps other things. And, of course, once it is finished I can move on to something else.

If you are looking for a way to organize your goals, I highly recommend it.

The Collapse LXXXVII: Book Club

 (Editor's note:  Long time readers may recall that from 2018 to 2021 I had written a fiction series called The Collapse, chronicling the experiences of an older man - Seneca - as the society around him started to dissolve in the not too distant future.  The serial was written as a series of letters between the author, Seneca, and his friend, Lucilius (mirroring the design of Seneca's Letters From A Stoic).  I made over 80 entries (located here)  before stopping for no particularly good reason.  With a new year comes many new things, including the reminder that - if for no other reason than the practice - I should pick up the story again.

As a short reminder, Seneca is now about a year following his initial sense of something going wrong (A Visitor) and about 9 months following the unraveling of the economy (No More Shopping).  He is a retired widower living in the North of the United States (based on the climate).  Beyond Lucilius his friend, other characters included Xerxes, a young man that has made himself a friend and helper, his girlfriend Stateira, and Stateira's mother.  The story picks up just following Easter, where Seneca is keeping a promise to have a discussion with Stateira's mother about a Russian literary work.)

18 April 20XX +1

My Dear Lucilius:

It appears in fact that the Post Office was not just an illusion to my eye; young Xerxes informs me that in fact someone has taken up the space as to use as a central hub to the town for communications and as a meeting place.

It makes a certain sort of sense, of course: even with people like diligent Xerxes checking in on myself and others, there is not a common place for meetings (except for the store front we have used from time to time and is not really set up for anything other than group meetings) and the idea that we are “inviting people in” is still a bit too early in everyone’s mind, I suspect. Better to have a sort of neutral ground where nothing is revealed and people do not feel potentially threatened or exposed to others.

Who knows. It may be one of those fine young people with another wonderful idea to make something out of the wreck we seem to have constructed for ourselves.

Were you here, I suspect you take a sort of almost perverse pleasure in asking me about how things are progressing with Stateira’s mother. Turnabout is fair play, I suppose; after all, I bothered you all those years about your own dating life (to no avail, I might note; it appears civilization truly had to collapse in order to get you out)! I believe what I supposed to write here is “swimmingly”, as post-Easter we had our first “book club”. You might remember that she also had an interest in Dostoevsky, which happily coincided with one of the last large book purchases I made. We met to discuss his work Notes From Underground.

Frankly, I wish we had started with something else.

Notes From Underground is a psychological study by Dostoevsky of the bleaker side of human nature (I think – I really have no firm idea). The narrator – he is never named – is reflecting on his life as a minor bureaucrat in the service of the Tsar in 1840’s Russia. He is a mendacious individual: mean-spirited, angry, trying to delve into his character yet undercutting his own ruminations. The first half of the book is ruminations on his life and the nature of things; the second half – “On The Wetness of Snow” – relates an incident that had happened to him 20 years ago at a dinner, which – rather awkwardly given the circumstances of the meeting – involved him going to a brothel.

I can barely imagine discussing this with anyone, let alone with an attractive woman in her 40’s whom I have met a handful of times previous. And yes, I can hear you laughing from here.

She, apparently had read the book previously and as it turns out, was looking forward as much to my reaction and attempts to discuss the book as she was to the actual discussion. Apparently I filled both dance cards: my comments were rated as “insightful” and my attempted discussion on the nature of why a man might want to go to a brothel was rated as “humorous, and perhaps “slightly honest”.

We have agreed that our next session will be something from Tolstoy’s short stories, which are less...”controversial”… and perhaps more in line with a male/female discussion.

I hope. I am reviewing my Tolstoy short stories now to find one that I am sure meets the criteria.

Even now, Lucilius, life continues to surprise me. Which I count as a good thing.

Your Obedient Servant,

Seneca

Old English: What Is It and Why Study It?

One of the goals I listed from The Big List of 2023 goals is " Study Old English.  Be able to translate a text by December 2023".  That may seem like a fairly obscure goal - okay, it is a fairly obscure goal -  with no noticeable impact on modern living or really on my life, except as an exercise in trivial knowledge of dead languages.

So what is Old English and why study it?

Old English is (perhaps not surprisingly) to forerunner to Modern English via Middle English and Early Modern English.  The dates of such a thing are fairly fluid:  one scholar dates it from 450 A.D. (The initial arrival of the Angles, Saxons, and the Jutes en masse to Britain) to 1150 A.D.  It is derived from what are now called the North German dialects of German (the fancier word is Ingvaeonic), a postulated language encompassing Old English, Old Frisian, and Old Saxon. It was originally called englisc  or "pertaining to the Angles", which came to cover what turned into a multitude of dialects in Britain (Mercian, West Saxon, Northumbrian, and Kentish).  West Saxon won the initial linguistics battle by the time of Alfred The Great (848 A.D. - 899 A.D), although in a twist of fate it was Mercian, not West Saxon, that was passed on to Middle English (and thus to our time).

(source)

Old English as a written language had less of a history than the spoken tongue (which ran 700 years or so).  The first Old English text we have is a hymn written in the late 7th Century called Cædmon's Hymn.  From there, the corpus of English writing grows and proliferates until it begins to decline after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 A.D..  The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, that yearly testament of events in England, continued to be kept until 1154 A.D.  The language of business and ruling had become that of the Norman conquerors; englisc continued to be spoken by the countryfolk and lower classes.

If it seems like there is a lot of history that is inferred here there is; my thought it cover that in a second posting (because history an integral part of understanding any language).  For me it is actually rather interesting; in the late fifth Century there was no guarantee that Anglo-Saxon would be the language of England, beating out the then currently existing Romano-British and their Brittonic (Celtic) and Latin (Romance) languages.  The history of Britain in the 5th and 6th Century is one I wish more people studied.

But other than historical interest, why study it?

While Old English is not the same as the Modern English we currently speak, one in four words (28%) of English vocabulary is drawn from some version of Old English and the basic structure of Old English remains with us to this day.  So, for example, in an entry from 1043 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, "Her wæs Eadward gehalgod to cinge" we have an almost completely recognizable modern English sentence: 

-"Her":  Here, or in this year
- "wæs": was, past tense of to be
-"Eadweard":  Edward, a proper name
- "gehalgod":  Consecrated; current cognate is "hallowed"
- "to":  to; we would say "as"
- "cinge":  inflected form of "king"

They are not all like that, of course; only 28% means 72% did not transfer into modern English.  But there are some surprising times where reading Old English is no harder than reading any other of English.

Mark Atherton, in his handy volume Complete Old English (included with CDs; a fantastic volume for anyone wishing to start the journey) notes that the Irish Poet Seamus Haney compares English to an archaeology dig, with layers based on periods of history:

Colonialism:      Asian, American, African terms
Enlightenment:  Latin and Greek scientific terms
Renaissance:      Latinate learned words
Middle Ages:     French literary and cultural influences
                           Norman French administration
                           Old Norse everyday words, especially in north and east England
                           Old English - the foundation

Thus, the study of Old English is a sort of archaeological dig, a way to get back to one's linguistic or actual ancestors (both for me) in a way that is more than just reading historical works.  To find Anglo-Saxon is, in some sense, to find a small part of myself.

Finally, it is worth studying because it is so rich.  We have stories (Beowulf), we have fantasies (The Dream of The Rood, The Seafarer), we have poems and riddles and charters and proclamations and histories.  Unlike many of the peoples of the so-called "Dark Ages" that came and disappeared almost without a traces - the Vandals, the Burgundians, the Lombards - the Anglo-Saxons have left us a great deal about themselves, their lives, and how they saw the world.

And frankly, it is fun.  It may be an unusual day when one can blurt out the opening to Beowulf:  

Hƿæt! Ƿē Gār-Dena in ġeār-dagum

Þēod-cyninga, þrym ġefrūnon,

hū ðā æþelingas ellen fremedon.

(What!  We spear-Danes in ancient days inquired about the glory of the nation-kings, how the princes performed bravery.)

but it is a good day.

On Historian Employment

Over 20 years ago when I had applied to the ministry, the suggestion that was made (when advancement into seminary was clearly not in the cards) was to consider going back to school and working towards a Ph.D. in History or Classical Studies and become a professor.  The interest was clear to the evaluators; what they felt was needed a different track to becoming a teacher.

It was thus with interest that I read the article "The End of (Academic) History" by Sumantra Maitra, a Ph.D. an associate fellow at the Royal Historical Society.  What grabbed my attention the most was a statistic from the article:

" Between 2019 and 2020, 1,799 historians earned their Ph.Ds and only 175 of them are now employed as full-time faculty members (as of 2022)".

Wow.  175 out of 1799. To my not-math brain, that is less than 1 in 10.  The article that this statistic is pulled from, "The Ongoing History Crisis" (link is to the introduction) notes one of the major reasons, which is the the shrinking and in some cases closure of history departments.

It brings to mind a discussion around both choosing careers (discussed today) and the future of history (not to be discussed today, although discussed in both articles).

It seems to me there are two items at work here. The first is rather simple fact that there are only X amount of history positions at universities (which are starting to have their own demographic issues).  Surely these statistics are known - or if not know when being started, then known during the process.

A Ph.D. can take 8-10 years to achieve by the time that one is done with the course of study.  Most Ph.Ds that I have met are very committed to the process; you have to be, to be willing to endure not only the schooling and the writing, but the years spent as a TA or Instructor, the nights and days when your academic peers are out living their lives and you are toiling away.  So getting halfway in and suddenly "calling it quits" because of the potential employment would likely be the most difficult thing in the world, if not impossible.  Add to that, of course, the human belief that things like that happen to other people, not us.

The second, of course, is the system.

Universities - beyond just their rapidly escalating costs - have little to no long term interest in the success of their graduates beyond college, except for the the potential money they can bring in donations and the potential prestige if they make it big (there are exceptions to that rule of course, but both of my universities paid at best lip service to post-educational employment planning).  The important thing is to get the money now, issue the degree, and move students out the door.  How universities continue, in good conscious, to ensure that students are financially crippled beyond school without any responsibility on their part is beyond me.

One has to wonder a bit about the staff that enables this as well.  Surely - to use this example - History professors are well aware of the fact that employment is not there and/or falling rapidly.  I wonder - I have no data, of course - if they are self-policing students as well, suggesting that a 90% unemployment in the field rate is not a great gamble  and had they perhaps thought of an alternative course (and, of course, if the students would listen).  

I can imagine, only too well, the sense of disappointment such individuals would encounter when the exit the academic world and go to look for employment - not just that first semester after graduation, but the year after year grind as applications continue to go in and polite refusals or no responses at all come in, and what one is "willing to do" becomes broader and broader.

Now take this one field, and multiply it across all majors.  To be sure, this does not apply to every major - engineers always seem to be in demand for example, and some hard sciences s well - but truly, how many Ph.Ds in Philosophy, Political Science, Economics, or Art History can be sustained?

In my case, I took a look at my current circumstances at the time - a child newly arrived and the single employed parent at the time - and took a hard pass at the academic route.  Instead, I stuck with the career field I was still relatively new in (3 years) but was not the thing I had wanted to do or close to the thing I wanted to do.  In my case, just showing up and doing a good job led to other opportunities in the biopharmaceutical field - opportunities which allowed me to build a library (and educate myself) as well as in some cases, to travel where the history had been.

It is not that I gave up on history.  I just had to take a different route to study it and in some way, use it in my life.  

Movie Review: All Quiet On The Western Front

 Among my many historical knowledge gaps, one of the biggest ones lies in the post-World War I German period known as the Weinar Republic.  The period remains fascinating (and I think instructive) both in the fact that the inflation experienced is now used as the example of out of control inflation and the fact that out of Weimar Republic came Nazi Germany.  Surely there are lessons to be learned about how to not dissolve a society and create a worse problem.

But to get to the Weimar Republic, one first has to get through World War I.

All Quiet On The Western Front by Eric Maria Remarque was, at one time, required reading for high school English Literature classes and if you are of a certain generation, you remember reading the story about Paul Baumer, a young German man that enlists in the German army and his experiences both at the front and back in civilian society.  I somewhat remember the book; I also remember the 1979 television adaptation, mostly because it had Richard Thomas of "The Waltons" and "Battle Beyond The Stars" fame.

Last year a new remake came out on Netflix which I watched last week. And while I find unusual to recommend such a horrific story about war, I do not think I can recommend it enough.

The story again focuses on Paul Baumer, with the first scene being an attack across No-Man's land.  The attack is pretty much as horrible and pointless as you might imagine.  The story then reaches back to his background of enlistment (I remember this taking up more time in the book, but here it is less than five minutes of the film).  From there, the movie then takes a leap from his initial arrival at the front to 18 months later, in the early days of November 1918.

The film at this point veers from the book and we see two story lines:  in one story line, the countdown as the German delegation debates signing the Treaty of Versailles; on the other, Paul and his companions on the front as their Commander continues to press forward attacks in the face of what he sees as the betrayal of the Cause.

The battle scenes are intense and in that sense, horrifying - although the reality of them (and they appear pretty real) are likely still far from the actual conditions of the war.  Men die - a lot.  They die by being shot, they die by being stabbed, they die by gas, they die by being bludgeoned, they die by flamethrower, they die by shells, they die by grenades.  

They all die.

At one point one of the attacks, French Tanks arrive.  I do not believe I have ever seen a representation of what actual tanks in World War I would have looked like.  They are as terrifying in the movie as they must have been in real life.

One other place the movie varies from the book is that Paul does not return home and undergo the awkwardness of seeing civilian life versus the battlefield.  Perhaps the Versailles delegation was meant to do this without breaking the continuity of the film; certainly switching back and forth from the battlefield to a drawing room in a train car or a dinner is just as representative.  And while in the end there is some discussion between Paul and Kat, another main character, about what they will do after the War, it does not carry the same impact I remember from the book when Paul is with his father's friends at a Biergarten and they cannot and do not want to understand his world.

One note:  The movie is a German one and thus 90% of the dialogue is in German, except for those parts that are in French.  High School German still served me well, I could understand at least 50% of the movie.  Frau G would be proud.

As I have said, this movie is horrifying, brutal, and realistic.  Why would I recommend it?

First of all, it really is a well made movie.  It is tight and well directed.  There is nothing that is extraneous to the plot, even if that meant that modifying the story from the book.  The descent of Paul from enthusiastic recruit to battle weary veteran to man without a future is convincing.

Second of all, it smacks of realism.  The sets are convincing.  The attacks pull you in - at one point, A the Cat looked up at me in reproach as I got a little over enthusiastic and involved in the movie and disturbed his resting place.  The confusion and terror of charging a trench with bullets and shells flying made me crouch.  

And the tanks.  Oh, the tanks.

The third reason is that it brings to the fore the waste of war.

As part of the opening sequences, we see bodies being pulled from an cart, then placed on the ground and stripped. We follow the stripped uniform as it goes back from the front to be washed, dried and sewn.  The uniform is issued to Baumer upon his enrollment.  He comes back to his recruiter, saying that he was issued the wrong uniform as someone else's name is in it.  The recruiter takes the uniform back, removes the nametag, and gives it back to Baumer;  likely it was too small, he tells Baumer.  It happens all the time.

We know better, of course.

I recommend this movie to every D*!# (word used decidedly) fool that calls for war or violence to solve a problem, to every politician and leader that has not seen war and will not see war, but sees war as the only option.  I recommend it to everyone else as reminder of what war really is:  not the video games we see, not the movies that so often grace the screen, but for the ugly, terrifying, wasteful horror that it is.

Everyone starts a war believing they will win it.  No-one really anticipates the actual cost, until the lives are spent and the money is gone, a generation has been decimated, and the-what-might-have-been's become the reality of broken men, broken economies, broken culture, and a broken state.

Lectio Divina

 Lectio Divina (Divine Reading) is "...a traditional monastic practice of Scripture reading, meditation, and prayer intended to promote communion with God and increase the knowledge of God's word" (source). The roots of the practice reach back into the 3rd Century A.D..  It fell a bit off the during the 16th century and following (although recommended by both Catholic and Protestant preachers on a piecemeal basis) but was brought back to the fore (in Catholic circles) as part of Vatican II.

The thought behind Lectio Divina is that God's word is, in fact, God's Word:  what God has to say on a subject or subjects (to use Francis Schaeffer's analogy, it is true truth from God, but not necessarily all truth as mortals cannot comprehend the full thoughts of God).  The impetus is both that the believer should come to see Christ in the Scriptures as well as to understand what the Bible directly says, rather than what any person - clergy or lay - says what the Bible says.

Guigo II, a Carthusian Monk of the 12th Century (flourit 1174-1180), formalized the practice in his book Ladder of Monks  He divided the practice into four parts:

- Lectio (Read)
- Meditatio (Meditation)
- Oratio (Prayer)
- Contemplatio (Contemplation)

The thing I am finding when I am trying to practice this is that it takes time:  time to read, time to meditate, time to pray, time to contemplate. It is a thing that cannot be rushed.  At the same time, I am finding it a useful practice.  Every day I use a form of lectionary (mine is Russian Orthodox, as that is what I have on my phone), which has a Gospel Passage as well as an additional New Testament passage.  Every day without fail, one line, one verse, has leapt out at me as something I need to add to my own life or consider deeply.

I am finding it a great place to start trying to get some depth into my relationship with God.

The Big List of Goals 2023: Goals

 Yesterday I discussed both the process I try for in working on my annual goals as well as the complications which are making this year different from years past.  Today, I would like to present my goals as they are now planned for 2023.  The Area will be listed, along with the goal/goals and a small explanation:

God

- Increase tithing by 1%:   We should do more.  Large increases can be hard to manage.  This is now an annual goal.

- Practice Lectio Divina and Prayer every morning for 30 minutes: I am cognizant of the fact that my relationship with God has a been a bit tenuous of late.  There are multiple factors for this; what I need to deal with are the ones I can work on directly. Time in God's Word (Lectio Divina) and prayer are two things that directly in my control.  The time is meant as a guideline to give myself the space to not rush through it.

Girls

- Date night/Activity with The Ravishing Mrs. TB:  Perhaps unsurprisingly (like a lot of couples) we have come to lead some what separate social lives.  Children only tend to complicate this, of course.  It is a weakness we both have recognized and need to address. The time is booked; we just need to find something.

Gold

- Industry Certification:  I have one more major certification to complete in my industry.  I just need to buckle down and do it.

- 2023 Nanowrimo: One of the things that continues to nag my mind is writing a book.  The problem is not so much finding the time as it is the time-space to write.  Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month.  Held every November, the challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.  I have completed it once before in 2012; for those of you keeping track, it is a mere 1,667 words a day.  

Iaijutsu

- Prepare for testing 2024:  Rank in my martial arts style is not in the belt system, but rather under the older menkyo  (certificate of transmission) system.  One has to test for rank - and the testing only takes place in Japan and not every year.  I was hoping to test in 2021, but The Plague happened.  While there is no guarantee that there will be testing in 2024 or even that we will be able to go to Japan, the curriculum is known.  It is merely a matter of study and being ready.

- Take (and pass) N4 JLPT Test:  The Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) is a standardized test on knowledge (reading comprehension, aural comprehension, and vocabulary) of the Japanese language.  I passed N5 (Lowest level) some years ago; the knowledge will be useful for iaijustu as well as just my general Japanese culture practices.

- Increase maximum weights on Bench Press, (Safety Bar) Squat, and Deadlift:  Strength increases are something of a moving target, especially as we get older.  My practice - until proven otherwise, is to expect I can see small increases.  Instead of going for a single max increase, I have aimed for 4 x lifts, which to my mind are more indicative of actual strength.  My current maximums for the Olympic lifts I practice are 4 x 175 (Bench Press), 4 x 155 (Safety Bar Squat), and 4 x 260 (Deadlift).  I do not anticipate that there is any reason I should not be able to see small increases in each of these.

- Aerobic training for Hike in August to include at least one 5K run:  Of all of my victories in my 2022 Mt. Whitney Hike, one point of remaining disappointment I have is that I "ran out of gas" on the last bit up the summit.  This may or may not be a physical related limitation; what I do feel is that did not train as hard on this aspect as I could of.  To that end, I am working on my aerobic training.  One is more regular sessions on the Stairmaster; another is to start running again.  To give myself some incentive, I would like to complete at least one 5K this year.  

Ichiryo Gusoku

- The Ranch:  As I have written multiple times, this year is the decision point for how I am going to be at the Ranch, at least for the next 3-5 years (essentially, until Nighean Dhonn graduates.  The Ravishing Mrs. TB and I have had some initial discussion (referenced in the Prologue), but nothing firm.  I am also exploring other options, up to and including offer to pay some kind of rent on the house the defer cost of maintaining it and to put off any other sorts of decisions.  But something has to be in place by the end of the year, if not by the end of August.

- Practice Harp and have at least one public performance:  Once back in the now lost ages, I played the harp (the folk harp, not the Orchestral harp).  I was, at one time, even in a musical group. But things happen and life goes on.  This past Christmas, someone posted a video from those days and it reminded me how much I enjoyed doing that.  I have the harp, I have the music - I just need to make the time.

- Study Organic Gardening (and then use the knowledge):  One of the best investments I made this year was in the Permies' Kickstarter for a series of videos based on the work of Masanobu Fukuoka.  Besides the video, I received a simply amazing array of additional materials (I have to say I do like the Kickstarter model) for my review and education.

The last year was a hard one for my gardening, both because of my travels as well as the fact that we had a rough Summer this year - very hot and very arid.  Simply put, gardening is something I can and should get better at, and it is not as if I do not have to tools to do it.  I just need to start actually adapting my practices for the location I am in right now (and figuring out a way to buffer for being gone).

- Cheesemaking:  My cheesemaking has been a little disrupted by my back and forth travel to and from The Ranch.  I need to get back on the bandwagon, especially with hard cheese making.  Also - although not specifically cheese - I would like to try my hand at making butter (yes, I know I can buy it, but having the ability to turn raw materials into food is always a good skill to have).  I do not mention yogurt making here as other than my travels away, I have completely 100% supplied my yogurt intake through making it at home.

- Sewing: I darn my socks and make small rip repairs or button reattachments.  But I would like to get a little more advanced in my sewing skills - not that I particularly need more clothes, but sometimes there are things that are simply easier to obtain by sewing.

- Finish Online Classes (Forestry And Beekeeping):  Back at the height of The Plague, the University of Pennsylvania was offering free on-line classes.  I took one (Basic Tree Trimming) but have never followed up to take the other two, Forestry and Beekeeping.  Literally, it is me watching videos and taking notes.  There is no excuse.

- Study Old English.  Be able to translate a text by December 2023:  Once upon time, I was an English major.  Three classes I took during that time impacted me:  World Literature (where I read the book Njal's Saga, which both cemented my interests in sagas and gave me a desire to go to Iceland which was fulfilled 30 years later), The Tales of Canterbury (I can still recite the opening of the Tales of Canterbury from memory), and Old English.  I love words and the history of words and languages, and for some reason Old English continues to fascinate me.  Its history is, in a very real sense, my history.  I have the books and (via the InterWeb) access to literally the whole Anglo-Saxon corpus.  It does not matter the length of the passage, only that I translate it.

Bonus Round:  There are some additional bonus goals which I have kept in reserve that I will give myself credit for if I hit them - with the understanding that if I do not, nothing is lost.

------

The great thing (to me, anyway) about these goals are 1) I think they are all achievable; and 2) With the exception of some registration fees, they are largely all things I already have in house to start with.  Applying myself and time are all I need to put in place to accomplish them.  

As is usual for myself, this probably reflects some aspect of "Imperial Overreach" of which I am always guilty, but I would rather aim high for the stars and hit the moon than aim for the top of the mountain and smash into it far below the peak.

The Big List of 2023 Goals: Prologue

 Long-time readers of this blog may recall that every year, I work on a list of goals for the coming year.

I say "work on".  What this really represents is a rather intellectually agonizing process where I look at last year's goals, look at what I want to do for the upcoming year (which may be based on what did not get done last year), and then distill everything into a list.  This distillation process easily takes over a month; it usually begins around Thanksgiving and ends just prior to the New Year.

The list breaks down into the "Rule of Five", a concept I liberated from the author Jeffrey Gitomer because 1) It is simple; 2) It limits categories; and 3) I have five fingers on my hand so it makes it easy to remember.  The categories are God, Girls (Family), Gold (Career), Iaijustu (primarily Iaijustu, but things that support it), and Ichiryo Gusoku, my "one suit of armor/one plot of land" philosophy.  All of this creates the acronym "GGGII", which means precisely nothing (except that I have to remember only two letters multiple times).

This year's goal setting, however, is complicated by a series of factors.

The first complicating factor is simply that this year is a year of big changes.  Our oldest child, Nighean Gheal, is both graduated from college and now living in The Big Big City with a real job.  The likelihood she will be back for more than short visits is low (barring awfulness, of course).  Our middle child, Nighean Bhan, graduated from college in December, is applying to graduate school - and announced during the Christmas Break that she will be moving out soon.  And our youngest child, Nighean Dhonn, is a senior in high school that will be going to college in the Fall.  In other words, likely within a month we will be down to one child, and within 9 months, down to zero.  That changes a great many things, including not only physical people in the house but money and time and the fact that we have a whole new relational dynamic to work through.

The second complicating factor is the fact that my job remains a bit in limbo.  2023 will be a make or break year for my employer.  If we make it, a great many things likely become possible.  If we break it - well, you will all be treated to a job search in 2023 series.  I have literally no control over either of the outcomes (naturally) and because of my unique position in the company, it makes more sense for me to risk going down with the ship that to part ways when there is still a chance of things breaking to the positive side.

The third complicating factor is The Ranch.

The Ranch, as most will recall, is the 90 or so acres that my parents own in literally what is God's Country (although not officially called that, of course).  It been my desire to move there for a very long time, at least 20 years or more.  The difficulty is that, in speaking with The Ravishing Mrs. TB, it is not quite as burning a desire for her at this time.

That is understandable to me:  she has made a life here in New Home. She has a job she likes.  She has social groups that she enjoys being a part of, including a group that she travels with.  And while I have a long association with The Ranch in a deep way, hers is much less of a spiritual connection (if I may call it that) and much more of a visiting relationship:  it is lovely and scenic, but not somewhere she can quite imagine herself living at the moment.

At the same time, she understands what The Ranch means to me - and is willing to try to find a workable solution, even if it means a sort of modified living arrangement for a time.

What this means, of course, is that we are working through it. For now, I am still able to travel back once a month for a week.  But if we do not fully intend to move there, it would make more sense to rent the house out for the estate - which to be honest, I have reservations about, both in general as a landlord and specifically as someone who wants to live there (and would like the house more or less in one piece).

This are complicated matters that perhaps even the wisest could not negotiate well, and I am hardly the wisest.    But what it may mean is figuring out how to manage living part-time or more in two places for some period of time, while still trying to advance the things I think are important.

All of this, of course is the prologue I have been wrestling with as I have worked on this year's plans.  Because for me, even the simplest activity seems to become incredibly complex.  The results of that complexity, if I may indulge your patience, will appear in tomorrow's post.

On Reading

Every year, I keep track of the books that I read.

This practice, as near I as can find in the archives, dates back in its origins to 2003 when I undertook a whole new series of practices to hopefully "help me get ahead" in terms of an annual planner, writing up notes to myself, saving quotes, etc.  One of the things I recall distinctly from a book that I read on the subject was "Make a reading plan by listing out categories of books you need to read and then planning out the books that you will read in them".

Judging by the entries following that initial start (and I have all the planners), I tried the "categorize into topics and read" for a number of years until, as I suspect, two facts interposed themselves.  The first was that some categories that I was more interested in got completely done and others did not.  The other is that I struggle to read multiple books at the same time.  My best success in reading is one book at a time.

And so, in 2014 (so the records tell me), I moved to just recorded every book that I read for the year.  Of a curiosity - as it is the New Year - I became curious as to numbers and amounts:

2014:   69

2015:  72

2016:  98

2017:  72

2018:  89

2019:  92

2020:  116

2021:  103

2022:  99

To be clear, this is only a gross view of numbers counting individual books (thus, a 60 page Osprey History military book on "Samurai, 1550-1600" and a 1,000 page novel such as Atlas Shrugged are each one book).  Furthermore I know that I read some books twice in a year.  I also know that I re-read a fair amount of books that I already own every year.  If I assume that each year I read 10% of books again and 50% of the books I read are ones I already have read, the gross numbers look like this:

Total Books:            810

Individual Titles:     729

New Books:             405

Annual Average:        89

When I tell people that "reading is my life", it is not offered as joke.  It literally is.

Of course, like most things this did not all spontaneously generate.  My mother loved to read and encouraged us to do so. When we were growing up, trips to the county library (our main source of materials) was a biweekly treat. Our house was always filled with books - the murder mysteries that mother primarily loved, larger hardbound books of knowledge, and the books that we ourselves owned -  I cannot remember a time when I did not have a bookshelf in my room.  

Reading was never TB The Elder's thing, but he graciously let me do it without comment about "spending too much time in books". And so growing up - whether at home, on the bus, driving somewhere, or just filling my free time - books were my interests, my outlet and my constant companions.

It is not without cost, of course - both physical (there is a "book budget" in my allowance which, sadly, I regularly overspend) and intellectual - my speed is fantastic, my comprehension less so.  Which may explain why I read books more than once.  Also, there is a bit of compulsiveness involved. I almost cannot be with a new book by bedside and will willingly go to used bookstores I went to the previous week "on the off chance" they suddenly got something I "need".  And inevitably, when a new subject or interest comes up, my first response is always "I need to get a book on that" - in my world, if I can read a book about it, I can do it.

It strikes me as odd, as I look back now to that initial entry in 2003 that says "Develop a reading plan", that I rather obscurely stuck with it all these years.  Odd, but I am grateful - not only for the knowledge and the education and the entertainment, but the fact that it is only by reading good writing that one learns to write and think well.

Book Review: Louisa May Alcott's Christmas Treasury

Charles Dicken's is well known for his 1843 story A Christmas Carol.  For the mass of individuals today,  this is the most familiar both of his overall writings as well as his Christmas stories (of which he wrote several more).  The story has proved itself so popular that it has never been out of print since the year of its publication and has been the subject of multiple big screen and small screen interpretations.

What was unknown to me - until this Christmas - is that Louisa May Alcott also did the same thing.

Louisa May Alcott's Christmas Treasury (published 2002) is a compilation of stories written by Miss Alcott (1832-1888) and edited by Stephen W. Hines.  I would not have known of this book at all but that I was sorting through my mother's books. This was on the same shelf as innumerable cat themed Christmas books and comfortable Christian Romance Christmas stories.  Knowing of Dickens' stories and at least recognizing Alcott's name, my interest was piqued.

Miss Alcott remains a lacking point in my literary education (to be fair, my overall 19th Century author and authoress knowledge is minimal at best).  Most have heard of her books Little Women and Little Men, but these are the sorts of books that have (I suspect) fallen out of general literature reading curricula and now are the province of the specialized major class or of the individual (like myself) in need of remediation.

I knew a bit of her story:  born into poverty, she single-handedly worked to pull her family out of poverty by her writing.   Remaining unmarried, she lived with and cared for her family until her own death.

The book itself is a compilation of short stories and novellas (including the Christmas scene in Little Women) that have been "adapted" by the author (how adapted is never explained).  The stories are a mix, with young children, teenagers, young adults, and even older adults all having some kind of main role - a reminder that it is never too early or too late to show the Christmas Spirit.

The poverty of Alcott's youth and her family's involvement in early social reform shows through in the stories.  Poverty is described, not in the 21st Century Western World as it is known, but in 19th Century America where there were no social nets. As these are Christmas stories, they are all set in Winter, and the brutality of a New England Winter is not trivialized.  Cold, a lack of food, worrying about where the next day's meal is to come from (let alone the next year) - all of these are present.

And yet this is not the main focus of the stories.

"It is no wonder then that so many of her stories feature practical charity and happy endings.  Such was the shape of her life.  Do not reject charity, nor look down upon it, but be worthy of it, and if you rise to a higher station, do not forget to show charity to others. (Introduction)"

These stories are all quite different from what passes as "Christmas Stories" in this modern, privileged, post-Christian, materialist age.  In general, the characters realize there is some deficiency in an upcoming Christmas - but rather than bemoan their fate or cry out about things being unfair, they go to work to remedy the situation.  In some cases, this is done directly by efforts they make; in others, their generous spirit enables others to find the Christmas spirit that they have lost and in so finding, reward the protagonist in ways they could have never hoped.

What spills forth from these stories is kindness, other centeredness, generosity, initiative, hard work, and looking to one's self first before looking to others.  One cannot help but feel more generous and inspired after reading these stories (I certainly was).

The stories also provide a window in Christmas in 1860's and 1870's America.  A piece of fruit is often all that is initially available as a stocking stuffer or present.  New clothes (especially shoes) are also coveted but less available; new toys or other items even less so.  I remember my mother telling me stories of how, within her lifetime, an orange was perhaps the gift one got in their stocking; our "loaded up" version of Christmas is a quite recent development.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

For all of the "adapted by" notices, the editor's hand seems very light indeed.  The stories, at least to my reading, resound with the voice of the authoress.  The lessons they teach - kindness and other centeredness and generosity yes, but also individual effort and virtue - seem sorely lacking in so many of what passes for today's Christmas entertainment.  These stories are written in such a way as to be accessible to children but are not childish (as so much of Christmas has become); they are suitable for all ages.  And, every story has a happy ending, which while not being as true as it should be in real life, is something I love.

It is not often I can say I left a book feeling more virtuous and that I should be more generous.  The fact that I found a book full of such stories is even more remarkable - such stories that should be read not just at Christmas but throughout the year so that we, as was said of Dickens' Scrooge, might keep Christmas every day in our heart.

On The Re-Departure Of Nighean Gheal

 Readers may remember that last October, Nighean Gheal, our oldest, moved out to start her new job in The Big Big City after having spent a little over a year with us post graduation.  It was a sad moment, but at the same time carried within it the fact that she would be returning in a little over two months for Christmas.

Yesterday, she left for the second time.

Her adaptation to her new home went okay, but not as swimmingly as might have been hoped.  Her job initially had her work offsite for the first month of employment and then only coming in periodically after that.  Her living situation did not work out as she had anticipated, and so she entered the market for new place to live.  She was scheduled to come home just before Christmas but asked The Ravishing Mrs. TB if she could come home two weeks earlier, as she did not have to go back in to work and the living situation was not improving.

Of course we said, come home.

And so for the last three weeks we have had everyone back in the house again.  She worked some, she and the others baked or watched "Vampire Diaries".  It was, in a lot of ways, just like life had been prior to October.

But all things come to an end, and so she packed up to return.

There was a real finality to everything as I put the repacked suitcase into the back of The Ravishing Mrs. TB's car.  Before it was a known two month absence, now it is likely five months or more (she is returning briefly for Nighean Dhonn's high school graduation).  After that, who knows - perhaps again not until Christmas.

This should not be unexpected of course:  in theory we raise our children to be independent and thus should not be surprised when they actually become so. But it is one thing to see them go and know they are coming back for time in the not too distant future.  It is another indeed to know that their visits will become fewer and fewer going forward.

This, as they say, is the way of things.  That does not make it any less easy to endure.

The Great Used Book Hunt

Last week as a bit of a lark, I mentioned to Na Clann that one thing we had never done was make a one day run of the Local Used Book Chain in our area.  While we have been to the stores in our area many times, there are stores farther away which we have been to infrequently and at least one that we have never been to since it opened.

(I know, I know - me not making it to a used book store in my area.  Shocking.)

It is not that I need a "new" book of course; I have many good ones and frankly my purchases over the last 4 years have dwindled somewhat due to narrowing interests (and, perhaps, available space).  And yet, still in my mind there is always the chance that some volume I am searching for is out there and I am going to miss it by not going, the "Great White Whale" will breach the shelf of a bookstore and I will miss it because I was not diligent enough to check.

I did not think much of the comment after that, until two things happened.  The first was the notification that the aforementioned Local Used Book Chain was having a 20% sale for 3 days after Christmas.  The second was Nighean Dhonn pointing out aforementioned 20% sale, along with "When are we going?"

And so, The Great Used Book Hunt was on.

The plan was simple:  We would start at the store farthest away from us (25 miles or so) and then work our way back up, hitting every one on the way  (7 total).  Lunch would be provided (thanks, parental responsibility) and there was no time table on staying in each store or how long we would be out.  This was what we were doing for the day.

And so, out I, Nighean Gheal, and Nighean Dhonn went.

Total time on out was just about 8 hours. Some general observations on the experience as a whole:

- Even for a chain, not every store was the same.  That was good and bad - good in the sense that there was always some variety in what we were looking at, bad in the sense that there seemed to be an unequal distribution of categories of books.  I knew different stores seemed to "specialize" in book types; this was confirmed.

- As we rolled into our routine, we all immediately hit up specific sections to look at.  In my case, this was history, science fiction, and theology.  After one or two stores, you get pretty quick at making passes for the obvious things you are looking for.

- One of the joys of a used book store is that sometimes you find the unexpected gem.  Or the thing you did not anticipating wanting - but it went out the door with you all the same.

- For lunch, we stopped at a creperie.  This one was special in that it was staffed by hearing impaired/deaf staff, so you point to order.  I managed to remember how to say "thanks" in sign language.  Funny how just a simple thing like not being able to speak can put you off your game (The crepes were delicious.  I had one filled with salmon, onions and cream cheese with capers on the top.).

- In total we walked away with 27 books, 8 of which were mine.  I would have paid $168 if I had bought them all new; I actually paid $60.  

-  7 book stores in a day seems to be the outer limit of what I can manage.  Much more than than and I would start to loose interest pretty quickly.

The best part, of course, was having spending time with the Na Clann.  We did not necessarily discuss any sorts of deep subjects, but just chatted about this and that.  I got grafted into their Social Media narratives, which almost never happens.

I am looking forward to next year's marathon.

The Forty-Five: A 2023 Primer

Greetings and welcome to 2023!

As has become a tradition, the first post of the New Year is dedicated to a primer on this blog and the people and places that inhabit it in the hopes that it makes context a bit easier to gather for the writings that you will find here throughout the year.

I am your amiable host, Toirdhealbheach Beucail ("Toridhealbheach" is a version of my name in Old Irish Gaelic; "Beucail" means "booming or roaring", as in the sound of a cannon. If you ever met me in person, you would find I have only two volumes:  silent and "ON").  I have been camped out here on this corner of the InterWeb, writing about this and that for what will now be my 18th year and am up to  over 4500 posts of varying value and worth (in other words, one gets what one pays for, and we do not charge, so...).

A very brief history: I grew up in a small town somewhere deep within the bowels of Baja Canada, the same town my parents and my mother's parents had grown up in - not quite the "Small Town" of John Cougar Mellencamp, but close enough. I went away to college for two degrees that have nothing to do with what I ended up actually doing, then came back home and lived in and around that area (referred to here uncreatively as "Old Home") until 14 years ago, when due to a layoff we had to move (to the also uncreatively named) "New Home".    Due to an unexpected health issue with both of my parents (see here, Moving TB The Elder And Mom), I now spend about one third of the year at Old Home, and the other time wprking to get back there on a more permanent basis to The Ranch (see below).

I have a variety of interests.  I am a practitioner of Iaijutsu, a Japanese martial art which is (somewhat crudely but correctly) defined as the "quick draw" of sword techniques (my style has existed since the 16th century).  I make cheese and other dairy foods.  I train with weights.   I garden.  I write (perhaps somewhat obviously). I have thrown in Highland Games (at least prior to an injury last year).  I have taken to hiking with a vengeance, having completed hikes both in the Grand Canyon and to the top of Mount Whitney.   I study languages, both current as well as the dead ones.  I read voraciously - primarily history and theology, but also philosophy, agricultural books and "old style" (say pre-1985) science fiction and fantasy.  I travel (not always as willingly as might be hoped for).

And I will try almost anything once.

Dramatis Personae:

        - The Ravishing Mrs. TB:  To whom I have been married for over 25 years now and who actually makes sure the trains run on time and things get done.

     - Nighean Gheal: Number one daughter, a college graduate with a degree in International Business now living in The Big, Big City.

    - Nighaen Bhan: Number Two daughter, also a college graduate with a degree in Communications and pursuing a Master's level program.

     - Nighean Dhonn: Number Three daughter, currently a Senior in high school and selecting colleges.

     - The Director:  One of my two best friends from High School and still currently one of my best friends.  Lives in Old Home and has more than a small theatrical bent (far more creative than I).

    - Uisdean Ruadh: The other of my two best friends from High School and still currently one of my best friends.  Also lives in Old Home, currently living in The Cabin at The Ranch with his mother  A Mhathair na hUisdean Ruadh .  Deeply Catholic, loves traditional Catholicism, planes, and history.  

  - The Berserker:  My weight training coach.  I have trained with him for 7+ years now.  I live in fear of his weekly training regimes, although they have been very successful.

- The Shield Maiden:  A friend I met throw Highland Games 9 years ago?  10 years ago?  I do not keep track of such things now.  She lives much farther away than she used to (almost Alta Canada but not quite).  We chat via the InterWeb every day.  She is a reservoir of wisdom and the much needed lectures I will get from no-one else.

-La Contessa: My very good and old friend (post high school, so not quite as long as The Director and Uisdean Ruadh, but almost as long).  We regularly have dinners once a month when I am in Old Home.

-The Outdoorsman:  My brother-in-law and hiking partner in crime.  What started as lark of an idea (hiking the Grand Canyon) has turned into 3-4 smaller training hikes and a single big hike a year.

- The Cowboy/The Young Cowboy:  A father and son team, they have kept cattle at The Ranch for almost 20 years now.  They are regularly present there and help to keep an eye on the place when I am not present.

Important Places:

- Old Home:  Where I grew up and lived up to 13 years ago.  Originally a combination of the small town I actually grew up in  as well as the larger areas there which we lived in before moving to New Home, I use it more now to indicate my hometown.

- New Home:  Where I currently live. An urban area also buried in Baja Canada.  

- The Ranch:  The Ranch is the property my parents own and live on in <insert yet another undisclosed location here>.  It is approximately 90 acres of land in the mountains which has been our extended family for over 60 years.  You will see plenty of pictures from here.  This is where I am ultimately trying to get back to.

What do we do here?

Like most budding bloggers, when I started this blog I had great visions of this being a mighty bulwark of discussion and thought that would be a beacon of light (and, coincidentally, would let me write full time). It only took about 10 years to realize that neither of these things were going to happen.  Either because of obstinance or foolishness (I am guilty of both) I persevered.

What I did find - and what I still believe in - is that blogging represents the Social Internet (not a phrase that I came up with, but one I love): the ability of people to read, think, and discuss things on the InterWeb (as opposed to Social Media, which I detest).  What has become critically important to me  s creating a sort of InterWeb agora, a place where we can discuss subjects - some deep, some completely shallow - in a way that hopefully encourages thought and helps to build connections in a society which values neither thought nor connections except of the most shallow kind (otherwise known as Social Media).

What you find here most days is a combination of personal on-line journal, thoughts or concepts that have run through my mind, book reviews, occasional fiction, things that are just "going on" in my life, ruminations, and the occasional meme.  It is a smorgasbord of my existence (there are literally times I sit down to write with no idea what will be written, and no-one is more surprised than I am when it shows up).

Important Pages:

Ichiryo Gusoku Philosophy:  My overall guiding policy on my philosophy is here.

Ichiryo Gusoku Goals:  My overall goals are here (to be fair, these are always in a bit of flux).

The Collapse:  A rather long running fiction series (in a series of letters) about a man watching society slowly collapse is here.  It has not been continued for a year, but likely should be picked up.

Moving TB The Elder And Mom:  As mentioned, my parents suffered a series of health reversals in 2021.  This page pulls together the experience in hopes that others that have or will have the same issues will benefit.

What are the rules?

There are only four.

1)  Be kind in your comments:  In all my years of writing here, I have had to not publish only a handful of comments because, frankly, they were mean.  You can certainly poke holes in my theories or my writing or the responses of others.  I just ask you do it kindly.  Everyone you are responding is going through something.

2)  No profanity:  My mother was an elementary school teacher and a lovely Christian woman, so comment as if you were speaking directly to her.  Any profanity will simply not make itself a visible comment, no matter how relevant or good the comment is.

3)  We do not argue current politics:  Politics as it is practiced currently is simply an exercise in "It is your fault!  No, yours!" followed by vulgarity and crudeness.  Political Science (the practice of forming political societies and their functioning) is far more useful to actually reach a solution.

4)  We do not argue religion:  I state up front I am Christian (useful background for some of what I write) and will happily discuss my own trials and travails and thoughts.  What we do not debate is the nature of religion or different religions.  Again, see the previous comments on kindness.

Thanks!

Reading anything is an investment; taking the time to comment is more so.  Thanks so much for taking the time to spend a few moments of your precious time (a commodity which we cannot make more of) with me.