Hello From Richmond, VA, On the Way to Chestertown, MD

Or -- a correction to the NYTimes.

It’s the birthday of Stephen F. Austin, who worked to settle Anglo-American families in Mexican Texas and who in 1836 became the In today's New York Times morning briefing, we read:

" ... founder of the Republic of Texas, which lasted nine years."

It could have as easily read:

>It’s the birthday of Stephen F. Austin, who brought slavery to Texas.

To quote from, yes, The American Slave Coast:

"Mexico after its independence in 1821 prohibited slavery, but the territory was only sparsely settled; hoping to populate it, the Mexican government invited in settlers from the United States, giving them land. But once the settlers moved in, they declared it theirs. Moses Austin, who had become one of the country’s major producers of lead, was a major promoter of the Texas colonization movement. With his eyes on Mexico’s lead mines, Austin had sworn allegiance to the Spanish crown in 1798. His son, the Virginia-born, Missouri-raised land speculator Stephen F. Austin, brought slavery to Texas and fought to keep it.

It was an article of faith throughout the South that American slavery must expand into Texas and beyond. There was no question that Texas would be an ultimate destination for young African Americans who were being born and raised all over the cotton kingdom. Stephen Austin wrote his sister Emily from New Orleans in August 1835, the summer of the Southern abolition panic: “It is very evident that Texas should be effectually, and fully, Americanized . . . Texas must be a slave country. It is no longer a matter of doubt. The interest of Louisiana requires that it should be. A population of fanatical abolitionists in Texas would have a very dangerous and pernicious influence on the overgrown slave population of [Louisiana].” 

 

Blogged By Daughter Number Three + Richmond, Chestertown, George Mason University & NYU

Did everyone survive Halloween, which is now the year's biggest commercial merchandising holiday, except for Christmas, which goes on much longer than Halloween?  As this is a city of apartment buildings., parents have taken to bringing in their kids to our part of town to shakedown t&t the local restaurants and businesses like the delis, pizza joints, hair salons and even the liquor stores.

I got in everything we needed for dinner by the middle of the afternoon, and having met P for a single martini in the Bistro to celebrate arrival of replacement passport proving I am me again, retired to our apartment and made ravioli. We never went out again.

Watched a bit of the Frank Sinatra / Rat Pack 1958 flick, Some Came Running, adapted from a bit of the enormous James Jones novel by the same name published in 1957 -- perhaps my favorite silly movie about writing and novelists.

However, we soon retired to our lovely bed and read a bit of Bound for the Promised Land:  Harriet Tubman Portrait of an American Hero** (2004) by Kate Clifford Larson.  We were asleep by 10:30.  That's all we really want to do these days is sleep.  We never seem to get enough of it.

Not only is it Sunday, the first day of November, it is the end of Daylight Savings this year, and here is, not only the Sunday morning after the debauchery of Halloween Saturday night, but the running of the annual New York Marathon.

Fountain Bookstore owner since 2008, Kelly Justice
managed the store since 2000.  The store was est. 1978.

More locally, today we prepare to leave town at 6 AM tomorrow and drive to Richmond, where we do Fountain Bookstore at 6:30 PM.  Address, photos etc. can be seen on Fountain Bookstore's website here.

One may wonder if such a long drive to Richmond is worth it, but it is, in ways one cannot know -- as, for instance this "Daughter Number Three" Blogger entry that went up on Oct. 26th by no one we know, describing el V's 11th of October presentation and The American Slave Coast on "Melissa Harris Perry."  What's interesting to me particularly about the woman's entry is her profile says she too grew up on a farm, and now lives in Minneapolis. Her profiles includes sf/f among her interests, with Octavia Butler as a favorite.. -- i.e. someone quite like me.  The "Daughter Number Three" Blogger entry can be seen here.

Tuesday then, we drive from Richmond to Chestertown, where, once we arrive we do two radio program phoners from the Starr Center (where, while in residence as Patrick Henry Writing Fellow, the first part of The American Slave Coast was drafted 2005-2006) ), one of the programs with Baltimore Public

WYPR's Sheilah Kast, Host of "Midday."

Radio WYPR's "Midday," hosted by Sheilah Kast.

The Washington College
presentation by the Starr Center of The American Slave Coast is Wednesday evening.

Early Thursday we drive to Fairfax (a D.C. outlier) and George Mason University, where we do Slave Coast in the AM, and Ned does Cuba in the afternoon, and then drive back to NYC.

Cuban-Angolan platoon attached to 11th Tactical Group, 10th Tank Brigade, Cabinda, Angola, under command of Lt. Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, 1989-90. Cuban troops were instrumental to Angola's fight of liberation and resistence to South Africa's apartheid intervention.

Friday el V is doing an all-day symposium on Cuba and Angola at NYU.

The following Monday we fly to New Orleans for a whirlwind of parties, bookstore signings, and events at Tulane, then to Houston on Friday for more of the same.

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*   Very, very young el V, still living in Louisiana at the time Some Came Running came out, and obsessed with both television and movies (unlike now, when he actively dislikes almost all movies and television) was inspired by the movie to compose one of his very first song, lyrics and melody.  We sang it at the start of the first time we watched it together years ago at the Film Forum (though we did so very quietly as to not disturb the rest of the audience.  NYers take watching films in places like the Film Forum very seriously.

* *  As must be expected with a study of Harriet Tubman, Larson provides deeply researched and sourced documentation of the Underground Railroad operation. This is something fiction writers should do too, but so seldom do it seems from the proof of utterly incorrect imagined underground railroads -- which most certainly did not operate outside the border states. Novelists seem to get the underground railroad about as right as Hollywood gets writers.

 Something else of which fiction writers tend to be ignorant is that far fewer enslaved African Americans escaped from the vast prison camp that was the antebellum south than self-emancipated and free people of color were kidnapped from the north and sold down south -- despite the constant howling of slave owners that they were in eminent danger of losing all their property to those EviLe northern abolitionist agitator thieves.  Because of course no enslaved person would ever think of changing their status on their own, and all people of color could only be truly happy by serving a master / mistress.  These facts are in the Bible, you know.

Among the Excellent Newses - I Am Me Again

The Most Excellent News of all:

The passport arrived in today's mail, replacing the one stolen along with all the rest of my i.d. between 3 PM and 3:30 PM October 11th!

So we're flying for The American Slave Coast events New Orleans on the 9th after all, instead of having to leave the day before and drive all day.  This also means flying from NO to Houston on November 13th, and flying back to NYC on the 15th. Not driving any of that! Though to be honest, seats and legroom of The Car are vastly superior in comfort and ease than any airplane seat -- even in the extra legroom purchased seats.  But it will be quicker, and we don't have to deal with creep and stop traffic jam-ups.

I am authentically moi again!  Which may allow me to finally relax and enjoy all the wonderful events, people and geography to which I'll be treated to for the month of November.  Since losing all my stuff and rushing around trying to remedy the disaster in between traveling and preparing to travel for The American Slave Coast, I've been rather too anxious to relax.

Reading Wednesday - The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks

Geraldine Brooks has said* The Secret Chord (2015) was inspired by the lost book of the prophet Nathan, which we know of only because of brief Old Testament mentions in the Bible's books of the prophets.  Her novel's story fills in the empty spaces in the Biblical story of David's violent, bloody rise to the kingship of Israel and Judah and the consequences he and his family create in the Land and its peoples by their inability to govern themselves.

David's and Natan's inspiration as to how to conquer
Yebus (Jerusalem) is one of the many fine set pieces
of Brooks's novel.

Whether or not Natan (Nathan) really wrote a book that told the history of David the man and his rise to power, the fraternal wars and the Shlomo's (Solomon) success in defeating them all and taking the crown himself, choosing his voice and point-of-view for the telling was the right story-telling choice.  As prophet and councilor -- and as at least celibate by choice or the Name's, or even a eunuch (his condition is never spelled out, though he informs the reader several times how much he is mocked by the he-men of David's court and family for it) -- he is the perfect insider outsider to know what goes on, and when, and with whom.  He's a first-hand witness to many of David's most awful bloody deeds, as well as to his glories as a singer and musician. He's there to mark when David becomes obsessed with Uriah's wife, Batsheva. As the voice of the Name, Natan is literate, so he's more than capable of writing down the history of David and his sons.  The reader believes in Natan's voice that observes of the now long dead King Shaul's (Saul) general, Avram (Abraham) -- "He had a voice like a grindstone."  As with so many of Natan's observations and explanations, it is pitch perfect.

Other elements of The Lost Chord that readers will enjoy is the subtlety with which Brooks provokes them to recall the repetitions of figures and deeds that are in almost all Hero Cycles, such as the odd conditions of conceptions, exile, wise councilor, the foretold destiny, the unforeseen victory against overwhelming odds.  It's the shared mythos's elements of Theseus,  Hercules, King Arthur.  I particularly noticed many echos of the saga of the historical Julius Caesar and his rise that modern interpretations of Caesar contain.

Among the many things that the Old Testament is, it is a endless recounting of cruel and bloody sins and deeds, not the least of which are plunder, genocide and rape. David's story is central to the beginning and the end of these Old Testament cycles.  Warning, this novel is a very good one, beautifully written. The content, however, is not happy and often very ugly, including a  graphic account of a prolonged, brutal rape and beating while it happens.

David has the blessing of the Name, i.e. the Biblical God who cannot be named by His Name by men.  But David's also man and he always does "what is necessary," to survive, rise to secular power, possess that power and to keep it -- for himself, primarily, and for his sons.  But over and over, being a man, who in so many ways is unable to govern himself in his greed for women and his love of his sons by his many wives of rival tribes, incapable of not goading of the enemies surrounding the Land by greed what is not the Land's, the city that becomes his capital and which he renames for himself and which becomes Jerusalem -- his reign is never peaceful, never non-disputed, even by his own sons, who kill each other and rebel against him. The final, precipitating catastrophe is his oldest son Amnon's rape of his full sister, Tamar, because, like his father David's earlier rape of Batsheva, he cannot bear to be denied anything to which he takes a fancy, even if denied it by the laws of the Name.

Why does this man, who commits crime after crime, often not because it is what is necessary for power and preservation of a realm, but for personal and petty reasons, have the Name's blessing?  Natan, David's councilor and prophet, struggles with these questions. He concludes the justification for it all is that David fathers Shlomo (Solomon) upon Batsheva (Bathsheba), whose own reign over a Great Land, whose wisdom brings peace and wealth that will be remembered eternally. Even David's rape of Batsheva and the murder of her husband so he can possess her as his wife, is excused by this, because it was God's will, the destiny God had marked out for this man, who then was filled with God's blessing.

David dancing before the Ark of Covenant that
he had  brought to Jerusalem. This is another of the
The Secret Chord's fine set pieces.

In the Christian perspective of these matters, David is central because he is of the house and tribe from which comes Jesus many centuries later.  But this is not a Christian tale nor a Christian perspective. Shlomo's kingdom's dominance and endurance was not even a blink in the eye of history. Unlike Natan, then, one is tempted to conclude all this murder, gore, torture, rape and massacre was for nothing much viewed within the long current of the Land's history, which has remained ever since bloody, violent, disputed and at war.

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*  I heard Geraldine Brooks talk of writing The Secret Chord on WNYC's noon - 2 PM daily talk show.  This woman knows her Bibles and Old Testaments, her archeology and other histories.  I immediately went looking for her novel, she was so admirable. From what she said, and how she said it, it was clear she was a very fine story teller and writer.  The discussion can be heard, streamed, at this link.

Suffragette - Film

The opening here of the film, Suffragette, I've been looking forward to for quite some time.  Here's an article that describes one of the reasons for my anticipation. The characters in the film are a mixture of historical personages in the movement, with additional fictional figures, as both our heroines and their opponents.

Helena Bonham Carter, evidently giving better than her character, Edith Ellyn, takes.

Trailer for Suffragette:

Suffragette opens here on Friday.  But on Friday I'll be leaving Charlottesville, VA where we did the New Dominion Bookstore on Thursday at 5:30, on the way to Raleigh - Durham, where we have several events for the next few days, including at but not exclusive to Duke and Chapel Hill, such  Quail Ridge Bookstore at 2:PM on Sunday, the 25th.

So no movie going for moi.  Maybe Halloween weekend there might be time? But so much packing and preparation for the following week, when we'll be out all week in Virginia, Maryland and D.C.  That week is going to be a killer, just like next week will be.

Yesterday and Today Beauty's Name is Pennsylvania

It was an autumnal trees, mountain and water spectacular panorama yesterday, driving from Manhattan to State College -- Penn State University.

Delaware Water Gap by George Innes 1861; oil on canvas

Delaware Water Gap. Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

Susquannah River

The Susquehanna River. Pocono Mountain. Appalachians. Hills, mountains, mountain ridges rounded, not jagged, cragged or pointy. Covered in trees exploding with autumn. Valleys of corn farms, horses and cattle, snugging in for the coming winter.

Smooth and easy, low traffic. We stopped at a scenic overlook to share a sandwich and a rice pudding. Urinated behind a huge tree, upon the most ruby and gold glowing surface ever of fallen leaves. It was like driving through Rivendale, gold, orange, ruby leaves falling like snow upon road-killed deer, highways and rivers alike.

Received with such hospitality and authentic welcome. Should have been in bed by 11 PM but the conversation was too brilliant for any of us to leave.

Not to mention the food. This is the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, and the shell fish are divine.

Breakfasted, washed, dressed, out soon for an informal visit to CM's class, a visit to the library the archives of which contain artifacts as well as papers, that include many from the the state's slave trading days.  Then it's our official gig.

Tonight is going to be a dinner party, food provided by a member from "northern Alabama who is a fabulous cook."

No wonder the descendants of William Penn are still agitating to get the family's colonial proprietorship status re-instated . . . . What a fascinating state, as well as filled with great eating and beautiful scenery and splendid architecture. I wish I could spend some extended time here. I feel that way about everywhere up and down this Atlantic Coast and east of the Mississippi.

Among the things I love about these locations is that all four seasons manifest themselves completely through the cycle, and include every traditional poet nuance that human beings have come to associate with the four seasons of the northern hemisphere. One looks at these mountains in autumn and it takes no squinting at all to see them in winter, spring and summer. Of course, the winters here are harsh, as harsh as midwestern ones.

What a beautiful nation we have. Even England and the UK have nothing on us in either fat farmland buccalia or enthralling place names.

Why are we destroying it as fast as possible?

Reading Wednesday: The Half Brother, No God But Gain, The American Slave Coast

This is going to be brief, as we're leaving shortly for a date as guest speakers in the African American Studies and Women's Studies programs at Penn State :

4:15pm: Lecture/Book Introduction: “The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry”
216 Willard Building
Introduction – Dr. Courtney Morris

I would have finished The Half Brother (2015) by Holly LeCraw last night, but as these are very long days, my eyes wouldn't stay open.  However, this is the highest accolade I can provide a novel these days after having read tens of thousands of them: I've not skipped anything and will finish reading it to the very end.

The reason I hadn't read finished The Half Brother (besides having had very little to no time for reading anything in the last three weeks) is because this book came to us, thanks to our time at Brown, where the author received his Ph.D.: No God But Gain: The Untold Story of Cuban Slavery, the Monroe Doctrine & the Making of the United States (2015) by Stephen Chambers.  I'm afraid my keen impatience to learn what this history had to teach me topped my interest in how the author of the novel would play her endgame.

There's a lot to say about both these books, both of which are fascinating works, one in the discipline of writing fiction and the other in the discipline of history, but this shall have to wait.  But I can say both are well worth reading for anyone who loves good fiction and good history.

I particularly admire how Holly Le Craw evokes the sense of cyclical timelessness experienced by long time faculty and their family members in very old educational institutions. What goes around dependably goes around seasonally every year, as the students stay the same age year after year. It's nearly that of the annual flooding cycle for the people who live along the Nile. Yet, even as with the Nile, sometimes there is a vast interruption in the cycle.

Stephen Chambers provides an account of something very little noticed until lately, the effect the illegal trans Atlantic slave trade of the 19th century had upon the growth of our own nation's economy. Recall, the importation of Africans to the U.S. was abolished in 1808.  Stephens is also an excellent writer, who makes complicated matters comprehensible to the general reader.  And, trust me, the more one studies any aspect of U.S. history, the more complex one sees it is.

And, in the meantime, for an amusing -- and civil! --argument among commentators in response to a notice of The American Slave Coast, go to "Civil War Talk," here.