Last Night Wonderful, Beyond Description

I had looked at the pdf of the Toad Hall residence earlier. But that pdf cannot convey what a brilliant creation it is, out of the remnants of so many racked and ruined houses of the period, spied and saved over many decades by Mr. TH (who came from da Bronx right after WWII to the Eastern Shore. He made a great deal of money, or at least acquired a great deal of property in the region.)

I've avoided architecture as part of history, though I know better. For instance, where did the Italian castle architects and contractors go when artillery made their old forms obsolete? The Atlantic African coast, where they constructed the slave entrepôt castles. Those edifices weren't called castles for no reason. It's because that too is a lifetime's study and I only have this one lifetime at this time.

But the thoughts that kept coming in that low slung, two-story, winged, candle-lit house on Still Point Creek built out of wood, surrounded by vast rolling fields and creeks draining into the Chesapeake and stands of wood (horse country!) -- these 18th century Big Houses built out of English architectual traditions but were not built to also be military fortresses -- what this meant in terms of the New World and the people who were living here in the periods out of which this home is constructed -- it was exciting. Something entered for da Project tonight that couldn't have happened for us without being in a house like this.

Not to mention the company, which was splendid. The numbers of people here who are brilliant creators, artists, musicians, historians is boggling.

Or the food, which was splendid. It's all local, most of it grown at Toad Hall. Mrs. TH is a blacksmith, as well Arts Council Director and singer in a gospel choir that's going to Memphis at Christmas to sing with Al Green's choir in his tabernacle there -- and so many other things. They have looms and wheels. There are nine fireplaces in TH -- they all work. As Mr. TH puts it, if the hammer comes down, we're ready and able to survive. But they aren't survivalists and don't want to be. They are highly creative people who love art and music and history. You could even call them, particularly Mrs. TH, old hippies, and they're proud to be so.


It's driving me crazy that the history of this place, this county, this region, in the 20th century is as fascinating and deep as the history that came before. Because of the mission I can't drown in it like am in the earlier periods.

Could I settle here? Well, despite everything, this is the most segregated place I've ever lived.

In the meantime the furnace maintenance man is here. The furnace has been turned on. Ay-up. It works. Whew, it's hot. Last night it poured. Like New York, we desperately need rain down here too.

Crisis: His Nness's computer is either fataling failing or already failed. We'd hoped it would last for another month.

Being Maryland, Not Virginia, Guess What You Can Do Here, With Impunity

Tell the truth about Thomas Jefferson and criticize him. Particularly here at Washington C. This is Washington's territory; he and Jefferson were deeply estranged when Washington died.


The estrangement didn't come out of anything petty, but over popular pushback to Jay's treaty, the first case of partisan obstructionism in the United States, directed largely by the politically ambitious Jefferson (Martha Washington thought Jefferson's election as president in 1800 the greatest misfortune ever to befall the country). Washington was adamently opposed to partisonship in government, deeming political parties the broad paved path to the destruction of national unity. Jefferson created party politics here and Washington could not forgive him for that.

Besides, in Maryland you can say all the negatives about Virginia you want. They love it, for in Maryland Virginia is perceived as Jefferson country.

Trivia: we're going to dinner at Toad Hall tonight. (The link's a pdf.)

The property cobbled out of three plantations is now being run by the sister (director of the Kent County Council for the Arts) of this guy.

No sun today. Definitely not hot. Perhaps rain for the next three days? I'm looking forward to my 7 - 8 days in NYC coming right on up -- just in time for the seasonal wardrobe changeover.

Isaac Franklin: Slave Trader and Planter of the Old South (With Plantation Records)

Isaac Franklin wasn't just a major player in the Trade up here in Maryland and Virginia, he was a game changer in the Trade, an early trade speculator.

Then he sold out and moved to Louisiana. Where he bought six (6) plantations. He lived very well and prosperously. In fact, one of those plantations is where the ceremonies and dinner for the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities were held in which V received the award for best history of Louisiana last year.

When he died there was a great deal of attention paid. But none of that attention in the long obits of the newspapers mentioned that he had been a speculator (which, believe it or not is a different category of slave trade than slave trader).

He died very wealthy, but he died young. Very young for someone of his kind. One might hope that was some sort of retribution -- his plantations in Louisiana were, of course, sugar plantations, and those bought to work sugar had short lives -- for the speculation slave trade that allowed Isaac to buy 6 sugar plantations in Louisiana.  His company scoured the Eastern Shore  of Maryland empty of likely stock (mostly male, mostly between 14 - 25, trained farm workers) to be sold in New Orleans for these sugar plantations.  He and his partner shipped them via their own slave ships.

I have Isaac's biography here (1938). It is not in print. If one were to try and purchase it used, the lowest price is $500. Thank goodness for interlibrary loan. However, because this volume is priced at $500, I can have it only for two weeks.

New Novel -- *Some Sing, Some Cry*

Some Sing, Some Cry is a long, multi-generational novel by two sisters, Ntozake Shange, author of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf, and playwright, Ifa Bayeza.

Two pulls from the NY Times Sunday Book Review:

"A rich mix of storytelling and African-American history, it follows seven generations of black women who, largely through music, are able to survive the violence of their national and personal histories even as they find themselves too battle-scarred to mother their children with real joy."

and

"And yet, despite such soap-operatic indulgences, this story of lifesaving music and heartbroken maternity is engaging from start to finish. The Mayfield women are hilarious and sexy, gorgeous and strong. They all work the same refrain: “Never go backward. Always be movin’, movin’ forward. Life is in front of me, not behind.” After every near defeat, these women pick themselves up, sometimes literally off the ground, and take the next impossible step. And while they all take that step differently — choosing to run or to work, to curse or, yes, to sing — not one of them spends much time crying."

Few novels published this year have sounded in the least appealing to my tastes. This one, however, seems right my little historical fiction preference alley. We're going back to NYC next weekend and I'm going to be there at least a week while his Nness gallivants around to New Orleans and assorted places, so I can pick it up then.

Tonight's Vaquero's Official Washington College & C'Town Debut

Reception, with drinks and nibbles at 6 PM.
6:30 PM, Center Stage, Hodson Hall Commons (a/k/a 'da egg,' the students call the theater) at Washington College. 45 minutes of Mr. Sublette's lecture/performance "Kiss You Down South: An Evening of Music and History."

Then the hard part, dinner at the Hyson-Ringgold House, residence of the WC president. Sigh. However, it is another beautiful day.

Three Weeks Completed in MD

And it still feels like I'm in a dream, not quite real Inside the House I'm living in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The reading and writing and thinking. The house itself ... I feel so at home here, which I think comes from having 'lived' so long, so to speak, in another structure from this era, very much like this one, the Fraunces Tavern Museum. I just instinctively know how buildings like this are arranged. That was interesting. And then, when I venture out, it's still the past.

His Vaqueroness should be close to Harrisburg, PA by now, for his reading and signing at the book festival (he's doing several of these Capitol Books, which is an African American book festival series held in the region around D.C., which includes as far down as Charleston.  We're going to fly in for that quickly in November as there's also another event associated with it that he's been asked to do.  We were up at 6 and he left a little before 9.  He'll be back Monday night.  Why yes, from Harrisburg he is going up to NYC.

I've been to the Farmer's Market.  Twice ....  Also to the public library.

Now I'm listening to Celtic music on WWOZ streaming, via my new external speakers.  The sun is also streaming, into my study, where I'm eating some of the Pineapple-Carrot bread brought back from the market.  It goes as well with my coffee, as I expected.

ETA: Phone com with the V. Though not well attended (meaning the festival as a whole -- it's kind of new to Harrisburg), things went very well, and he enjoyed himself. How could he not? A tech came to fiddle with his microphone, did a double take -- "I saw you on Spike Lee's HBO thing last week!" V goes, "I haven't seen it. How'd I do?" "Awesome, man, you were great!" Now he's just about in NYC.

He'd never been in Harrisburg before and thought it was just gorgeous. The architecture, constructed out of that stone -- beautiful and graceful. He liked what he saw a lot. Not to mention the drive there, through all that wonderful landscape. PA is, let us not forget, one of the most beautiful places on the planet.  (I've been to Harrisburg.)

New Orleans is NOT Charm City

Baltimore is "Charm City."  There's a specific history as to how Baltimore came to be called Charm City, which I know, because I have right here, the book, Charm City (2007), by our friend, Madison Smartt Bell, who tells us the history of that appellation in that book.

So why in hell did the author of a very long article in the current New York Review of Books about Simon's HBO New Orleans's Treme series, title that article "Charm City, U.S.A?"  He claims to belong by generational birth to New Orleans's aristocratic circles that began intermarrying with the old Creole families back in 1836.  So one would think he knows better.

My response to Lemann's article is cranky.  Decidedly cranky.  I don't like it, or the author, who seems to not quite get it, in spite of his Garden District aristocratic family and upbringing.

Example:  "Batiste’s ex-wife, LaDonna, played (overplayed, actually) by Khandi Alexander, owns a neighborhood bar."  LaDonna is overplayed? 

Another example: "Albert is the most saintly, and so perhaps the least plausible, character in Treme, a courageous political resister, rebuilder, and bearer of cultural tradition."   Yes. Saints always beat the living bejesus out of someone who steals their tools.

He thinks that the harangues by Davis and Creighton are overwrought. "What they say is always in character, but it seems to express some of what Simon thinks too. "  No, dude.  These harangues are what particularly white New Orleans was thinking then -- and not a few weeks post the Flood Failure, but three months later.  Out of touch, dude.

What universe does this dickhead inhabit?  Oh, yes, the universe of the wealthy aristocrat  personally unaffected by the hells of the Failure and the aftermath -- the universe that HBO Treme is NOT concerned with, except, on occasion to make fun of it, which he noticed.  Oh yes, did he ever notice. And resents the hell out of it.