Good morning from the Mississippi river. For the last few days I’ve been in Natchez, enjoying the sights of a rare southern town that has not lost its soul to Progress: its city streets are marked by people and shops, not pockmarked by parking lots, and the streets are so dog-gone Christmassy it feels like I’m in a Hallmark movie. Well, considering that no less than three Hallmark Christmas specials have been filmed here, that is only appropriate. Amid the visitations to native American sites, necropolises, and the grand mansions testifying to Mississippi’s antebellum wealth, I have also been reading All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren, a novel inspired by the life of Governor/Senator Huey Long, the latter of Louisiana. Reading this in Baton Rouge would have been more appropriate, I suppose, but there’s always the future. Long was a unique southern politician, somebody that today would be described as a left-wing populist: one movie about his life refers to him as the Karl Marx of the hicks. Hitting his political stride in the 1920s and ’30s, he attacked big money and corrupt politicians who sheltered them, and aimed to become an authoritarian and corrupt politician in his own right — albeit one for the poor whites and blacks of the state, creating programs to build roads and bridges, schools and hospitals. Then, approaching national politics and threatening Franklin Roosevelt, he was shot.
All the King’s Men uses a fictional character named Willie Talos (or Willie Stark, in most editions) to relive Long’s rise and fall, as seen through the eyes of Jack Burden, a newspaper man who enters into Stark’s employ as a kind of adjutant; making connections for him, digging up information on political rivals, that sort of thing. The book is not about Stark: it is merely dominated by him, as Jack and his two closest friends the Stantons all have their lives warped around him. David Stanton, an idealist who regards Stark as the worst sort of politician, is offended by Jack’s friendship with and support of, Stark. Anne Stanton, who Jack has been in love with for most of his life, is both troubled and charmed by him, and hopes to convince him to support her own ideas for promoting the social welfare in the form of a children’s home. Anne is a key character in the novel, as Jack’s love for her amid her involvement with Stark tests who he is and what he really values. Another important part of the story is Stark’s stepfather, who is actually his biological father though he doesn’t know it: the Judge isn’t merely against Stark, he’s a political antagonist who Burden will play a part in destroying. The book proved an absorbing character drama, and Warren shows off a flair for writing. I will share some excerpts (and some photos) once I am home. For now, I have a few more places to see, a malt shoppe to visit, and then a long drive back to Sweet Home Alabama.
I’m going to go ahead and post this because I don’t think another musician will Rock My World in the next 15 days. It could always happen, but I’ll edit if that’s the case. 2023 wasn’t a huge year for discovering new artists, as I mostly listened to those I already loved. My absolute favorite from 2022, Morgan Wade, released her second album in the late summer. “Psychopath” marked a departure from moody/dark country and took her closer to the fields of rock and pop. Accordingly, she announced a tour with Joan Jett and Alanis. Allison Young, who was one of the many artists who made 2020 tolerable to me, teamed up with Joshua Lee Turner to form a band called “The Bygones”. My favorite production by them so far is a cover of “Honey Pie” by the Beatles, which is utterly adorable, but YT won’t let me embed it. Trying another video:
Favorites-since-2019-even-though-McDuck-left-them Lake Street Dive did a cover of “The Neighbor Song” that I loved the sound of Rachael Price in. Granted, Rachael Price could read the phone book and I’d think “ooh, la la”. Going to try embedding a video that will give you a hit of LSD even if it’s not the song I intended. Even better if it does, because has McDuck. (McDuck was a big part of my first LSD experience, “Walking on Broken Glass“, in 2019.)
As mentioned, Morgan did a second album with a very different sound than her original “Reckless“. It was all over the place, musically. Interesting, she has at least two songs that reference Ernest Hemingway. That’ll be a trivia question one day, surely.
But I’m drunk on Hemingway dreams Fitzgerald ain’t got nothing on me (Nothing on me) Like the Bible, make you believe You were blind (You were blind), but you’re gonna see
For comparison, check out “Losers Look a Lot Like Me“, which is melancholy in lyrics despite the very catchy, up-beat sound — and her original sound, embodied in a song like “Mend“. Love that West Virginian accent — in her mouth, or in Sierra Ferrell’s, whose revitalization of the Old Time sound has thrilled me for the last few years.
She can fiddle and she can saaang, and she’ll conduct the audience with her bow. Listen to those boots!
On the exact opposite end of the spectrum — away from the raw and real to the wholly artificial and produced — this was a year AI-generated music arrived and fascinated me. Part of me knows it’s fake, part of me knows it’s unfair to the voice actors whose talents are being used without their permission to create new content, but at the same time….”MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS ARE SINGING!!!”
I listened to an absurd amount of RDR2 AI covers this year. This is “Sadie Adler” singing a song from the game, but there are also productions of ‘her’ singing 1980s country tunes like “That’s the Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia”, and of other members of the gang singing songs that are all over the place. Some fit the theme of the game (“The Highwayman”), and others are wildly anachronistic (Arthur and John singing “Old Town Road“, for instance, or Sean “I Was Born Boirnin’ Down Manor Houses” McGuire singing ‘Come Out, Ye Black and Tans”). There’s also the non-RDR2 stuff, like Frank Sinatra singing Green Day and Amy Winehouse.
Far and away the biggest musical moment for me was Star Trek Strange New Worlds‘ musical episode, “Subspace Rhapsody”. I have listened to its songs every week since the episode aired, and I was so mesmerized by it that it inspired a post. My three favorites were “Status Report”, “How Would That Feel?“, and of course — “We Are One”. The musical episode is notable because it’s not a novelty episode: there’s serious character development throughout, especially in Christine Chapel and Spock’s songs which are set to the same basic tune but at very different pitches — and are very different moods. Season 2 sold me on La’an and her actress, Christina Chong — a professional singer. She stars in “How Would That Feel?”
Also in the realm of “music from other media”, I loved the entire soundtrack of Mon Oncle, and much of Stardew Valley. The latter’s “Feast of the Winter Star” is so gosh-darn Christmassy.
Try listening to the first 35 seconds and then finding the will to stop it. I dare ya.
Now, on the subject of new-to-me artists…..a friend sent me this music video and said “I’ve known you for fifteen years, this is your jam.” She was correct. Laufey is my jam.
What’s a girl to do? Lying on my bed staring into the bluе Unrequited, terrifying Lovе is driving me a bit insane Have to get this off my chest, I’m telling you today
In August, I heard of Oliver Anthony the same way everyone else did — but I’m surprised YT didn’t reccommend him before, since “one man, one guitar, lots of feelings” is one of the main bits of youtube I listen to — especially on channels like Western AF and Gems on VHS. At a Halloween party one of the guests and I went on an Oliver Anthony karaoke tear for a bit. Fun was had by all. Remy, the libertarian Weird Al, did an immediate parody mocking government employees. More my speed, though, was another friend who knows of my love for the Harmony Club recommending Ashley McBryde’s “Cool Little Bars”. I’ve liked most of what I’ve heard from McBryde, like “Gospel Night at the Strip Club” and “Whiskey and Country Music“. (What do you mean, country music has a drinking problem? It can stop anytime it wants.)
Rounding off the list is a piece I heard through Jazz Hop Cafe, a channel that does wonderful mood mixes. I’ve listened to their “Coffee to Go” once per day for most of the year — I’ve heard it over a hundred times, at least. One piece I heard first in one of their mixes is “Riding my Bike to the End of the World”, which has a lofi jazz sound with occasional bike bells. It’s not the sort of thing one can sing along with (unless you can do bicycle bell noises) , but I like listening to it.
Wait, wait. I can’t post this without mentioning the utterly catchy (and funny) Charlie Parr piece, “I Ain’t Dead Yet”. Just listen to the first 5 seconds and see if you can stop.
When I go down that funeral road There’s gonna be a big old band And they’re gonna play all my favorite songs While they plant me in the sand Well I ain’t dead yet Lemme hear that music now I sure can’t hear it When I’m locked in that box Underneath the ground I ain’t dead yet Gimme my flowers now
When NASA was formed and began looking for astronauts, they settled on test pilots as the initial base: such men were already known quantities, with proven physical and intellectual gifts that could be applied to the pioneering work of Mercury and beyond. Although the Lovelace clinic tested a group of women (funded by Jackie Cochrane, holder of multiple aviation records) and maintained that female astronauts had advantages of reduced size and weight compared to men, NASA had no interest in complicating matters. Jet pilots, meaning men, continued to be the focus of NASA’s interests to put an American in space. After the moon landing prompted a shift in NASA’s mission, though, the parameters shifted: NASA wanted a diverse array of mission specialists for Skylab and the in-the-works shuttle program, and that meant people who weren’t military — who might be oceanographers or surgeons, say. The Six opens with how its subjects reacted to the Apollo program and came to be drawn to the idea of being an astronaut, and then after following their lives into the 1970s, we shift into their ASCAN phase and then follow each woman’s first mission. The result is a very enjoyable history of the early Shuttle period that occasionally drifts into gossip and whining, but is on the whole solid.
As someone who has read 48 astronaut-related books to date, I was familiar with half of the women here — Ride and Reznik appear prominently in other memoirs like Mike Mullane’s, for instance. Even so, it was good to get a direct focus on them, because I didn’t know anything about Sally Ride other than her status as an overachiever and something of a jock. The biographical was especially welcome for Kathryn Sullivan, for instance, since her Handprints on Hubble, was utterly work-focused and said precious little about who she was as a person.The book makes clear that considerable care went into choosing the first female astronaut: all of the women were accomplished, but — as with John Glenn becoming The Face of the Mercury 7 – NASA also needed someone who was good on camera, who wouldn’t be bullied by reporters but could return their volleys with grace. That was Ride, and it helped that she was the most accomplished using the new Shuttle’s operating arm, which would be crucial to deploying a package in her first mission. Although the six were connected together through their status as pioneers who had to put up with reporters asking asinine questions and a level of discomfort from the boys whose club they were invading, ultimately the shape of their training made them forge closer bonds to the people on their respective crews. Rhea Seddon, for instance, got so close to her trainer Hoot Gibson that they became NASA’s first astronaut newlyweds. Unfortunately, the author sometimes drifts into soap-opera territory, informing us that _____ began seeing ______, not realizing that ______ was now kind of into him, etc. We’re talking about six members of the largest astronaut class in history, who are completing their training as the Space Shuttle, which will create an entirely new era in NASA history, is itself being finalized — and Grush keeps resorting to locker-room gossip. (The same thing happened withAstounding, a history of early American SF that kept readers apprised of the authors’ sex lives. Why? Why?)
Given the subject matter, some degree of editorializing is present and perfectly predictable, so that most contemporary readers can read it and feel so very good for having The Right Opinions and shaking their heads in union at Those Awful Chauvinists who didn’t think a pregnant woman had any business in a T-38. It’s not constant, though, and there’s so much good content on early shuttle missions I generally forgot about the author’s occasionally attempts to lecture and gossip. “The Frog and Prince” mission is especially interesting, given that the Shuttle was carrying a French payload specialist, and a Saudi princeling: despite the crew’s worries about getting along with a Saudi, especially the women, the only awkwardness came from NASA’s bureaucrats meddling so as to not cause offense to the oil-lords of Aramco. The book goes forward to ’86 and the body-blow that was the Challenger explosion, which claimed the lives of Judy Reznik and her crewmates, including America’s first citizen in space — teacher Christa McAuliffe.
I for one thoroughly enjoyed this history of six accomplished women who were a key part of making the early Shuttle program such a success: the author’s occasionally tendencies to gossip and opine are a very minor part of this joint biography of six accomplished, driven women and the cause of discovery they served.
Highlights:
With the Shuttle system fully assembled in front of her, Sally didn’t feel like she was standing before an inanimate spacecraft, but rather a monstrous breathing animal. The Shuttle’s liquid propellants periodically vented like steam from a kettle, causing the vehicle to hiss and moan as if it were alive. It took all of Sally’s will to focus on just moving forward.
Some [astronaut candidates] tried attempts at humor. When one candidate was asked why he wanted to be an astronaut, he responded: “My father was an astronaut. My grandfather was an astronaut. My great-great-grandfather was an astronaut.” “Have you ever had amnesia?” one interviewer asked Sally. “I don’t know. I can’t remember,” Sally joked.
On August 21, 1981, George Abbey was standing in his office on the eighth floor of Building 1 when he heard a noise outside his window. He turned to see a man dangling from a rope, dressed in overalls. It wasn’t just any man, though. The stranger unbuttoned the straps of his overalls to reveal a Superman costume. The Man of Steel then pounded on the glass while singing “Happy Birthday” to George, who that day was turning forty-nine. As soon as the dangling crooner finished the song, he rappelled to the ground and disappeared from sight. George just stood there and blinked.
“We have liftoff!” Crip called out. In that moment, Sally knew she was no longer in the driver’s seat of her life. “All of a sudden, I felt totally helpless, totally overwhelmed by what was happening there,” she said later. “It was just very, very clear that for the next several seconds, we had absolutely no control over our fates.” Completely at the mercy of NASA’s army of engineers and mechanical prowess, Sally surrendered herself to the space shuttle Challenger as it burst forth through the clouds, thrusting its precious cargo into the stratosphere. The Shuttle twisted through the air, rolling onto its back as it took a glorious swan dive into the sky.
But as she looked down at the nighttime side, watching the twinkling lights of the world’s cities and infrastructure below, a thought struck her: “Right down there in one of those little patches of light right now, there could be a little girl looking up at the sky and pointing upward and saying to her mother, ‘Look, mommy, it’s a satellite.’ And she’s pointing at me.” It reminded her of when she was a little girl, pointing out satellites in the sky to her parents. Now she was that satellite in the sky. And perhaps that girl down on Earth could one day travel to space like Kathy did—or even farther.
“Up here, Ellison, the sun’s shining in,” Mike said over their headsets. “At least we’ve got the crew arranged right for people who like the warm and cool—got you out of the sun.” Flight controllers spoke into Judy’s ear, asking her for a communications check. Feeling particularly amped that morning, she yelled in reply, “COWABUNGA!”
The Christmas of 1862 approached far differently than the year proceeding. Although the southern war for independence had begun in April of ’61, the war was then still seen by many as a lark, an adventure – and soldiers on both sides could still feed off the prosperity of peace time. 1862, though, had made the war real: Shiloh killed more Americans in two days than all other American wars combined, and Antietam and Fredericksburg were similar slaughterhouses. Soldiers on both sides of the conflict were saddened, dispirited, and angry — angry at the politicians who started this and who kept it going despite the apparent stalemate. Southern soldiers were especially cantankerous, having learned of a recent law that effectively exempted planters from serving in the very conflict they’d created, and many were deserting not just to join their loved ones for Christmas, but to protest being ground up like grist in a mill for the planters’ pocketbooks. In Tennessee, Billy Yank and Johnny Reb were both preparing for a Christmas slaughter — not of ham, but of one another, trudging through rain and mud and anxiously trying to keep their rifles and powder from being compromised by the wet. The next day would bring the Battle of Stones River, a multi-day affair that would, like Shiloh, begin with a Yankee rout that was eventually curbed, giving the Union army control of middle Tennessee and a technical victory despite the enormous losses on both sides — but the night before saw the soldiers, possibly imbibing in a little Christmas spirit, engaging in a Battle of the Bands against one until until they joined together to sing “Home, Sweet Home”. This is a curious little history: I was anticipating something like the Christmas truce, but that never happened — and the two sides bonding together happened the night before they began slaughtering each other, so the whole “triumph of humanity over the state/politicians/etc” thing doesn’t really work. It’s quite nicely written, especially when McIvor describes the landscape of central Tennessee, and I appreciated his heavy use of soldiers’ memoirs and verse that make it something of a social history of late 1862. At any rate, I’d never even heard of the Battle of Stones River before, and now it’s a possible weekend trip next year.
Highlights:
A Confederate soldier, taken prisoner in an early skirmish, had watched in disgust as the panicked Federals around him had broken and run before the advancing Rebels. Unable to contain himself he began shouting, “What yer running fer? Why don’t yer stand and fight like men!” He had kept going in that vein, hotter and hotter, until a fellow Confederate prisoner interrupted him, “For God’s sake, Joe, don’t try to rally the Yankees. Keep ’em on the run!”
The noise of the battle was so great, recalled one artilleryman, that “birds sat in trees or on the ground, unable to fly, benumbed by the roar, rifle and cannon fire, shells bursting, men yelling, horses neighing, and wounded screaming made an awful crescendo.” A former Murfreesboro slave would remember sixty years later how the tin pans in the cupboard had rattled and the house shook from the battle taking place miles away “It sounded like the Judgment,” she said.
The war of 1812 has had a particular fascination for me in recent years, in part because of the complexity of the conflict: it began as an offshoot of the Napoleonic Wars, as Britain’s attempts to control the azure main meant seizing American cargo and American men, the latter of who were conscripted into the Royal Navy. It gave new energy to other conflicts, like the spats between American colonists and the Creek confederation in the upper Gulf region, that would erupt into more dramatic warfare. When reading The Other War of 1812, the history of one of early America’s strangest foreign policy events (the Georgian invasion of Spanish Florida), I was made aware of this comprehensive volume by John Mahon, which is a thorough history of the war that incorporates all its headwaters and tributaries. Mahon opens with an introduction that makes no apologies for its girthiness: the best way to really learn about anything is to dive right in and get cozy for a while, and Mahon gives the reader exactly that opportunity. Although supplemented with maps and the occasional illustration, those are merely finishing touches: the meat of this book is story and fact, and it takes us all over the early American republic.
Mahon’s bulk comes from how closely it chronicles combat on the ground, complete with maps. These were especially helpful for me in attempting to understand the action around the Great Lakes, because that region is such an unknown to me, and played an enormous role in the early republic. Although Mahon’s history is arranged chronologically (as history books are wont to do), he’s not married to this: in the section on the January 1815 Battle of New Orleans, for instance, not only does Mahon not spoil the fun by telling us that the Treaty of Ghent in December 1814 had ended the war, but he backtracks to the beginning of the war to follow how British interests in taking New Orleans had developed throughout the conflict. Although it’s easy to think of the war as a straightforward affair, round two between the naughty rebel child and the frustrated mother country, part of what makes it so interesting to me is its diplomatic complexity. The war is happening on every American coast — Gulf, Atlantic, and Great Lakes, and at this point the states united are surrounded by European colonies like Spanish Florida — not to mention the native tribes, a confederation of which will play a big part in the war with heavy encouragement and assistance from Great Britain (and a little from Spain). Although the war began in 1813, the Brits had Napoleonic priorities until l’empereur was nicely settled in on St. Helena. The US Navy distinguished itself early on, its six new frigates performing so well that the Admiralty handed out orders forbidding the Royal Navy from taking them on in single engagements. Mahon addresses smaller areas of the war that I wasn’t aware of, like Britain’s use of West Indian (black) troops in its coastal raids both to create a psychological edge, and to disrupt slavery by inspiring those so held to rebel and run away — and possibly join His Majesty’s forces. Native Americans are an enormous part of this story, both as attached to British troops (they helped seize Detroit and hold it for a year) and acting on their own accord, as did the Redsticks in what would be known as Alabama and west Florida. Mahon makes a slight nod to the funniest episode of the war (Georgians moving into Florida, then declaring Florida independence from Spain and swearing allegiance to the United States on behalf of …everyone else in Florida, including Anglo-Spainards and Minorcans), and shares another anecdote that amused me. Andrew Jackson, in preparing his defense of New Orleans, placed the town under martial law; when someone dissented, he imprisoned them, and when a judge issued a writ of habeus corpus Jackson imprisoned him. Jackson is at least consistent: years later, as president he harrumphed at a Supreme Court decision that would limit him, saying that the judge had made his decision; now let him enforce it.
I intend to explore this conflict more, given the sheer variety of contestants and its role in shaping the future of the United States, but Mahon strikes me as a solid foundation — and not only because it’s heftier than a brick!
First, a tease from God Rest Ye Merry Soldiers: A True Civil War Christmas Story. The book itself quotes a little poem published in a December 1862 paper.
This happened one Christmas, I’m sorry to write Our ports are blockaded, and Santa to-night Will hardly get down here; for if he should start The Yankees would get him unless he was ‘smart’ They beat all the men in creation to run And if they could get him, they’d think it fine fun To put him in prison, and steal the nice toys He started to bring to our girls and boys
Today’s TTT is books on our winter TBR list. Mine are drawn partially from Mount Doom but there are a couple of new ones as well.
(1) The War of 1812, John Mahon. I’m two-thirds through this and expect to finish before the week’s end. It’s an older, comprehensive history of the war that also explores its connections to the Napoleonic and Creek wars.
(2) The Commercial Revolution, 1000 – to 1500. Joseph Gies. Also a mount TBR title that I’m working through.
(3) The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Observatories, J.L. Heilbron. ‘Twould be fitting to read it near the winter Solstice. (Article here featuring Heilbron.)
(4) In Search of Zarathustra: The First Prophet and the Ideas That Changed the World, Paul Kriawaczek. Another TBR title that was left off the Incomplete Census posted earlier in the year. Should be a nice tip of the hat to the ‘magi from the East’ closer to Epiphany.
(5) America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940, Claude Fischer.
(6) Cool: How Air Conditioner Changed Everything, Salvatore Basile
(7) The Mind of the South, W.J. Cash. On my CC reading list. I’d started a few months back and then gotten sidetracked.
(8) God Rest Ye Merry Soldiers, James McIvor. A Civil War Christmas tale
(9) Scatterling of Africa: My Early Years, Johnny Clegg’s unfinished autobiography.
(10) A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories, Flannery O’Connor. Might as well knock another of the ol’ CC.
In years past I’d heard of a Confederate Memorial Park somewhere in Marbury, but assumed it was something like we have in Selma: a place where the dead were buried and a placard or statue put up. After the tornado struck, though, one of the aid workers who came into town from Boston proved to be a Civil War enthusiast who was determined to make the most of his time in the South — and discovered that the ‘park’ was a museum and library on the site of what had been a rest home for aging and indigent veterans of the War. (Or, as one visitor called them, “indignant”.) I was intrigued by the library, as my new friend was impressed by its collection, and made my way there this past Saturday to check the place out. Although I wasn’t able to access the library, it being staffed solely by volunteers who had hung up their hats at noon, I was most impressed by the museum and enjoyed my walk through the grounds. At its height, the place had 22 buildings which included communal places like a galley, as well as smaller cabins for veterans and their wives to live in. It was made possible by a donation of land by Jefferson Manly Falkner (lord, what a southern name), and donations from others — including Union veterans, who directly paid for the “Blue and Grey Cottage”. Although there are no extant buildings from the original complex, there are still foundations present as well as parts of the water and gas infrastructure that made life possible and comfortable for the aging veterans. My visit coincided with Santa holding court in the old Mountain Creek post office and taking photos with kiddies. I’m including a few shots below, but this place was loaded with rifles, shotguns, and handguns. It’s really quite the collection, the best I’ve seen in Alabama. It’s still very rural, a place of streams and piny hills, and made for quite a nice mild hike into the woods.
The flags in the middle intrigued me, as I’d never seen them: they were specific to Alabama regiments.
The floor of the Alabama river near Selma would have looked like this, littered with munitions, ammunition, and arms as the Arsenal was defended and then burned (along with much of town).
The battle flag at bottom was taken at the Battle of Gettysburg from Alabama regiments fighting under General Sam Hood, on the second day as Colonel Chamberlain defended Little Round top.
A VERY small part of their collection. Rifles and carbines.
Spiking artillery, I can see. But a bugle?
Had a nice conversation with Santa, who has a magic key on his belt that allows him into homes without fireplaces. This building was a general store & post office in Mountain Creek, Alabama.
Alison Weir’s A Tudor Christmas is a short social history of how Christmas was celebrated in the days of Henry VIII and his daughters. (And, ever so briefly, his son.) After some background information on the different cultural traditions that a medieval English Christmas would constitute — a bit of Christ here, a little pagan Rome there, some Scandinavian traditions there– Weir then takes us through the Twelve Days of Christmas, which begin on Christmas Day itself and continue until the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6th. Contra today’s prolonged period gorging and splurging that begins sometime in October and ends shortly after the New Year when bills come due and medical scales sag under the weight of too many pies and plates of stuffing, Christmas was traditionally prefaced by a period of fasting that began in mid-November. The Orthodox still practice the Nativity Fast, but even those who observe Advent these days aren’t aware that it’s deliciously counterculture in the modern context. After this background, we go through each of the Twelve Days of Christmas, which had specific bits of lore and tradition attached to them. My favorite, I think, is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, in which the day would begin with children being playfully whipped and then allowed to run amok the rest of the day. Weir incorporates a lot of medieval verse into the text, and she points out allusions to Christmas traditions present in Shakespeare that all who are not scholars almost assuredly miss. I enjoyed this thoroughly, and excerpted twelve fun facts from it to share with friends — find them below! I read this mostly while listening to “Christmas in a Medieval Tavern“, which is utterly anachronistic but set the mood.
The traditional Anglo-American Christmas has its origins with King Alfred the Great, the father of England who commanded there should be a holiday on Christmas Day and the twelve that followed. The first use of the word “Christ’s Mass” was in 1038.
The Midnight Christmas Mass dates to at least 423, when Sixtus III celebrated one in the Christmas Chapel (containing a reliquary that is said to hold the remains of the Manger). It was originally known as the Angels’ Mass.
Christmas creches became popular after 1223, when St Frances created a life-sized manager scene on the hill above the village of Greccio, and preached the Gospel story.
The modern season of Christmas parties would horrify Christians of centuries gone by, who regarded the season of Advent as one of fasting — the feasting began only on Christmas Day. The eastern Orthodox still preface Christmas with a Nativity fast that begins in mid-November. Specifications vary by tradition, but rich foods like meat, oil, butter, and wine are usually abstained from.
Have you ever wondered why Charles Dickens had one ghost story set at Christmas, let alone an entire volume of them? Medieval Europeans believed that the veil between the natural world and the spiritual world was at its thinnest as the Winter Solstice approached, and that ghosts could freely wander the wintry landscapes in late December. Telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve became an English tradition.
An English Christmas favorite (among those who could afford meat) was ‘brawn’, or fatty cuts of pork cooked in wine and served garnished with rosemary, bay leaves, fruits, and a sprig of yew whitened with egg or flower to give the appearance of a dusting of snow.
Christmas pies in medieval England were cut with spoons, as it was believed unlucky to cut them with knives. The first piece went to the youngest member at the table, who made a wish as they ate it.
On Twelthnight, trees were treated to a tipple from the wassail bowl, ale being poured over their roots to ensure a bountiful harvest. The practice still endures in the West Country.
The Fourth Day of Christmas was known as the Feast of the Holy Innocents, and for adults was a day of fasting as the Herod’s massacre of infant boys was remembered. Children were allowed greater licenses on this day after being awakened with a playful whipping.
The Spirit of Christmas or the season was an ancient one: the Saxons referred to a King Winter, and the Norse believed that the god Woden visited mortals during the season and feasted, leaving gifts and accepting offerings (like cookies and milk?). St. Nicholas of Myra, the patron saint of children, would eventually prevail as the embodiment of Christmas in the west, despite his feast day being held during Advent, December 6. St. Nicholas Day celebrations do NOT (alas!) involve punching heretics in the face, as St Nicholas was famous for doing.
At court, the Christmas season (after Christmas Day itself) was also one of plays, hunting, sports, and outside tournaments, followed by feasting and drinking. Children’s games like hide and seek, blind man’s bluff, and “fox in the hole” — which was a bit like tag mixed with hide and seek, with a ‘fox’ chasing and looking for the other players and catching them one by one, the last to be caught becoming the fox next round — were popular for all ages. One potentially dangerous game involved attempting to snatch candied fruits, almonds, etc from a bowl of warm brandy that was set on fire — without the players getting their fingers burned.
Nativity plays were part of the feast of Christmas as part of a larger tradition of ‘mystery’ plays, put on with heavy contributions from grade and crafts guilds. These were all based on Biblical stories, and Nativity plays would typically envelop everything from the angel’s first visit to Mary, to the Massacre of the Innocents. This tradition faded after the reformation, the plays often banned for being too Catholic. Another theatrical tradition involved catching “mummers plays”, in which bands of traveling actors would regale communities with traditional folk plays that involved a lot of easy entertainment — stage fights, bawdy humor, and fantastical creatures like the Dragon that England’s patron saint, St. George, killed. Resurrection was a common theme in these plays.
Allison Young and the Bygones are appearing in my music end-year wrapup, but they did an original sound that’s right out of the 1940s so I wanted to share it for those who might appreciate it. Stumbled on Allison in the dark year of 2020. Starts out slow, but just wait.
“It is truly like living in a Kafka novel. Nothing makes sense. People touted as experts on TV repeatedly tell you things you can disprove with three mouse clicks, and most people act as if this is normal.”
Tom Woods is a historian and podcast host with a daily newsletter which (in part) analyzes issues of the day from a libertarian point of view. From February 2020 forward, both the podcast and the newsletter were largely oriented toward making sense of COVID — at first the virus and its effects, but then the broader effects of attempts at containment measures. Diary of a Psychosis is a selected collection of those COVID-related newsletters, beginning in February 2020 and moving forward until spring 2023. As you might guess from the title, Diary is highly critical of the way governments and public health agencies across the world, but especially within the United States, reacted to the pandemic. It is so not because of Woods’ libertarian scruples, but from the enormous human suffering that followed in the wake of a prolonged ‘health’ measures. Draconian lockdowns and dehumanizing mask mandates would be poor responses even if they were proven to be efficacious, Wood argues, but the worst part is that they were never proven as such.
The core of the book is Woods responding to news of various measures, and wrangling with data, especially as he and everyone else paying attention began realizing something screwy going on. Despite the confidence of The Science, imposed measures repeatedly don’t correlate to results: states with similar demographics have similar COVID waves despite imposing different levels of masking, supposed surges after events like Thanksgiving 2020 or Superbowl 2021 don’t appear, inexplicable spikes appear that no one can explain, deaths decline in states giving up on containment measures and increase in states that maintain them, etc. A running theme in this is Woods using his newsletter to monitor moving goalposts and compare predictions against actual outcomes, something The Authorities would rather us not do. Why can’t they simply admit when they don’t know why what’s happening is happening?, asks Woods. Why the continuing masquerade of confidence and certainty? And why, when we are sailing into uncharted waters in which no one has authoritative experience, are dissenting voices not only being ignored but actively suppressed (by twitter and facebook) despite coming from people with medical pedigrees just as robust as those dominating the news? Reportage and commiseration are another strong part of the book: Woods continues to travel throughout the lockdown period, reporting on areas that are both opening up and doubling down on their coronatainment measures, and shares letters from readers who see in his newsletters a rare breath of fresh air keeping their hopes alive despite being cut off from loved ones and overwhelmed by the culture of fear. Part of why Woods is offering this book (as well as Collateral Damage: Victims of the Lockdown Regime Tell Their Stories) is so that the cruel foolishness of the past three years is remembered next time — and those who abused the public’s trust and their perceived authority are brought to some manner of justice, if only by being sacked. The consequences of coronamania will be far-reaching: young people whose educations were derailed, children whose social development was marred by isolation and the spectre of facelessness, teens who are mental wrecks because they came of age amid multiple “We’re Doomed” cults etc — but there are other ramifications Woods touches on, like the bankrupting of public trust in health institutions, whether they acted out of honest and well meaning ignorance, or vanity in their own imagined self-importance. There will be pandemics in future, and if amends and corrections are not made, then public reaction based on the often irrational and inhumane COVID measures will undermine appropriate response to threats that don’t have a 99% survival rate for the majority of the population.
