- clonk – clonk – clonk -
Older Monkey, why are you hitting the driveway with a shovel?
I’m not hitting the driveway.
Um …
I’m moving the ice.
Okay …
Into the sun.
Because ..
So it will melt faster.
We are so ready for spring.
Cross posted to Space For Commerce.
So, ages ago, Karen M. who manages the speaker’s schedule for the German Texan Heritage Society emailed me to ask if I would like to come and do a talk about the history of the Adelsverein in Texas, and how I went about writing three historical novels based on those events – which are dramatic to the nth degree and which hardly anyone outside of Texas has ever heard of. Of course I said yes, how could I resist any organization which contains a large number of people who are, or might be interested in my books, and whose’ tag-line on their website is “Guten Tag, Y’all?” Besides, they offered refreshments for afters; I will work for cookies and punch. Perhaps someday I will be able to throw all sorts of hissies and demand Perrier on tap, a fruit tray and a private dressing room before engagements, but that day is not yet – really, my sense of entitlement is all but stillborn. Either that or I haven’t become jaded – darn it, I still enjoy these things, once I get over the initial panic of standing up and looking at all those strangers or almost-strangers in front of me, waiting for me to say something deathlessly witty. This is where having been a broadcaster comes in handy. I know that I have spoken, through a microphone or a TV to larger numbers of people, but those audiences were not ‘there’, not in the same room. On those occasions, I could fake myself out, pretend that I was only speaking to a handful of people, be casual and friendly, informative and remember to stand up straight, not pick my nose and not cuss in front of them … but having them all look back at you – that is another kettle of fish. Fortunately, I am getting accustomed to a live audience…
Blondie programmed the GPS unit, and I did a google-map search for the venue, which was described as being “The Old German Free School” in beautiful downtown Austin, Texas… which is, I feel only fair to point out, really quite beautiful, as it is spread over a number of scenically lumpy and rather nicely-wooded hills on either side of a lovely deep-green river. A lot of the streets were strategically and alternately one-way, but – thank god – there was no particular festival going on, which might have clogged traffic unbearably – but we did have to go to one exit and then zig-zag through another couple of streets which afforded us some nice views of assorted college students enjoying their last day of spring break, and one particularly large complex which seemed to be ‘street-people central.’
The old German Free-School turned out to a lovely antique two-story building, constructed of stone, and stone and plaster, and stone and plaster over rammed-earth, a long structure just one room deep and turned sideways to the street, with balconies and terraces overlooking a series of pocket-gardens connected by stairs. Most of the rooms opened onto balconies or the terraces, with long windows on either side, which reminded me irresistibly of 18th and 19th century townhouses in Charleston or Savannah or Beaufort, built up on narrow town-lots with the narrow end of it to the street. All of the rooms had tall windows on either side – to ensure a good draft through the room, essential in those far-distant summer days before the invention of air conditioning. It had just gotten over being unbearably chilly and rainy, so the rooms were quite pleasant. The German Free School was the first institution of public education in Austin, according to one of the members of the society who came for my talk. In the mid-1850s, there were sufficient numbers of German-speaking settlers who were totally exasperated with the lack of educational resources; the only option for educating their children was to hire a private tutor, or send them to the Anglo-American ‘Sunday Schools’. According to my informant, one of the founders was totally fed-up, (possibly with listening to all his fellows kvetching about the subject) so he threw down a thousand dollars in gold and growled, “So, build a school!” and there you go – apparently the Free School predated the Austin Independent School District by at least a decade.
There were about fifteen or twenty attendees – and the room was fairly small, so I went ahead and used the podium, with my notes and my pictures of certain relics and locations, 81/2 by 11 pictures mounted on foam-core board, with little hinged supports to hold them up – all of essential items or evocative locations in Fredericksburg. It really went well, this time – I have quite a sort-of-planned talk-with-notes that I use for these occasions, a list of notes, names and things that I simply must cover, and in the proper order; not a set script, for that is the absolute death of this kind of event, just a memory-jogger of the high points. This is the best and most-spontaneous seeming kind of talk, I am not bound by an every-single-word script and can play up or play down things, and respond immediately to what the audience seems to be most interested or engaged in. I wing it, every time – but a wing-it with some sturdy yet invisible supports! Finished with a reading – a couple of pages from “The Gathering” – about the feast and bonfire the first settlers held among the trees of what would become Fredericksburg, and took questions until everyone repaired for punch, home-made coconut cake and a plate of little baked pastry and sausage nibbles.
The members of the audience were all enthusiasts – the very best kind of audience an author can ask for, for they had interesting questions and a lot of knowledge behind them – even if only one person among them had actually the Trilogy. Doris L. purchased the Trilogy and read it all – her husband is from one of the old Gillespie County families and by one of those interesting coincidences of history and the internet and all – it was her husband’s several-times great grandfather who owned the sheep-flock that a boy named Adolph Korn had been watching over, when he was taken by raiding Comanche Indians. Adolph Korn’s g-g-I don’t-know-how-many-times grand-nephew Scott Zesch wrote bout his life and the ordeal of a number of children taken by Indians from the Hill Country in his book “The Captured” – which was one of my references in writing Book Three “The Harvesting” – about the multi-leveled tragedy of young children taken captive by the Comanche or Apache and later returned to their white families. Some of the other questions asked of me were about Prince Solms – who I do still think was rather an idiot, in spite of what one of his particular partisans could say. Sorry, buying into the Fischer-Miller Grant was not an act bringing any particular credit upon Prince Solm’s financial or political acumen. Also, the train of personal servants and his insistence on his title of nobility – not a good move, all around, no matter what his qualifications as a serving military officer might have been in other fields. Although there was an excellent point made, about how perceptions about Germany and German settlers went to the bottom of the tank after about mid WW I or so.
Until that very point in time and history, and in most places in these United States – being from the German settlements and of German ancestry were seen as pretty favorable things. It was OK to be one of ‘the folk’, to remember Germany as it was… until history and Germany changed; the place that these hard-working and cultured immigrants came from, the place that they remembered with fondness and reminiscent affection morphed into something ugly. That Germany – or those duchies and principalities that they came from – all of those places changed during their absence, into something that they would not have recognized, these innocent and trusting immigrants, taking ship from Bremen, carrying their memories and those wooden trunks with them, hoping for new lives but recalling their old country. But in the 20th century, their new country would fight two wars against the old – against what the old country had become, while they were busy building lives and towns, bringing up their children as free citizens of their new country. Funny, how history happens, when you are just trying do your business and get by.
All in all, a most gratifying Sunday afternoon spent, in the company of book and history enthusiasts.
It appears that San Antonio is brewing up a tea party too, along with all the others in the works for April 15th. The grand plan is to throw a thousand tea-bags into the San Antonio River – how the River Authority will feel about that, also have no idea how they would feel about me adding a little milk and sugar – well, that’s the way I drink my tea… and even though we’re as mad as hell about an impossibly pork-packed, and most likely totally counterproductive stimulus package which most of the Congressional numb-skulls who voted for it never read… there is no need to let the standards down.
More here. Blondie and I plan to attend, and to take pictures. Any suggestions for signs would be appreciated; something witty, literate and short would be appreciated.
You *have* to read this. It’s the funniest thing I’ve read in awhile.
Teaser excerpt:
Dog: I am starving.
Me: Actually, no. You aren’t starving. You get two very good meals a day. And treats. And Best Beloved fed you extra food while I was gone.
Dog: STARVING.
Me: I saw you get fed not four hours ago! You are not starving.
Dog: Pity me, a sad and tragic creature, for I can barely walk, I am so starving. WOE.
Me: I am now ignoring you.
Dog: STARVING.
Dog: Did you hear me? I am starving.
Dog: Are you seriously ignoring me? Fine.[There is a pause, during which the dog exits the room in a pointed manner.]
[From the kitchen, there comes a noise like someone is eating a baseball bat.]
Me, yelling: What the hell are you doing?
Me: *makes haste for the kitchen and finds dog there*
Dog: *picks up entire raw sweet potato, which is what was causing the baseball bat noise, and flees for the bedroom*
Me: *chases dog, retrieves most of sweet potato, less the portion which has disappeared into dog’s gullet*
Dog: See? STARVING.
I kid you not. GO READ IT ALL. You will laugh yourself sick.
Wow, have I been out of touch, I used to hear about this kind of stuff the same day.
I got to hear him speak once, long ago when he was touring with then Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Parish. He always seemed taller and bigger than everyone around him. He LOVED our Air Force.
Rest well Chief. Thanks for leading the way.
Attend a church service with your entire family knowing that the fellow parishioner sitting next to you has a handgun tucked in his belt?
I’d rather shoot an armed thug from 10 yards away than run over there and tackle his ass.
Perhaps I’m just lazy.
Our thoughts and prayers are with Dr. Fred Winters, his family and the congregation of First Baptist.
Cross posted to Space For Commerce.
Yep, it truly is a bit of a dilemma – is the just newly-new and fresh-out-of-box purveyor of hope ‘n’ change and all that – just beginning to gleam with a discrete and gentlemanly film of flop-sweat? Mom always used to say ‘never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity’ but as I scan the newsblogs of late, I am seriously torn: is the man of hopey-changy acting out of deliberate and long-considered malice? Or is he just an arrogant, medium-city pol with delusions of grandeur, now dug into a job which is so far above his head that he would need a couple of floors worth of elevator to even get level with the demands of a position that a narrow majority of American voters, a large portion of the MSM and such international hacks as the BBC airily assumed he was more than equal to?
Eh – I just don’t know, can’t decide… and can’t even figure out which of those two options is the lesser of evils. And here I was, lo, these many moons ago, pointing out that his resume was thinner than Callista Flockhart’s thighs, and all he really had going for him was that he looked so nice and talked so sweet, and a dismayingly large portion of the traditional news media were drooling over him like fan-girls in the presence of Menudo – (the boy-singing group, not the tripe soup.) Yes, even with a series of unfortunate friends and associates, like the Reverent Wright, Bill Ayers, the entire Chicago political machine and a scarily resentful BAP of a spouse, he was hauled like a juggernaut, by the labors of his supporters and a complacent media into the highest office in the land. So there he is, rather like a fly in amber – except that everyone pretty much knows how he got there, unlike the late 19th century British politician of whom a similar comparison was made.
But now that the One has been duly anointed, blessed and installed – what next? Chaos, disaster, and the stock market dropping like Michael Moore stepping off the top of a tall building seem to be the order of the day. And the Russian-language gaffe over a gag gift ‘reset’ button, and the really unfortunate gift exchange with the British PM. Ugh – that was truly cringe-inducing. Al and any other British readers – I deeply apologize: a couple of cheap toy helicopters and a gift-package set of DVD movies apparently pulled at random out of the “miscellaneous white-elephant gift assortment closet” that most sensible social persons keep as a kind of emergency fallback when presented with last-minute present-giving occasions. But there are people and occasions where something pulled out of that closet is appropriate and expected – like unit Christmas parties, or Red Hat association affairs. A State Visit by the head of another state is not… especially when the poor man is going blind and the DVDs are the wrong format, anyway. Honestly, until this week, I thought our gummint had a very efficient protocol office who would keep track of occasions, and of the likes and preferences of State visitors, the general suitability, utility and tastefulness of formal gifts — just to prevent embarrassing things like this happening at the highest levels. Perhaps all the people who had expertise in these matters were let go in January, and replaced by twenty-somethings who are – or were, until last week – relatively innocent in the savage requirements of the higher good taste. Still – a very hard and embarrassing lesson, which may cost the One with regard to foreign allies, farther down the line. The other option is, of course – the tacky gift-giving was a deliberate slam. Hard to know which bodes worse; petty and deliberate malice, and the joys of sticking it to ‘the man’ or just plain administrative incompetence? In any case I do apologize, and note that I did not vote for him. Whatever criticisms that Al and others might have about GWB – at least the point can be made that none of his state visits had this kind of fall-out in their wake.
Oh, yeah – interesting times. Pass the popcorn.
OK class, this one will take a bit of effort, but I promise you will be justly rewarded. First read this, and the update here, from Iowahawk and vote in the comments whether either Kelsey Grammer or David Hyde Pierce should do a monologue, to be widely televised, of course.
Appetizer: “Even Peggy Noonan — the Grand Dame of Gipperism — has succumbed to Obama’s undeniable conservative charms. Just last month I listened to her wax poetic about the Adonis of Chicago between chukkers at the Newport Club polo tournament final. “Why Peggy, you old dowager,” I quipped, “I believe you just had an orgasm.”
Perhaps not in lights, but it was definitely my name on the marquee in front of the Butt-Holdsworth Memorial Library in Kerrville last Saturday. Blondie took a picture, so we have the evidence. It seems that they like to do author talks on Saturday afternoons, and it would appear that Phillippa Gregory or Diana Galbadon already had busy schedules – so the librarian in charge of author-wrangling emailed me to ask if I would come and talk about the Trilogy. Of course I said agreed; I’d much rather drive an hour and talk with a group of people about my books, or local history, or the vagaries of 19th century frontier Texas then sit at a small table in the front of a big-box bookstore and watch shoppers carefully avoiding me for an hour or so. There’s just no contest there – and frankly, doing a talk and answering questions is much the better way to build my local fan base anyway.
This talk turned out to be for an audience of about a dozen or fifteen, in the basement meeting room of the library, which – since it is built on a steep hillside overlooking the river, looked out on a stone-paved terrace and a line of trees at the edge. I’d feel such an idiot, standing at the podium and talking to such a small group, so we circled the chairs and sat down. As it also turned out, most of the audience hadn’t been able to read any of the Trilogy yet, not even the librarian. Although the library does have a single copy of all three books – they have hardly spent any time at the library and the reserve list for them is lengthy. Gratifyingly, as soon as they return, out they fly again! Excellent news for me, and perhaps they might even consider buying another set, if Adelsverein is going to be that popular.
For my talk, I did a brief overview of the entrepreneur scheme, the grand plans and bungling that doomed the Mainzer Adelsverein, outlined how I came to be interested in such a relatively obscure historical event, and what I did for research, and how I really had to make up very little regarding the various historical events that I touched on. Amazingly, most of the people present – just about all of them from Kerrville or close by – had not heard much about either the Adelsverein, or the travails in the Hill Country during the Civil War, so much of I had planned to talk about was a) new and b) interesting. All in all, a pleasant afternoon, well spent – although we did have to hustle back to San Antonio in time for me to get to work – in my ‘author’ tailored suit and well-chosen accessories, which proved something of an astonishment for the Saturday evening co-workers, who are used to seeing me slop around in something considerably less professional-appearing.
On Tuesday evening, with my computer returned to me and functioning more or less normally (fried mother-board and CPU, but all docs retrieved and saved – whew!) I followed up the library talk with a book-club meeting, on-line and through an organization called Accessible World, which provides books to the vision-impaired. Nan Hawthorne, another author and IAG member, had finagled me into putting the Trilogy into the Accessible World library, and Book One was the book to read for Accessible World’s historical novel book club. So that made another very gratifying hour, linked into their internet ‘conference room’, with about fifteen people who had read “The Gathering” and loved it, loved the characters, and had lots of detailed questions about what was real, what were the character’s motivations, and why had I written things in the way I had. Now, that was an hour that went past very quickly. It’s caviar to the writer’s soul, hearing from people who have read your books and are passionately interested. It makes up in a small way for the months and days, spent alone but for the world that you have created in your head, when you hear from people beginning to share that world and to become as engaged and interested in that world as you are.
And as of this morning, and possibly thanks to a wonderful write-up from David Foster at Chicagoboyz – the Amazon ranking for all three books of the Trilogy was at and around 150,000, which is possibly the highest it has been at since all three were released for sale in early December. So it appears that I am a few steps closer to being a famous ‘arthur’!
Still waiting to see if there will be another “Tea Party-San Antonio” in the near future, in which case Blondie and I will happily join in; the weather is fine and mild, and I wouldn’t mind at all a chance to actually commingle in the real-world with some of the other people that I know are getting more than a little annoyed with the current administration. As another commenter remarked on another blog – and it was so apt that I have promptly stolen it and used with great effect ever since: “I knew the Obama administration was gonna be a train wreck; I just thought it would make it out of the station first.”
The nice thing about having low expectations is that one is very rarely disappointed in a politician, and often quite pleasantly surprised. At this point in time, all I am reduced to asking of our elected public servants is that they would cover their mouths when they cough, and to kindly refrain from sexually molesting barnyard animals and interns in public – and there have been moments over the last couple of years, when I wondered if that were asking altogether too much. The passing spectacle is just getting to be all to much; the affirmative action President and his race-mongering attorney general all hot to have conversations about race in America, as if we haven’t hardly been having anything else for the last forty years. Then there is Sen. Dodd with the charming Irish cottage and his sweet-heartedly favorable mortgage arrangements – and his many friends in the House and Senate who also appear to have had similar friendly arrangements with their mortgage lenders. Follow that with a chaser of the pols who scrambled to explain their omission in paying taxes … jeeze Louise, does everyone going into politics these days have amnesia when it comes to filing their income tax report?
And the stock market has been dropping like a rock over the last two days, to the tune of ineffectual bleating by the Anointed One, who appears to be making the discovery for the very first time – that what he says does, indeed, have effects in the real world, outside the arena of Chicago politics. It would be amusing, watching him twist and turn – if it weren’t for the very real repercussions. It’s also amusing watching a variety of Obama media fans from last fall owning up to second thoughts now that their guy is actually ensconced in the White House. Nice timing, sports – very nice timing, indeed. Sorry, mediawhores, in my own mind and after your performance coming up to the election, you are now firmly and irretrievably stuck to him. Would it be racist of me to draw a comparison to the tar-baby? Perhaps – but it is apt enough. You are stuck on to him for good, and even if you break free at the last minute, you will still have all that icky tar smeared all over your face, and the rest of us will point and laugh, as your TV network or newspaper goes down to insolvency and you look for another job.
Interesting times – just as that ancient Chinese curse prescribes.
(Later – another perspective, found courtesy of Rantburg, home of all that is surly and cynical.)
Oh yes – the day to go out and ask your local bookstore or library for a western novel – any western novel!
Not just mine, you know – but any of the classics, ancient (relatively) or modern. Although I wouldn’t take it amiss if you did go out and ask Barnes & Noble, or your local Borders or independent bookstore to order The Adelsverein Trilogy. There are piles and shelves of good classic westerns out there and a lot of people interested in reading them, so why not draw the attention of retailers to that market, today!
More here, from “The Tainted Archive“.
