My brother just finished another master's degree. Here we are looking super happy about it:


I'm excited to see what he'll do with it. Library science!

Speaking of happy face photos...Thanks, Mom. Not sure if this is brat-pouting or existential angst, probably both. What's the difference?


This photo pretty much says it all.  ALL.

Truer Words

The Better Book Titles tumblr generally fails with me because I think most of the submissions are lazy and lame. This one killed me, however:


(Inherit the Wind) CMAN. That's good.

Next Elizabeth Gilbert

The best writing reviews namedrop Oscar Wilde in some way. Why do I know this? Because I got one!

On...Yelp. In response to an angry review of a horrible Tempe landlord that I rented from three years ago.

Whatever! That shit is going on the back or inside flap of my first book, a hard-hitting, poignant biography of Stonewall Jackson's favorite Civil War horse, Little Sorrel.*

Or I'll probably just use it as the tagline for anything I may do in the future:

"Oscar Wilde once said, 'Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.' You my friend, are this (wo)man."

Thanks, anonymous person with a picture of a cat for an icon!

--
* Nah, I'm sure Little Sorrel has too many biographies already. He's too famous. He even has his own episode on Dr. James Robertson's Civil War Podcast.

ETA: Yeah, I'm definitely not writing about a hero war horse. This guy already did, and he has it handled. "120 years ago today, at 6 o'clock in the morning, a great warrior passed to his reward."

The Internet: Still Weird

Every so often, I check out the search terms that bring people to this blog. They're often strange and hilarious, sometimes creepy, and there are a ton of people out there who want to know all about Evan Michelson.

I had to laugh at this one. Someone searched "conservative woman" and got a picture of Jane Seymour Tudor. Too true, mon! Someone using the network at a Catholic boarding school in Canada found my blog (and a picture of Jonathan Rhys Meyers) while googling "transvestites". Also very correct.

I've also learned that people are very interested in taxidermied Italian Greyhounds, and that they think Bette Davis was in Beetlejuice. Fools. That was Sylvia Sidney. Oh, and Bob from La Bamba. Everybody loves Bob, but mostly me.

Other favorites:

"ghost great grandmother died childbirth" - came to the right place, buddy.
"my grandma - how did she look like"
"the initials bb as message from god in a dream?"
"tudor grammar" - wow, we should meet.
"gay construction workers tumblr"
"where them girls at blyth barrymore was buried" the fuck
"mid-century unicorn"

I have heard you, internet. I will continue to provide content about gay construction workers, creepy death stories, and 1950s unicorns. Also the Tudors. You're welcome.

Godfrey!

Oh shaith! December is Bill Powell month on TCM.

You can probably tell a lot about what old actors people prefer. In fact, I'm sure there is a personality test about it online. Example: I hate Clark Gable. He was an excellent actor, but was only able to play a charming alpha rake. He was a douchebag loser in real life and it shows in every frame - you can't trust him, even when he's the good guy. It's in his face and fake teeth. You just know.

Conversely, there is William Powell, who seems to inspire the truest love in everyone, not excluding me. I am often surprised by how many people know who he is, but people really love The Thin Man.

He is urbane and charming, yet the best at understated wry comedy.

He was briefly married to Carole Lombard, my other favorite. She went on to marry Gable - not advised. I believe I've already covered this twice. Powell & Lombard remained best friends for the rest of her life, and she (charmingly, in her way) would later refer to him as "That son of a bitch," who "Never stopped acting, even in bed."

What, you don't keep a framed publicity shot of Bill Powell on your desk? That's too bad.

Kevin O'Hare: Last year at this time, you injured yourself when you fell from the tree house on your property that you like to sleep in sometimes. Have you been back up there since the injury?

Joan Baez: Of course I have.

goodbye, t.

it's sad that only with something like this do we appreciate the fragility of life. but what do you do with that knowledge?

Urban Archaeology!

While putting some textiles away after an exhibit, I noticed what appeared to be child graffiti on the bare plaster walls of a small closet underneath the stairs. I pushed the dozens of dusty tablecloths back to find signatures, a crude drawing of the British flag, the alphabet in a wobbly cursive, and other apparently random scribbles. One of the signatures, in a child's pencil scrawl, was "Selma".

Selma Goldberg lived in the house from 1897 to 1904. I was VERY excited to see this name after having spent my summer researching her family. She was a little girl when she lived in this house, prime age to be hiding under the stairs and tagging up secret places.

What was more exciting, and strange, was that none of the museum staff knew about the writings. Oooh discovery! Although I felt like - really, guys? You've never skulked around inside of the closets...? Because that was basically my first move after taking this position. Phone flashlight in the closets, and open all the books. That closet is the only place in the house that wouldn't have been refinished or painted or stripped in some way over the years or during the renovation. The place has been a museum for 35 years, so the director checked the archives for any mention of the scribbles during the renovation or after - nothing. People had to have noticed them, but the "Selma" inscription is very hard to see in the dark, and that's what gives the scribblings a little more relevance and gravity or age.

I might not have thought to look for anything in an understairs closet if we didn't have one in my childhood home, and if I hadn't written in a few closets myself. Secret inscriptions are apparently a big historic homes "thing," but no one knows about that sort of thing here because we have so few of them.

Top says Hattie, with Selma below. I need to figure out who Hattie was.

This says Annie. There was a young girl by the name of Annie living in the house beginning in the nine-teens.



The alphabet in a childlike but stylized cursive scrawl.

Fat, rat, cat, carved into the inside of the doorframe. This kind of reminds me of that period after kids become comfortable forming letters into words, and start writing on everything.

Another interesting detail, noticed after emptying the closet and crawling inside with a lantern, was that all of the undersides of the stairs are numbered. The staircase came in three pieces from somewhere on the east coast, and each step was apparently numbered for ease of assembly. The lettering is so period and fancy, an amusing secret construction detail.



It is interesting to think of simple workaday details being around for GENERATIONS after you are dead. The guy who wrote his fancy "N" on each plank - did he think someone would ever be interested in that? Or that those letters would ever be seen? Of course not! And now it's on the internet. It's something living people rarely think about, or I assume. I used to frame pictures in little galleries around town, and it kind of weirds me out to think that things that I put together and possibly designed will be in someone else's family for god knows how long. We used to sign everything we did. Sometimes people were rude. Will some kid one day turn a frame over and wonder, was my great-grandfather a dick, or were the initials of the person who assembled this really "FU"?

I'm not sure why I think it's weird that our belongings will outlive not only us but the memory of us, particularly since half of my shit used to belong to other people I have never met. How fucking strange is that? Anyone who loves antique things has to deal with this. The hand mirror I use every day to check if the back of my hair is a rat's nest is a 100+ year old stray from an ebony vanity set. I passed on the bristle brush. Can't help but wonder about whatever girl may have had this thing first.

Fragments

Great article about self-control/determination vs. talent when it comes to success. I've learned a lot about myself in this last year, but I have to say that most of it I seem to have already known, but ignored. Bad sentence, see if I care. I think I have below-average self control (I can justify anything as necessary mental health concessions), but enough dogged fixation on my goals to compensate for it somehow. It also helps when goals = pleasures. What I am doing now is what I would do if money wasn't a question. In fact, money has nothing to do with me, and that's the way I like it. Yeah, there's a footnote, it's called STUDENT LOANS and ask me about it in ten years if you want to but I'll probably slap your face.


Rupert Everett is my new favorite person, ever. He's so cheeky and funny and sassy and charming and funny! This is an insightful, unusual documentary about the travails of Byron.

An article about the fluctuating dress sizes of Marilyn Monroe. I have a few comments about this. One, from whence comes this desire to call her fat? Are people trying to dislodge the pedestal she's on? Get over it, hypocrites. Of course Elizabeth Hurley thinks she's fat. Elizabeth Hurley is also shaped like Jarvis Cocker. Next, the comments. The inability of women to find suitably flattering clothing in the mass-production market is no surprise to me, but it is both heartening and irritating to see how prevalent the problem really is. Women are expected to fit into one of five generic sizes, which are all basically the same size, but larger, with no consideration for proportion. The hourglass figure, so prized (once), is actually a fucking nightmare to dress.

Conclusion! I am going to become a tailor in my free time. Once I master this, I will make my own fitted clothing. I took my great-grandmother's sewing box out today and hemmed a pair of pants (with instructions from the internet) by hand. Not fucking around! This is one of those things that I will end up doing instead of reading books for expensive classes.