Our friends are a movie we watch on the phone

[sovay]

I am experiencing adjustment difficulties. Shockingly, it was extremely relaxing to spend a weekend in a house where I could step outside without having to listen for the absence of footsteps on the shared stairwell and then don gloves and disinfect my way through three different doors and where it was possible to find stretches of land and water sufficiently depopulated that I didn't need a mask screaming up all my sensory issues every second I was outside. I slept better on Cape Cod. Acres better. Just not long enough. I know by definition there is no escape from a pandemic unless one happens to live in Antarctica or one of the countries that treated the oubreak of a virulently mortal disease like a humanitarian crisis rather than a personal inconvenience, but apparently the mere ability to take a walk without a significant escalation of physical and mental stress makes a real difference. Also I had the sea. Now I have a dry street full of people who crowd the sidewalks and only about half wear their masks because isn't the pandemic over? Isn't that why everything is reopening? Isn't the economy so important? Is an island micronation too much to ask for?

On the bright side, for the first time in months, I have new books: Scott R. Jones' Shout Kill Revel Repeat (2019), Annemarie Schwarzenbach's Lyric Novella (1933), and Cees Nooteboom's Monk's Eye (2016). I started the last this evening and am so far enjoying it very much. You may see why.

Have some links.

1. As previously mentioned but not directly linked, the Criterion Channel has made a valuable portion of its collection free to view without subscription: Black Lives.

2. On words from the outside and the inside: Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell, "Translating Black Lives Matter into Yiddish."

3. I was struck by many things in this recent interview with Jon Stewart, but especially this line: "The police are, in some respects, a border patrol, and they patrol the border between the two Americas."

4. Courtesy of osprey_archer: I had never before heard of Edith Maude Eaton, the pioneering Chinese-Canadian/American author who wrote under the pen name Sui Sin Far. I am going to try to get hold of her collection Mrs. Spring Fragrance (1912). That edition looks as though it contains her autobiographical essay "Leaves from the mental portfolio of an Eurasian" (1890), too.

5. Courtesy of moon_custafer: the ultimate list of utterly insane old money names. I have serious difficulty believing I didn't receive spam from some of these people in the mid-2000's. Lucretia Le Bourgeois must have been trolling.

I would like not to be so tired all the time. I would like to be writing. I would like my job not to wipe me out mentally for the entire day. I would like a lot of things I suspect are impossible. At least I had the sea.

Comments

[gwynnega]

That Jon Stewart quote is really something.

I'd never heard of Edith Maude Eaton either, but I'd like to read her work. I had heard of Cees Nooteboom (via Dutch musician friends) but just now was the first time I'd read anything by him. He's great!

Those old money names are marvelous.

[sovay]

That Jon Stewart quote is really something.

It is difficult to refute.

I'd never heard of Edith Maude Eaton either, but I'd like to read her work.

I enjoyed the story hosted by the Library of America! There is also a very attractive-looking collection of her nonfiction and early fiction which I fear I may have to wait for libraries to come back into vogue to pursue, since it's priced academically.

I had heard of Cees Nooteboom (via Dutch musician friends)

That's neat!

but just now was the first time I'd read anything by him. He's great!

I read those three poems, especially the one about the dead, and essentially insta-bought the collection.

Those old money names are marvelous.

"John Jacob William Waldorf Astor" is just about the only one I don't suspect of having been generated by feeding the complete works of P.G. Wodehouse into a neural net, and that's only because I know the Astors were real.

[moon_custafer]

There were multiple generations of 18th-century Anglo-Irish noblemen named Clotworthy Skeffington.

I’ve always supposed that the reason upper-class types so often go by weird childhood nicknames like “Bunny” is because when you have the same name as your father and grandfather, it’s the only way to avoid confusion and claim some small degree of individuality for yourself; but names like the one on the list would give additional impetus, I think. Being Old Money must be sort of like living in a tiny rural hamlet*, only with better plumbing.

Added: Just noticed “Norton Wharton Wigglesworth.” (I used to know a Leo J. Wigglesworth—the name suited him actually, he was very good-looking but in an odd, cartoonish way) I also once came across the name “Etheline Challenger” on a form I was processing while temping for an insurance company.

A lot of these make me realize that not only Wodehouse, but Lovecraft and Howard as well, weren’t exaggerating all that much when it came to creating character names.

Furnifold McLane Simmons is a name out of Lackadaisy Cats. Mr. Percival Chubb is a character Dickens decided to cut from Nicholas Nickelby. Penrose Perkins, Jr., otoh, is totally a fast-talking crime-beat reporter.

* I saw a news story years ago about a local election in Cape Breton where several of the candidates had to run under their nicknames because they were all named Ronald Douglas MacLaren or something like that.

[handful_ofdust]

My personal favourite is "Earlina Taunt."

[sovay]

My personal favourite is "Earlina Taunt."

It sounds simultaneously classy and shady at once!

[sovay]

There were multiple generations of 18th-century Anglo-Irish noblemen named Clotworthy Skeffington.

I'm so sorry.

One of the things I appreciate about the Austrian branch of the Taaffes is the way they regularly turned out people with names like Ludwig Patrick Taaffe. (My actual favorite Irish-Austrian name is Maximilian Karl Lamoral Graf O'Donnell von Tyrconnell, but Gottfried Freiherr von Banfield rates an honorable mention for being a flying ace with a flying boat.)

(I used to know a Leo J. Wigglesworth—the name suited him actually, he was very good-looking but in an odd, cartoonish way)

(That does sound appropriate.)

Furnifold McLane Simmons is a name out of Lackadaisy Cats. Mr. Percival Chubb is a character Dickens decided to cut from Nicholas Nickelby. Penrose Perkins, Jr., otoh, is totally a fast-talking crime-beat reporter.

I agree with all of three of these assessments and would love to see the Lackadaisy character design. Penrose Perkins Jr., I assume, is played by Lee Tracy?

I saw a news story years ago about a local election in Cape Breton where several of the candidates had to run under their nicknames because they were all named Ronald Douglas MacLaren or something like that.

That is funny to the point where I laugh every time I read this sentence, thank you.

[moon_custafer]

I can’t remember the exact name, but Ronald was definitely part of it because one of them was running as “Ragin’ Ron.”

[sovay]

because one of them was running as “Ragin’ Ron.”

That just makes it funnier.