Wrote a scholar from the island that they kept from me
Having access this evening to a tableful of newspapers, I saw the front-page article in the Globe about the climatically imminent flooding of the Seaport and it was pretty much exactly like reading that water is wet. I still have difficulty regarding that neighborhood as a real part of Boston, not merely because of its glass-shelled gentrification but because it is even more obviously on loan from the sea than the rest of this flat gravel-fill town. As soon as there was sea-rise in the future, Boston was going to be under it, long before the governments and corporations of this world blew through the 1.5C deadline. I love the harborwalk and I have seen the harbor walking over it. Urban renewal was faster cash in the moment than streets that would not flood the next minute. I do not believe in the stupidest timeline because I was exposed too early to the folktale in which it could always be worse, but it is nonsensical and nightmarish to me that this is the one we are all trapped in. It is because the universe is an unjust place that so many in power are not found in the morning blue-lipped, salt-lunged, sea-strangled on land.
On the other hand, tonight I watched Hestia trot over to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch's new computer on which was still stuck the silver-paper bow of its early holiday present and pluck it in passing, after which she hunted it up and down the front hall with much batting and biting and singing the high, clear song to her prey which is usually reserved for socks. Decades after bouncing off all the George Eliot I tried after Silas Marner (1861), I seem to be embedded in Middlemarch (1872). It washed out my plans for the day which I then did little with, but I slept a generally assessed normal number of hours.
On the other hand, tonight I watched Hestia trot over to
spatch's new computer on which was still stuck the silver-paper bow of its early holiday present and pluck it in passing, after which she hunted it up and down the front hall with much batting and biting and singing the high, clear song to her prey which is usually reserved for socks. Decades after bouncing off all the George Eliot I tried after Silas Marner (1861), I seem to be embedded in Middlemarch (1872). It washed out my plans for the day which I then did little with, but I slept a generally assessed normal number of hours.
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Last night Mac ignored a fragment of meatball in favor of the tomato sauce. Now in addition to his Perma-Gravy stain he is a little orangey-red on the chin. I hope you rejoice in your real cat.
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Faro table behind you, whist to the right!
Middlemarch was one of the Eliots I bounced off of originally. The others were Daniel Deronda and The Mill on the Floss, after which I settled for periodically re-reading Silas Marner. This time around it is reminding me favorably of Winifred Holtby's South Riding, only a lot more longitudinal. I broke off at the end of Book IV and am seriously considering hitting up a library for the second half because I hate reading novels in a scroll.
Last night Mac ignored a fragment of meatball in favor of the tomato sauce. Now in addition to his Perma-Gravy stain he is a little orangey-red on the chin. I hope you rejoice in your real cat.
She is a most dear and excellent cat and that silver-paper bow is hers now. Mac sounds like the second story in this Ask a Manager. (The best one in the bunch is hands down the fifth.)
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b) Theremin in a kilt! Whoa!
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I can't even read that description without cracking up.
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I hope Middlemarch is fun.
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Thank you. She deserves celebration. An unjust universe is much improved by cat.
I hope Middlemarch is fun.
I am enjoying it! The early chapters did not absorb me on much more than a prose level, but once it began to establish its parallels and contrasts among the relationships of the cast so that something like a thesis statement started to emerge, I read half of it on the couch with Hestia curled against my knees. (I suspect the characters in whom I am most invested are the C-plot, but what else is new.)
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TRUTH.
after which she hunted it up and down the front hall with much batting and biting and singing the high, clear song to her prey which is usually reserved for socks.
Cats are a marvel and a glory upon the earth. *^^*
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It happened the other way around for me but yes very yes.
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https://youtu.be/pmGyZdx_QDI?si=jq8_2ihcCBlpdjAM
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ahahahahahaha beuatiffuly said.
*delights in Hestia*
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w00t!
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https://www.cambridgema.gov/Services/floodmap/floodviewer2025
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I'd never seen that! I don't disagree with any of it. I have been appalled by the Seaport for over fifteen years. (I understand from the article I could have gotten in on the ground floor so to speak of being appalled by it even sooner.)
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Whoopee!
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I read that one at (UK) college, sitting about the upstairs corridors, and while the only other one of hers I ever actually read was Adam Bede, I definitely preferred Middlemarch. I hope you continue to enjoy! There's also a (1993?) BBC adaptation that's supposed to be very good, and which I've always meant to check out, but I didn't read the book until after it was on TV.
I was exposed too early to the folktale in which it could always be worse, but it is nonsensical and nightmarish to me that this is the one we are all trapped in. It is because the universe is an unjust place that so many in power are not found in the morning blue-lipped, salt-lunged, sea-strangled on land.
:-/
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Remind me which Goudge you like? I've never read her, and I'm curious.
(I am so lacking in familiarity with Boston that I cannot comment on its geography, but as a denizen of San Francisco, I know all about land that's borrowed from the sea.)
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I always liked Middlemarch -- it was a bit like an Always Coming Home that I could read, fantasy about an invented but very germane culture -- but it took me FOREVER to realize how funny it is. I was an extremely earnest and literal young person.
P.
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That sounds like an excellent opening visual/plot for a story.
A story I will not be surprised to find you left stranded on the sands years ago.
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I don't require a tsunami. Just the quiet stealing in of the sea.
Cats are a marvel and a glory upon the earth.
We tell her so! (All cats are dragons under their fur.)
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I love this city of water and I should really get on learning how to sail.
*delights in Hestia*
I am telling her how the internet appreciates her!
*hugs*
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Yes! I am really enjoying it. And I will take a second try at The Mill on the Floss under advisement.
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From about the three-quarter mark I can support your decision!
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Thank you! My plans to visit a library did not survive contact with the necessary number of errands in the day, but I am indeed continuing to enjoy its brick-thick public domain scroll. I suspect that when next I can get to a used book store, I will just look for a copy.
There's also a (1993?) BBC adaptation that's supposed to be very good, and which I've always meant to check out, but I didn't read the book until after it was on TV.
I saw that! The cast is fantastic, including early breakout Rufus Sewell, and it looks to have been right at the cusp of the costume drama boom of the '90's. The previous television version was done in 1968, also has a fantastic cast, and is of course in some weird situation where part of it was burninated and the surviving episodes seem surprisingly unavailable.
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So noted! I must not have made it that far into Daniel Deronda. I might as well try it again.
Remind me which Goudge you like? I've never read her, and I'm curious.
The Valley of Song (1951) was my formative one and I still re-read it: its Anglicanism is mixed with fairy lore and classical myth to genuinely weird and numinous effect and its language is some of the most beautiful of any of her books for children or adults that I have read. I like Linnets and Valerians (1964) and do not dislike The Little White Horse (1946) even though it never made the same impression somehow. Of her adult novels, I have good memories of A City of Bells (1936) and The Dean's Watch (1960) and enjoyed more than not of Green Dolphin Country (1944), which thanks to a 1947 MGM film became the famous one of hers in the U.S. The White Witch (1958) disappointed me so much as a young reader by containing more romance than magic that I have never actually gotten around to trying it again. I anti-recommend The Heart of the Family (1953) and can really enjoy The Child from the Sea (1970) only as crackfic.
(I am so lacking in familiarity with Boston that I cannot comment on its geography, but as a denizen of San Francisco, I know all about land that's borrowed from the sea.)
(Understood!)
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She is! All of the socks in the house are her lawful prey.
I always liked Middlemarch -- it was a bit like an Always Coming Home that I could read, fantasy about an invented but very germane culture -- but it took me FOREVER to realize how funny it is. I was an extremely earnest and literal young person.
I love the Le Guin comparison. And I am enjoying the ironic but not uncompassionate narrative voice a lot.
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Thank you. If I pick it up again from the tide-line, I will let you know.
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We rent on the upper side of a hill and were out of any flood paths the last time I checked, although in about fifty years we might be in trouble from the Mystic.
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The developer (talked to and talked about in the documentary) pointed out that they have prepared. The new buildings have the electrical systems on the 3rd floor or higher, not on the ground floor. Some sidewalks have been raised. Stuff like that. His general claim is that they are preparing for the sea level rise, not being deceitful. The Aquarium has moved all of their electrical/HVAC stuff to the roof. They expect to have to move, but don't know when or where.
1993/4 Middlemarch on the tube
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I recently found a copy of this in a local thrift store but have been reluctant to get into it seeing as how there's plenty of other things hammering at the door, all eager to depress the fuck out of me. I just noticed this copy was signed by the primary author, which isn't too surprising since he is an emeritus professor at Duke here in Durham. I can remember his name popping up in articles about sea level rise that I read in the 1990s, maybe earlier. Every time a house on the Outer Banks falls into the surf and someone is inevitably quoted saying "I never imagined this could happen here," Professor Pilkey should get a royalty.
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It should work without a subscription to the Globe, since I don't currently have one.
The Aquarium has moved all of their electrical/HVAC stuff to the roof. They expect to have to move, but don't know when or where.
I don't know where, either. It was one of the anchoring features of the waterfront of my childhood.
Re: 1993/4 Middlemarch on the tube
Data point still appreciated!
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I never thought sea-rise would eat my property!
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Yes, it was the one that started it all off!
The previous television version was done in 1968, also has a fantastic cast, and is of course in some weird situation where part of it was burninated and the surviving episodes seem surprisingly unavailable.
Sounds about right, sadly!
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Nice!
Sounds about right, sadly!
. . . Bernard Hepton as one of my favorite characters from the novel, Clive Francis as another, romantic hero a baby Michael Pennington . . .
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That does sound rather unfair to have, and then burninate! I suppose at least they have most of it, which is better than none or very little, because you never know. <3
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I don't even think I knew about the VR golf simulator!
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I am not surprised but pleased to hear that it holds up to re-read: it feels like the kind of book one could just return to hang out in. (Results unsurprisingly in, Mary Garth and her C-plot my favorites.)