One of today’s books whose subtitle should be Rape, Class & Gender in late 18th century NYC
Dear friends and readers,
Prompted by the cheerful news that the gov’t will not shutdown for the next couple of months: that on my mind, with my 2 basic income streams secured for now, I I gave into myself and for Izzy and I for New Year’s Eve have bought for the day time tickets for us to see a new musical, Dylan Thomas & Conor McPherson, Girl from North Country. For myself I signed up for 2 online courses from Politics and Prose, 3 sessions of Dorothy Sayers and 8 of Austen (the 4 finished novels) by teachers who are good at teaching and women I like — plus bought books for Sayers as I discovered I have no decent copies of precisely the 3 Kara Keeling chose. It’s Maria Frawley for the Austen. I bought Izzy’s two Christmas presents books (biography of Edith Hamilton and the latest Mary Beard, lovely hardback books — these cost less than the kindles or paperbacks).
I now have four theater events for this coming season/month and will go to all of them by public transportation. Izzy and I agreed to go New Year’s Eve by public transportation (cab, Metro, shuttle bus) — see above splurge. We take a cab on Dec 23rd to the nearby Signature theater in the evening to see Ragtime; we have not made up our minds for the Folger Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale (it is the play) whether cab or train and cabs. The one event I’ll go with the OLLI at Mason women (Quilters somewhere in remote Fairfax) I’ll go by cab and back by one of the women driving me to the Metro station and from King Street a cab. I shall still use my car but for things like I’m doing today.
Today I am heading out for the Whole Foods Market at 10 am because yesterday when I attempted it yesterday at 4 I found the sun in my eyes way too much, the crowds way too much too. For me long trips by car are over for good.
I want to remark how wonderful excellent is the Washington Post Book World. Each week good and uplifting and intelligent too essays — this week a book on an owl, on Anthony Hecht’s poetry come to mind. For myself I carry on with Sibilla Aleramo’s astonishing A Woman (Una Donna) – a kind of portrait of the artist as a trapped wife until she escapes (like Joyce); two books on mother-daughter pairs across literature; biography of Steinbeck (John, whom I’m getting to dislike very much); Hilary Mantel Pieces, beginning again Victorian women, as in Geraldine Jewsbury and Annie Thackeray Ritchie, Jane Carlyle; and re-watching the film adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay … And every day with great patience Dickens’s Little Dorrit. Learning about Disability in 19th century novels from Clare Walker Gore’s insightful book.
Clarycat was better today, eating, drinking, using the litter box when she could. She tottered about. I think she’s now at rest for the rest of the night. This morning she was doing her old routine of climbing onto my bed and sitting by me as I read – what I do the first couple of hours in the morning (and last hour at night listening then to WETA the third hour of quiet classical music. I wish she could look out the window but there’s no way unless she can sit on a bench or on a table in a cat-bed and she tumbles.
The one thing I don’t forget today — is my awareness of the continued slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Yesterday I phoned all three of my congressional representatives, wrote again to PBS to deplore their inadequate coverage of this genocidal destruction — though I concede they are improving, they had Malcolm Brabant equating demonstrations on behalf of ceasefire, the Palestinians with anti-semitism (I wrote them condemning him for that). I am no joiner, no demonstrator, so what else can I do but these kinds of things and my blogs …
Charlotte Heywood (Rose Williams) — a favorite still from Sanditon, Season 2 off to work, by the seashore
Ellen
Under the Sign of Sylvia II 
I must congratulate you, Ellen, for being a vital, engaged woman, mother, pet lover & care-giver, good citizen of the world & your country & supporter of the arts & culture! I admire your immense curiosity for all things literary, art, musical & theatrical. And on & on. You are also organized enough to look ahead, think what will bring pleasure, accomplish your plans & pull all of it off in good time & style. So, whether or not you or any of us can always be cheerful in this world today, I say to you & your followers, students & friends, Brava, Ellen!
And bon temps ahead! Judith
And I raise my glass of wine (lunch glass) to you, Judith, who keep up your cheer far more consistently than I. Those reading this may not know what a wonderful painter of scenes from the US, our culture, our home lives, she has made (as in Maker).
Keep Hope Alive — the 1984 Jesse Jackson campaign chant.
On the money front, I confirmed our (my) purchase of two new beautifully built, comfortable chairs to replace the two wrecks that at long last I threw out 2 weeks ago. A new one for my study, comfortable, pivot, on wheels, and for the living room that looks like what used to be called a club chair, also rotates or pivots and can go back to “lean” mode with a small thing at the front for one’s feet. To get to this store was an ordeal we endured (two dangerous turns across a highway lane) for going and coming back.
Two weeks ago before this security we shopped away and returned after very stressful time with two lovely winter tops for Izzy and lingerie (could not find a skirt that fitted and looked well) and two winter or sweater tops for me and a well made pair of light blue jeans.
So spent enough, have we?
And here is me debating whether to splurge on a (used) down filled antique Queen Anne wing chair. It’s covered in a pretty rosy silk & my old bones would just sink into it but I’m having trouble just deciding to go for it. The shipping alone is a small fortune….. You are also intrepid to go out in traffic shopping & courageous to just get yourselves the new stuff. Good for you!
Well I went for them immediately upon having the excuse that for now my income will keep coming. As the years go by and we know there is no a lot to come, we might as well indulge ourselves. I would not have driven there without Izzy sitting next to me and I think I might not have made it without bursting into tears and never making it. I needed someone sitting next to me for this particular set of highways and turns. Today she sallied forth in a new top which looks so well on her — that was part of my reward for the stressful afternoon at Tysons Corner mall.
Ellen, really mostly good news and a fine perspective you share here! Of course what stands out so heartwarming for me is this excerpt; “Clarycat was better today, eating, drinking, using the litter box when she could. She tottered about. I think she’s now at rest for the rest of the night. This morning she was doing her old routine of climbing onto my bed and sitting by me as I read.” I just love hearing about this joyous development and wish continued health and happiness to Clarycat and you!
I said some prayers previously and now a beautiful confirmation comes in your writing! I will say some-more and meanwhile all the best to you there!
God bless.
Lawrence
She’s been so lively today, following me everywhere, mewing away. She’s still her frail weak staggering self but she’s alive … I hope to have her here with us for Thanksgiving!
That is so precious Ellen! She is hanging in there and her life as frail as it may be is still abundantly “full of love for you” and all the good you both have shared over the years; a gift from God, all of it, and perhaps even especially now as a time of beautiful reflection ensues! This reminds me very much of my time with my Penny who even though her illness began a couple of years prior to those final moments together I have to say I know we both were appreciating every precious moment all the more, as we were given an opportunity to prepare, for the separation that inevitably comes for all who pass through this life, and as I see it until we meet again!
Thanksgiving is such a special time and I too hope and pray she is with you there to savor the happiness together, as members of a loving family should!
Since we are alone each year (Izzy and I) We are hoping very hard that Clarycat makes it past Thanksgiving. Clarycat was still better yesterday. At one point in the day she was sitting near Ian waiting for me to deliver the wet food for supper. She looked for a moment just as she used to . I know she is going, very slowly now declining, each day a new tiny thing is lost or deteriorates, and I know that it is probable the end will come swiftly and suddenly when it does. But I am hoping she will live past Thanksgiving Day. It will brighten Izzy and my day if she is still with us.
If not, it will be sadder since a main remembrance is of Jim gone. I bought a chicken for us for next Thursday; if we can find a good movie we’ll go, if not, we’ll take a walk in Old Town; it is usually quiet that day, the Town Christmas tree undecorated as yet will be up.
Here’s an Emily Dickenson stanza:
I include this stanza from a poem by Emily Dickenson (Thank you to Janis Zroback for putting it on FB):
“The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry’s cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.
The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I’ll put a trinket on.”
– Emily Dickinson
Good day to you Ellen, Clarycat and Izzy. I’m sure all who know about this situation including and especially Clarycat would love for your days to be bright!
When I had lost my Samoyed Angel to age and illness, shortly after when I spoke with a man of the cloth about it, he did agree that my heartfelt hope of someday being able to see all the dearly departed, including my companion pets; to this he said, “with God anything is possible!” Now I’ve been doing some deep thinking or soul-searching of late and a couple of very important points came to mind!
First; a concept that I pondered in the past often times and then read the profound words of Albert Einstein that correlate and corroborate my own point of view about the deepest meaning and purpose somewhere in the great beyond.
“The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms – this knowledge, this feeling is at the centre of true religiousness.”
-Albert Einstein – “The Merging of Spirit and Science”
I hope my getting into deep even theoretical concepts isn’t a distraction in any way, but, to me these things point out the absolute beauty and continuance of all the good around us and in our own personal lives!
I add this idea as I see it can only be thusly so, because this idea states what to me is the obvious “reason why all of creation even exists.”
Through a life of searching and evaluating my own experiences along with seeking to understand the simplest of everyday events for their basic “intrinsic value” I’ve concluded that God absolutely is at work in our lives and all of this we call creation! Further I know that the “Supreme Being” that has such “awesome power and wisdom” absolutely is “full of love, generosity and mercy” the likes of which we simple people can hardly scratch the surface of in our efforts to understand and imitate these principles. But now I believe that “all which is good” in us and all of this amazing existence will never be lost as it belongs to the Maker and this all-encompassing entity we call God would never allow what is good to be lost but rather as perfect separating takes place only that which is bad or wicked and anti-God or against that which is all good will be vanquished through this long but necessary process of only allowing what is good and belongs with God to be brought out from such a massive world of conflict. That to me is the reason, and it’s a “necessary all important process” that’s well worth it!
So eventually all that was ever pure, innocent, precious, loving, kind, humble and “truly of God’s actual nature” will be brought into “His loving forever embrace,” where everything that ever occurred or was lived out here as we understand it, will still exist, as it does with the “Eternal Creator of all things God!” So if that is the case, then I see how the man of the cloth was absolutely correct, because every good and precious moment is God’s, and can never be lost! As long as each of us can get hold of the basics as to why we are here and that “this idea is the inevitable reality” as long as we “can be judged as worthy and good” then “we belong with God for eternity” where all those good moments and an eternity of more to come, will be united in absolute joy and bliss!
I do believe this is why God Himself out of absolute love and mercy came as Jesus to this conflicted realm to save all that is good according to God the Father who is in Paradise!
I also do believe that these Scriptures say volumes more than I would in multiple pages with my far too many words!
Psalm 33:15 Amplified Bible “He who fashions the hearts of them all, Who considers and understands all that they do.”
Romans 8:28 Amplified Bible “And we know [with great confidence] that God [who is deeply concerned about us] causes all things to work together [as a plan] for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to His plan and purpose.”
I’m wishing and praying that you have a most beautiful and Happy Thanksgiving!
I’m only a man who wishes he could do so much more, but who am I, but a little servant that must pray to God to please hear me!
Thank you Ellen for the Emily Dickinson poetry which is so profoundly fitting and beautiful; it really makes me smile and say “oh how sweet!”
God bless,
Lawrence
From a friend: “The News Hour has pretty good coverage of Israel. Also I am listening to Democracy Now…they have a podcast is very enlightening on devastation and international law relating to Gaza.
My reply: Most of my messages come from DemocracyNow — Goodman provides interviews and videos. I also take from Naked Capitalism (a group newsletter), NYRB, LRB, New Left Review. I also often watch PBS Newshour but they are often shameful (to me) in their framing of issues: demonstrations on behalf of ceasefire now are anti-semitic by definition was one; preposterous reiterated claims hospitals are Hamas military installations … There’s a BBC Newshour on my TV, and something called France24 (excellent).