Well here we are. The past month has seen the advent of a new administration as well as a sustained wave of resistance in many forms. Hanna and I also got the unwelcome news on February 1st that our landlord would like to put his condo up for sale. We've been in our current residence for just under three years and were hoping for a few more. It was not to be. So we are looking for new housing in the midst of the Boston winter. Ugh.
Nonetheless, we persist.
Book Notes
Of those four, the one I recommend most highly is Rothstein's The Color of Law. It is a timely reminder of the long history of government-sponsored segregation in American housing. I was least impressed with the Hymnowitz -- my own fault, really, given that I said "sure!" to my editor before realizing the reason her name sounded familiar was that she is the author of this gem on how feminism has "turned men into boys".
As I write this newsletter I am also, finally, finding time to read Ben Aaronovitch's latest installment of his Peter Grant urban fantasy series, The Hanging Tree. If you haven't read Aaronovitch and like mysteries plus magic, hasten thee to the nearest library or bookstore (or your e-book delivery system of choice) and see out Rivers of London (aka Midnight Riot in the American) and discover the wonders therein.
Cat Assist With Things
Gerry assists me in writing up my review of The Color of LawChurch
Arlington St. Church on the day of the Women's March (via WBUR)
We continue to attend Arlington St. Church -- or as Hanna likes to call it, "that big building where we go and sit for awhile on Sundays." Last weekend I tip-toed out of my Quiet Person cocoon and assisted with the set-up and tear-down of for a Black Lives Matter event. It felt important to help out, even if I wanted to sleep for twenty-four hours after.
Library Life
We now have a Twitter account and are beginning to think how to put our values into action with a team of volunteers we are calling the Concerned Archivists Alliance.
I was also tickled that our first media request was from Detroit Public Radio -- now that I've been interviewed by NPR it seems like I've definitely "made it"!
At the MHS, my weekly routine has deviated from the usual shifts at the reference desk and supervision of the reading room with the addition of an afternoon each week processing a new manuscript collection in order to make it available for researcher use (this is what Hanna does almost all day, every day!); it means I get to spend much more time actually getting to know the contents of this specific collection than I typically do when answering reference questions -- so that's quite fun! I am working to organize the correspondence and personal papers of one Alice Glibert Smith Bourgoin (1897-1984).Born in Massachusetts, Alice graduated from Smith College in 1919 and traveled extensively in Europe with her older brother before marrying a French engineer in her early thirties and moving with him to French Indo-China. The marriage was a deeply unhappy one, for reasons I am still trying to understand, and they ended up divorcing after WWII; Alice never remarried. Her detailed correspondence to her parents describes life in Indo-China as the wife of a French colonial in vivid, often harshly critical, detail. I am excited to be making this collection available for our researchers who more and more often come seeking twentieth-century voices.
#amquilting
#fanfic
In late January, Hanna found a name in a collection she was processing, "Captain Victor Gascoyne-Cecil," while going through some papers at work, and challenged myself and a friend of ours to spin a piece of fanfic from the name. The result is a Grantchester fic that Kivrin and I have been co-authoring via back-and-forth emails. Still in progress, the piece clocks in at four chapters roughly drafted and a fifth just started. We published chapter one last weekend: Which Holy Estate. It's a story about marriage and commitment and awkward conversations with ex-partners who turn up asking for favors. There will probably eventually be kissing and an unconventional wedding or two.food & drink
drink of the month: butterscotch hot chocolate
We make a lot of hot cocoa in our household during the winter, and like to mix it up with different additions for flavor. A favorite variation of mine this year makes use of butterscotch chips. Here's the recipe for two servings:
24 oz milk (we use whole or 2%)
2-3 Tablespoons butterscotch chips
2 Tablespoons cocoa power
a dash of fresh-ground nutmeg
#resist
Only 628 days until the midterm elections. We can do the thing!
Some longer reads that I've kept going back to thinking about in the last month:
Corey Robin @ n+1 | The Politics Trump Makes: Is Trump, Like Carter, a Disjunctive President?
Timothy Snyder @ In These Times | 20 Lessons from the Twentieth Century on How to Survive in Trump's AmericaEvery President is aligned with or opposed to the regime. Every regime is weak or strong. These two vectors—the political affiliation of the President, the vitality of the regime—shape “the politics Presidents make.” That phrase is the title of Yale political scientist Stephen Skowronek’s classic study of the presidency, which, when it appeared in 1993, completely altered how political scientists understand the institution and its possibilities. [continue reading]
Jeff Sharlet @ The New York Times Magazine | Donald Trump, American Preacher1. Do not obey in advance. Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked. You've already done this, haven't you? Stop. Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom.
2. Defend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don't protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.
3. Recall professional ethics. When the leaders of state set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become much more important. It is hard to break a rule-of-law state without lawyers, and it is hard to have show trials without judges.
4. When listening to politicians, distinguish certain words...[continue reading]
The speaking style Trump’s critics call crude — the smirk, smile, snarl and shrug; the digressions; all that is “very, very, very big,” “amazing” or “huge” — represents to his followers not vanity but the public intimacy of a man utterly himself. He does not try to claim, “I’m like you.” His promise is that he’s better than you. Not a servant; a leader. The one who acts.
The darkest set piece in Trump’s current lineup, a parable of strength and danger combined, is the monologue I call “The Bullet.” You can see Trump perform it in the video of the rally he held in Dayton, Ohio, in March, the day after protesters shut down his rally in Chicago. He holds up a fist to show its size, a move played for laughs and power: He’s telling us, again, about the size of his genitals. He gets away with it because he’s joking. “But just to finish on torture,” he continues, although he hasn’t yet begun. “I started by saying they’re chopping off heads. Because you have to do a little bit of warm-up.” So he talks some more about terrorists “chopping off heads,” how hard it is to win when you have “rules.” [continue reading]
#BostonWinter
Most of the conversations I have with friends and colleagues these days begin with the reflexive, "How you doing?" that the asker usually immediately undercuts with an apologetic, "I mean, how well are any of us doing, right?" To which I usually reply, "We're doing it one day at a time, right? One day at a time."
Resist, persistently.
In friendship,
Anna