The Orphanmaster by Jean Zimmerman
The Orphanmaster is another National Public Radio recommendation for people who like historical fiction, which I really do. I remember being a kid, and yawning my way through history, memorizing dates, it all seemed so irrelevant. Discovering historical fiction was like a light going on in a dark room for me – clever authors have found ways to illuminate events otherwise beyond my comprehension or worse – events I have a hard time making myself care about.
Suddenly, the times are right now and relevant when the right author handles it, and it isn’t always easy to get it right. I have a few very favorite authors – Philippa Gregory, Zoe Oldenberg, Sharon Kay Penman, Jean Plaidy, Edward Rutherford – authors who do a lot of research before they ever sit down to write a novel, and from whom you can learn a lot. They get the nature of the dialogue right, they get the customs, traditions and mind-sets right, and they get it right when a person is born ahead of his or her time in terms of the challenges they face.
I couldn’t put Orphanmaster down. It has to do with an era in American history which barely gets a paragraph in many history books, when the Dutch had a colony on what is now Manhattan Island, and trading posts up what is now the Hudson, into what is now New York. It was New Amsterdam, and many of the street names in modern day New York reflect their Dutch origins.
The Orphanmaster‘s main character is not the Orphanmaster. He is a supporting character to the main character to a girl orphaned at 15, daughter of a Dutch man and wife who were not rich, but who did all right. They had a business, they traded, Blandine learned many things before they died, leaving her an orphan. She was determined to be what would now be an “emancipated minor,” but until she turned 16, she was semi-legally under the responsibility of the Orphanmaster, who sort of kept hands off and sort of watched out for Blandine. She lives on her own and is a successful trader, in her early twenties. She is also a very clean housekeeper, and has plans to grow her trading business, and has a serious suitor she intends to marry.
Orphans start disappearing, and we discover a monster, a witiga, is on the loose. Blandine, and her new friend Drummond, are intrigued and disturbed by the disappearance of orphans, and the bloody, ritualistic mutilations of the orphans by the legendary Witiga.
It’s well written. You want to keep reading and keep reading because you want to know how it ends and how they are able to solve the problem.
It’s not one of the best books I’ve ever read for one reason – the author had the main characters talk as if they were modern people, using modern language, like ‘stuff.’ There was great openness between Blandine and her male friends. Blandine made all her own decisions, made her own arrangements and had full freedom, going where she wanted, doing what she wanted. The author explains it as part of the Dutch system, where some women had a lot of freedom, but I have a really hard time believing in a Dutch colony in the late 1600’s that any woman had the freedom Blandine had. There are parts of the novel where I am reading fast because I want to know what happens next and I get stopped up because Blandine says or does – or even THINKS – in a way that is very modern, and I just can’t buy it.
We are who we are. There are many smart women. Most women through the centuries have had to learn to maneuver in whatever societal constrictions they have been allowed. I suspect there were a lot of societal restrictions in New Amsterdam, and Blandine’s freedom to take off with only her male servant, to run off and live with a man not her husband (even though they are both escaping death sentences), to live an unescorted life . . . I just have a hard time buying it. I know how restricted women are even to day. Four hundred years ago, women were more restricted, and worse, we bought into it. We didn’t have a lot of choices.
So I like this book, and I think there is a lot of information that is true of the settlement of New Amsterdam, I loved the geography and the physical descriptions, I loved the maps included, I loved the descriptions of food and living conditions. I do not buy the heroine, not for one minute. I do not believe, in that historical context, she would have been possible.
Christ Church Antique Fair 2013
More people attending the Preview, more tickets sold, more people buying up antique linens, jewelry and silver . . . I think we’ve turned a corner on the economy. People seem to be feeling more optimistic, seem to be less concerned about buying a small luxury 🙂 I never see any pearling boxes, or Arabic calligraphy . . .
Christ Church has sponsored this Antique Fair for 56 years now; it is well-respected and well-attended by antique-loving Pensacolians. It raises a majority of the money the church uses to support charities in the communities, and all the labor is lovingly performed by the Episcopal Church Women, who toil and prepare for this event for months. It is open today (Saturday) until five, and from 11 – 3 on Sunday, February 3rd. Admission is $7.
The Death of Bees by Lisa O’Donnell
Death of Bees was another powerful recommendation by National Public Radio.
I believe in a greater power, in a God who sends things my way and that I am meant to be paying attention. Several books have been recommended to me lately which I didn’t choose, or might have avoided had I known how painfully they dealt with poor parenting and children in the depths of horrific poverty.
Here is what the lead into the book says:
Today Is Christmas Eve,
Today is my birthday,
Today I am fifteen,
Today I buried my parents
in the back yard.
Neither of them were beloved.
Oh my goodness! I am sucked in immediately. And immediately I am overcome by the grinding nature of poverty, the enormous amount of energy it takes just to be fed, to have a roof over your head, to function in the bureaucracy that seeks to ameliorate the burdens of poverty.
I am horrified by the lives of innocent children in the hands of people who should never have responsibility for anyone, even themselves, their decision making skills are so non-existent. There are parents who have no idea what self-sacrifice GOOD parenting requires, who raise children who are often trying to survive their own parents.
The Death of Bees has redemption. It has two sisters who love one another and are smarter than the average child. It has a neighbor who notices, not in a snoopy or intrusive way, but in a kind, helping and ultimately sacrificial way. It has moments of black humor, when the neighbor’s dog keeps digging at the parental graves in the backyard and bringing bones inside just at the worst moments.
Ultimately, it is a tale of survival, in spite of the parents, in spite of the system, in spite of betrayals by family and friends. There is a glimmer of hope that life may be different for these sisters, if they can survive their upbringing and overcome their childhood.
Now, go read the book 🙂
Amitav Ghosh and River of Smoke
The National Public Radio website recommended this book as one of the best historical fiction reads, and I had never heard of it, so I ordered it. I ordered it in spite of the little voice I had in my head reminding me that this was the second in a trilogy, that the first is Sea of Poppies. I was too eager. I wanted to jump right in, and the review said it could be read stand-alone. I had read Ghosh’s Glass Palace a couple years ago for book club, loved it, and was eager to read this one.
With a raging cold and no possible way I can be around humanity, it was a good time to start. Just picking up the book, it has a dense feel. Once you start, it is like being suddenly in a whirlpool, drowning in new words, characters who have more than one name and more than one identity, whirling between England, Mauritius, Hindustan, Gujerat, Hong Kong, Macau and China, whirling between cultures and professions and trades, but oh, what a ride.
It would have been helpful to be reading River of Smoke on an iPad, where I could poke at a new word and it would give me the meaning, but in truth, you can guess a lot of the meaning of the vocabulary from the context. The seafarers all speak a language sort of like Jack Sparrow, a pidgen language filled with simplified grammar and with words from many nations and cultures. It forces you to slow down. It’s worth it. It would also be nice if you could poke on a place-name and have Google Earth show you where it is. There used to be a website called Google Books, and you could put in a book and it would show you the places in which actions in the book took place; that would be particularly handy reading this book, provide context in place-relations.
But reading slowly is it’s own reward. This book has depth, depth of character, depth of textures and senses, and depth of morality. I love a book like this where you can smell the smoke drifting over the water, where you can smell the sewer and bloated animal corpses floating outside the foreign hongs of the Canton traders, you can feel the textures of the textiles and see their colors, you can taste the exquisiteness of Macau cuisine and you can hike in a Hong Kong not yet settled by anyone, Chinese or foreign.
The scope of time covered by the major part of the story is short, although there are years of back-stories for several characters. The period is 1837-8, during which the Chinese Emperor decides to put teeth in the long established edict against opium trade to China. The edict had been in place, but not enforced, and China watched her citizens sink into opium addiction and lowered productivity. The traders were making fortunes – shiploads of money. Opium was grown in India and shipped from there to China.
When the ban against shipping opium into China is announced, many traders believe it is just another attempt to attain greater bribes on the part of the mandarins, and decline to obey. There is great debate, and while it is lively in the book, it is based on documents from that era, many of the arguments word for word. Traders stood to loose a great deal of money, in truth, it would ruin most of them to lose their shipments.
There is a side story I also like, that of the botanical trade between China and England, and the importation of many of the garden plants we take for granted today, which were unknown until sent from China. Camellia – one of which is the plant for tea, did you know that? Roses, azaleas, orchids – many many familiar plants would be missing from our gardens were it not for their introduction during this period.
Ghosh gives us disparate characters of many cultures and upbringings, and slowly weaves them together, each one tangential to all the others, some closely interwoven. It is a fascinating read, and I can’t wait for the next volume. I may have to go back and read Sea of Poppies while I am waiting.
Payback is a Bummer
People all around Pensacola are dropping like flies; the weather fluctuates between hot and humid and cold and dry, with thunderstorms marking the boundaries, and there are colds and flu popping up everywhere. I’ve flown serenely through the season without much problem, just a little four day cold around Christmas, feeling thankful for my strong immune system. I may have been a little smug.
And then, WHAM, it hit. One minute I was in a meeting, and the next, as I headed home, I was sniffing and reaching for a tissue. It quickly got worse. It was one of those nights where you can’t sleep because you are drowning in your own mucus. I know, I know, too much information, too graphic. Trust me, the reality has been worse. I stayed in bed most of Friday, and Saturday, when I was feeling better, we discovered our water heater has sprung a leak. All that mopping up was probably good exercise; once we got all the water up we were OK. Yesterday, my sniffles had turned into aching, irritated sinuses, so I spent the day putting warmth on my face.
This morning, we have the plumbers coming in with a new water heater, I feel marginally better, and I know I will feel a LOT better once I can get a hot shower 🙂
There was a huge blessing in all this. Our calendars for January and February are full, winter is the active season in Pensacola. We have events, we have commitments, and we have house guests coming. In the entire period, I only had five dates with no obligations, and that was this weekend. It’s a strange thing to be thankful for, but I thank God to be sick during a time when I can stay home and take care of myself, and I don’t have to call anyone and renege on an obligation.
It’s also wonderful that if the water heater was going to go (and it is ten years old) it burst while we were here, and we were able to stop the flow and mop up the water before it caused a lot of damage. We had a water heater go out several homes ago, while we were out of town, and oh, what a mess we came back to, and it took forever to get all the carpeting dried out and replaced. It’s wonderful that we could take care of this BEFORE our house guests start arriving.
We’ve been exploring tankless heaters; our heater is smack in the center of the house, a terrible location, where, if it goes, it can cause a lot of damage. We’ll go ahead with a regular old-fashioned heater this time, but suddenly, we have some urgency to trying to install tankless – maybe in the next couple of years. We had tankless heaters in Germany, and in the Middle East; we are used to them and comfortable with the idea. I like the idea of not keeping water warm when we are not using it, and heating it only when we do. I also like the idea of not having gallons and gallons of water spilling into my kitchen, dining room, living room and family room when the tank goes 😦
I miss my energy . . . I no longer feel smug, no longer assured of my good health. I’d forgotten how wonderful it is to be normal, without sinus pain, without this thick-headed draggy feeling. I think I’m on the mend; the last three days I couldn’t even begin to think about writing a blog entry . . .
NBK Scam Kuwait
I received this three times this morning, in my Intlxpatr mail account. Trust me, Intlxpatr never had an NBK account, not as Intlxpatr. If you get this message, delete. It is a scam:
Obama and US Politics Today
LOL! This week’s New Yorker Magazine cover:
Online at the New Yorker you will also find this hilarious article by Andy Borowitz:
JANUARY 15, 2013
REPUBLICANS ACCUSE OBAMA OF USING POSITION AS PRESIDENT TO LEAD COUNTRY
POSTED BY ANDY BOROWITZ
Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/01/republicans-accuse-obama-of-using-position-as-president-to-lead-country.html#ixzz2IRa0GZf7
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Responding to reports that President Obama is considering signing as many as nineteen executive orders on gun control, Republicans in Congress unleashed a blistering attack on him today, accusing Mr. Obama of “cynically and systematically using his position as President to lead the country.”
Spearheading the offensive was Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas), who charged the President with the “wanton exploitation of powers that are legally granted to him under the U.S. Constitution.”
Calling him the “Law Professor-in-Chief,” Rep. Stockman accused Mr. Obama of “manipulating a little-known section of the Constitution,” Article II, which outlines the power of the President.
“President Obama looks down the list of all of the powers that are legally his and he’s like a kid in a candy store,” Rep. Stockman said. “It’s nauseating.”
The Texas congressman said that if Mr. Obama persists in executing the office of the Presidency as defined by the Constitution, he could face “impeachment and/or deportation.”
Noting that the President has not yet signed the executive orders on gun control, Rep. Stockman said that he hoped his stern words would serve as a wake-up call to Mr. Obama: “Mr. President, there’s still time for you to get in line. But if you continue to fulfill the duties of President of the United States that are expressly permitted in the Constitution, you are playing with fire.”
WOW! New YMCA For Pensacola in Maritime Park?
Fresh from the Pensacola News Journal Page:
Wow. Wow. Wow.
A $5 million pledge by Quint and Rishy Studer has kick-started a drive to build a new downtown Pensacola YMCA on a waterfront site at Community Maritime Park.
Studer said this afternoon he is interested in seeing a new YMCA downtown because of the positive impact it can have on children and adults, on community health and on residential development in the downtown area.
Studer said his pledge is contingent on the YMCA being located on a waterfront site at the southwest corner of the park, and that the project move forward at a rapid pace.
“We told them (the YMCA board) if they are serious, this has to move quickly,” Studer said. “Emotionally, Rishy and I can’t take another long, drawn-out things like with the stadium. We can’t take getting beat up again.”
Studer said the YMCA project, tentatively estimated at about $10 million, would be an excellent fit for the Maritime Park.
“There is a vacant piece of property there and either there’s going to be nothing on it, or a private developer will build something, or there can be a YMCA there.”
Brian Hooper, chair of Mayor Ashton Hayward’s Urban Development Advisory Committee, said a new YMCA in the downtown area was a key recommendation of the report released last month.
“One of the most common suggestions we heard from the public was the strong desire to see a family-oriented community center downtown,” Hooper said. “As our final report recommended, a new YMCA in downtown Pensacola would provide those who live and work in the community with a centrally-located hub for recreation, wellness, learning, and community. And I’m excited to see that many of our recommendations — such as this one — are already being acted upon.”
In addition to Studer’s pledge, community benefactor Terri Levin said she is co-chairing the YMCA fundraising committee.
Levin also said she will be making a dollar pledge to the project but has not yet decided the amount.
Pensacola developer Eric Nickelsen and real estate developer Joe Buehler are co-chairing the steering committee.
Nickelsen said the 10-person, all-volunteer YMCA steering committee, which includes former Mayor Mike Wiggins and former Pensacola City Councilman Ron Townsend, is meeting later this month to recommend a site to the Y’s board of directors. It’s
expected the recommended site will be the CMPA’s waterfront parcel.
Nickelsen said the YMCA project is in the early stages of development, but has considerable momentum.
“Apparently there is good feeling among our committee members that we can be successful in our fund raising campaign,” Nickelsen said.
Not-So-Friendly Downtown Pensacola
When I first moved to Pensacola – a mere three years ago – one of the things I loved was how inviting downtown was. When we go downtown for lunch, or to the market, or to the symphony, it’s not like all the big cities where they gouge you for parking and then moan that no-one wants to come downtown. No, parking was free, and ample. It was a joy to go downtown.
Today, I was down picking up a friend to go to lunch. I got a shock:
This breaks my heart. I parked illegally, in a loading zone, while I waited for my friend.
If this is a downtown improvement, it is not one I fine user-friendly. Pensacola is trying to encourage people to come downtown, and has been successful. Why shoot the golden goose, getting greedy, putting in pay kiosks?? Why not give the customers a break? BOOOOOOOO and HISSSSSS to the Downtown Improvement Board.
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Early Voting in Florida
