Book Title: Journey Into Fear
Author: Eric Ambler
Publisher: Knopf (1943), Carroll & Graf (1990)
Date: 1943 (hardcover), 1990 (paperback)
ISBN: 0375726721
Length: 243 pages
Quote: "He put the key in the lock, turned it, pushed the door open and, with his right hand, felt along for the wall for the light switch. The next moment there was a splinter of flame in the darkness and an ear-splitting detonation."
Frankly, Gentle Readers, I'm over my head trying to review this book. I've read it; I can tell you that it's a spy novel about an Englishman who survives a dangerous journey across Europe in 1939, and that there are sexy women and violent deaths but no obscene details in it.
What I can't tell you is what makes one novel in this genre better than others. It's not a mystery: we know that Graham, the good guy, will survive, and we know who's trying to kill him and why. It's an adventure, but it's a fictional adventure, so the author's portrayal of Graham's fear and courage doesn't really teach us anything.
The mystery surrounding this book, for me, is why my husband owned it. A gift? Bought to make up a dozen on a dollar-a-dozen book sale? A souvenir of childhood escape reading? He liked mysteries, but since Journey into Fear contains no puzzle to solve I wouldn't have thought he would have liked it. He owned some books that were gifts, that he'd never read...
Anyway, it was read and enjoyed all over the English-speaking world during the war years, and liked well enough to be reprinted fifty years later. And if you click on the ISBN link above, you'll open an Amazon page where reviewers who are apparently qualified to judge spy stories say this is one of the best. So I can say that, for people who like this kind of book, it's the kind of book they like.
Monday, October 26, 2026
Butterfly of the Week: Heraclides Hectorides
This week's butterfly has a large collection of names. It's the Little Widow, viuvinha, because females often have black wings. It's the Lemon Dealer with Tails, limonera coluda, because caterpillars have been known to climb on--or, admit it, eat--citrus fruit. It's the Missionary, misionera, for unclear reasons probably having to do with its having been found near a mission. In recent scientific literature it's Heraclides hectorides (or Papilio hectorides) because the Swallowtail butterflies were traditionally named after characters in literature, so in English, Spanish, or Portuguese it's the Hectorides Swallowtail, or sometimes Hector's Swallowtail. In earlier scientific literature it was given ten, count them, ten other names, including melania. ("Melania" means "dressed in black" and was the title given to Demeter, Mother Earth, in winter when fields showed rich black soil. This title still is sometimes given to black-winged female hectorides.)
Among the Giant Swallowtails Heraclides hectorides is one of the smaller species, its 3 to 4" wingspan making it about the same size as our Monarchs and Tiger Swallowtails. In the Iliad Hector was a young soldier whose son was only a child. The name may also have been chosen because among other species, such as Heraclides anchisiades, this butterfly's rose-pink to red spots remind people of Atrophaneura hector. However, hectorides' red spots tend to form bands rather than rosettes.
More white or yellow is visible on the underside.
Photo from butterfliesofbrazil.com.
Males have black wings with a continuous white stripe that often appears to form a straight white dash across the butterfly.
Photos from FaunaParaguay.com. One of the names proposed for this form was argentus, "silver." However, some individuals' band of light color is bright light yellow rather than silvery white.
Females can have a partial white stripe (the variant form Catamelas, "downward black," with black color covering the upper part of the wings)...
Photo from WikiBorboleta, Antonio Carlos F. Meira, Sao Paul.
or no white stripe, which qualifies them to be described as the form Melania...
Photo from WikiBorboleta, Frank Thomas Sautter, Santa Maria.
or a thin vestige of a white stripe, which has no special name, but is typical.
Photo by Zamoner_Maristela, Brazil, February. (Behind her, facing her around a tree, is her mate; a series of less clear photos at INaturalist document that the researcher probably found the female, who was well camouflaged as a shadow, by following a male. That's also typical for dark tropical Swallowtails.)
They are common in the central and southern parts of South America. They are not usually pests on citrus trees; they are more likely to eat native plants in the laurel family, or wild citrus-type trees in the genus Zanthoxylum, or even plants in the genus Piper. They are familiar and widely documented.
A favorite host tree is tembetari, also known as Zanthoxylon rhoifolium. This close relative of the Caribbean/Floridian "shake hand tree" has a bare trunk covered in thorns, no doubt discouraging to many predators, which may make it more attractive to butterflies. At least five Heraclides speies and two Marpesia butterflies favor tembetari as a host plant. Photo from the Argentina Nativa Blogspot, which has more information about the tree:
Some researchers believe the butterflies are trending in the direction of choosing to eat pepper leaves when they can, more than they used to do in the past, because fewer of their predators (small and large) can tolerate the amides in pepper leaves. More pepper in the diet means greater toxicity. More toxicity in any individual caterpillar a bird may eat means more security for others of the species.
Maintaining enough of their native host plants to discourage these caterpillars from munching on citrus trees, which are not their favorite food anyway, may be the key to keeping these pretty butterflies from becoming agricultural pests.
Like other big tropical Swallowtails, they can move the fore and hind wings separately. Photo from WikiBorboleta, supplied by Frederico Blanchado, Sao Paulo.
As in so many Swallowtail species, the males hang out at puddles, not avoiding males of their own or other species. They may buddy up with Heraclides or join flocks of smaller butterflies. Adult Heraclides hectorides generally seem to like to spread themselves out, keeping abundant food resources available for all. From a survival point of view, the species of other participants at a puddle party doesn't matter; when they all fly up in a predator-confusing cloud, each individual's chance of survival increases.
Photo by Cactusauria, Argentina, September.
However, especially rich sources of mineral salts can attract flocks of hectorides.
Photo by C4m1/0, Argentina, August. Polluted liquid from dung and carrion is especially rich in the mineral salts the male butterflies need. Male butterflies actually retain minerals, and no doubt bacteria that could survive and attack a warm-blooded body, while returning cleaner water to the Earth. Their role as composters is ecologically important--especially since, unlike many smaller flies, they have no instinct to rush directly from something disgusting to something humans are about to eat. Females can usually afford not to drink mineral salts since they receive minerals from the males during the mating process.
Photo by Kbraitamaral, Brazil, December. Male Swallowtails are sometimes attracted to the mineral salts in human sweat. Considering the other sources of mineral salts in their diet, male Swallowtails' licking humans' skin may seem a little too friendly. Females, who normally sip only flower nectar and fresh water, almost never touch human skin.
Females may visit a puddle party to pick up males, or the males may come to them. They may mate back to back, or face to face around a twig.
Photo by Rubelio, Brazil.
Females spend most of their time finding suitable places to lay eggs. They don't seem to require very fresh new leaves.
And they may place small groups of eggs on the same leaf.
Both photos by Alessandradalia, Brazil (Sao Paulo), September.
Caterpillars are somewhat gregarious; photos like this one don't make it clear whether siblings travel in groups for safety, or individual caterpillars merely find their way to the same fresh and juicy leaves.
Photo from WikiBorboleta, Frank Thomas Sautter, Curitiba.
Photo by Monsores_Diego, Brazil, March. These three seem to sense that by huddling together they look like an even more pathological, painful bird dropping. Message to predators: "Something already ate me, and was it ever sorry!"
Photo by Jhonatansantos, who does not disclose whether this photo documents a caterpillar mob scene in the real world, or one artificially produced by researchers rearing several broods in one garden. A large group of these big, hungry caterpillars can of course strip a host plant bare.
Observers describe them eating their way through their first four skins in about three days per instar, then spending five to twelve days in the fifth "mature" caterpillar skin. Some individuals molt into a sixth caterpillar skin before pupation; any benefit to the individuals or the species in this is unknown. Google didn't find an authoritative statement about their size range, but from the photo and video evidence they seem to grow only two or three inches long.
These three seem to be maturing as a group...
Both photos by Maria Kubica, Campina Grande do Sul. A set of four photos documenting one individual's pupation and eclosion is available from this researcher at
Chrysalides are realistically camouflaged as twigs, with what look like stubs, scars, buds, even split ends of bark. Photo by Zamoner_Maristela, Brazil, December.
The teneral butterfly's white band iridesces bluish, and some photos of this species show individuals shimmering pale blue or apple-green in some lights.
There's a video with a speeded-up time-lapse sequence showing a male butterfly's eclosion at
Music Moves Me Monday
The Music Moves Me Monday linkup has, heretofore, linked blogs that actually embed music videos. This web site does not embed videos; we only link to them. Nevertheless, this web site accepts with pleasure Curious as a Cathy's invitation to join the linkup.
What I post become playlists, but I don't plug them into a device for continuous sound. I use music links, when I come to them in my (almost) daily link hunting, as a prompt to move--if only my feet while continuing to type.
This week's prompt invited songs that promote "positive emotion and energy, order and harmony." Given that that's what music inherently does, that even when songs express sadness and confusion singing them or moving to the beat creates some pleasant emotional energy and order in our brains, that could be just about anything...
I'm never sure how anything is likely to make anyone else feel. I know we all react differently. Part of the difference has to do with how aware we, the technorati, are of our privilege and empowerment. People in the blogosphere don't have the best paid jobs on Earth and are disproportionately likely to be living with disabilities. Sometimes some of us feel that we can't do anything about situations but lie around and feel bad. I say we can at least build awareness of those situations and work for the changes we want to see. Feeling bad is for duh normies. We are (or should be) keyboard warriors.
Some people seem to have an emotional filter. They want to know what's going on only if it's going to make them feel a certain way. I've tried, but I can't even imagine how that works for them. Regardless of how I'm going to feel about things, I want to know.
But I get about half of the music links here from the Meow
which is the writing and beta reading blog for the author known as Priscilla Ann Bird. (If she and I have any common ancestors, it would have been over 200 years ago. We've not met in real life.) Her music selections are very eclectic, but incline toward a cheerful hippie philosophy as expressed in the classic works of Tom Petty, Neil Young, the Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, and the Kinks. Her stories do have an emotional filter. They are speculative fiction of a special,grandmotherly kind. Most of them, by volume, are about the cryptid creatures of a mythical Baker National Forest, and their human friends, and how they solve problems. The first revision of each scene or story goes on the blog, and people comment on that and linger to share their news, read each other's news, share links and chat about what-all they're finding on the Internet. It's a very gentle, friendly site. Some of the music is loud and discordant but the overall tone of the site is pleasant, orderly, and harmonious. It's recommended to people who like order and harmony.
I imagine that, with that set of links, each day's music link log will have an overall tendency toward order and harmony...even if one orderly and harmonious poet whose blog I follow shares memories of listening to and playing punk rock, and last week another orderly and harmonious poet shared videos of the songs from a college musical about a young man dying from cancer, and lots of people want to post "Halloween party songs." Some music is meant to reach some people where they are, emotionally. Music, generally, is likely to lead those people to a better emotional place. And this collection is being assembled on a Sunday, so some people are going to share Christian songs.
Enough preamble. Today's music links, more or less in the order I come to them:
Tom Petty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJRyOoVz5WM (Ringo Starr was in this one, too.)
Phil Wickham. (Christian content. For first-time visitors, the rule here is that religious thoughts and reviews of religious books are posted on Sundays, but religious songs may pop up anywhere. Also, although I personally am a Christian, religious content here is not exclusively Christian. This web site respects all religious beliefs, even if it's wary of large religious organizations with a history of seeking political power.)
The Beatles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-OEnyBwHrE (Arguably religious content, though then again, knowing them, it might have been about a hangover as easily as about belief in a resurrection...)
Rick Gerdes. (Religious content.)
JJ Cale.
Casting Crowns. (Christian content.)
Robert Gromotka.
Benjamin Britten. (This was a cathedral choir commissioned to perform a non-Christian work.)
Chris Isaak.
Maranatha. (Christian content.)
Roberto Cacciapaglia.
Husker Du. (I think there's an increasing level of confusion and exhaustion toward the end of this album, but we'll get back to harmony.)
America. (Song about drugs or about meditation? One of the best, or one of the worst? Your call.)
Wasted Youth.
Traffic.
Tony Bennett.
Ernest Ranglin.
Joe Bonamassa.
Avishai Cohen.
Five for Fighting.
Uncredited background music in a video of what would normally be early October scenery, though in this El Nino year we're not that far into autumn color yet. Anyway, if you're not having a perfectly beautiful October morning, somebody had one to share.
Eddie Rabbitt.
Johannes Bornlof.
Duke Ellington.
Aaron Gold.
Ella Langley.
Emancipator.
Jo Boxers.
Chequerboard.
Batch. (Rastafarian content.)
Ludovico Einaudi.
Steve Winwood.
Gerry Rafferty.
Sunday, October 25, 2026
Web Log for 10.23-24.26
Fall foliage may be peaking, but it's not at much of a peak yet. We did not have enough frost to bring out red colors as expected. Trees are now either green or bare, except ash--some yellow leaves there. Lots of yellow leaves are turning brown and crumbling on the ground by now.
Animals
It's never too late to Make a Dog's Day. It's been about a month since, while tweeting in aid of fostering dogs, I e-met someone who promised to pay the fees if I fostered a dog. I've not forgotten; a dog could be a great help in being my own nightwatchman. I haven't found my way to Kingsport yet. It will happen. I remember how to get there--just don't go as often, now that the instant-slum streets are so nasty that I don't enjoy walking around what used to be the best part of town. Meanwhile, enjoy this adorable photo essay about a former shelter dog.
Cartoons
Beth Ann Chiles shared the perfect cartoon for those days when neutral emotion, stonefaced correctness, IS the way we project love for humankind. (Because even flashing an eyebrow in a cheerful way would be a lie.) God thinks we're a delight. It is up to other people to manage their own moods.
Lens says it's for sale at Redbubble.com.
Election
I've seen a commendable absence of election ads this year. Are we having an election? We are, and if you've not already heard, both of our incumbents are being challenged. From our Left we have a fluffy "Bring it home with Joy!" campaign to vote for somebody from Bedford called Joy Powers. If we want to talk to our Congressman or his or her staff, would we rather drive to Abingdon or to Bedford? Unless you're a term limits fanatic, you're not interested in Miss Joy. She does have a nice wholesome farmwife look, but the top of her resume mentions managing county fairs. Seriously?
Then on our Right we have a Hawaii native with an impressive service record, Bert Mizusawa, challenging Mark Warner. Don't write him off as a carpetbagger because he was born out west of the West; he was brought to Virginia as an early age, went to school in Hampton...read his Wikipedia biography, and then decide what that record says to you. He is not a carpetbagger. He is a Virginia veteran.
I like Senator Warner; he has broken away from the idiots in his party and done the right thing on some occasions, but...one campaign promise Trump's kept has been to stay out of the tribal war in Europe. Cut off the money, let them get tired of fighting and negotiate their own real estate deal for themselves like the adults they appear to be. And part of the Ds' anti-Trump rhetoric has been "Let's rush in and actually fight alongside our fellow Socialists in Ukraine!"
It's getting down to really primal, primary-colored terms.
Ds map as Blue = WAR
Rs map as Red = PEACE
If you voted D for the sake of peace, sixty years ago...believe it, we have to vote R for the sake of peace now. You think Trump's support for war with Iran's bad, but it's not the Third World War. Involvement with Europe would be the Third World War. Vote D if you want to see firsthand what a nuclear bomb will do to your town. If Senator Warner makes a public commitment to oppose any form of support for any foreign war, I'll help reelect him. Otherwise, well, he has been through the wringer lately and might benefit from some time off.
Also on the ballot we have some referenda, and some counties have their own local issues of which I will stay out. About the referenda, the position of this web site is: Vote your conscience on abortion and (keeping our traditional toothless opposition to) same-sex marriage, but I think we should keep, for its deterrent value if nothing else, the ban on letting convicted felons vote. What politician wants their vote?
Music
Vince Guaraldi Trio.
Someone shared a link to Exhumed's "Unsafe at Any Speed." It's a terrifically horrific punk skit/song about the hazards of distracted driving. The lyrics are graphic and gruesome and are performed in a loud, hoarse, antiphonal shouting mode that has caused me to remember them for forty-some years as "Oo gah sock ah, Oo gah, Oo gah." You don't actually hear the words. You have to read them separately, which you can do on any ad-driven song lyrics site. What you see on the video is a skit where an old man yells at characters called Mummy, Boozy, Romeo, and Juliet to watch a speeded-up, blurry, black-and-white movie about what traffic accidents look like. Boozy is sick; Romeo and Juliet keep drooling on each other.
I cannot imagine what Youtube thought watching this video was likely to incite me to do. I can see parents thinking it's a horror show that's likely to give children nightmares. I'm an old lady who's seen more gruesome fake blood than the Mummy character's, which reminds me of my all-time cheapest Halloween costume actually. I've been online, under other names, longer than YT has; Priscilla King, the brand, has been online for twenty years now. Youtube stalled, demanding that I log in to "verify" my age. Hello? I was already logged in. Did it seem to anyone at Youtube that I wrote like a one-year-old in 2006? I'm well over 21 years old. I'm older than this song.
Anyway, Youtube really does not want you to watch "Unsafe at Any Speed." But if you're ever tempted to drive fast, it is a good song, and video, to have stored in your head. It might help.
Roberto Cacciapaglia.
Thom Yorke.
Elijah Bossenbroek.
Einar Selvik.
Deuter.
"Maggie the Afterlove Voice." Open a phone directory, stick in a pen: any name would have to be better than that. "Dime, mujer, cuando el amor se olvida, ?sabes tu adonde va?" I don't know, but it doesn't leave one wanting to hear the voice no longer loved...I actually think her singing voice is pretty good.
Tom Petty.
Joni Mitchell.
"Golden Waves." Short.
Guitar chords to go with a drone view of lovely autumn foliage.
Crosby,Stills, Nash, and/or Young.
Bobby Bare.
Aukai.
The Beatles, together and separately.
Ray Stevens. This one may provoke misbehavior if overheard by the very young. My brother and I didn't "streak" outside, but we did discover that in summer "streaking" through the house was a pleasant way to dry off after a shower. (It should be remembered that the idea of "streaking" was to move too fast for much skin actually to be seen--to disappear before any person in authority could be quite sure it had been you.)
Johnny Winter.
Hermanos Gutierrez.
Wolfmother.
R.E.M.
Aaron Copland.
Creedence Clearwater Survival.
Mamas & the Papas.
Terry Reid.
Johnny Rivers.
Olexandr Ignatov.
Rascals.
Avishai Cohen.
Royal Guardsmen.
Animals.
New Vaudeville Band.
Electric Light Orchestra.
Bob Hope.
Mastodon.
Sarah Brightman.
David Lee Murphy.
Noel Coward.
Gregory Brothers.
James Galway.
Blaine Larsen. "Viewer discretion is advised." Ooohhh, it's about suicide! If youall hear suicide mentioned you'll all rush right out and do it won't you? Regular readers? Bah. Others? I hope not. Censors and nannies? Just keep driving north and tell the people you meet that you want to be taken care of so that you will never think about (hushed tremolo) hurting yourselves, ever again. Suicide is legal, even encouraged, in at least one of the countries where this web site is most read. We can say it without fear. Suicide suicide suicide. In the US you have to do it the long hard way with cigarettes and cars and such, but in Canada you can get help to do it all at once, allegedly with very little pain. If that tempts you, start driving now. If it makes you wonder what kind of lifeforms are running Canada these days, the song won't bother you, although some people might want to skip it just because they find a slow back-beat tedious.
Benny Goodman.
Point of Grace.
Poem
Well, free verse...You've heard the expression "more truth than poetry"? This one is about 99% truth to 1% poetry, but worth thinking about.
War
This web site has no foreign policy. This web site never really supports any war, though it will not work against our own troops. Some wars may be justified but we just generally like peace.
Then I read this excellent piece in support of the war in Ukraine, and the idea that the United States should rush in to start a Third World War in aid thereof.
A long rant came to mind. I decided it was too long to post on Lillian's blog. So it's here:
"
Well, talking of widows...I am one. My husband and I lived frugally but well and I always said I didn't want anything but the house where we lived together--both of us owned better houses outside the metropolis. The house was stolen from me. I came home with lots of good memories and nice things, few job prospects, and hardly a penny...but at least I love my home. So, dang if I didn't find that I have a third cousin with the soul of a rattlesnake, who had been doing all sorts of nasty things to other relatives in the hopes of "running us off" our ancestral property. A neighborhood that had been like an intentional Christian community had become more like a lunatic asylum as everyone was trying to find out what happened. No one suspected this man because grown men don't do the kind of stupid pranks he did...stupid pranks that mostly just cost people endless petty cash and aggravation, but then they hurt some people badly and killed at least two. "Unlucky place. Better sell out and move into town!" He has apparently made some money doing this kind of thing in another State, and cashed in on the loss of all his close relatives and neighbors in his own neighborhood, before starting on this neighborhood.
He has a sociopathic kind of intelligence, perceptivity, and when he started this campaign he had strength and health. I inherited the same assets from the same source and, being younger, still have strength and health. I said, "If he doesn't kill me outright, I'll outlive him, and if he does, he'll lose everything. I am handicapped by being smaller, being bound by ethics, and not having money, but I can and will win this game."
So, how many people do you think are sending me money to help put this sociopathic relative in a suitable place with bars on the windows, or to help get a ban on spray poisons so that he can't use those with the intention of offsetting my age advantage, and how many are saying "Oh dear, you poor thing, you CAN'T go on dealing with this, you MUST sell out and move into town!"? They don't want to put any energy, much less money, into what they imagine will be a losing fight. I'm willing to commute to and from Washington every week again if called to work there again, which I might be, but I'm not willing to change my address again in this lifetime.
Well, THAT is how people feel about Ukraine now. I don't feel that way about myself, and I have a right to make that decision for myself; I do understand why people would feel that way about Ukraine. Their war seems unwinnable and, to those who've read the history of how much our Southern States lost by trying to defend the Lost Cause to the last man etc. etc., it must seem that Ukraine needs to end the war now. They have made their statement. They deserve to win on spirit, but they are going to lose on numbers. If we care about the people, some say, the thing to do is stop encouraging their war.
"
There are ways private people can encourage Ukrainians, either to keep fighting, if that's what we believe they ought to do, or just to get through this winter. This web site does salute anyone who can scrape up any money to contribute to helping private Ukrainian people get through the winter. (I think the IFCJ's television ad campaign has made that organization seem unbearably wix; you may not.) However, this web site urges all readers in all countries to vote for political leaders who want not to fight a Third World War. Russian readers especially--don't youall have any form of term limits?--but US, UK, and Canadian readers also.
Book Review: God Is Able
Book Title: God Is Able
Author: John Ellis Large
Date: 1963
Publisher: Prentice-Hall
ISBN: none
Length: 162 pages
Quote: "The director is completely equipped to magnify both your words and your actions as needed."
In the early days of television, John Ellis Large appeared on a TV show. Accustomed to preaching into a large, high-ceilinged church, he projected his voice to be heard half a block away, and made broad dramatic gestures to catch the eye of those in the back who couldn't hear the words. The director of the show broke in to explain that a mechanical device was amplifying the preacher's voice and gestures. All he had to do was "just quietly communicate."
For Large, this experience became a parable of how God is able to "magnify" our good thoughts and actions, "and thus fulfill our destiny." The sermons in this short book expound further on this theme. At times he verges on Positive Thinking or Inner Healing.
Like most books of religious essays or sermons, God Is Able contains some interesting anecdotes, quotes, and miscellaneous information readers can use even if they disagree with the author on some points, and some good general advice on Christian living.
Meanwhile, I have a short sermon to add to my comments on this book. I acquired my copy at a dollar-a-dozen library book sale. To my surprise, I found that it contained one of the bookplates libraries used to add to books donated as memorial gifts. This book belonged to my home town library. It was donated by one of my relatives, in memory of one of my teachers. "Patrons Are Requested to Use This Book with the Care That Such a Generous Gift Deserves," indeed. Patrons had used the book with care, all right; it's circulated, but it was clean and unmarked. What about the librarians? Harrumph.
This one is becoming hard to find; I doubt that the author is still living, but copies of God Is Able seem to be available only at collectors' prices.
Author: John Ellis Large
Date: 1963
Publisher: Prentice-Hall
ISBN: none
Length: 162 pages
Quote: "The director is completely equipped to magnify both your words and your actions as needed."
In the early days of television, John Ellis Large appeared on a TV show. Accustomed to preaching into a large, high-ceilinged church, he projected his voice to be heard half a block away, and made broad dramatic gestures to catch the eye of those in the back who couldn't hear the words. The director of the show broke in to explain that a mechanical device was amplifying the preacher's voice and gestures. All he had to do was "just quietly communicate."
For Large, this experience became a parable of how God is able to "magnify" our good thoughts and actions, "and thus fulfill our destiny." The sermons in this short book expound further on this theme. At times he verges on Positive Thinking or Inner Healing.
Like most books of religious essays or sermons, God Is Able contains some interesting anecdotes, quotes, and miscellaneous information readers can use even if they disagree with the author on some points, and some good general advice on Christian living.
Meanwhile, I have a short sermon to add to my comments on this book. I acquired my copy at a dollar-a-dozen library book sale. To my surprise, I found that it contained one of the bookplates libraries used to add to books donated as memorial gifts. This book belonged to my home town library. It was donated by one of my relatives, in memory of one of my teachers. "Patrons Are Requested to Use This Book with the Care That Such a Generous Gift Deserves," indeed. Patrons had used the book with care, all right; it's circulated, but it was clean and unmarked. What about the librarians? Harrumph.
This one is becoming hard to find; I doubt that the author is still living, but copies of God Is Able seem to be available only at collectors' prices.
Friday, October 23, 2026
Web Log for 10.22.26
Mostly music, again...
Animals
British butterflies, dragonflies, and a mushroom.Most species shown have close US relatives; the Painted Lady might be able to interbreed with its American cousins.
Three English egrets: Cattle Egret, Great White Egret, Little Egret.
Found on the Mirror, credited to Bovis.
In Ann Arbor, Michigan, they assume that you never check your glue traps for mice. Seriously? Do people in Michigan let mice squirm around in glue traps and desperately gnaw holes in walls, trying to pull out of the traps? If you set a trap at night, you don't check it in the morning? How lazy are people in Ann Arbor?
Music
Snowy White.
Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Incredible String Band.
The Cab.
Moby.
Reveille.
Tom Petty.
Alice Cooper.
Illinois Jacquet.
Duke Ellington.
Deuter.
The Beatles, together and separately.
R.E.M.
Los Indios Tabajaras.
Oingo Boingo.
Roy Clark.
Mark Knopfler.
Professor Long Hair.
Boogie Belgique.
Elvis Costello.
Gramatik.
Bob Dylan.
Political Violence
Rabid left-wingnut mutilates non-Left politician in Australia.
Book Review: Midnight Rising
Book Title: Midnight Rising
Author: Tony Horwitz
Author's web page: http://tonyhorwitz.com/
Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
Date: 2011
Length: 290 pages of text, 55 pages of endnotes, 3 pages of image credits, 15-page index
Illustrations: maps, old photos and drawings
ISBN: 080509153X
Quote: "Viewed through the lens of 9/11, Harpers Ferry seems an al-Qaeda prequel: a long-bearded fundamentalist, consumed by hatred of the U.S. government, launches nineteen men in a suicidal strike on a symbol of American power. A shocked nation plunges into war."
As all Washingtonians know, Harpers Ferry is a picturesque, slightly touristy but mostly unspoiled, mountain town whose distinguishing features include a quaint old railroad that still runs passenger trains to and from D.C. While waiting for the train back to the city, you may read, talk, or knit, but you can't not notice the dramatic mountain and river view. To some people, including Horwitz, it seems "spooky." If a place has the right to be haunted, Harpers Ferry has...
Fair disclosure: my primary reason for reading this book was to find out how many of the nineteenth-century images of Harpers Ferry were drawn from the railroad station (several) and how much the view has changed (not terribly much). For me, the scenery is enough of an attraction, apart from the history of this town.
However, Harpers Ferry's big tourist attraction has been the history of the act of "Northern Aggression" that, as all Southerners know, really started the Civil War. Our ancestors wouldn't have fired on Fort Sumter if a megalomaniac, but not legally insane, Yankee hadn't attacked Harpers Ferry.
After 150 years, although the issues over which people were fighting even before 1860 seem surprisingly current, it's hard to take the old war rhetoric seriously. Horwitz has a good time at the expense of both sides. Many things people said and wrote even in the early nineteenth century can be clearly identified as either Green or Greedhead, and Horwitz shares some choice expressions of Greedhead thinking in the Old South. Not only did Southerners suffer from their own form of collective megalomania, or empire-building, as they envisioned a future in which their descendants would continue to exhaust the land and move on; while the best thinkers in the South understood that slavery was self-doomed, there were idiots who blithered in public about the need to evangelize and spread the benefits of slavery...
Meanwhile, in the North, several people who were indeed the best writers in their communities, if not the best thinkers, fell under the spell of John Brown's charismatic megalomania. Frederick Douglass kept some sensible reservations about Brown and his scheme. Amos Bronson Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson did not. (For those who've been wondering what possessed Emily Dickinson to call a writer so inferior as Higginson her "master," it seems likely that his freedom to act as well as write may have been his attraction.) Alcott called Brown "the manliest man" he ever saw, a "Christian brave and true"; Thoreau raged against his sentencing that Brown "could not have been tried by a jury of his peers, because his peers did not exist," and Louisa May Alcott effused, "Living, he made life beautiful,--Dying, made death divine."
Midnight Rising offers other glimpses of historical figures. Those acquainted with Wise County, Virginia, may particularly appreciate the mini-biography of then-Governor Henry Wise incorporated into this book. The story also has walk-on parts for James Buchanan, Herman Melville, Robert E. Lee, T.J. "Stonewall" Jackson, William Lloyd Garrison, and many more people whose names readers should know.
John Brown seems to have considered himself a Christian; it was just that Christ's warning that "those who take the sword will perish by the sword" seems not to have meant much to him...Horwitz tries to avoid passing moral judgment on Brown's act, to remain objective and simply trace its connections to other events in history. He hands over the job of concluding the story to Langston Hughes, whose poem ends, "Perhaps / You will recall / John Brown." You will, indeed.
Dozens of books had already been written about the Harpers Ferry raid, including a memoir by Osborne Anderson (a survivor) and a biography of Brown by W.E.B. Dubois. Did the world, or even the Harpers Ferry tourist business, really need another one? Well...adding Horwitz's talent to the body of existing books on the topic couldn't hurt anything. If you're going to read only one book about Harpers Ferry, I can't claim to have read enough of the others to say that Midnight Rising is "better" than they are, but it's a good read--written clearly and cleanly enough to make a challenging book for a bright middle school student, while still holding the interest of adults.
Author: Tony Horwitz
Author's web page: http://tonyhorwitz.com/
Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
Date: 2011
Length: 290 pages of text, 55 pages of endnotes, 3 pages of image credits, 15-page index
Illustrations: maps, old photos and drawings
ISBN: 080509153X
Quote: "Viewed through the lens of 9/11, Harpers Ferry seems an al-Qaeda prequel: a long-bearded fundamentalist, consumed by hatred of the U.S. government, launches nineteen men in a suicidal strike on a symbol of American power. A shocked nation plunges into war."
As all Washingtonians know, Harpers Ferry is a picturesque, slightly touristy but mostly unspoiled, mountain town whose distinguishing features include a quaint old railroad that still runs passenger trains to and from D.C. While waiting for the train back to the city, you may read, talk, or knit, but you can't not notice the dramatic mountain and river view. To some people, including Horwitz, it seems "spooky." If a place has the right to be haunted, Harpers Ferry has...
Fair disclosure: my primary reason for reading this book was to find out how many of the nineteenth-century images of Harpers Ferry were drawn from the railroad station (several) and how much the view has changed (not terribly much). For me, the scenery is enough of an attraction, apart from the history of this town.
However, Harpers Ferry's big tourist attraction has been the history of the act of "Northern Aggression" that, as all Southerners know, really started the Civil War. Our ancestors wouldn't have fired on Fort Sumter if a megalomaniac, but not legally insane, Yankee hadn't attacked Harpers Ferry.
After 150 years, although the issues over which people were fighting even before 1860 seem surprisingly current, it's hard to take the old war rhetoric seriously. Horwitz has a good time at the expense of both sides. Many things people said and wrote even in the early nineteenth century can be clearly identified as either Green or Greedhead, and Horwitz shares some choice expressions of Greedhead thinking in the Old South. Not only did Southerners suffer from their own form of collective megalomania, or empire-building, as they envisioned a future in which their descendants would continue to exhaust the land and move on; while the best thinkers in the South understood that slavery was self-doomed, there were idiots who blithered in public about the need to evangelize and spread the benefits of slavery...
Meanwhile, in the North, several people who were indeed the best writers in their communities, if not the best thinkers, fell under the spell of John Brown's charismatic megalomania. Frederick Douglass kept some sensible reservations about Brown and his scheme. Amos Bronson Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson did not. (For those who've been wondering what possessed Emily Dickinson to call a writer so inferior as Higginson her "master," it seems likely that his freedom to act as well as write may have been his attraction.) Alcott called Brown "the manliest man" he ever saw, a "Christian brave and true"; Thoreau raged against his sentencing that Brown "could not have been tried by a jury of his peers, because his peers did not exist," and Louisa May Alcott effused, "Living, he made life beautiful,--Dying, made death divine."
Midnight Rising offers other glimpses of historical figures. Those acquainted with Wise County, Virginia, may particularly appreciate the mini-biography of then-Governor Henry Wise incorporated into this book. The story also has walk-on parts for James Buchanan, Herman Melville, Robert E. Lee, T.J. "Stonewall" Jackson, William Lloyd Garrison, and many more people whose names readers should know.
John Brown seems to have considered himself a Christian; it was just that Christ's warning that "those who take the sword will perish by the sword" seems not to have meant much to him...Horwitz tries to avoid passing moral judgment on Brown's act, to remain objective and simply trace its connections to other events in history. He hands over the job of concluding the story to Langston Hughes, whose poem ends, "Perhaps / You will recall / John Brown." You will, indeed.
Dozens of books had already been written about the Harpers Ferry raid, including a memoir by Osborne Anderson (a survivor) and a biography of Brown by W.E.B. Dubois. Did the world, or even the Harpers Ferry tourist business, really need another one? Well...adding Horwitz's talent to the body of existing books on the topic couldn't hurt anything. If you're going to read only one book about Harpers Ferry, I can't claim to have read enough of the others to say that Midnight Rising is "better" than they are, but it's a good read--written clearly and cleanly enough to make a challenging book for a bright middle school student, while still holding the interest of adults.
Bad Poetry: Remembering Colorful Dreams
Duh normies, we are told, dream in black-and-white. How psychological researchers can know this I'm not sure, but that's what they tell us. When I remember dreams, they often focus on color!
Today's dVerse prompt asked for poems that mentioned three different colors, while the Poets & Storytellers United asked for poems about memories and dreams. So...
A stuffie duck in cyan blue
once floated through a fever dream.
Black and white I remember, too,
on pinions--how they seemed to stream
out from my arm when later flu
put feathers, not flight, in the dream.
I might have seen on store's display
the frankly frumpy dress a friend
would buy when in the family way.
A dream she might have tried to send
("Are close friends psychic?" we would say)
showed avocado dress she'd mend.
And often dreams take place outside
and show the season of the year.
Are leaves still green, or have they died,
or do they show last colors clear?
And in some dreams I walk beside
a beach: blue water bright or drear.
A book was red, now faded rose.
A doll had dark brown hair, blue eyes.
I checked out new yarns, and from those
chose cream, then pine. Though memory tries
to turn dreams under fresh thought's rows,
their color all the "science" defies.
When I think back over dreams I can still remember, I remember most of them having some color: the colors people's faces and animals' coats really were, things my subconscious mind might have been reminding me to shop for the next day, food I seemed to be eating or preparing. Once when we were teenagers I dreamed I was riding in someone's white Chevrolet; person did not, at that time, own a car, but next year person inherited a white Chevrolet. Once I dreamed that my clothes almost, but not quite, color-matched with someone else's. I've even dreamed about patchwork quilts.
Thursday, October 22, 2026
Web Log for 10.21.26
It feels like an extension of time to use this laptop; supposedly it wasn't going to receive Microsoft updates, but it's still getting them and I'm still ganking what I can. I think the strategy is to destroy the physical device. The screen has started flickering ominously. Anyway, today's links, mostly music:
Animals
Video documentation of the behavior I described in last spring's tragic swan poem: Cygnets (young swans) are curious about other living things...and adult swans are insanely protective. In this video swans challenge a boat!
Music
Incredible String Band.
Patrick Watson.
Foggy Mountain Spaceship.
Ozzy Osbourne.
Paul Taylor.
Eric Burdon & the Animals.
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and/or Young. Mostly Neil Young.
Alice Cooper.
Steeleye Span.
Garbage.
Ludovico Einaudi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M0DNEWL7tg (This one's about an hour long, a serious workout if used as one.)
Tea Party (the band).
Lamb.
Commodores.
England Dan & John Ford Coley.
Jon Reddick.
Louis Armstrong.
Camel.
Ben E. King.
Beatles.
Billie Holiday.
Tom Petty.
Matthew Halsall.
Emancipator.
Technology
...and the more we can get back to the way these things used to work, the better. Digitizing things that worked better without "the cloud" merely expands "the cloud" and creates the supposed demand for those data centers nobody wants. Graphic from Joe Jackson, who may have got it from Jamesjmelville on Instagram. (Google thinks it's a "nostalgia" meme. Wrong, Google. It's a "direction of progress" meme. If you can't do all 12 things the reliable, cloud-busting way, work to fix this.)
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