50 Days to the Moon

The Fast Company site is in the middle of a series on the first moon landing.  It contains all sorts of topics related to the Apollo 11 mission, technical, political, and cultural.  Here's an example: 

Once Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed Eagle on the Moon, the Apollo 11 astronauts and their spaceship were actually lost.

  Oh, Mission Control never lost radio contact with them. But NASA was never able to figure out where, exactly, on the Moon they had set down, while they were on the Moon. And NASA sure did try.

 The landing area on the Moon that had been picked out for Apollo 11 was about the length of Manhattan and twice as wide. In photo surveys, it looked plain, flat, and bland—not interesting for geologists but a safe place to land a spaceship, the first time human beings ever tried that on a place off of Earth.

  But up close, the Sea of Tranquility was anything but tranquil. As Armstrong and Aldrin flew down toward the Moon in their lunar module, Armstrong was looking out the window and the spot the autopilot was flying them toward was, as Armstrong described it, a crater the size of a football field, littered with boulders, some as large as cars.

Not a comfortable place to try to land a gangly four-legged spaceship.

So Armstrong took manual control of where the lunar module was flying to—the spaceship computer still did all the actual flying, but Armstrong was instructing it where to go and at what speed.

In the end, he and Aldrin set down several miles from the original landing spot—on safe, level Moon ground, but not where they had planned to land. Armstrong, in particular, had studied photographs of the Sea of Tranquility in preparation for flying to it and knew the landmarks and the landscape of much of the area.

Andrew Chaikin, in his account of the Moon landings, A Man On the Moon, describes Armstrong’s reaction to landing in unfamiliar Moon terrain: “As he looked out (at Tranquility Base), Armstrong wondered where he and Aldrin had landed . . . . (He) searched the horizon for some feature he might be able to identify, but found none.”

2009 -- Stephen Harper's self-congratulatory history of Canada

CBC quotes the PM at the G20 conference:

“We’re so self-effacing as Canadians that we sometimes forget the assets we do have that other people see,” he said, speaking with a rare passion.
“We are one of the most stable regimes in history. ... We are unique in that regard,” he added, noting Canada had enjoyed more than 150 years of untroubled Parliamentary democracy.
Just in case that was not enough to persuade doubters, Harper threw in some more facts about the geographically second-largest nation in the world.

“We also have no history of colonialism. So we have all of the things that many people admire about the great powers but none of the things that threaten or bother them,” he said.

So all that land just fell into the laps of British and French colonizers settlers?

More on San Francisco's "gentrification"

Earlier this month I was recalling my visits to the Bay Area in the 80s and my puzzlement, then, about where the waiters lived in such an expensive city, one famous for its restaurants.

Well, I still don't have an answer to that question, but the "gentrification" (millionairization?) of SF (and other places too) is notorious. Essential California just now directed me to a substantial article in SFGATE.  An excerpt:

San Francisco has also become less welcoming of altruistic professions, as teachers and social workers are priced out of housing.

 The Sierra Club, founded in 1892, decamped to Oakland three years ago after its annual rent was projected to increase by almost $1.5 million. "Nonprofits are fleeing San Francisco. They can no longer afford it, " says Doug Styles of the Huckleberry Youth Program, founded during the Summer of Love to assist runaway teens. Retaining staff is a challenge. "We're missing that middle and lower economic group."

 Everyone has a story about what isn't here anymore. The inability to find a hardware store, a shoe repair, a lesbian bar, a drag-queen bar, an independent music club, the commercial casualties of vertiginous rents.

 Retail operations have resorted to quasi-nonprofit practices to stay afloat. Beatts' Borderlands Books, specializing in science fiction, mystery, fantasy and horror, remains afloat through $100 annual sponsorships from more than 500 customers, akin to a public television station, and $1.9 million in loans from 50 patrons to purchase a building in the Upper Haight. Restaurant owner Guerra launched a GoFundMe campaign to help defray rental costs. She also had to raise prices, which many small businesses have been forced to do.

Residents worry that such businesses will soon disappear, replaced by twee boutiques of artisanal socks, rain-scented candles and so many succulents. "All businesses that are part of the memory and tradition and the lives of San Franciscans are going away so fast, replaced by little hipster groovy shops that also feel transient, preserving some fake memory of the city," [Rebecca] Solnit says.

Artisanal socks!  The humiliation!

Reviewing "Chivalry in Westeros"

My review is posted at an appropriate time.

Jamison, Carol Parrish. Chivalry in Westeros: The Knightly Code of a Song of Ice and Fire. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2018. Pp. 217. $29.95. ISBN: 978-1-4766-7005-8.

   Reviewed by Steven Muhlberger
        Nipissing University (retired)
        Steve.Muhlberger @gmail.com 

This century's most important work of popular medievalism is without a doubt George R.R. Martin's multi-volume A Song of Ice and Fire and the 8-year-long TV series A Game of Thrones which is based upon it. (In the following review I will call this work, books and TV series both, Game of Thrones, in line with common usage). Thousands upon thousands have read the books or pirated the episodes off the internet, and "Game of Thrones" has become a catchphrase used to describe vicious, bloodthirsty politics or Machiavellian intrigue. It is now a cheap but evocative way of characterizing our current situation as "medieval," that is, "bad." 

Game of Thrones has transcended normal levels of popularity. Readers and writers and film producers have swarmed over it, not only demanding more of the story but also the opportunity to create their own versions. The desire to engage with Game of Thrones springs from the fact that having caught the imagination, the story and the setting are both familiar to the audience and capable of being added to, to suit contemporary taste. Earlier examples are Ben Hur, the book and the movies, and the Lord of the Rings and other works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Ben Hur made the Holy Land and the passion of Christ, a sacred setting and story for a 19th century audience, more accessible; Tolkien made a vast magical world by mining the aesthetics of the Middle Ages. Martin also builds on a medieval foundation. The world of Game of Thrones, the fictional continent of Westeros, is medieval enough to be familiar and unique enough to make the story fresh. 

Jamison is one of the many who find Martin's mix of real and invented medieval history fascinating. She is certainly well qualified to critique and enjoy Game of Thrones--her academic expertise includes both medieval literature and medievalism. The preface and chapter one establish the parameters for her examination. Medievalism is defined in a number of ways perhaps most usefully by Tom Shippey as "the study of responses to the Middle Ages at all periods since a sense of the medieval began to develop." [1] Of course this is a very broad definition, and Jamison narrows it down; of the many possible medievalisms, her subject is Martin's contribution to the literature of chivalry. 

Chivalry in Westeros systematically works its way through a variety of issues that arise in any discussion of chivalry. Jamison is particularly interested in "the code" of chivalry and how the ideals professed by various characters in Chivalry in Westeros and the stories those characters cite in discussions with each other shape an informal debate on the nature of chivalry and its relationship to other values supposedly held by the society at large. The way in which traditions emerge from such debates, oral and written, is the subject of two whole chapters. One suspects that this analysis may have been included for the benefit of students or teachers who have not thought much about the workings of literary tradition before picking up this book. The treatment certainly is quite extensive with discussion of many actual medieval chivalric works.

Interestingly, Jamison gives pride of place to an examination of the chivalric virtue of franchise. For the purposes of this review, franchise can be defined very briefly as nobility, though it might be equated with chivalry. Franchise, like chivalry, is multi-faceted. Here it is examined in detail because it reflects the idea that real knights are of noble birth and have such obvious attributes as provable noble descent and physical beauty. Of course, neither in our Middle Ages nor in Westeros are all knights actually noble, or in unambiguous possession of the proofs of superior status. Jamison cites many examples of "social climber" knights. Franchise is tricky--and the possession or lack of it is a matter of debate. Many people who in fact do not possess basic characteristics of knighthood take a rather cynical view of the old standards; others need to fake it if they are to be anything more than "hedge [poor] knights" scraping by on the basis of a modicum of prowess or willingness to engage in treachery. The result is that chivalry, despite the sins of many who claim to be practitioners and a recurrent skepticism about its reality, is clearly central to the culture of Westeros. The bulk of the book examines such virtues and characteristics of chivalry as loyalty, prowess, vengeance, and peace-weaving and how they actually shape behavior in Westeros.

Discussion of chivalry is a discussion of ideals versus reality. It is in the nature of such debates that they are unlikely to be resolved. In Jamison's presentation, the problems with chivalry spring not from the faults of individuals, but are inherent in the incoherence of chivalry. It is a matter of broken ideals rather than broken people. [2] Likewise, it shows that whether one consults with medieval romancers, the chroniclers of the Round Table, or George R.R. Martin on the reality of chivalry, the same themes emerge. 

Jamison states at the beginning of Chivalry in Westeros that her interest in using Martin's work was as a jumping-off point for teaching medieval literature and medievalism. In the last chapter, "Conclusions," she returns to this point--how Game of Thrones can be used to enhance (or, admittedly, serve to hinder) a non-specialist's understanding of the Middle Ages. She makes a rather convincing case for the usefulness of Game of Thrones in teaching medievalism, namely when it is done well and the students are receptive. Jamison refers to her experience in incorporating Game of Thrones in courses on medieval literature. Some students wrote papers touching on such sophisticated topics as the creation of "authenticity" in our accounts of medieval history and culture. Likewise students used Game of Thrones to shed light on modern concerns. Her descriptions of her students' accomplishments were very persuasive. This student work sounds on a par with work that has been produced by some of my better students when they get really inspired by a topic. At this point in history, Martin's vivid pseudo-medieval world can lead some students and scholars in interesting directions.

--------

Notes:

1. "Medievalisms and Why They Matter," Studies in Medievalism(s) XVII: Defining Medievalism(s), ed. Karl Fugelso (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 2009), 45-54. 

2. p. 113: "[Le Morte Darthur] is not simply a tragedy of character; it is a tragedy of ideas...chivalry is noble but fatally flawed, fatally unstable and so too must be its practitioners," quoting Kenneth Hodges, Forging Chivalric Communities in Malory's Le Morte Darthur (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 2.

Restoring Notre Dame

 This post is a public service.  It was copied to the MEDIEV-L e-mail list by Terri Morgan.  Thanks, Terri.

A friend, Ian Steward,  who does reconstruction of historical buildings (mainly in the US but also in Europe & Canada) posted this on his Facebook account and gave permission to share it. I believe it may be germane to the discussion.  – Terri Morgan

*Pulls up soap box, climbs up*

It's been less than 48 hours, and it's amazing, though it shouldn't be, how much misinformation and just plain lies are floating around about Notre Dame. As a professional timber framer/architectural conservator with a Master's in Historic Preservation, who teaches Preservation Carpentry and is actively engaged in the preservation trades world, I felt the need to weigh in.

So, let me take a moment to put some things out there.

1. "The firemen did not do a good job."
-The fire brigade did exactly what they were supposed to. They got the people, then the artwork and artifacts out, then they fought the fire by keeping the stones cool so they would not break, and by keeping the fire from spreading. The only part of the structure which was seriously compromised was the stone vaulting under the spire, which was a later addition and was heavier than the vault could handle under stress. Especially since it turned into a flaming spear.

2. "There aren't the right trees, in France anymore" "The trees are too small"
- The oak is a prevalent tree in France, nay in all of Europe, to say that the trees don't exist is nonsense. Also, there were replacement trees planted during the le Duc restoration, so they're now rounding the 170+ year mark, perfect for this restoration.

3. "We don't have the craftspeople capable of doing this work."
- Stop, just stop. That sentence is flat out an insult, to myself, and to anyone else who plies my trade. In France there is an ancient Guild which does just this, the Compagnon, in the United States, there is the Timber Framers Guild. As for the other crafts, they are still alive and well, how else would buildings be restored? The Preservation Trades Network, the Engine Shed in Scotland, just to name a few are places where these trades are kept alive.

4. "It will have to be rebuilt to modern specifications"
- Why? It lasted for 800 years, and as I said earlier, did exactly what it was supposed to. The wooden part on a cathedral is seen as expendable, it's designed to burn and not damage the arches underneath. It's designed to be repaired/restored, like it was in the 19th century by le Duc.

5. "Lead is poisonous and shouldn't be used as a roof"
-Lead is also perfect for a cathedral roof, it doesn't succumb to oxidation and in this case, can last for nearly eight centuries. Think using lead is bad, don't go up and snack on the roof, otherwise you're good.

That's all for now. And so to end on a lighter note. I hear the investigation as to what the cause of the fire was is still ongoing. I think we should ask Quasimodo, I think he has a hunch...

*Climbs off soapbox*

Fanfic, Byzantine literature and 21st century culture

I have mused here before on how the science-fiction subculture that was so important to me in the 1960s and 70s has emerged as a very important element in current "popular" (right word?) culture.  I am hardly the only person to notice this. because many scholars -- generally a bit younger than me--study "popular" culture with the same seriousness that they study anything else.

And they often do that because they are producers of "popular" culture as well as part of its audience.

Take for example Arkady Martine's article:

On the Cult of Originality: What Byzantine Literary Culture Can Tell Us About Fanfiction,

. which appeared recently on the tor.com site, tor.com being a major science-fiction and fantasy publisher. Martine is interested in the phenomenon of fanfiction (fanfic).


Fanfic is a derivative (unoriginal?) art form. If you love Mr. Spock and wish there were more stories about him, and I have a great idea for a Sherlock Holmes novel that Conan Doyle never thought of, and we write up our particular visions and (usually)distribute them in a non-commercial way, that is fanfic, written by and for fans.

Tor.com tells us that Martine is a fan writer whose first commercially published novel A Memory Called Empire has just come out. Martine is also a published scholar on the subject of Byzantine literature. Byzantine literature of the Middle Byzantine period is often considered unoriginal and not very good at all, because it draws so heavily on other people's work.

Fanfic, or close to it.

But is it inherently inferior?  Martine the scholar argues pretty convincingly that Byzantine fanfic has got the virtues of current fanfic. One of the main virtue being community building.

Have a look.

Makes me lick my lips in anticipation -- medieval Genoa

A recent book comes to us from the Medieval Review:

Benes, Carrie E., ed. A Companion to Medieval Genoa. Brill's Companions to European History, 15. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Pp. xxvii, 560. $229.00. ISBN: 978-90-04-36061-7.

   Reviewed by Laura K. Morreale
        Independent Scholar

        lmorreale3@gmail.com

And the first paragraph makes it sound so, so attractive:

On page one of chapter seventeen, entitled "Genoa and the Crusade," author Merav Mack argues that "Genoese history is a narrative not of one city but of distant but closely-linked parts of the Mediterranean" (471). Although this statement appears near the collection's end, it neatly encapsulates editor Carrie Benes's vision throughout A Companion to Medieval Genoa, a work that emphasizes connections between the Genoese local and remote, comprehensively fleshed out in the book's maps, figures, glossary, and eighteen essay-length chapters.  

Now in real life, I could never afford this -- well, maybe if I studied Italy-- but I admire the editor and the article authors  for the ambition of their enterprise.  In a different lifetime I might have written works that emphasized connections  "of distant but closely-linked parts" of the Mediterranean and other regions.

Image:  Genoa as a top Mediterranean port today.

Thinking about the past -- Agincourt

French authorities are investing lots of money in the historical displays at Agincourt. Why? Tourist spending, of course!

But the real story, as far as I am concerned is the grown-up emphasis in the historical presentation, particularly on the French side, as reported by the BBC.

When the old museum opened on the site in 2001, its exhibition boards said 9,000 English soldiers fought 30,000 French at Agincourt.

The new centre, expected to open in the autumn, will reduce these figures to 8,500 English and 12,500 French.

It's still an upset, but a long way from Shakespeare's underdog story of Englishmen outnumbered five to one.

Before diehard fans of Henry V cry foul, Mr Gilliot [the museuum director]says the numbers were agreed in consultation with historians from England and France.
They are based on research by Professor Anne Curry of the University of Southampton, who studied financial records at the National Archives in London.
Records show that Henry V took 12,000 men with him when he set out from Southampton and left many of them behind to man the garrison after an earlier victory at the port of Harfleur.

Prof Curry says her findings are respected by medieval historians, but unpopular with some English fans of the Agincourt story.

 Chain mail to hate mail

"I've had hate mail and trolling and I've been astonished how seriously people take these things," she said. Prof Curry thinks this can partly be explained by how Agincourt is seen in England in patriotic terms. When she attended the 600th anniversary of the battle in 2015, people came draped in St George's flags. There is a sense of "how we have fended off France in the past", she said.

Prof Curry believes Agincourt's myths persist in part because so many people claim to be descended from soldiers who fought there. Unsurprisingly, her research on the size of the armies has not faced resistance in France. But regardless of the troop tallies, it still seems surprising that the French national and regional governments are investing so heavily in a lost battle.

'Just history'
But Mr Gilliot says patriotism in France is "different".
"We had the revolution in 1789, and since this period we don't really care whether a battle was lost or won by what we call the 'ancien regime'," he said.
"It is just history." Mr Gilliot says the level of knowledge of this historical period differs between French and English visitors.

"We are very surprised that a lot of English people know their national history very well and sometimes we have visitors who are descended from a nobleman who participated in the battle," he said.

"English people want to know where the castle was that Shakespeare describes in his play, or to visit the battlefield.
For the French visitors, the questions are very different, they often ask who won the Hundred Years War. We are seeing that the Medieval period is not really covered in schools in France."
'No boasting'
But he has never met English visitors boasting about the result.
"Our English visitors are very respectful, interested and well-educated, and they sometimes help us by pointing out problems in our translations," he said.

The Turkmens hit the silver screen: Resurrection Ertugrul

I don't know anything about the Turkish film industry, but since I started to follow the movie Resurrection Ertugrul on Netflix I have begun to suspect that the best Turkish films, at least, must be very good indeed.

Turkmen is the name given to ethnic Turks who live a cattle-herding, nomadic style. This movie (actually a long-running serial) is about a tribe of Turkmens, the Kiya, and their trials and tribulations in the early 13th century. The movie is classic good-guy v. bad-guy stuff. The good guys are led by Ertugrul, a strong, silent type who stands for a virtuous life led according to tribal custom. The bad guys are just about everybody else -- Seljuks, Ertugrul's brother (at least some of the time), scheming Kiya women looking for a good marriage, the Knights Templar. Most of these people don't give a hang about antique virtue. They just want a good war that they can profit from, or vengeance.

This lauding of the virtuous, represented by the figure of the nomad reminds me of the movie Mongol which I blogged about maybe ten years ago. In that movie Genghis was the only guy playing by the rules. Everyone else was just waiting for a chance to stab him in the back, enslave his wife, etc.

Resurrection Ertugrul and Mongol have something else in common. They are really good.
Resuurection Ertugrul has it all. Lots of horses. Huge skyscapes. Great fighting sequences. A world-famous Sufi scholar who leads the good nomads in singing prayer-circles (the music is awesome).

A remarkable feature of the series is the rather minimal dialogue. People say something, assume an expression, and the audience is given time to absorb the significance of what has been said. It reminded me of opera, in which the songs make an emotional point, rather than building a narrative. The narrative gets built anyway, and it's not so hard to follow.

I wondered after about 10 episodes, what the directors would do if they decided to do a big series on the Round Table. It might be really cool.

Essential California

In the early days of blogging, I included many posts from English Russia, simply because that blog had so much odd and interesting material drawn, of course, from the largest country on the face of the earth. Today, the best source of unique stories about a big country is Essential California. And if you don't think California is a country, follow this link.

Matt Gabriele, Peter Burke and Historians as Remembrancers

𝕄𝕒𝕥𝕥 𝔾𝕒𝕓𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕝𝕖Verified account @prof_gabriele

one of my favorite #twitterstorians quotations. from Peter Burke "History as Social Memory"

Manifest Destiny on a global scale

Manifest Destiny was a popular 19th century idea which attributed to the United States the right to expand and occupy the North American continent from coast to coast. Manifest Destiny was associated with the punchy phrase: "Go West, young man" coined by the newspaper editor Horace Greeley, who thought western expansion was the way to go, both for (white) settlers and for the country as a whole. Not that he was unique in this prescription. I was thinking about the Opening of Japan (where the US Navy forced the Japanese empire to allow trade between Japan and the rest of the world) in the 1850s, when I realized that there was a lot of "Opening" in the 19th century. Think Opium Wars! Or the French Conquest of Mexico! Or the slaughter of Australian aboriginals (Being investigated right now by the Guardian)! How did they justify their actions? Somehow I doubt that I will ever have time to explore this topic --Manifest Destiny on a Global Scale -- but maybe someone else will. Or maybe someone already has! Image: Greeley.

Deeds of Arms in Italy

A fine video showing high-quality re-enactment by the group Rubeum Ferri in Italy. These people have the kindness to credit me with some of their inspiration.  What's better, they seem to have really understood my argument.

Matt Gabriele shows us some of the many faces of the Middle Ages

Gabriele teaches at Virginia Tech University and regularly writes for Forbes on the relevance of history and the humanities (not that anyone actually admits to that emphasis.  Here's an excerpt from a recent post which touches on my interest in jousts, tournaments and other deeds of arms:

The Medieval Women In Drag Who Maybe Caused The Black Death (But Really Didn't)

A curious thing happened in the middle of the 14th century. According to Henry Knighton's Chronicle, ..., in the year 1348 a group of about 40-50 women dressed in men's clothes began to attend tournaments. They supposedly moved from place to place behaving shamefully, baring their bodies in an "inappropriate manner," spending money, carrying weapons, and apparently performing for the assembled crowds.

God didn't like that, so according to the Chronicle a storm would suddenly form to disrupt the festivities. Then, shortly afterwards, Knighton recounts that the Black Death arrived in Europe and ravaged the countryside. Left unsaid, but narratively clear, the women's behavior caused God to punish England for their sins...

According to Prof. Sonja Drimmer from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst this anecdote inadvertently opens a fascinating window onto how gender roles were seen in Europe during the late Middle Ages, and more importantly how those roles were sometimes overthrown.

Dr. Drimmer, ...pointed out that it's interesting in and of itself that Knighton decided to write this episode down. Medieval histories are always selective in what they include..., but the anecdotes when taken together always reveal a deeper message that the author's trying to convey. In this case, Dr. Drimmer said:

the chronicler seems to have expected his audience would see women wanting to perform as men (and assert their sexual agency by “displaying their bodies”) as entirely plausible, particularly in a privileged space that was designed to assert rigid gender roles.

In addition, ...Dr. Drimmer pointed to something else (maybe) going on in this particular episode. She asks us to think about how the scene itself would have looked. ...This could have been something approaching what we think of today as drag performance.
In other words, Knighton more than likely decided to include this in his Chronicle because this was something that really happened and he was really freaked out about it.

For some time, scholars have talked about how boundaries are often drawn between peoples at moments when assimilation and cultural interactions are at their most fluid....  In this particular instance, what really seems to have bothered Knighton here was not just that these women were performing while dressed like men, but that everyone else thought that that was fine. Indeed, there's evidence that cross-dressing by men and women at medieval tournaments was relatively common.

Knighton may confirm some of our Game of Thrones-esque expectations about the European Middle Ages, one marked by God's wrath and a conservative religiosity. But, despite his intentions, Knighton also undermines our expectations by showing us a vibrant Middle Ages filled with color, pageantry, laughter, and performance - one in which people don't act like we think they're "supposed to." In other words, Knighton almost by accident shows us a slice of the real Middle Ages, populated by living, breathing human beings.

No, clergy and laity didn't always see eye to eye in the Middle Ages

Godfrey of Bouillon is selected as ruler of Jerusalem in the wake of the First Crusade (no, he didn't get it from the Archangel Gabriel, whatever they thought in the 17th century); instead, a panel was struck to investigate the various candidates.


Sez William of Tyre:

This was done so that the electors might thus be more fully and more faithfully informed of the merits of the candidates. Those who were later very closely questioned under the required oath by the electors were forced to confess in secret the vices of their lords and likewise to enumerate their virtues, so that it might be made plain just what sort of men their lords were.

When the Duke's household were questioned among the others, they replied that, among all the Duke's actions, the one which most irritated his servants was this: that when he entered a church, even after the celebration of the liturgy had been finished, he could not be drawn out. Rather, be demanded of the priests and those who seemed experienced in such matters an account of each picture and statue. His associates, who were interested in other things, found this boring, even nauseating. Further, his meals, which had been prepared for a certain and appropriate hour, grew cold and most unappetizing because of these long and vexing delays.

The electors who heard these things said: "Blessed is the man to whom are ascribed as faults those traits which would be called virtues in another." At length, after consulting with one another and after many deliberations, they unanimously elected the lord Duke. They brought him to the Holy Sepulcher of the Lord most devoutly, chanting hymns and canticles.

Where do the waiters live?

Back in the early 80s, I travelled regularly to the Bay, where a friend of mine, in the time between my business meetings, showed me around the cultural sights.  The food he introduced me to was particularly wonderful.  I remember a Cambodian restaurant where the food clearly was influenced as much by Paris as by grandma's kitchen.

My friend and I talked about many subjects.  One of the most passionate rants was my friend's terror at the prospect of being pushed out of his apartment -- a not-unlikely prospect.  He had a decent job, but no security against sudden rent increases.

Which made me wonder, in this city of restauants, where did the waiters live?

My recent reading has included much material about California, which seems to be taking, once again, a leading role in the evolution of modern culture.   This article, If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving? sadly describes how people who don't have family money, or who did not early on become skilled programmers just can't live a decent life in the city.  You can't do something interesting and useful, like open a bakery. 

These people who are fleeing from SF would count in most people's judgment as "middle class." Whether that is still a useful category.

I, however, still have the old puzzle bu zzing around my brain: Where do the waiters live?

Later... The New York Times demonstrates how pre-historic my question is: Thousands of New Millionaires Are About to Eat San Francisco Alive

.

Quotes: Jonathan K. DeYoe, another private wealth adviser in the region, started working with tech clients in 1997 during the first dot-com boom. He said it was pretty exciting back then. Now, as he thinks about thousands of new millionaires coming onto the scene, he is worried about the region’s inequality. “There’s some who’ve talked about pitchforks,” Mr. DeYoe said. “And I don’t think we’ll go there, but there’s a point when that makes sense.” “It’s very visible,” Mr. DeYoe said. “This kind of wealth is very visible.”...
[P]resenting was Deniz Kahramaner, a real estate agent specializing in data analytics at Compass. “Are we going to see a one-bedroom condo that’s worth less than $1 million in five years?” he asked the crowd. “Are we going to see single family homes selling for one to three million?” No, he said, not anymore. The energy rose as he revealed more data about new millionaires and about just how few new units have been built for them. San Francisco single-family home sale prices could climb to an average of $5 million, he said, to gasps.

Should I continue to blog?

?

I spent most of December trying to debug my computer, and as a result I got very little writing done.  This led me to wonder -- is this blog necessary?

I started it back when personal blogs were rare.  If I found an interesting article or post and included them in my blog, I could feel that I was likely performing a service.  Also, I was teaching history, and the blog was a good place to preserve interesting topics more or less relevant to my courses.

I haven't been teaching since 2015, and the amount of interesting material available through commercial sites or twitter is much, much larger than it once was.  My time and energy is devoted to bigger projects (The Chronicle of the Good Duke, and "Murder," which may both be coming out this year).  And of course my health is not what it once was.

My readership, according to Blogger stats, seems to be OK.  But I would like to know what those numbers represent.  So I would very much appreciate hearing from you if you do in fact read this blog.  Tell me how often you read it, what you find valuable in it, and let me know if it has a place in the world of reading.

Yes, Angkor Wat

Play this at my funeral: To return to the centre.

Ps: the next youTube video was Selling England by the Pound