Comment: Thomas Mann quote.

Literature is not a calling, it is a curse, believe me! When does one begin to feel the curse? Early, horribly early. At a time when one ought by rights still to be living in peace and harmony with God and the world. It begins by your feeling yourself set apart, in a curious sort of opposition to the nice, regular people; there is a gulf of ironic sensibility, of knowledge, scepticism, disagreement, between you and the others; it grows deeper and deeper, you realize that you are alone; and from then on any rapprochement is simply hopeless! What a fate!

Thomas Mann, Tonio Kröger

Comment: a non-essentialist subconscious mimetic impressionism.

Copyright © 2011 Bob R Bogle



The manner of mimesis in impressionist painting is at essential odds with that of the realists. I'm trying to devise a literary equivalent of impressionism in something approaching a communal subconsciousness.

Mimesis. Mimetic. Mimetic muscles expressing emotion. Smile, smile, smile. Not to be confused with memetics: memes, and memory transfer. Unit of culture. Shorthand sigla of belief infiltrating the universal unconscious proliferating like a viral outbreak. Epidemic proportions, a is to b as. Siglum. Sigla. To be distinguished from diegesis. Mimesis imitation imitator mimicry representation. A step removed or more. Tumbled down the rabbit hole from God. To reflect nature. Mirror mirror on the wall. The perilous seductions of poetry and wild art. Untamed. Spinning, hypnotizing mirrors, like some switched on Mondrian. To raise up an internally consistent reality so compelling that empathy and identification follow. Tragedy is falling. A diminution of status. One falls. Tumble down. Diegesis the narrative. Narrator. Commentary.

The Civil War, 150 Years Later | BackStory with the American History Guys

The Civil War, 150 Years Later | BackStory with the American History Guys

Three podcasts containing rather extraordinary insights into the Civil War of a sort you don't often come across. Highly recommended.

Excerpt: In a narrow boutique (wandering rocks).

Another excerpt, although perhaps you wouldn't think so.  Its origins are from a dream of a few weeks ago, but I wrote it today.

Copyright © 2011 Bob R Bogle

Bravery, or folly?  Friends in high places.  Straight-spined Jason sailed between the clashing rocks, Hera's unwavering eye on high watching him.  Hera's protection.  Right into the teeth of the Planctae.  Sprays of plankton-seething streamers of foamy sea ribbons, surging jets spurting heavenward among gnashing, grinding chondritic molars.  Release a dove into India inky storms raging on a rolling, churning dead man's sea.  Thanks a lot, the emancipated fowl of fate must have mused, eying her liberator coldly.  But he was more Odysseus than Jason, he thought, having no benefactors or well-wishers.  He worked alone.  Day after day, solitary, brow furrowed, taking up dividers and compass and charts, he sought to contrive intricate windings beneath the beetling rocks down dangerous alleyways and dark avenues toward another chance rendezvous, and he had only argyle socks for luck.  They looked foolish, but they remained hidden under the cuffs of his slacks.  Mostly hidden.

Maps filled his mind.  For the negotiation of time and space.  A thin needle slipping through fabric, or Newtonian, sailing strange seas of thought alone.  What faithful companions had he?  No heroes, only the ghosts of the accursed and condemned.  Tantalus.  Sisyphus.  Orion.  How far can the rules bend before they snap?  Seeking out random passages through a Brownian sea of strangers and ragged people.  Faces.  Prefer always morphing, interchangeable unknown gray-brown souls to friend or foe.  Intersection video mounted high on traffic light poles to freeze frame speeders red light runners and license plates.  Flatten four dimensions to two with an admissible timestamp.  To butter you like a butterfly pinned on a toasty time slice.  Spies everywhere, their bowties are cameras.  Melt into anonymity.  Draw no attention to one's self.  Now chose:  light or shadow?  Either Orwell.  Paranoia's encircling coils.  Long suburban runs and short series of arcs in poorer quarters and backtrack past the horseless racetrack where fish skeletons school in the Rialto and dart past Grant Glenn Fort Lowell, culminating for a too brief flickering moment between bookstore stacks or a glimpse from the floor level to an upper walkway in an acid bright-lit shopping mall or, just once, for two hours in the back of a cool, darkened movie theater.  Unrepeatable.  Eschew pattern.  Wander.  Stagger.  Suggestive of half-aware stragglers, but secretly sharks prowling cold waters, or police cruisers gliding through crouching, dubious fire-blackened neighborhoods.

In a narrow boutique too crammed with knickknacks and cheap novelty bric-a-brac, in a dim corner near a wheel of tie-dye scarves he stood like one of many warm-bodied tourists in the early evening dusk who had accidentally stumbled in.  Watching from the corners of his eyes.  But he only observed by degrees, teasing himself, where she was at another wheel, feet slightly apart and at an angle, unseeing him, knowing she was early.  She stood so she could see both the counter and the door.  Long strings of necklace beads were before her.  She looked down at them and was running her fingers among their abundant cascades, flowing like falling water.  Putting her hand in, moving it sideways, retracting it, the beads played along her palm, rattling down.  They were very long necklaces, a hundred of them identical, cheap, with small, round, iridescent beads, dark purple with shimmers of green and microbursts of turquoise when they caught the light a certain way.  Flashing hummingbird beads.  He was watching her, yes, her eyes downcast, but with a faint smile on her mouth.  Anticipation?  Yes, and anxiety.  Eager and jumpy.  That excitement.  The kohl-eyed girl behind the counter said something to her.  No, just looking.  That one smiled dishonestly, nodded, turned to another customer.  Was it safe?  It was safe.  He let slip the silk scarf he'd been stroking at unawares and stepped forward silently just as she was wandering around the necklace rack, turning her back to his approach, her hand still pulling lightly through the parallel columns of beads, her eyes watching the light dance on the tidal wave ripple she was making.  When his hand touched the small of her back and he said her name into her ear she started suddenly, her hand jerking back.  It snapped one of the necklaces, and hundreds of small, iridescent purple and chartreuse beads were instantly popping and bouncing across the wooden floor.  Everyone in the shop turned to look directly at the two of them.

"I'm sorry.  I'm sorry!" she said.

The severe-featured girl at the counter, eighteen or nineteen, gave her a sharp look.  "Never mind," she said, all scorn and hauteur.

He, laughing, paid for the damage.  Just a few bucks.  "Sorry for the mess."  They left together, and moments later they were apart.  Again.

A Walk Through Savannah's Civil War: Prison camps.

VIDEO: "A Walk Through Savannah's Civil War": Prison camps


Posted: December 18, 2011 - 12:02am | Updated: December 18, 2011 - 7:44am

By Richard Burkhart
In July 1864, the Savannah Daily Morning News reported that nearly 1,200 “Yankee Officers” were to be transferred to Savannah from Camp Oglethorpe in Macon.

That city was being flooded with a high number of Confederate sick and wounded from the fighting around Atlanta and needed to move the prisoners to lighten its burden. Within two weeks of Atlanta’s capture, trains carrying hundreds of enlisted Union prisoners from Andersonville, with hopes of being exchanged for Southern prisoners, were also headed into Savannah.

To accommodate this influx, two prison camps were erected on each side of Forsyth Park.

The camp for the nearly 6,000 enlisted soldiers was on the site of the city jail, while the officers were kept on the grounds of the poorhouse and hospital.

The camps were not open long, however.

By the middle of November, Gen. William T. Sherman had left Atlanta and begun his “March to the Sea.”

And, with prisoner exchanges coming to a halt, the Union soldiers were transferred from Savannah, and all signs of the prison camps were removed.

Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News

In 1864, Union officers were held as prisoners of war on the grounds of the Poor House and Hospital, possibly making camp under this very tree.

Ulysses S. Grant Memorial - Smarthistory

Ulysses S. Grant Memorial - Smarthistory

If you ever get to DC, make sure you set aside some time to look closely at these tremendous sculptures.

Excerpt: Old Tom's childhood.

Copyright © 2011 Bob R Bogle



A new passage from the novel.

He remembered his mother's wedding.  It was his earliest memory because she had dressed the three of them up in nice new clothes.  He didn't know where she got the clothes, but they had not fit quite right.  His collar was tight and itchy, and he was barefoot in the soft grass.  Tom remembered the green grass and a tall, funny-looking man in a long, black coat standing under a big tree with a Bible.  He thought the funny man had a splotchy red face, but maybe he'd made up that part.  And he remembered that he was holding little Mary's hand.  He never forgot that, or how the skies were dark and it started to rain and they had to run.  That was all he remembered, just that little picture in his mind.  He didn't even remember seeing his mother or soon-to-be stepfather that day.

He knew why he was holding Mary's hand.  His mother never told him to do it.  He knew to do it.  It was because Francis was close by, surely smirking.  He was always making faces, but there was never any sparkle in his eyes.  Frank's eyes always seemed flat to Tom.  Dead, like a snake's eyes.  They were the same age, but Francis was bigger, taller and fatter.  A big boy, his stepfather said.  Fat, Tom always thought.  Frank was a bad boy.  Tom didn't like him.  He was always poking at Tom and Mary, and Tom always tried to protect his little sister.

"Be nice to Frank, Tom," his mother always said in the years afterward.  "He's your brother."

They weren't brothers, though.  They would never be brothers.  And when something bad happened, who was it who got in trouble?  Tom, not Frank.

"Come here, Tom," his stepfather said, "and bring the switch."  And behind him stood Frank, smirking with his dull snake eyes.

They lived in Maryville, but it wasn't long before they moved to Iowa.  He knew it wasn't very long because he couldn't remember much about it and Mary never remembered it at all.  In Iowa they had the little farm.  Those were the best days.  His stepfather worked the farm and they had their chores.  There was always Frank to look out for, but they had a pony and they used to play and go fishing, every day it seemed.  By then there were two more little ones for his mother to watch out for, so they were on their own a lot.  And then baby Susan, always colicky and crying.

His stepfather, whom Tom thought of as Old Man Brown, was a grim, gaunt man, about twice as old as his mother.  He smelled like sweat and dirt, and his face was sunburnt with dirt on his neck and under his yellow fingernails.  His dark hair was always spiky and his beard was rough and uneven.  He spent his days in the fields but his rows were never very straight and he couldn't keep ahead of the weeds.  He never made a good crop and he cursed Tom for being too lazy and too small to help.  But usually he didn't speak to his family and was quick to fetch the switch when the children were close at hand.  You could see easily that he was Frank's father.  Sometimes when it was especially hot, or late in the evening when the sun had gone down and he couldn't see to work anymore, Old Man Brown would meet his shifty neighbor, Clogan, at Clogan's barn, which wasn't much of a barn but only some old gray boards hobnobbed together.  If you were careful you could sneak up on them behind some bushes and listen to them cussing and chewing tobacco and drinking from Clogan's jars.  Tom's mother did not like Clogan and said he was white trash, and Tom thought so, too.

When Tom was ten or eleven Old Man Brown decided to make a go of it in the West.  No one had told the children.  Tom didn't think Old Man Brown had told Clogan that they were going.  They loaded up the rickety wagon very late one night.  Tiny Susan, wrapped tight in rags, was whimpering and his mother pulled her very close to keep her as quiet and warm as possible.  It was a small wagon and they had to leave most of their things behind.  The old man was angry and tense, and he was shushing them to keep very quiet as the two horses pulled the heavy wagon out from the little farm house shack.  They didn't look back.  The night they left was very cold.  Frank sat up front between them and Tom was in the back with the smaller children shoved in among their belongings.  Though his breath puffing from the rags wrapped across his face he could see the frozen, silent stars very high above.

It was impossible to stay awake when it was so dark and cold, but in the morning when the sun came up it was exciting.  Tom had never been on such a long trip before.  Frank and he were also excited because everybody knew about the Indians.  His mother did not seem very happy about it and she pulled the baby very close whenever anyone talked about going to Nebraska.  In the morning daylight Frank ran around the wagon as it rolled along, hooting and trying to scalp everybody.

It took a few days to get there.  They came down to Missouri and through Rock Port and crossed the Brownville ferry.  Tom had never seen a river so big before, all churning thick red-brown with mud with great trees tumbling through it over and over, and he stared in amazement as the ferry went across.  "I wish we could take a steamer down this river!" he said.

"This is the river that swallowed up your Daddy," his mother said.  Susan started to cry again.

Tom kept staring at the brown churning water as the ferry moved slowly across.  He didn't speak.

At his side, Frank whispered:  "The river that swallowed up your Daddy," in a mocking baby voice, with his dull snake eyes lightless, poking Tom in the stomach.

George PA Healy: The Peacemakers.

George PA Healy: The Peacemakers.

The Peacemakers is an 1868 painting by George PA Healy. It depicts the meeting of 28 March 1865 by Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, and David Porter on the steamer River Queen at City Point on the James River near the ongoing siege of Petersburg. Here these men traced out the end of the war and the peace which they hoped would follow.

Henry Clay Bruce, 1836-1902. The New Man. Twenty-Nine Years a Slave. Twenty-Nine Years a Free Man.

Very interesting slave story in which north Missouri is prominently featured. Much takes place in the same place and time where "Old Tom" from Memphis Blues Again spent his youth.

Henry Clay Bruce, 1836-1902. The New Man. Twenty-Nine Years a Slave. Twenty-Nine Years a Free Man.

Amazon.com: Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy (Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies) (9780807825303): Stephen Kantrowitz: Books

Amazon.com: Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy (Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies) (9780807825303): Stephen Kantrowitz: Books

A reviewer of this book at Amazon says:

I'm currently reading "Ben Tillman And The Reconstruction Of White Supremacy" as part of my ongoing effort to understand the failure of Reconstruction. This is an excellent book that, as one of the reviewers has indicated, is more a history of the post-Reconstruction development of white supremacy in the United States than it is of "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman, although Tillman's life story may be said to be a perfect illustration of white supremacy. Tillman, as a "Red-Shirt" mob and militia leader, governor, and U.S. Senator,loved to brag of his successful efforts to disenfranchise Afro Americans through fraud, murder, manipulation of the laws and legal processes, usurpation of legitmate governmental authority,campaigns of terror, lies, deceits, and the dividing and conquering of any cooperative, biracial political efforts by playing whites and their fears of "negro domination" against Afro Americans and their interests. But more, Tillman did not limit his attacks to Afro Americans aspiring to realize the full benefits of citizenship: poor, landless, uninfluential whites, supporters and sympathizers for Afro Americans' increased citizenship rights, whites who disagreed with his policies and political rule, Republicans, and the federal government were all his enemies and he attacked all of them with the same duplicitous ferocity. It is all too apparent that the legacy that he left was embraced by racists and segregationists throughout most of this century in their opposition to civil rights activities.
For those interested in the "real", too long hidden history of race and race relations in this country, this book is an absolute must for their libraries.

In my view, Kantrowitz joins Leon Litwack, Ira Berlin, Eric Foner, W.E.B. DuBois, Frazier, Woodward and the other luminaries of historical writing who worked to provide an accurate, inclusive history of the peoples of the United States of America with this book. "Ben Tillman..." is a book that will fascinate, enrage, infuriate, disgust, amaze, and disturb its readers, especially those who recognize what appear to be parallels between the latter parts of the 19th and 20th centuries and the beginning of the 20th and 21st centuries regarding race and politics.

Perhaps history is circular after all. Read the book and decide for yourself.

30 January 1942, Ruleville, Mississippi: Not Robert Johnson.

Montgomery Bus Boycott: December 1955-December 1956.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott, in which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating, took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and is regarded as the first large-scale demonstration against segregation in the U.S. On December 1, 1955, four days before the boycott began, Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, refused to yield her seat to a white man on a Montgomery bus. She was arrested and fined. The boycott of public buses by blacks in Montgomery began on the day of Parks' court hearing and lasted 381 days. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ordered Montgomery to integrate its bus system, and one of the leaders of the boycott, a young pastor named Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-68), emerged as a prominent national leader of the American civil rights movement in the wake of the action.

http://www.history.com/topics/montgomery-bus-boycott?cmpid-Social_Facebook_topics_120111