Saturday Excursion

Yesterday's excursion took me to the local history room of a public library where I discovered that there is a woeful lack of research done on African Americans in that city,  despite the fact that one of its most famous citizen was also the most famous black man of the nineteenth century. Fortunately, I know a graduate student at the University of Rochester who endeavors to fill in that gap.  Unfortunately, she is still writing her dissertation, so I will have to find creative ways to cite her work.

In any case, I faced a dilemma as I kept digging dry wells. I could give up on secondary sources and start digging into primary sources, thus making this effort to contextualize the Douglass household within its community a whole other research project; or, shivering, I could give in to the allure of this view:

It may not look like much in that photo, but the sun beckoned, "Clio! Clio! Come out to play!" Indeed, the sun shone just enough to warm my frozen bones without scorching everything in sight. Unusual for June in my experience.

Incidentally, that building on the left houses one of the best barbeque joints you could possibly find outside of Texas. Seriously! They specialize in Texas barbeque,  with brisket and lots of spicy sauce. Bill Clinton supposedly frequents the Harlem branch; and, let me tell you, based on my experience at his favored Little Rock joint, the man knows his barbeque. All of the wait staff at the Syracuse branch have lots of tattoos and the no bullshit demeanor of consummate professional in the service industry who wait tables to pay the bills while they do something more creative and interesting in the rest of their lives, but they still take waiting tables seriously because it does, after all, pay the bills. Also, by the time I left the library, the parking lot was filled with motorcycles. The real kind of motorcycles, the kind on which the riders sit upright and relaxed, and wear leather, not the crotch rockets. Those sort of motorcyclists seem to know where to find a good, solid meal, if their physique is any indication.

So, on a lovely summer day, with the smoky smells of barbeque in the air, and a warm, friendly sun on my face, where did I decide to go? A cemetery, of course! Not-Clio can take you through the Douglass related stuff, which was most of the day. Not-Clio likes to consider visiting the bones and homes of her research subjects as actual research. This means that she won't have to feel guilty when she skips out of the library two hours before it closes on a lovely, sunny Saturday. She is,  after all, just continuing her research. She and I are good at rationalizing things that way. Meanwhile, as Not-Clio post about the "serious" part of the visit, Clio will show you this:

That is a pond. At least, whatever is under that very thick layer of algae is a pond, unless the algae goes all the way to the bottom. Can algae to that? As nasty as that may seem, the complete, opaque surface had a perfect beauty all unto itself.

At Not-Clio went in search of the graves of the people whose letters she had been reading all week, Clio decided to make a little pilgrimage:

Susan B. Anthony. I remember the first time I visited her grave, I thought, "Flawed an all, if it weren't for her and women like her, I couldn't be me today."

Then, not-Clio and I got back in the car and headed out to the middle of western New York for another look for Helen Pitts childhood home, and then back through the Burned Over District to the Gentleman Caller,  who had a nice, hot, steak dinner, fresh off the grill and waiting. Despite the dry wells of the week in research, the time went well  toward getting my several grooves back.

Research Trip Oddities

The mystery of the week is how I forgot how cold archives can get. I must block it out of my memory between visits. Even when I wear a jacket, I'm sore by the end of the day simply from shivering. Then, I get into my oven of a car that has been sitting in the sun all day and turn on the heater, hoping to thaw out.

I've also noticed that most archives have very very bad spaces for research.  I don't mean the archive itself, but the actual space for the researcher. Many are a hold over from the days before computers, and replacing them would probably be an unnecessary expense when there are HVACs to replace and maintain, and collections to keep.

Still, I'd like to design a research desk that is much like an old secretary's desk. It would be shaped like an L -- or even a V. One arm of the L or V would be slightly lower than the other, at a level more conducive to typing. The other arm could be tilted up slightly to raise one end of the documents. That way, the researcher could transcribe and take notes without contorting her spine and arms into unnatural and inefficient positions.

All archives should have free internet access. I love when they do. You can look up little things like locations or names right there and makes the research so much more effective.

While we're at it, I wish hotels had tables sort of like those in hospitals, the kind that slide over the bed at a reasonable height.  I tend to sit in bed and eat or work on the computer or both -- with HBO on,  of course, because I can! -- and a table like that would be convenient.

For some bizarre reason that has origins in a research trip in Maryland and Massachusetts, I get a craving for Ben & Jerry's Low Fat Cherry Garcia Frozen Yogurt. I don't crave it at any other time but in cheap hotels, usually on research trips. The same with cheap Chinese food -- that one I blame on a restaurant next to the Days Inn in Danvers, Massachusetts -- and Subway or Arby's -- those go back to a Knights Inn in North Charleston, South Carolina. I only want these things in cheap hotels on research trips.

Generally, I tend not to want to end my research trips, so the oddest thing about these most recent research trips is that, no matter how great they are, no matter how productive or how much like a grown-up historian I feel, I miss a certain Gentleman Caller and look forward to getting back to him.

Red Bull Vodkas, 2 for $9

Maybe this is just a product of the fact that the mere idea of Red Bull makes me jittery and nauseated, or maybe this is the result of a very sharp sense memory of a very bad morning after a very rollicking night spent at a martini bar many years ago, or perhaps this the terrible intersection of both responses; but the idea of a single Red Bull Vodka -- let alone TWO -- makes me retch as I type this.



Conference Etiquette, a Quiz

You are a relatively prominent professor at a research university and you meet with a younger and (currently) unknown scholar. The younger and (currently) unknown scholar introduces herself to you and notes that you were originally scheduled to be on a panel together at another conference but has since heard that you will be unable to attend said conference. The younger and (currently) unknown scholar expresses her flattery at having been placed on a panel with you and regret that you will not be at said conference. The proper response in this scenario is:

A) Say, "I am sorry, too, and was looking forward to hearing your paper. Sadly, it could not be avoided, but the panelists are all so strong that I will not be missed at all."

B) Say, "Oh, they got you to replace me. The chair and I had put together a panel of just the two of us, but I had to back out at the last minute to suck up to my former advisor, the oh-so-famous-and-important-historian -- did you know my former advisor is the oh-so-famous-and-important-historian? -- he is oh-so-famous-and-important-historian -- and I know him -- by first name -- and will tell you personal details about his life to prove it -- and he's important -- and famous -- and was my advisor -- so I couldn't refuse because he is oh-so-famous-and-important-historian -- so I had to back out at the last minute and didn't think anyone at all could possibly replace me. But they found you. I have to go now."

If you are the younger and (currently) unknown scholar in this scenario, your proper response is NOT to slam back several more drinks and think "god, I must be a real loser." Instead, your proper response is to smile politely and think, "Dumbass, Be Gone!" Then, write a bitchy blog post.

Perhaps the last bit about the blog post is not the most professional response, and violates just about everyone else's blog ethic. Then, again, you have no blog ethic except not to name names in order to protect the bitchy, with the bitchy being yourself.

Not the Big Man!

Clarence Clemons suffered a stroke.


Lots of crap on YouTube. This isn't much better, but it gives a sense of his big, playful sax sound, and the lyrics pay tribute to his importance to the sound of the E Street Band.

What Do You Know?

What do you know? As of today, I haven't lived in Texas for ten years.

I was born in Texas, lived in five different places in three other states before the age of 9, then was moved back to Texas. I spent the next -- what was it? -- 23 or 24 years plotting to get out of Texas. In fact,  I spent so much time plotting that I actually didn't get around to getting out until I was in my thirties. Indeed, I think I began to suspect that all places outside of Texas only existed in my imagination or in some other medium than reality.

Since then, I've lived in seven different places (if you don't count extended stays in hotels) in five different states. The longest that I've stayed in any one place has been four years, and that is probably the first place I have seriously considered a home in all of this time. I'm now sitting in the place that will be my eighth residence in yet a sixth state while the Gentleman Caller books us flights to the ninth residence in, not another state, but another country.

You could say that I'm making up for that middle quarter century of plotting.

Needless to say, I'm facing some of my anxieties -- at least at this particular moment between freak-outs.

Thank you for all of your advice in the comments to the last post. This is all a bit like jumping out of an airplane. I know I have a parachute,  I really want to do this, but I just have to control the instinctive desire to run, shrieking,  "what in the hell am I doing?!"

ETA: Of course, then I look up, and see the Gentleman Caller at the other end of the table, and I realize, "that's what the hell I am doing, and it's great!"