Reading Rambo

I really love Neanderthals.


This has been a slow-growing love, possibly owing its beginning to the Field Museum's exhibit on the cave paintings of Lascaux, which made me realize what a condescending dick I'd been to People of the Past. I was astounded to learn they had needles and thread and candles. This was almost 20,000 years ago. I'd assumed they just walked around grunting and hitting each other with rocks. But no! They had hats. I don't know why hats are a major sign of civilization, but they are.

I've discussed before how frustrating it is that all this took place in our prehistory. We barely know anything. And what we think we know is probably wrong. A book I have on Cro-Magnon man from like two years ago says modern humans and Neanderthals probably never interacted, and then we find out that basically everyone whose ancestors emigrated from Africa has 3-5% Neanderthal DNA, meaning our ancestors totally did it with Neanderthals.


It bugs me that how our civiliz…

Okay, so what my last post proved is that no one knows shit about George Sand. We're about to change all that. GATHER ROUND ME, CHILDREN, FOR I HAVE JUST DONE INTERNET RESEARCH.



George Sand was born in 1804 with the EXTREMELY FRENCH ladyname of Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin. Good. Job. So she was born right when Napoleon was all 'KABOOM! I am your emperor' and as far as I know, the French were like 'Hey, we just killed a whole bunch of people trying to end that, but ok.' So she's born when that's going on, and also the same year that the Napoleonic Code is adopted, which is basically all "I'm gonna be an asshole to women." 

She eventually has something to say regarding that. But as a baby she was probably pretty chill about it.

When she's 18 (let's skip all those formative years), she marries a guy called "Baron Casimir Dudevant," making her (in my mind) Baroness Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin-Dudevant. Which is awesome.

Nine years …

A novel from 1897 about feminism and romantic friendship? I would like five tickets for that boat ride, please. So I can EXTRA-enjoy it.

My survey book -- which I'm still in the process of finishing -- about the history of romantic friendship mentions Diana Victrix as an exception to the rule of romantic friendship novels. That rule is that in these novels one or both of the ladies gets married. Always, always always. I mean, they have to! Women can't earn money. Ah, but Florence Converse, 26-year-old Wellesley grad from New Orleans in 1897 says yes, yes they can.



I'm a bit delighted by older books that haven't made the canon, because while we're swayed by The Dudes Who Decided Which Books Should Be Read, they didn't catch nearly everything. And I've got a 14-year-old girl crush on this book. Mainly because it is funny. And has an awesome heroine. And they go HIKING omg. I was not anticipating that, but all of a sudden, the six young people are like "L…

I saw Julius Caesar last night with my delightful playwright friend Skye.


So I went into this knowing nothing about the shape of the play. So when Caesar gets stabbed in Act I (surpriiiise!), I was all "Whoa. What happens now?" Especially since I saw Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra and in THAT, after the boring Rex Harrison-as-Caesar part is over, she has awesome sexytimes with Marc Antony. But she's not even in this play. Boo.

Instead, Antony's all "DAMN YOU BRUTUS" and tries to exact vengeance upon all the Caesar stabby dudes, but when they're all dead because Octavius shot most of them (it was updated to modern times), he's like "DAMNIT Octavius. Brutus was AWESOME. He was awesome and you're a dick." And I'm like "Omg Antony make up your mind, because you just spent all this time asking people to lend you their ears and assorted body parts to make them hate Brutus and now you want to make out with him but he's dead so your …

This is gonna be an interactive (on my part) review, kids, so hang on.


So those're me, at (clockwise from top left) Bishop Hill, Illinois (tiny Swedish cult town from the 1800s); the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory remembrance in NYC; Emma Goldman's grave in Forest Park, Illinois; and John Adams's tomb in Quincy, Massachusetts.

When I found out there was a funny book about a person obsessed with Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Little House on the Prairie series, I first thought 'I know nothing about Little House on the Prairie.' And then 'Obsessions! Historical things! Read on!'

I don't know where it came from, but visiting sites Where Things Happened makes me the happiest. And that is what Wendy McClure is doing in this book. She loved the Little House series as a child, and as an adult, it makes a resurgence into her life, and she gets into it. Really...really into it. Like buy-your-own-antique-butter-churn into it. She buys an old-fashioned butter churn to …

Have I talked about Lady Mary Wortley Montagu on here before?...a quick search tells me I have not.

Well then.

A good portion (read: two essays) of my college career was spent on this woman. Why? I don't know. Two of my classes wanted her Letters from the Turkish Embassy read, and I wrote my term paper on her for one of them.

WHO WAS SHE. Right. Okay. Picture it's 1710 (appx.) and you're a 21-year-old lady and you're super-smart and kind of vain and pretty rich. You don't have a mother, and you're bored. What do you do? Of COURSE you convince yourself you should elope with Edward Wortley Montagu, even though he seems reticent about it because you might lose your dowry. THAT'S not a warning sign. You're eloping! It's exciting! (however, you totally pass up the chance to marry a guy named Clotworthy Skeffington, for which I will never forgive you)

Then what happens? Queen Anne dies. Oh no! But it's ok, because George from Hanover's all set to c…