La popular confusión entre genialidad y locura es más patente que nunca en la biografía de Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851). Pintor académico en sus principios, Turner fue lenta pero imparablemente evolucionando hacia un estilo libre, atmosférico , en ocasiones esbozando incluso la abstracción, que fue incomprendido y rechazado por unos críticos que llevaban décadas admirándolo. El aparente caos que llenaba las últimas obras de Turner fue atacado por considerarse la obra de un demente. Se dice que la mismísima Reina Victoria se negó a concederle la orden de caballero -honor otorgado a muchos pintores de menor categoría- porque consideraba que Turner estaba sencillamente loco.

En cierto sentido, era bastante sencillo atribuir a Turner la etiqueta de demente, considerando su antecedente materno: su madre había pasado los últimos 4 años de su vida en un manicomio. El propio pintor alimentaba estas leyendas en sus últimos años, llevando una doble vida en el barrio de Chelsea, con una mujer llamada Sophia Boot, haciéndose pasar por un almirante retirado. Pero en realidad, este "caos demencial" presente en las pinturas de Turner responde a una compleja evolución artística en la que el pintor se adelanta varias décadas a cualquier otro artista de su generación. Por tanto, la incomprensión a la que Turner se vio sometido no es sorprendente.

Se cuenta que, durante una exposición, un pedazo de cielo de una obra de Turner cayó al suelo, a lo que el propio pintor quitó importancia argumentando que " lo único que importa es dar una impresión ". Es lógico pensar la sorpresa que causaría esta idea en la seria y pétrea Academia. También cuenta el escritor John Ruskin -íntimo amigo de William Turner- que un crítico recriminó a Turner que éste no pintara los ojos de buey de unos barcos en una de sus pinturas. Turner explicó al crítico que, en el momento en el que él había pintado el cuadro, los barcos se encontraban a contraluz y, por tanto, los ojos de buey no eran visibles. Contrariado, el crítico argumentó: " de acuerdo, pero sabe usted bien que los barcos tienen ojos de buey" . Entonces Turner respondió: " Sí, pero yo me dedico a pintar lo que veo, no lo que sé" . En efecto, la visión directa de los objetos y de los fenómenos atmosféricos tenía una importancia pivotal en la creación de sus pinturas. Pero -como el propio Ruskin apunta al hablar de la estética Modern Painters - esta visión directa derivaba más hacia la impresión que los objetos o fenómenos causaban en la mente del pintor que en una representación exacta de lo observado. En este sentido, no es de extrañar que las pinturas de Turner causaran tan honda admiración entre los pintores impresionistas como Claude Monet o Alfred Sisley, varias décadas después.   Biografía

Even today the stereotype lives on in a weakened form, making white Americans uncomfortable when they see a black man with a white woman.

The pure white woman determined how whites looked at blacks. If white women were pure, then black men were the threat. Thus the black brute stereotype, which saw black men as savages. And if white women were pure, then black women were not. Thus the Jezebel stereotype, which saw black women as easy and loose.

This picture of white women had such force that a black man could be killed just for being too friendly with a white woman. Thus the lynchings, where black men hung dead from trees.

At the heart of all this was the raw fear in the hearts of white men that black men would take all of "their" women - meaning the white women. They thought black men were better at pleasing women in bed. So they had to be stopped.

They were stopped in three ways:

1. White men kept the races apart with Jim Crow laws, laws backed up by lynchings.
2. White men made sure that most black men were kept poor. making them undesirable to white women as husbands.
3. The One Drop Rule meant that any children a white woman had by a black man would be black too.

Black men were kept from white women, but white men continued to rape black women without consequence.

So, in the name of keeping white women pure, to keep them up on that pedestal, blacks were kept down.

But white women were kept in their place too, even if it was up on a pedestal somewhere closer to the angels.

The American magazines and religious books of the 1800s told white women that to be good and pure they should leave the dirty business of running the world to their husbands. So no need to vote. They were told that making beds was much better for them than reading books, which would only fill their heads with the wrong ideas. And so on.

The Jim Crow laws came down in the 1950s and 1960s. By 1967 black men could marry white women anywhere in the country.

But even now some white people are still not comfortable seeing a black man with a white woman. White women are still held up as more beautiful than anyone and more morally upright, despite "Girls Gone Wild" and other things. And when a white woman is missing it can be on the news for days and days, while missing black women never seem to make the news for some reason.

See also:

• Race in America
• white women
• Jim Crow
• The black brute stereotype
• The Jezebel stereotype
• One Drop Rule
• The Missing White Woman Syndrome

I read a book intended for young people the other day and quite enjoyed it. Where Soldiers Lie by John Wilson (2006 YA WIL) is a fast-paced historical novel about the siege of Cawnpore (now called Kanpur) in India in 1857.

Sixteen year old Jack O’Hara has come from the Western Canadian wilderness to live in India where his parents had first met and married. They went to Canada to escape the censure that came with their mixed marriage - his mother was Indian - only to die of smallpox in the new world. Living with his very proper Aunt Katherine and Uncle James back in India, everything is new and strange, but with the help of his horse, Australian, and Hari, the stable boy, he is learning to adapt.

One day a pile of chapattis are left on their doorstep and Hari tells Jack this means trouble. It symbolizes a declaration of war. A few days later, Jack finds himself and about one thousand soldiers, women and children taking refuge in an inadequate barracks surrounded by a shallow trench under a constant barrage of gunfire. Food supplies dwindle, bodies pile up and are dumped into the Sepulchral Well, and reinforcements are stalled miles away.

Twenty-one days later the siege is over and almost everyone is dead. Wilson does not sugar-coat the action but does not wallow in it either. This story is action packed but not a glorification of war. He presents the reasons for the uprising and the response of the British in a balanced way.

Wilson brings history to life and that is just what is needed to catch the interest of young readers, boys in particular. As someone once said we should study history so that we don’t repeat it, and reading about events in the historical novel is one way to do that.

>> Find this book in VIRL's catalogue

Taken with permission from Gloria Novak's "Good Reads at the Library"

Local legend says that you can hear soldiers and slaves in Purdy Cemetery. Some people say they have seen a horse drawn carriage. Others say that if you park on the left side of the circle your car will not start until dawn.
After many visits, I can only say this: I have never heard soldiers or slaves. We did hear a scream from the woods which could very possibly have been a local prankster. We did have a vehicle stall for five minutes on the left side of the circle but I believe it was a starter going bad. Aside from that, it is still interesting to visit as it is one of the oldest cemeteries in Tennessee dating back to the early 1800's. I will be visiting Purdy Cemetery very soon as it has been years since my last visit and many of my friends are interested in going. I will provide an update after my visit.

Hurst Mansion was always a place we overlooked, really. It was not until recently that I read the history of this house. Local legend says one of Hurst's many enemies shot at him from the bottom of the stair case and he died in his bedroom. (Hurst DID NOT die in this house. He died in Mount Gilead.) They say sometimes the blood spot will reappear and you can hear him scream. This is highly unlikely since he did not die there. However, I have seen several photographs of Hurst House with a ghostly face in one of the upstairs windows. When I compared the image to photos of Hurst, you can see a resemblance. (You can see these images for yourself on http://www.hurstnation.com.)
I will be taking a closer look at Hurst Mansion and taking my own photographs to see if this phenomena repeats itself. Please note: I will NOT be trespassing on the property. I will take my photos from the roadway. If you decide to visit, please respect the owner's wishes and do the same.
I will post pictures and updates after my visit.

Hans Christian Andersen: Christine’s Picture Book. View all 114 pages here.

Although planters and overseers noticed that blacks often got the urge to run away, the condition did not have a name till Dr Samuel Cartwright gave it one in 1851. He delivered a paper on the newly named disease before the Medical Association of Louisiana. It was later written up in "Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race".

Dr Cartwright was an American doctor who taught at the University of Louisiana. He was a widely respected expert on yellow fever, cholera and diseases that affect blacks.

Here is what he knew about drapetomania:

• Causes: Masters who are too cruel or too kind to their slaves. If a master did not see to his slaves' physical needs or, at the other extreme, he went against God's will and tried to make blacks anything more than "the submissive knee-bender", as they were meant to be for all time, then blacks will come down with this disease.
• How to prevent it: When a master attends to his slaves' physical needs for food, warmth and safety, then "the negro is spell-bound, and cannot run away." Making slaves bend the knee also went a long way to preventing an outbreak.
• Signs of onset: Those coming down with the disease become "sulky and dissatisfied".
• Cure: Whipping the devil out of a patient is enough for most. For more extreme cases, cut off toes.

Cartwright's work on drapetomania has since been widely discredited.

It is now widely believed that only blacks got the disease because only they were held as slaves. Their urge to run away was not a disease at all but a very healthy and human desire for freedom.

Some say drapetomania is a piece of scientific racism: plain old racism dressed up to look like science.

Cartwright would not have seen it that way. To him blacks being slaves was part of the natural order, the way God meant it to be. It said so in the Bible. So when a black slave wanted to run away, something was wrong. It was unnatural. And, being a doctor, he saw it as a disease.

We can laugh at Dr Cartwright but that kind of blindness to racism still goes on: you know, American society is fine the way it is, it is just those blacks who have something wrong with them.

The word comes from Greek: drapeto for runaway slave and mania for madness. The madness that runaway slaves suffer from.

In the film "CSA: Confederate States of America" (2004) it appears in an ad as "draptomania", which is easier to say. Most people who know about drapetomania these days, know it from that film, so on the Internet you will often see it written that way.

See also:

• Race in America
• How white people think

I've protected her modesty with a puncture repair kit :-)

I picked this up at the cyclejumble in Ripley earlier and these note cards were going 'like hot cakes' according to the stall holder. And they were selling them on a 'Sunday too' :-). What is the Village Hall coming to?

The trains didn't look like they do today.  They used to run on coal, not diesel.  Gas wasn't invented yet.  Computers were not invented.  They played outside games like hopscotch, jacks and jump rope.  I think they ate spaghetti back then.  But they had to eat it all because refrigerators hadn't been invented, so they couldn't keep it cool.  There was no football or baseball.  I don't know if there was soccer.  I think they had their own sports then.  TV's weren't invented.  They just had to put on their shows.  Film wasn't invented, not even cameras. 

I don't think they had vacuum cleaners, so they had to put junk in the trash can.  Some companies today weren't around in that time.  There was more work to do to survive in the 1800's.  I'd like to live today.

New York Saloon in Los Angeles, c.1800s.

Gambling in a Mining town saloon, c.1800s.

Interior postcard view of a make-believe saloon, 1912.

Interior view of an early saloon, with two bartenders and two patrons, c.1800s.

Mexican store and saloon in 1875.

Hey everyone:)

I had a great day yesterday. Really great! It was my mom and stepdad's anniversery so I watched my little sister for them so they could go to dinner. I was really happy to. She is so full of energy at her age.

 I made her chocolate chip pancakes with strawberries, cinnamon, and whipping cream for dinner. I know it is not the healthiest thing, but having a sister isn't healthy:)

We watched "Twitches Too," which she really wanted to watch. It was fun. I swear one of those twins is a way better actor than the other one (why not? They are separate people).

Then we made some Chai Tea too calm her down after all that sugar. You will be happy to know that she went to sleep really well.

I was kind of disappointed, because a short story I had written for Associated Content with a recipe included wasn't accepted for upfront payment, because they don't accept short stories for that. So, I thought instead that I would show it to you guys. I had fun with it and that is what is important. The cake is incredible by the way. At least I did get it to be accepted on performance payments. It would be great if you guys could enjoy the story, so I can show them just how great short stories are. So, here is my story about a black forest cake and how it furthered a 19th century murderer:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/700525/my_recipe_for_the_black_widow_forest.html?cat=22

Oh, I did mean to copy and paste the whole thing, but it is about 5 pages and if you guys know associated content you know it is quite the deal to copy and paste.

Okay, I'm off to make my day!

Have a good one:)

A synopsis of this movie, from my viewpoint...

This movie is about a U.S. cowboy named Frank Hopkins (played by Viggo Mortensen), in the 1800's that has lost his way and his identity. He is of a mixed heritage.. he was born of a white father and a Native American Indian mother. He is fluent in both languages, but tries to hide his native heritage because of all the problems the Native Americans are having with the U.S. government. For a while, he works as a pony express rider/interpreter for the U.S. Army, but after seeing a whole tribe murdered by the U.S. Army, he joins Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, and becomes a drunk.

As a showman in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, Frank is billed as the world's greatest endurance rider, since apparently he also use to race in endurance races across the U.S. A great sheik from across the Atlantic hears of his triumphs and wants to invite him to take place in a race called the Ocean of Fire, a 3000 mile race across the Arabian desert. So far, only sheiks and people of wealth that own great Arabian horses have ever raced this race. Frank takes the challenge because of his pride for his horse, Hidalgo, an American mustang, that he has won all of his endurance races on.

The Arabs do not think an unpurebred horse can be of any match against their pureblooded Arabian horses. They see him and his horse as infidels, not worthy of such a race. Most of the Arabs are insulted by the thought that Frank and Hidalgo would even consider themselves worthy candidates for such a race, but he proves his worth not only in the race itself, but by freeing the sheik's beautiful daughter from a relative of the sheik, who wants the sheik's Arabian stallion and bloodlines for himself. Frank and Hidalgo work together, helping Frank to come to accept his own hidden heritage. He finally accepts his "blue child" heritage, and realizes there is nothing wrong with being a half-breed, that it is what makes him.. HIM. In the end, Frank and Hidalgo hold up where many have failed and even died, and win the grueling 3000 mile race. Frank uses the purse money he won in the race to purchase the Indian's mustangs that the U.S. Army had rounded up and were going to destroy. He frees them on Blackjack Mountain in Oklahoma, where they supposedly still roam today.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for adventure violence and some mild innuendo.

Overall, I love to watch this movie again and again. It showed some true events that happened in the past that were unsavory, along with a great storyline. Although, I was surprised that that many Arabs could speak English so well, such as the goat herder that worked as Frank's caretaker during the race. I would have figured that only the most influential and wealthiest would have had professional schooling during the 1800's ;) IMO, the movie has no boring points, and is full of action! I give the movie 4 1/4 stars...not quite a good 4 1/2, but close! And for those of you wanting to know the real truth behind the movie, visit http://www.frankhopkins.com/hopkinshome.html.

Ilustraciones y fotos coloreadas a mano entre 1888 y 1930

Blackface (1750- ) is where an entertainer makes his face black to play a black character. Mostly white men did it to make a laughingstock of black men. In the 1800s the whole minstrel show industry in America was built on it. Al Jolson, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny have all done blackface. It is how Mickey Mouse got his white gloves.

Blackface became rare after the 1950s, thanks in part to the NAACP. Bugs Bunny last did blackface in 1953.

Although now much rarer, it is still with us in 2008. Look at Shirley Q. Liquor, a white man who plays a black welfare queen. It is mean stuff. You also hear about whites doing it from time to time at universities.

A gentler form of blackface is still seen in film and television, as when Fred Armisen (white and Asian) plays Barack Obama on "Saturday Night Live" and Angelina Jolie (white) played Mariane Pearl in "A Mighty Heart" (2007). A curious thing in a country with so much black acting talent.

At least until 1930 whites thought blackface characters were true to life. Even Mark Twain thought so. Part of the attraction of the minstrel show was that it was supposed to be a window onto black life. While it was based on music and dance that was at least part black, most of it was stereotype. Yet it shaped how whites saw blacks.

Blackface seems to go back as far as 1750. By the 1790s blackface characters began to appear in the travelling shows that crossed America.

In the early 1830s a white man named T. Daddy Rice came to New York and made blackface big. He had a song, "Jump Jim Crow", and an amazing dance to go with it, which he did in blackface. Some say he took the song and dance from a black man in Ohio. It became a huge hit, not just in America but in Britain too.

Soon, by the early 1840s, whole shows were based blackface characters. These were the minstrel shows. White people could not get enough of them. They became their main form of family entertainment till the 1880s. Minstrel shows started dying out in the 1920s.

Blacks also did blackface. It was about the only way to make a living as a performer in the late 1800s. They painted their faces black too: their skin was not dark enough. The Apollo Theater in Harlem had blacks performing in blackface as late as the 1940s.

Blackface was so much a part of American life that it appeared in the first full-length film that had sound, "The Jazz Singer" (1927). In it Al Jolson sings "My Mammy" in blackface.

Al Jolson was at his best in blackface. He said it made him freer. If you watch him do the same song in blackface and then in his own face you see what he means: as strange as blackface seems now, he seems even stranger performing in his own face. Because you expect white men to be more reserved than that.

See also:

• minstrel show
• Shirley Q. Liquor
• hipsters - thought it was cool to be black, but their ideas of blacks came from jazz musicians and blackface entertainers
  
• Jim Crow - T. Daddy Rice's character became a byword for a way of life in the American South.
• Race in America
• How white people think
• Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs - an example of blackface in cartoon form
  

I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence. - Fredrick Douglas

This article is available on line.

Introduction

Trás-os-Montes is located in the North East of Portugal, it is a land-locked region close to the Spanish border. The silk industry started there in the 15th century but silkworms had been reared in the region since the 1200s. Although a significant part of the activity was located in Bragança, lesser towns and the countryside also enjoyed a share of it (Vinhais, Freixo de Espadaà Cinta, Chacim) (1).

Cycles (1450-1770)

By the mid-15th century, the production in Bragança was monopolized by the Duke of Guimarães (the town’s donatário). The velvet of the region quickly gained national reputation. The local sericulture and industry took full advantage of the Portuguese industrial boom of 1670-1690. Bragança’s factory was resuscitated by experts from Toledo dispatched by the king.

“The discovery of gold in Brazil (1697), followed by a treaty with England (1703), which allowed the free entry of English woolen fabrics, brought an end to the industrialization process that had begun in the reign of Dom Pedro II. Nevertheless, records show that in 1721-1724, Bragança had 30 registered spinning-wheels and 350 looms, while Freixo de Espada à Cinta had more than 100 looms.” By 1750, the Brangança silk factory had once again fallen into decay. This crisis due to counterfeiting and poor quality lasted until 1770-3 (2).

Causes of the crises

Three factors can chiefly account for this cycle of prosperity and depression:

• The lack of policies of industrial protection and development: before the Marquis of Pombal, the state did not support the Trás-os-Montes industries. The Crown’s backing of the Rato silk factory in Lisbon even proved harmful during the second industrial boom (1720-40) (3).
• The wars and conflicts that directly affected Trás-os-Montes: the Spanish armies invaded the region several ties between 1640 and 1763. It contributed to the processes of depopulation and desertification of the North East. For instance, at the beginning of the Wars of Restauration (1640) Bragança had 1500 inhabitants, only 500 were left at the end of the conflict eight years later. Wars also reduced the size of market for silk by closing the Spanish border.
• The Inquisition: from 1580 to 1755, the Holy Office brought to trial local Jews and New Christians (cristãos-novos) in their thousands. It brought chaos in the region and can explain some of the recurrent decadence of the region’s production (4). No other economic activity was as heavily repressed in these waves of trials as the silk industry. Moreover, many businessmen and artisans fled the Inquisition. Freixo, which suffered the least from the persecutions, was also the centre of production with the most regular production (5). The Holy Office’s action were certainly responsible for the depopulation of the Brangança disctrict which went from 20,000 in 1557-78 to 8,000 in 1636 (no war, famine or plague could explain that) (6).

The resurrection (1770-1834)

In the last two decades of the 18th century, the active modernisation of the trade by entrepreneurial businessmen (some of whom installed 200 silk looms in one go in Brangança) dragged the industry out of the crisis the last wave of persecutions by the Inquisition (1750-5) had created. They imported the best practice (Piemontese mills and the spinning-jenny) Some Italian experts were brought in and settled (7).

The new-comers did not moved to Bragança because they wanted a full control over the production. The Arnauds for instance installed their spinning school and their filature on Chacim. In Bragança alone 950 workers were employed in the silk industry (18% of the population).

Local weavers and producers resisted the introduction of the Piedmontese methods. But protectionist legislation guaranteed the industry’s success anyway by providing a privileged access to the national and Brazilian markets. In 1794, 1732 workers were operating the region’s looms. But the lack of competition meant that counterfeit fabric and foreign ones gradually offered better quality, diversity and prices (8). The usefulness of luxury factories in Portugal (which being poor had little use for it) was often questioned at the time.

Final crisis

The French invasion of 1807-10 struck a disastrous blow to the industry. At the same time, Brazil was forced to open to foreign imports. Portugal was overwhelmed by Britain’s newly found industrial might.

The lack of investment, the difficulties to implement technological advances and the little entrepreneurship displayed impeded Trás-os-Montes’ modern industrialisation (9). The region’s silk industry never recovered. The independence of Brazil deprived it from a large market in the 1820s. At the same period, English and Chinese cloth proved too strong a competition even on the regional market. At the same time, Porto’s own silk industry was on the rise (10).

The region’s production structure remained small-scale, rural and dispersed and kept using old machines. In the early 19th century, the quality of the local raw material also collapsed. Finally, social strife hindered any effort to better the situation (Bragança was even ransacked in 1826) (11).
As a result, the region went from producing 177936 meters of fabric in 1794 to 4554 in 1829 (12).

Conclusion

The otherwise backward Trás-os-Montes region had benefited from the presence of local sericulture installed since the late middle age. It benefited from the collapse of the Kingdom of Grenanda and the exile of the traditional Spanish silk weavers: the Moors. Many Spaniards actually sought refuge in the region (13).

Until the 19th century, the regional silk industry economic cycles matched the national ones. But after the French invasion, while the rest of the Portuguese silk industry thrived, the one of the Bragança district quickly disappeared.

I am a visual learner so I need to see it to "know" it.. How do you "see" a fictional story location? For me, I started with the "real world."

Travel magazines and postcards of Rhode Island, Cape Cod and Narragansett Bay were a help, but not enough. So I spent one Christmas break compiling a 3 foot by 4 foot topographical map of Narragansett Bay. I found it on the web on a geological survey site and proceeded to print it out, quadrant by quadrant. Then I taped them all together until I had the complete topographical map of Narragansett Bay, including all the islands and the surrounding land areas. My husband did question if it might not have been cheaper and easier to just buy the map, but frankly, I don't think I could have bought the entire map that I ended up with. In any event, this gave me a "visual" of sorts to know what the land around the bay was like. I could tell that while the area is not that far above sea level, there most definitely are hills and ridges, marshes and sand dunes.

The next thing I had to do was make the imaginary town a real place to me. I started by printing photos of diners, stone warehouse buildings, rocky coastlines, Fort Adams, docks and wharves, and even that building at Woods Hole with the sailing ship model jutting out from the stone wall above the doorway.

Once I had an idea of the kinds of items and places my town included, I created a map of the town. Now I could "see" where Max's house stood in relation to Carbone's Auto Body shop, the diner, the rich uptown area, Lighthouse Point, her school, and the downtown dock areas. I could see how much area the Naval Research base took up on Lighthouse point, where the pier and research labs were in relation to the haunted carriage house and the Yacht club, and how far of a walk it was back to the town and the diner.

Next I needed to see Max's house and yard. I grew up in those three-family houses, so I had an idea in my mind of how they would be set up - back staircases, front and back porches, attic rooms with slanting walls, stone wall cellars that spooked you every time you had to go down there. I did a map of Max's neighborhood, and a blueprint of both hers and Noah's house, showing all three floors in each. I wanted to "see what she saw" when she looked out her attic window. From the map-making kit I had as a kid, I knew about doing room plans, so I could tell where the kitchen stove was, how many couches were in the living room, and if they had a computer desk. With these, I could now see Max's house, her backyard, her neighborhood, and how it connected to everything else in town.

Rosa's Midway Diner is such a big part of the story that it required equal attention. I have been in a number of diners over the years, so I had some mental images. I found a number of good books on diners, and consulted the American Diner Museum website. I even went to the local diner here in town (Cary, North Carolina) and with the permission of the owner, took a couple hundred interior shots of tables, counters, stools, equipment, pass-through windows from the kitchen, plates, etc.

From all of that, I created a blueprint of Rosa's Midway Diner. I drew up the "diner of my dreams," the one I would build if I had the money. If this book ever sells big, I swear I'll build it. It has regular booth seating including the large back semi-circular booth that Rosa uses for her Friday night poker games. It has a large window behind it made of those glass blocks, and all tables have roses in the vases. There's an extra long counter with stools, another counter in the front of the diner where you can sit, sip your coffee, read the paper and look out on Main Street, and a large take-out area for walk-in business. And of course, there is the new drive-through being installed as part of the take-out area.

The diner itself is a character in the book. As such, I have created a "biography" of the diner - a timeline of how it started, who created it, where it was located over the years, expansions...the whole works. Before I'm done with this, I will do an oil painting of that diner, both outside, and in. To that end, I have a very rough cardboard model of part of the diner interior, that includes the kitchen pass-through, counter and stools, and the drive-through areas

To further give the diner reality and context, I did a map of the diner area and Main Street. I felt it was important to show where the diner was in relation to all the businesses mentioned in the story, as well as to the rest of the town.

Lighthouse Point is another important part of the story and required "visuals" and biographies. I wrote up the story of the ship's captain who built the lighthouse and surrounding stone warehouses and who died along with his family, in the fire that destroyed his mansion. I also created a map of the area around the haunted carriage house, and blueprints of the abandoned ammo bunkers and anti-aircraft gun emplacements right near the carriage house ruins.

For Uncle Jim's lab, I chose the stone building at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, the former "Candle House." I even gave Uncle Jim's lab a similar sailing ship model jutting out from the exterior wall over the doorway. Interior shots of other buildings at Woods Hole served as inspiration for the lab and office interiors of those buildings.

Since paintings have such power for me, I did a 24 by 36 inch oil painting of where the two story worlds meet - the rocky coastline at Lighthouse Point. Every item in the painting is in the story - from the hermit crab, Carpus, who is right up front, to the lighthouse and rocky point, wooden pier, tide pool area, distant fishing trawler, fort on the hill, research labs and ...yes, the ghosts.

The University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography is the barely veiled location of the university in the story. I gave Jerry a research lab located in a former World War II ammunition bunker, and had her out doing her environmental research on a university-sponsored ocean-going research vessel, very similar to the R/V Endeavor. I verified the research itineraries, including places visited, work performed, and the durations of cruises, from the various research vessel ship logs online. I also studied the online blueprints for these existing research ships, to see the locations of labs, bunks, galleys, as well as the rules for running such a ship and expedition.

For the museum lobby where Max sneaks up to, to file her contest entry, I did rely on a memory - a very strong one burned in my brain from early childhood. In Torrington, CT, the post office at that time was in a brick building in the center of town. (It is now further out in a refurbished old supermarket building.) The post office lobby, while a very wide open area, was a scary place to me. At one end were the faces of numerous FBI fugitives staring out from black and white printouts pinned to bulletin boards.

It was the other end of the post office lobby though, near all the service windows, that truly freaked me out for a long time. Above the windows, high up on the walls all around that part of the building, were these huge murals. They showed 1800s men and women trudging through mud, beside a Conestoga wagon. There were also other scenes of 1800s life - all scenes actually, from the life of the abolitionist, John Brown. The murals themselves were intimidating enough, but ....silly as it sounds, I thought they were alive. Standing in that post office lobby waiting for my mom, I would stare up at the wall paintings and listen to the loud voices echoing off the walls around me. I thought the figures were speaking. In reality, the echoes were the voices of the postmen behind the wall yelling back and forth to each other. But to a 4 or 5 year old staring up at scary murals, the voices came out of the paintings, out of these solemn, angry looking people struggling behind their oxen in the mud. Hence, the inspiration for the museum lobby murals that Max sees.

By the way, if you are visual too, click here to see the murals from the old Torrington, CT Post Office.

Click here to read more about the history behind Connecticut post office art work done in the 1930s Depression era as part of the New Deal.

The other items I consulted to "see" the location, involved technical things like weather charts, articles on ocean fog, articles and nature guides describing the trees, birds, types of rocks, and area geological history. And I asked questions - of myself, of my sister living up there, of Google: What is the air temperature at night in June? Are there any sea breezes? How fast do storms move in, from which direction and how bad do they get? What do your clothes feel like against your body when you're walking near the shore - crisp and dry, or soggy and limp? Do you need a jacket to walk around at night in the summer? Do you need a wetsuit to scuba dive in July?

Aside from visuals, I needed "sound" to further "see" the place. I selected CDs based on the emotions they created in me. When you watch TV, the music tells you if something funny, poignant, or ominous is taking place. In the same fashion I needed music or sound so I could see the events as they occurred in the story and feel the emotions of that moment and location. I played those CDs over and over and over, while writing in my garage. I am amazed my husband and my neighbors are still sane.

Some of these CDs include the soundtracks from: The Band of Brothers, Cinderella Man, We Were Young Once, and the Perfect Storm. There are also ocean and bird sound CDs, Gregorian Chants, and last but not least, Rosa's "Frankie boy," Frank Sinatra. But be assured, there are NO Dean Martin CDs. Just for the record, I personally have nothing against Dean Martin and I LOVE his song, "That's Amore," but you can never account for what your characters will love or hate. Rosa hates Dean. Plain and simple.

Next up - Let's Get Technical. Stay tuned.

Most songs that Americans know from the 1800s come from either church or the minstrel show. Songs such as "Dixie", "Camptown Races", "Oh Susannah", "Old Folks Home" and "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" started out as songs in minstrel shows.

The minstrel show started in 1843. In a land without television, minstrel acts travelled America, and even England, going from town to town. They also played on Broadway. In the 1860s New York had 20 separate minstrel shows going at the same time! (The more I find out about the past the worse it gets.)

In the 1880s vaudeville grew out of the middle, singing part of the minstrel show. Vaudeville killed off its parent. By the 1920s minstrel shows no longer made money, but amateur ones lasted into the 1950s.

The radio show "Amos 'n' Andy" and Al Jolson's blackface character in "The Jazz Singer" (1927), the first full-length film with sound, grew out of the old minstrel shows.

Al Jolson, a Jew who came to America from Russia, was perhaps one of the greatest American performers of all time. He got his start in minstrel shows. He was better in blackface than in his own face. He said blackface made him freer.

Blackface is older than the minstrel show. By the 1790s there were travelling shows in America that had blackface characters. Jim Crow, who would later become one of the main characters in the minstrel shows, started in 1828. But it was not till 1843 that whole shows were based on blackface. White people could not get enough of it.

Blackface is still with us in 2008, by the way. Look at Shirley Q. Liquor.

In the late 1800s blacks started performing in minstrel shows. They wore blackface too: their own skin was not black enough. In those days it was about the only way for blacks to make a living as a performer. One of them wrote a huge hit song of the 1890s: "All Coons Look Alike To Me".

This came at a huge cost: the laughable images of blacks that minstrel shows spread lived on in the minds of white people for years.

Minstrel shows painted blacks as a people who sang and danced and laughed their troubles away. They did not mind being slaves or being poor.

The minstrel show is dead but something very much like it has arisen since the late 1990s: hip hop songs and music videos that picture blacks as violent and oversexed. Most of the people who watch and listen to them are not black but white. Those images will live on in the minds of white people for years.

See also:

• blackface
• Shirley Q. Liquor
• Race in America
• The Mammy stereotype
• Jim Crow
• hip hop
• gangsta rap
• Flavor of Love

Jim Crow was named after one of the main blackface characters from the old minstrel shows of the 1800s.

Under Jim Crow blacks (then called coloureds) went to separate schools, hospitals, waiting rooms and so on. They had to sit at the back of the bus. In most cases they were not allowed to eat with white people, much less marry them. They could not call white people by their first names - they always had to show them respect. Blacks could not vote in elections or hold public office. They could not even kiss in public.

If you did not know your place as a black person you were dealt with. First white people would break your windows or burn a cross in front of your house as a warning. If that was not enough, then they would come and lynch you: beat you up and then kill you by hanging you from a tree. That is what Billie Holiday sings about in "Strange Fruit".

The Ku Klux Klan was behind much of this violence. They were white men dressed in white sheets with two eye holes and a point at top. They kept blacks down by striking terror into their hearts.

The sheriff and the judge in town knew what was going on but they looked the other way. Because blacks could not vote or stand for office, the government and courts were completely white. Even the juries.

In those days no white man was ever thrown in prison for raping a black woman, much less put to death. But a black man or even a black boy could turn up dead for so much as whistling at a white woman, like Emmett Till. His killers would walk free.

The stated reason for Jim Crow was to keep the white race pure. If blacks were equal to whites, then the races would mix. The South, which is mainly white, would become mainly brown. The white race would be destroyed.

Jim Crow laws even had the backing of the highest court in the land. In 1896 the Supreme Court said that it was not unjust to separate blacks from whites so long as everything was kept equal. Only in 1954 did it come to see that in practice separate meant unequal. In 1967 it said blacks could marry whites.

Jim Crow as law was now dead. But, as we saw in 2006 in Jena, it still seems to live on in the hearts of some white people.

See also:

• Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia - priceless
  
• Apple-pie America
• Race in America
• Bob Dylan: The Death of Emmett Till
• minstrel show
• Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs - a cartoon made in those days
• The black brute stereotype
• The pure white woman stereotype

DISCOURSE II.

ON THE COMPETION OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

ECCLESIASTES, I. 4.

One generation passeth awary, and another generation cometh: But the earth abideth for ever.

WE have taken a concise view of the vicissitudes of thw world, and vanity of human pursuits. We have discoursed on the faithfulness of God as a foundation of trust, while terrestrial expectations are vain.

As further exemplification of the general subject, the commencement of a new CENTURY leads to a rehearsal of some distinguished events of the last. With this rehearsal a few seasonable reflections will be interspersed, and other subjoined as the conclusion of the discourse.

INTRODUCTORY to my design, it may not be amiss to remark, that the progress of science favored the cause of the reformation, which commenced under Luther 1517. Later improvements have been as the shining light, which shineth more and more. Whatever modifications the Romish faith has undergone in modern times; however the cruelty, impiety and profigacy of Rome may have faded, from well known causes, her religion is substantially the same as in the darkest ages. The reformers, warned of God, renounced her communion, at a time when the pontiff was in all his glory. The powers who agreed to lay their honor and wealth at his feet, have agreed to hate him, and strip him of his dominions. The nation, whose monarch first recognized him as a temporal prince, and placed the triple crown upon his head, with the cession of three kingdoms, is now the most forward instrument in his desolation. He has been invested in Rome itself, sent into banishment, and the city delivered to spoil.

Had the principles of the reformation and of liberty been understood, either in the old or new world, through the greater part of the 17th century, its history would not have been stained with perfection for the exercise of the unalienable right of private judgment; or with judiciary trials and decisions in violation of the principles of evidence. Our ancestors, persecuted in their native country, sought a path through the sea, to a land that was not sown, that they might freely worship God according to their own conscience. The spirit of popery was retained for a consderable time after its other errors were abjured. As good men may not know what spirit they are of, we do not pretend but our ancestors retained a portion of the error and bigory, which, at that day, adhered to all protestant communions. any instances of exterminating zeal in them, which were not according to knowledge, were no other than dishonored the English church, which has been considered as the bulwark of reformation. . . .

    My great-great grandparents came from County Mayo, Sligo, and County Cork. They came to escape the ravages of the potato blight and the resulting famines. They came seeking a better life, and they found it buried deep in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. Towns like Carbondale and Mauch Chunk welcomed them and buried them in their strip-mined hillsides. But, as is always the case with immigrants, they managed to survive and hew out a life for themselves in this America they helped create.

    It was their backs that fed coal into the iron-horses which shrank this vast country into a two-day trip. It was their leadership and collective bargaining powers which scared groups like the Know-Nothings, the first political party formed with the aim of opposing a specific immigrant group. They were able to overcome religious persecution, employer discrimination, and widespread xenophobia to become rightful heirs of the American dream.

    This past week, walking alongside many Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, I was reminded of the Batalia de San Patricio, the group of Irish soldiers who defected to the Mexican Army during the Mexican-American War. There was and is so many similarities between those Irish immigrants of yesteryear and the immigrants of today. Both groups rely heavily on their faith in a God who champions the cause of the poor and the sojourner. Both of these immigrants focus on family values and a strong work ethic. Both the Irish of the late 1800s and the Mexicans of the early 21^st century are immigrant groups which are being slandered for their desire to come to this land for a better life. News about both of these groups has centered on an “invasion” or any number of natural disaster metaphors such as “flood of immigrants,” “drain on the economy,” and “wave after wave of workers.” None of these nativist metaphors are new – no, they have been around since people first started emigrating to new lands. It is this brand of hateful rhetoric that spurred the command in Leviticus 19:34, “The stranger who sojourns with you shall be as the native among you, and you shall love the stranger as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

    As I teach my class today, I am standing in front of them not as a college graduate, a son of Pennsylvania, a Texas-certified teacher, or a social activist. I stand before them in overalls and my walking shoes as the son of immigrants. There is a solidarity here which we must not deny. I do not believe in otherness; if we believe that every man, woman, and child bears the indelible image of God and the spark of the divine, we can never separate ourselves from one another. We are inextricably caught up in an “inescapable network of mutuality, tied up in a single garment of destiny,” and that means that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” As King also stated, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter;” this happens for the sheer fact that in not speaking up for the rights of others we are not speaking up for the rights of ourselves and future generations.

    To all those immigrants, past, present and future, I impart this traditional Irish blessing: “Céad míle fáilte romhat!” or “A hundred thousand welcomes to you.”

To talk to someone on his telephone you must know his telephone number and put it into yours. This is called dialing the number. Your telephone then calls his telephone. His telephone rings, telling him that someone wants to talk to him. If he answers his telephone, opening the connection between the two, you begin to talk. When you are both done, most likely a few minutes later, you hang up, ending the call.

The telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876, but it did not become common in America till the 1920s. Making telephones was not the hard part - it was setting up the telephone network. All the telephones had to be connected together by lines of copper, called telephone lines.

A telephone uses the network to open a connection to another telephone. Then it converts your voice into something that can go through the network. When it gets to the telephone at the other end, it is converted back into your voice. The other person can then hear what you said.

Some of the sound in your voice is lost so that two people could sound alike. The sound quality is good enough for talking but not for singing.

In the 1990s mobile phones - also known as cellphones or handphones - become common. They are small enough to take anywhere - you can put them in your pocket or your bag. They send your call through the air to a nearby tower. So now you can call anyone almost anywhere. Worldwide about two telephones in three is now a mobile phone.

When you call someone you are using a part of the network called a circuit. No other call can use that circuit at the same time. While the network is designed to handle thousands of calls at once, there is a limit. If everyone calls at the same time, like on 9/11, then the network will run out of circuits and you will hear a message that says "All circuits are busy. Please try again later."

The longer your call lasts and the longer the distance, the more of the network you are using up. The telephone company will charge you accordingly.

This way of running the network is called circuit switching. It was designed for a time before computers when people called operators connected calls together on a big switchboard.

With computers you can run a telephone network the same way the Internet is run using something called packet switching. This makes calls much cheaper, so cheap that time and distance barely matter. At first the Internet was not fast enough and good enough for telephone calls, but now it is. So in time most telephone calls will go over the Internet. Some already do.

See also:

• computer
• Internet
• iPhone
• 9/11