A Busy Week

Hard to believe it's almost the end of my November posts! It's an exciting week here in Lincoln--an application to finish and lots of grading to do, so here is a picture of a fine and fluffy owl.

"Owl" by g_kovacs is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Hang in there!

For the First Snow

We have had the first snow of the year here in Lincoln. To celebrate the peace it brings, I am listening to one of my favourite piano pieces and reading the following wintry poems. 

Do join me.

Snow-Flakes

Out of the bosom of the Air,

      Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

      Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

            Silent, and soft, and slow

            Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take

      Suddenly shape in some divine expression,

Even as the troubled heart doth make

      In the white countenance confession,

            The troubled sky reveals

            The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,

      Slowly in silent syllables recorded;

This is the secret of despair,

      Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,

            Now whispered and revealed

            To wood and field. 

 

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Reprinted in the Zoo of the New, ed. Nick Laird and Don Paterson (London, 2017), p. 321

 

"Trees and snow" by Lorenzoclick is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

 

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he’d call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

 

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love’s austere and lonely offices?

~  Robert Hayden. Reprinted in the Zoo of the New, ed. Nick Laird and Don Paterson (London, 2017), p. 359.

 

"North Maine woods - snow" by thepiper351 is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

 

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

 

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

 

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

 

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

 

~ Wallace Stevens, reprinted on Poetry Foundation

Thanksgiving: Flypaper Thoughts Edition

 I love Barbara Emodi's flypaper thoughts; here is my own version

• Thanksgiving is the final Thursday in November
• unless you are Canadian
• Then it is in October
• If you choose your friends wisely 
• you can have two thanksgivings a year  
• Because I live over the ocean
• I can never remember when Thanksgiving is
• I've been telling British people it's the third Thursday for years
• This is not correct
• Since 2016, I have had my Thanksgivings
• On weekends
• When you have a job, it's easier
• to manage large dinner parties on Saturdays
• Than Thursdays
• But during my PhD, when I had Thanksgiving on Thursdays
• I would put the turkey in the oven
• go to a seminar
• skip the questions after the paper
  
• And head back to finish off the meal
• to be joined by a dozen or more guests afterwards
• Being young and fearless sure is something
• the turkey always turned out great
• sometimes things need less effort than we think they do
• My UK Thanksgivings began in 2012
• I borrowed a friend's apartment in Cambridge
• the 2013 one was in Leeds
• I had two Thanksgivings in 2014, 2015
• And 2016
• Small Thanksgivings in 2017 and 2018
• And a very special one in 2019
• Less than a week before I moved
• Nothing was packed
• It was so worth it
• There was no Thanksgiving in 2020
• I hate eating on zoom
• And Lincolnshire in November doesn't allow for outdoor picnics
• But this year, with vaccines and rapid testing kits
• I was able to have a small indoor Thanksgiving
• My guests announced themselves as "Thanksgiving virgins"
• So we began the meal joking and whooping with laughter
• Thank goodness for friends
  
• I overcatered
• No one minded
• It was so very lovely
• to have Thanksgiving again.
  

Thankful for the Cathedral Lights

It's the season of the year where Lincoln Cathedral is lit up at night.

"Lincoln Cathedral at night" by IRGlover is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Seeing its glow from the bottom of Steep Hill always brightens the cold and dark of late November.

"Lincoln Cathedral at night" by IRGlover is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

 

It is one of the most beautiful things about living in Lincoln, and I am grateful for it.

Happy Thanksgiving

Two years ago, I brought a pumpkin pie to work to celebrate Thanksgiving. I wasn't able to do that last year (the UK was just about to lock down again), but at the start of November my lovely colleagues began asking me about when Thanksgiving is, and would there be pumpkin pie again?

I was delighted to be able to bring a pie into work today, joined in the staff kitchen by the popup paper turkey I keep in my desk drawer, who makes an annual appearance on my desk every fourth Thursday in November.

 

Not my actual office but the turkey looks like this. "paper turkeys smell like holiday spirit" by Robert Couse-Baker is licensed under CC BY 2.0

I'm grateful for many things this year--lovely colleagues, friends, and family--and also the chance to share pie once again. In thankfulness for that, here is the recipe!

My Grandmother's Pumpkin Pie

• 1 ¼ cups of pumpkin (Hope’s Mom’s Note: Libby’s preferred and NOT pumpkin pie filling! I use the entire small can of Libby’s pumpkin.) [Hope’s Note: Libby’s is an American brand which is not always easy to find over here; if you can find any brand of canned pumpkin in the grocery store--the American foods section at Tesco has it--that will work great. No need to measure, as my Mom says just put the whole thing in the pie. When I can’t find canned pumpkin, I cut an orange-fleshed squash in half, scoop out the seeds, roast it in a 400 degree (180C) oven for 30-60 minutes, measure out 1 1/14 cups and then use a food processor to blend it smooth and mix it with the pie ingredients.]
• 1 scant cup of sugar
• ¾ teaspoon cinnamon [I generally up this to 1tsp.]
• ¼ teaspoon of allspice
• Pinch of ground cloves [If you like cloves, use 1/4tsp; if in doubt, use less.]
• ½ teaspoon of salt
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup evaporate milk 
• 1 piecrust, homemade or purchased
  

Combine the pumpkin, sugar, spices, and salt; stir.

Add 3 large eggs and stir until well mixed.

Add 1 cup of evaporated milk and stir together well.

Pour into pie crust [use your favorite piecrust recipe or a storebought crust] and bake in 400 degree (180C) oven for 1 hour. After the first 30 minutes be sure and check to see if the pie is getting too brown, if it is then turn oven down to 375 degrees (about 160C) and if need be cover the edges with foil. Serve with a dab of whipped cream! 

Someday

I'm teaching a class on ancient graffiti and someday when this plague is over, I want to visit some of the places we have discussed.

• Pompeii and Herculaneum
  
• Ostia
• Smyrna
• Aphrodisias
  
• Dura-Europos
• El-Kurru
• Tikal

"Pompeii" by Mark Vuaran is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Someday.

Book Blurb

Alongside choosing the cover for my book, I have also been writing a blurb for the back of it. Here it is!

Portrait of Venantius Fortunatus. Poitiers BM Ms 250 (136), f. 21v.

This book explores how one early medieval poet survived and thrived amidst the political turbulence of sixth century Gaul—with a little help from his friends. Born in northern Italy, Venantius Fortunatus made his career writing for and about members of the Merovingian elite. Although he is no longer dismissed as an opportunistic poetaster who wrote undistinguished flattery for undeserving kings and aristocrats, his work remains unduly neglected. This book reframes Fortunatus as a writer uniquely suited to his times, a professional poet who addressed his contemporaries’ needs and wishes for the prestige and sophistication of Classical culture. His poems and letters enabled his aristocratic patrons to situate themselves in networks, which they made and maintained in order to navigate a post-imperial but not post-Roman world. Tracking continuities and changes in the terminology of friendship, this book demonstrates how this language shaped beliefs and behaviours, leading to social cohesion even within kingdoms repeatedly wracked by civil wars. It thus makes an important contribution to our understanding of friendship in the Middle Ages and offers a fresh look at the Frankish kingdoms of Merovingian Gaul.

Choosing My Book's Cover

Lawrence Alma-Tadema's painting The Education of the Children of Clovis captured my imagination from the first time I saw it. It captures fundamental details of the Frankish kingdoms ruled by the Merovingians.

The Education of the Children of Clovis, Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Wikipedia Commons.

Present in the painting are the dynamism of the court, the violence of the kingdoms' repeated civil wars, the centrality of royal women, the clerics waiting to record history..and above all, the inseparable blend of Roman and Not Roman that makes the period absolutely intoxicating to study.

So when I finished writing my book, Friendship in the Merovingian Kingdoms: Venantius Fortunatus and His Contemporaries, there was only one image I wanted on the cover. This one, which says everything I hope that the book says.

Unfortunately, the painting is privately owned, and despite images of it being in the public domain, my publisher told me that copyright concerns would prevent us from using it. 

I grasped at the straws of other Lawrence Alma-Tadema paintings, including this amazing depiction of some late Roman ladies but sadly these too presented copyright issues.

Gallo-Roman Women, Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Source: Wikiart.

Alma-Tadema's Venantius Fortunatus Reading His Poems to Radegunda, which is absolutely delightful, would be a very strong choice, but this was used on the cover of Michael Roberts' splendid 2009 book about Fortunatus, The Humblest Sparrow, and I wanted my book to have its own image.

Source: Wikiart.

(Isn't it an amazing painting? Look closely. The fine details of Fortunatus declaiming and of the room he, Radegund, and Agnes occupy, get me every time.)

The production editor suggested that I look specifically at digitised images from museum collections marked as free to reuse, so I made a shortlist of some alternatives.

A graceful, forlorn hand holding a scroll.

Marble left hand holding a scroll, Metropolitan Museum of Art

A portrait of Venantius Fortunatus himself, wielding his pen, found in a medieval manuscript of one of his saints' lives.

Poitiers BM Ms 250 (136), f. 21v.

There is another lovely image from the same manuscript which tempted me greatly--an illustration of one of the miracles of Fortunatus' beloved patron and friend Radegund.

Poitiers BM Ms 250 (136), f.37v.

I love it because it looks like a small group of friends having a chat, something which is very well in keeping with the themes of the book.

Finally, after sorting through all of these choices, I discovered that the Rijksmuseum seems to have a public domain version of a print of the The Education of the Sons of Clovis; not quite as vibrant as the painting but still full of life and movement and community--just like Merovingian friendships.

Source: Europeana

The Thing With Feathers

River Witham, Spring 2021

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

Lincolnshire Wildlife Park, Summer 2021

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

Oxford Towpath, August 2021

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

~ Emily Dickinson

Shakshuka for a Day Well Spent

What do you cook when you don't want to cook?

When I was a PhD student, I developed a few meals that I would make when I came home from the post-seminar pub, hungry and tired; or when I had a lot of grading to do; or when life became very hectic. They included:

• popcorn with cheddar cheese, apples, and hot chocolate
• quick tuna burgers  
• some kind of pasta situation
• kale or chard sauteed with garlic and chili over couscous, topped with a fried egg
  
• scrambled eggs on toast

There are, however, only so many scrambled eggs one can eat before becoming faintly repulsed by the taste, and in these situations, I would end of making shakshuka, a Tunisian of eggs poached in spicy tomato sauce. Today, when I got home from a lovely hike in the Peak District, I decided it would make a perfect quick dinner.

Ladybower Reservoir, 20 November 2021

I started making shakshuka based on Deb Perlman's recipe from her blog Smitten Kitchen, but adapted it for a solitary hungry diner, like so.

Shakshuka for One

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1-3 cloves garlic, depending on size and preference
• 1 small chili pepper, chopped
  
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1 can chopped tomatoes
  
• salt
• 2 eggs
• 2 (or more) slices of bread
• butter
  

Start by slowly heating your oil while you chop the onion, then toss the onion in and chop garlic and chili. Add to the pot. 

Turn up the heat and give everything a nice stir--it should cook for a few minutes, enough time for the onions to soften and colour a bit. Add spices.

In less than a minute, you'll be able to smell the spices, and can then dump in your canned tomatoes. Stir so that the spices, onion, chili, garlic and tomatoes are all mixed together. Sprinkle with salt.

Let your tomato sauce cook for a bit while you locate eggs, toast, and butter.

Crack eggs into tomato sauce, and cover your pot with a lid so that the eggs cook before the tomato sauce scorches (if you have a hob that heats up quickly, or are prone to scorching food, turn the heat down at this stage).

Toast your bread to your liking; give it a nice coat of butter when it is done. 

Your eggs are done when the white has formed a thin, opaque film over the egg yolks, so that they are just invisible. If you like runny yolks, stop here; if you don't you may want to leave the pan on the heat a few minutes longer.

When eggs are cooked to your liking, transfer eggs and tomato sauce to a shallow bowl.

Eat with a spoon, using your buttered toast to mop up the egg yolks and tomato sauce.

What it really means

Sometimes when I'm trying to analyse a medieval text, I can take things too seriously.

Searching out the meaning and implications of every word and phrase, turning the text inside out.

Abingdon Abbey, 6 September 2021

I like how this poem reminds me to hold the text lightly and daydream.

Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

~ Billy Collins, The Apple that Astonished Paris (University of Arkansas Press, 1996).

All My Pretty Chickens

So, it turns out the summaries of Race of Scorpions, which I read to have some hope of following the density of a Dorothy Dunnett plot, skipped the events of chapters nine and ten.

"Head in Hands" by Alex E. Proimos is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Said events, dear reader, messed me up.

Beware: Race of Scorpions is not the charming boat-trip-and-competition-between-merchants-is-fun hi-jinks that is Spring of the Ram. 

(Good clean fun in that portion of the Niccolo-verse includes faking the plague, setting things on fire, and pretending you've taken a vow of chastity to get out of sleeping with an emperor. Never let it me said that Dunnett novels are undramatic.)

I'm obviously going to keep reading but very gingerly.

And in the meantime, if you have a cat, give it a snuggle and a treat from me.

Like herding cats

Yesterday I mentioned my intrepid high school English teacher, who required her students to compose anthologies of writing which mattered to us, and then read one of our choices aloud and explain why it mattered to us. Here is the piece I read for that assignment.

I don't remember what I said then, but if I had to tell you why it still matters to me now, I'd say that sometimes I think of the line 'shepherding the saints is like herding cats' during faculty meetings and it keeps a smile on my face. Most of all, I love McDonnell's wry deprecation of his brothers and himself. Kindness and a sense of humor, I have learned, goes a long way in being a good member of a community.

Church of St Mary the Virgin, Iffley, Oxfordshire. Detail of west doorway.

The Monks of St. John’s File in for Prayer

In we shuffle, hooded amplitudes,
scapulared brooms, a stray earring, skin-heads
and flowing locks, blind in one eye,
hooked-nosed, handsome as a prince
(and knows it), a five-thumbed organist,
an acolyte who sings in quarter tones,
one slightly swollen keeper of the bees,
the carpenter minus a finger here and there,
our pre-senile writing deathless verse,
a stranded sailor, a Cassian scholar,
the artist suffering the visually
illiterate and indignities unnamed,
two determined liturgists. In a word,
eager purity and weary virtue.
Last of all, the Lord Abbot, early old
(shepherding the saints is like herding cats).
These chariots and steeds of Israel
make a black progress into church.
A rumble of monks bows low and offers praise
to the High God of Gods who is faithful forever.

~ Kilian McDonnell, in Swift, Lord, You Are Not (Collegeville, 2003)

In Sleep A King

In my senior year of high school, our English teacher made us do two things. The first was to choose a Shakespeare sonnet and memorise it. She told us that it would be good for us, and useful one day. For the second, we were tasked with creating an anthology of poems and excerpts from books that mattered most to us at the time, a commonplace book of our seventeen and eighteen year old selves. We were asked to read an excerpt from our anthologies, in front of the entire class; we were also asked to explain why what we chose to read mattered to us. One kid shared the scene from A Clockwork Orange where the protagonist violently enjoys Beethoven. 

What I remember most about both assignments is that we were encouraged respond emotionally to both our Shakespeare and our anthologies. There was no pressure to define what these texts meant or how they worked; no beating the poems with hoses, in the inimitable words of Billy Collins, to find out what they really meant. We were allowed love without judgement.

Because of this, I still remember the poem I chose to read to the class when it was my turn, and my sonnet. Over a dozen years later I can still recite most of it without looking up the text. Particularly over the past few months, as I've missed being in Oxford, it has regularly come to mind. Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter / in sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

Sunset at Osney Lock, 17 September 2021

Sonnet 87

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,

And like enough thou knowst thy estimate.

The Charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;

My bonds in thee are all determinate.

For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,

And for that riches where is my deserving?

The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,

And so my patent back again is swerving.

Thy self thou gavest, thy own worth then not knowing,

Or me, to whom thou gavest it, else mistaking,

So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,

Comes home again, on better judgement making.

    Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter:

    In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

~ William Shakespeare

Race of Scorpions: Flypaper Thoughts

• I began reading the third book in Dorothy Dunnett's House of Niccolo series today.
• It is called Race of Scorpions.
• I'm in love.
• I didn't expect to be here this soon.
• My previous experience of Dunnett is slow bewitchment.
  
• I love (love love love) Dunnett's other series, the Lymond Chronicles.
• Francis Crawford of Lymond: so beautiful, so intelligent, so tortured.
• So (so so so SO) melodramatic. 
• I fell in love slowly over six books.
  
• Nicholas vander Poele: also beautiful, also intelligent, also tortured.
  
• Not yet as melodramatic. 
• Not yet.
• But I am already enchanted.
  
• The book opens with Nicholas grieving.
• The writing is so good it is unholy. 
• Aside from the gut-wrenching depiction of grief, there are the character descriptions.
  
• Meet, for instance, Anselm Adorne.
• 'He was now thirty-seven and a man of great comeliness, with a slender build which could yet carry off prizes at shooting and jousting; a clear brain which increased his wealth and brought him the confidence of the city, and an easy manner which made him both a good drinking companion and the happily married father of an increasing number of small children.'
• [Aside: they don't make 'em like they used to.]
• Scene change, from Nicholas, coping with grief and politics, to his adversaries in Anjou.
• They are having Witty Repartee At Court.
  
• Exhibit A: Jordan de Ribérac, father of Simon, to René, Duke of Anjou, about Simon: 'He has yet to master trade, monseigneur. I feel it will take a decade or two before he can successfully contemplate strategy.'
• BURN.
• Yes, Jordan is talking about his son.
• No, he is not a nice man.
•  Exhibit B: Jordan de Ribérac, catching the reader and René up on the events of books one and two:
• 'Nicholas vander Poele, he calls himself. An unfortunate youth with a talent for numbers. He married his employer, killed all his relatives, and made a great deal of money bringing Venetians and gold back from Trebizond.'
• Jordan ain't wrong.
  
• I might need to take back what I said about Nicholas and melodrama.
  
• Exhibit C: One page later, René and Jordan have moved on to pondering whether Simon should join the duke's side of the war over Naples:
  
• R: 'So I can hope for no practical help from that noble jouster, your son?' 
• J: 'From Simon? Whatever side he joined, it would lose.'
• Again: BURN.
• I hate Jordan from Multiple Events of Book One (which I shall not spoil) but he's also made me shout-cackle twice in three pages and I don't know what To Do.
  
• René of Anjou, on the other hand, is my New Favourite. 
• I actually know the author of a book about René of Anjou.
  
• Based on my limited knowledge of the history, Dunnett has René dead to rights.
• I demand more René of Anjou.
• Scene change: Nicholas, shit-stirring, near Naples.
  
• Tobias Beneventi, physician, one of Nicholas' (understandably wary) business partners, inquiring just what exactly he is up to: 'So what's the attraction? You enjoyed fighting the Turks and want more of it? Or are you passing, taper in hand, reactivating all your favourite fireworks?' 
• Melodrama ahoy!
  
• That's only the first sixty pages, friends.
• I'm in love.
• I'm in love.
  

My Favourite Print

The last time I was home for Christmas, my sister gave me the print which hangs above my desk.

Done is better than perfect.

The root of most procrastination--certainly mine--is wanting to do something perfectly but despairing that I will meet that standard. My sign reminds me not to take myself or my work too seriously, and helps me encourage myself to keep going and finish projects I care about.

Character Voices

In honour of International Dorothy Dunnett Day, please enjoy this wonderful interview with David Monteath, the narrator of the Lymond Chronicles audiobook.

 

The full interview might only be for the truly dedicated, but fellow Dunnett fans should skip to 27:10 to hear Monteath demonstrate the contrasting voices of the hero Frances Crawford and his adversary Graham Reid Malett; if you are new to the books, skip to 37:35 to hear readings from the first and last books in the series, Game of Kings and Checkmate.

I also recommend a 1982 interview that Dunnett did on the Radio Four programme Desert Island Disks--she had fabulous taste in classical music, and a delightful way of speaking about her work. (If you are not in the UK, and the above link does not work typing 'Dorothy Dunnett' into Apple Podcasts, should bring up the recording). 

To absent friends. Enjoy!

Dorothy Dunnett's Papers

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across the National Library of Scotland's handlist of the contents of the historical novelist Dorothy Dunnett's personal and literary papers. To tell the truth, I was looking for House of Niccolo fanfiction, and somehow ended up with a 66-page archival catalogue.

A happy accident, because the handlist makes for fascinating reading, especially the sections to do with her historical novels. I can promise you that there are professional historians who make less organised research notes. What particularly fascinates me is the chronologies--both of historical events, and of events in the novel. When I did my MPhil, my supervisor encouraged me to make a chronology as part of my research on Merovingian letter writing. I had never been asked to do so before and abandoned mine before it got very far; but it is a method of organising research notes which I would like to try for future projects. In novels which are as intricately plotted as Dunnett's keeping track of who was where, when seems like it would be an absolute necessity; and I love the idea of getting a peek behind the scenes.

Then there are the character biographies! Especially for the House of Niccolo series, seems to have created a biography of each major character. These character studies include a file I really want to see:

197. Notebook entitled “Sweet Scorpian” with notes on Nicholas and reaction of others.

Three quarters of the way through Spring of the Ram, one of the things I am loving is how Nicholas' character is revealed by the reactions of his fellow merchants--and how, like the blind men and the elephant, each of them has a piece of the truth and thinks it represents the whole.

Even just reading the handlist is an amazing peek behind the scenes of her writing--hopefully one day I'll have the chance to look at some of the files and learn from them.

Making the Most of Reading Week

Next week is Reading Week at my university, and in my week without classes I intend to read.

The following books are on the list.

"John Rylands Library" by BinaryApe is licensed under CC BY 2.0

1) The Spring of the Ram by Dorothy Dunnett. Trebizond is rapidly becoming one of my favourite Dunnett settings, and I'm now determined to find a book on its history, or a podcast, or something to learn more about it. Plus, the development of the character of the hero of the series, Nicholas, is fascinating. I still can't get over the fact that Nicholas is the same age or younger than some of my students.

2) Race of Scorpions by Dorothy Dunnett. Because I have to find out what happens next to Nicholas and the men he ringleads.

3) King Hereafter by Dorothy Dunnett. Yes, I like Dorothy Dunnett a lot. King Hereafter, a novel about the historical Macbeth, is one of those rare books with which I've fallen so completely in love that I am reading it very slowly so that it doesn't end.

4) Fantasy and Mimesis: Responses to Reality in Western Literature by Kathryn Hume; I am starting a Fun Project, which is an article about time-travel as a method of researching the Middle Ages. Yes, there are enough science fiction novels with this theme that I could (probably) manage a book, but I'll start with an article. I'm at the beginning of my literature search for relevant stuff on The Medieval and Science Fiction, but I liked Hume's article on medieval romance and science fiction a lot, so this seems like a good place to start.

5) Theodora by Stella Duffy. Having glanced through this, I'm a little wary (inspired by trying to read Procopius sideways, I have Very Specific Ideas about Theodora), but I also don't discover new historical novels about late antiquity every day so I'm giving this a go.

6) The Procrastination Equation by Piers Steel. Hopefully some helpful tips and tricks to help me put things off a bit less.

7) Baptism of Fire by Andrzej Sapkowski. I was inspired to start reading the Witcher after watching the Netflix series, which I greatly enjoyed. It's not always the most beautiful prose--I suspect a lot is being lost in tone and humour from the original Polish--but there's something incredibly original and compelling about the way that the book takes stereotypes of high fantasy and twists them into new shapes. 

Do you have books you would recommend? What are you reading these days?

How I Do History

One of my favourite history publications is Contingent Magazine, an online magazine written by historians for public audiences. Articles range from longer features about particular historical topics, to source-focused columns, to short essays about how historians do their work. I love that the magazine celebrates the process of learning about the past and invites others in to experience it. The writers typically have advanced degrees in history--usually PhDs--but do not have full-time, permanent academic jobs; the magazine was founded by and takes its name from the term 'contingent faculty', the people who make up an increasing number of historians working at universities today. 

My favourite part of the magazine is its column, How I Do History, which contains interviews with scholars outside the traditional academy about their jobs and how being a historian factors in. Seeing the range of jobs other historians do has been huge source of inspiration for me and I urge you to check out some of their columns, and share them with others. As it happens, I am currently working on a How I Do History column, and provided that it is accepted, will be coming to a screen near you with a bit more about how I do what I do, and why, and how being a librarian factors in.

"Library warning poster" by Phil Bradley is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The hardest question for me to answer has been

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about what historians do and how they work? 

So far my answer is:

Historians are storytellers, but people sometimes seem to think we are fact-checkers or trivia buffs. Knowing facts and dates is important of course, especially the latter, since it helps a historian understand a sequence of events in order. But timeline tells a pretty limited story and an isolated fact has little meaning without context. Particularly for the Middle Ages, where our supply of facts and dates is more limited than for historians who study other periods, I wish more people knew about the detective side of our work—with limited information, we put together a fragmentary puzzle to tell stories of how people lived and why they made the choices that they did. Sometimes we develop new tools for how we put those pieces together, and sometimes we get new pieces when librarians and scholars find unknown manuscripts, or archaeologists dig up something new, but we are always, always coming up against the limits of what we know and what we can know.

It's my favorite thing about studying the period.

I'm not entirely satisfied with the answer--for one thing, I think that most people actually work under the misconception that we have fewer medieval sources than is actually the case; but more importantly, popular narratives about the Middle Ages: chivalry was a guide to behaviour, knights in shining armor rode around saving fair maidens, the Church told everyone what to do, nobody bathed, Everyone Was White, say more about modern culture than they do about what the Middle Ages were really like.

Science fiction, one of my other favourite things, strikes me as similar to this sort of medievalism--reflecting similar prejudices, oppression, and blind spots--but also being notoriously inaccurate. It seems to be truism in scholarship about science fiction that its writers almost never succeed in accurately predicting the future but are usually quite good at reflecting their own contemporary anxieties. The Middle Ages, for some reason, seems to inspire a similar approach. 

To put what I said above differently, it's the combination of brain-bending weirdness and scope for the imagination which keeps me coming back. 

One Train May Hide Another

(sign at a railroad crossing in Kenya)

In a poem, one line may hide another line,

As at a crossing, one train may hide another train.

That is, if you are waiting to cross

The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at

Least after the first train is gone. And so when you read

Wait until you have read the next line—

Then it is safe to go on reading.

In a family one sister may conceal another,

So, when you are courting, it's best to have them all in view

Otherwise in coming to find one you may love another.

One father or one brother may hide the man,

If you are a woman, whom you have been waiting to love.

So always standing in front of something the other

As words stand in front of objects, feelings, and ideas.

One wish may hide another. And one person's reputation may hide

The reputation of another. One dog may conceal another

On a lawn, so if you escape the first one you're not necessarily safe;

One lilac may hide another and then a lot of lilacs and on the Appia Antica

     one tomb

May hide a number of other tombs. In love, one reproach may hide

     another,

One small complaint may hide a great one.

One injustice may hide another—one colonial may hide another,

One blaring red uniform another, and another, a whole column. One bath

    may hide another bath

As when, after bathing, one walks out into the rain.

One idea may hide another: Life is simple

Hide Life is incredibly complex, as in the prose of Gertrude Stein

One sentence hides another and is another as well. And in the laboratory

One invention may hide another invention,

One evening may hide another, one shadow, a nest of shadows.

One dark red, or one blue, or one purple—this is a painting

By someone after Matisse. One waits at the tracks until they pass,

These hidden doubles or, sometimes, likenesses. One identical twin

May hide the other. And there may be even more in there! The

     obstetrician

Gazes at the Valley of the Var. We used to live there, my wife and I, but

One life hid another life. And now she is gone and I am here.

A vivacious mother hides a gawky daughter. The daughter hides

Her own vivacious daughter in turn. They are in

A railway station and the daughter is holding a bag

Bigger than her mother's bag and successfully hides it.

In offering to pick up the daughter's bag one finds oneself confronted by

     the mother's

And has to carry that one, too. So one hitchhiker

May deliberately hide another and one cup of coffee

Another, too, until one is over-excited. One love may hide another love or

     the same love

As when "I love you" suddenly rings false and one discovers

The better love fingering behind, as when "I'm full of doubts"

Hides "I'm certain about something and it is that"

And one dream may hide another as is well known, always, too. In the

     Garden of Eden

Adam and Eve may hide the real Adam and Eve.

Jerusalem may hide another Jerusalem.

When you come to something, stop to let it pass

So you can see what else is there. At home, no matter where,

Internal tracks pose dangers, too: one memory

Certainly hides another, that being what memory is all about,

The eternal reverse succession of contemplated entities. Reading A

     Sentimental Journey look around

When you have finished, for Tristram Shandy, to see

If it is standing there, it should be, stronger

And more profound and theretofore hidden as Santa Maria Maggiore

May be hidden by similar churches inside Rome. One sidewalk

May hide another, as when you're asleep there, and

One song hide another song; a pounding upstairs

Hide the beating of drums. One friend may hide another, you sit at the

     foot of a tree

With one and when you get up to leave there is another

Whom you'd have preferred to talk to all along. One teacher,

One doctor, one ecstasy, one illness, one woman, one man

May hide another. Pause to let the first one pass.

You think, Now it is safe to cross and you are hit by the next one. It can be

     important

To have waited at least a moment to see what was already there.

Kenneth Koch, "One Train May Hide Another" reprinted in The Zoo of the New, ed. Nick Laird and Don Paterson (London, 2017), p. 261-3. Poetry foundation

 

One of my favourite poems I have found this year. I love how it builds from the title, through its marvelous chain of ideas, to the final line.

Wider than the sky

Lincolnshire Sunset, 29 October 2021

The Brain—is wider than the Sky—
For—put them side by side—
The one the other will contain
With ease—and You—beside—

The Brain is deeper than the sea—
For—hold them—Blue to Blue—
The one the other will absorb—

As Sponges—Buckets—do—

The Brain is just the weight of God—
For—Heft them—Pound for Pound—
And they will differ—if they do—
As Syllable from Sound— 

~ Emily Dickinson

Revisiting My Goals for 2021

This morning I received an email from one of my favourite running companies reminding me that there are eight weeks left in 2021 and 48 shopping days until Christmas. Where did this year go?!

In early January, I wrote a post setting out my goals for the year and with two months left to achieve them, let's check how I am doing.

Goals I Have Met

"Hand with a quill pen" by Monceau is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

In my goals for research, reading, and writing I have made some fairly good progress! 

• I have submitted two long-overdue book reviews, now published in Speculum and History: Reviews of New Books. (There is also a review I remember submitting to Early Medieval Europe but which doesn't seem to have ever been published. I should check on that...) I then proceeded to add two new book reviews to my plate; one of which is a comparison of two translations, one in German and one in English. So two steps forward, two steps back.
• I submitted a final draft of my book to my editor in late August so my goal of editing my book is in hand.
• I haven't counted lately but am confident I've read more than 52 books this year.
• I successfully pitched a 'How I Do History' feature to Contingent magazine, sent them a draft, and am presently waiting for the editor's feedback.
  

Running has been relatively successful too.  

• I managed completed NYCRuns Subway Challenge II's Train Operator run: 691 miles in 26 weeks, which I did between September 2020 and March 2021.
  
• I have made some good use of Youtube as a resource to help me warm up for runs, cool down after them, and do some foam rolling. I haven't been as good about using it for strength training and have done a grand total of two abs workouts, so still some progress to be made here.

Lastly, in the kitchen things have been going well.

• While I was in Oxford, I expanded repertoire of quick and healthy meals to include stir fries with tofu (not in any way an 'exotic' ingredient but still one that is new to me).
  
• On average I have tried one new recipe a month. August through October were very busy months, so I did less experimental cooking--when you don't have a lot of time, it's easier to stick to what you know.
  

Goals Underway

"Stack of Books - 023" by Daniel Weber is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

 

In academic and research terms, the goal that was personally most meaningful to me was one I haven't fully achieved yet. I wrote in January that I wanted to   

Celebrate other people's good news. I sometimes feel that academic has a toxic culture of always finding fault, rather than celebrating achievements. Some of my most joyful moments as a historian last year came from celebrating others' achievements or having them celebrate mine. I want to be the kind of person who enjoys a colleague's article or book, hears about their grant or job success, and sends them a note of congratulations.

I can definitely point to some instances where I have done this but many more where I could have done and didn't. Still, with eight weeks left in the year there are definitely more opportunities to celebrate colleagues and friends.

Running-wise,  I still would like to try to use the local track for speed workouts at least twice. (I chickened out of running on the Roger Banister Track when I was in Oxford, though I went past it several times.) And Lincoln has a Santa Fun Run on Sunday 12 December; I may be running the virtual Honolulu Marathon on that date, but I could always run it in my Santa top and hat.

I set myself some ambitious goals for my writing and am hopefully about meeting these.

• Although I haven't quite been able to post on this blog once a week, I will have produced at least 52 posts during 2021, which feels like an accomplishment.
• I still have time to pitch at least one story to JSTOR Daily.
• I had forgotten that I'd set myself the goal to write an essay about long-distance relationships in the 1918 Influenza pandemic; it is technically still possible I could do so, but increasingly unlikely.
• While I probably won't submit a new draft of at least one academic article to a journal by December 2021, I have an article to redraft and a chapter to finish, both of which I want to get off by the end of this month, so I'm putting this one firmly in the 'doable' column!
  

In terms of my reading, I can still meet my goals to:

• Read at least three books in each of the following categories: history, short stories, and poetry. I'm pretty sure the short story and poetry categories are in the bag; the history category is still in progress. My own rules for this category is that the book has to be written for a general audience, not a scholarly one, so I can't count any academic books (or books I've reviewed!) towards this category.
• Share more books! I've just lent a friend Murder Must Advertise, and I'm hoping to write more about Dorothy Dunnett and Lois McMaster Bujold this month, so this one should be checked off my the end of the month.
  

My ambitious goals for my knitting, on the other hand, are not currently achievable. I wanted to make:

• six pairs of socks
•  a hat
• mittens
• a stuffed animal from the Dovestone Smallholding book
• and finish a large cabled blanket that has been in progress since 2015

Some combination of these is still achievable but at this point I'm not sure which it will be. The hat and mittens might happen, or just one of them. The blanket awaits a major blocking and sewing job before I can begin to tackle the border.

And finally, my charitable and volunteering goals are still achievable.

• I give a monthly donation to the Trussell Trust, a UK organisation that supports foodbanks, though I may need to top this up at the end of the year to equal my takeaway spending. 
• I am still trying to get registered to volunteer with Reenage Call Companions, though I have fallen somewhat behind on this.
•  AgeUK's Vitals for Veterans Programme seems to have stopped as the pandemic has changed, but there are other things I could volunteer to do.

Not Happening

"The Start and Finish Line of the 'Inishowen 100' Scenic Drive" by Andrew_D_Hurley is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

 

There are a number of things won't achieve this year. Probably the biggest was my goal to finish the 2021 Manchester Marathon, in under four hours, uninjured and if possible smiling--I ran the race in 4:20 and was NOT smiling as I finished, though I did so afterwards. I did managed the uninjured part of things, so that's good.

I will absolutely not be able to knit six pairs of socks by the end of the year, but might be able to finish at least another pair or two before Christmas.

In terms of trying to limit my takeaway consumption, there have definitely not been two months where I never ordered food delivery or picked up a takeaway; though there have been some months where I only ordered one, the overall average is probably over that. During the earlier part of the pandemic I got out of the habit of doing top-up shopping at my neighbourhood grocery store, but started doing this again while I was in Oxford and then while I got through the start of term madness here. Smaller, more grocery trips are a good strategy for avoiding the temptations of food I didn't cook.

Looking back through this years post, I see I have only produced five posts tagged 'late antiquity'; somehow I thought there were more! Possibly, because I usually take longer to write those posts, they loom a bit larger in my mind. While I could, technically, still write seven more posts on late antiquity to produce twelve for the year, my other writing goals dump this one pretty firmly into the 'not happening' box.

What are your goals for the rest of the year?

Whatever they are, I hope they bring you joy and fulfillment, and that you go easy on yourself for anything you are not able to do.

Who I'm Rooting for at the New York City Marathon

Tomorrow is the New York City Marathon! I'm not a huge sports fan but started to get more into following the sport of running after following the US Olympic marathon trials. The women's field was the largest in American history, and there were so many amazing stories of talented women, from all walks of life, who ran it.

To qualify, all of these women ran a sub-2:45 marathon. To explain just how impressive this is: my marathon PR is 4:18 and the average woman in the UK finishes in 5:00:39. Most of us couldn't run a single mile at 2:45-pace, let alone 26 of them, but the qualifiers' stories of commitment and hard work really struck a chord with me. Then during the pandemic, I started listening to a lot of running podcasts to fill the road-racing gap in my life. And this led me to be more interested in long-distance running as a professional sport. 

New York is, of course, one of the big races for the pros, and I'm cheering on the following folks in particular.

1. Noah Droddy

Americans love an underdog story and Droddy--who finished last in the 2016 US Olympic Trials for the 10,000m and is now the ninth-fastest American male marathoner of all time--has one. Like a lot of current pros, he has a fairly active social media presence, which he seems to use to draw attention to the reality of how hard it can be to make a living as a runner. His posts can often be very funny and he has great hair, so it would be fun to see him have a fantastic race.

2.  Ben True

New York is going to be his first marathon, so naturally that's a reason to cheer for him. True, who holds multiple American championships in various distances, did not have a sponsor for much of 2020-2021, and to add insult to injury, finished fourth at the US Olympic trials in the 10,000m. 

Most runners train as part of a group, but True has spent most his career training alone. As someone who trains for marathons on my own, I could admire him for this alone.

 

I don't follow him on social media so I don't have a sense of him as a person, but I'm hoping he has a Chris Thompson moment tomorrow.

3. Nathan Martin

Not someone I know a lot about, but he is fastest US-born Black male runner and works as a substitute teacher and high school sports coach.

 

Even more than parent runners, I am inspired by the stories of teachers who run. I hope Mr Martin has a great day in New York.

4. Viola Cheptoo

Another first time marathoner!

 

I learned about Viola Cheptoo from media coverage of the murder of Kenyan runner Agnes Tirop. Tirop was allegedly murdered by her husband and her death has been the catalyst for a lot of Kenyan runners to speak up about domestic violence and what needs to be done to protect and support women athletes. 

Cheptoo's advocacy makes me admire her and want to see what she does next.

5. Sally Kipyego

I first became a fan of Sally Kipyego after listening to an interview with her on the podcast Keeping Track. It's a wonderful conversation, and she comes across as a grounded, thoughtful, and wise person. Though she has won Olympic and World Championship medals, and made this year's US Olympic marathon team, she didn't have a great race in Sapporo, and it would be wonderful to see her have a fantastic day tomorrow.

6. Stephanie Bruce

Stephanie Bruce may never make an Olympic team (though like Ben True she has often been a serious competitor for one), but her gritty pursuit of big goals makes her an inspiring person to follow. She is pretty active on social media and regularly does interviews on running podcasts; from the information she's shared about her life it's clear that this has been a rough year. I'm hoping she gets through the race healthy and hears lots of people cheering for her.

7. Erin Azar

I'm not on Tiktok and I will never be on TikTok, but Erin Azar's running videos are a joy to behold. Unlike other running content creators, when Azar calls herself not fast, it actually means not fast. (I suppose this a moveable feast, but to me, if you can run a 3:30 marathon or 10k in under 7:30/min per mile, you have forever abdicated the right to call yourself slow.) Azar's videos represent and inspire ordinary runners and she's very funny about the ways in which running can sometimes suck. Hoping she has a blast tomorrow.