Carpe Librum, "The City's Largest Pop-Up Book Sale" started today and will run through May 15 at 1030 17th St. NW, around the corner from the K St. entrance to the Farragut North Metro Station. The proceeds go to the DC Public Schools. In case there is any question, "Pop-Up" refers to not to the books but to the improvised locations--a couple of years ago in Foggy Bottom, now where the Washington Golf Center used to be.
The handout promises more than 50,000 books. Only so many will be on view at once, for the space is tight. At 5:30 this afternoon, $16 would have bought you four volumes of Henry James's short stories in the Library of America edition. Just more than double that would have bought you 30 copies of Eat, Pray, Love--29 paperback at $1 each, one hardback, all shelved together and impossible to miss.
Monday, April 8, 2013
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Kennan on the Franco-Russian Alliance
Second Story Books yielded a copy of The Decline of Bismarck's European Order: Franco-Russian Relations, 1875-1890 by George Kennan. It is well written, as one would expect. It gives a clear account of the reasons that Russia gradually distanced itself from Germany and entered into alliance with France.
The book does not really define "Bismarck's European order", unless implicitly, in which case I would understand it as a system in which Germany was prepared for all likely contingencies. There is the mention of Bismarck's determination always to be one of three among the five major powers, but that is touched on lightly. Kennan writes of Bismarck's preference for avoiding involvement in the Balkans, among those he spoke of as "sheep-stealers", and at the same time the necessity he felt for maintaining Austria-Hungary.
The heroes of the book are the professional diplomats, notably N.K. Giers, the Russian foreign minister, and Bismarck. Giers I had never read of before; he was of Swedish descent, the son of a border-town postmaster, with little to depend on but his own abilities, and the tsars' sometimes shaky support. Kennan speaks well of Bismarck's management. He does mention Bismarck's odd anxiety that the Catholic powers would unite against Germany: odd because the Italian government was on bad terms with the Vatican then and for years, the French governments were during much of the time bitterly anti-clerical, and Austria-Hungary was neither especially strong nor very stable. But Kennan quotes a prescient admonition of Bismarck's to Alexander III:
Kennan spent many years of his Foreign Service career in Germany and Russia. In the early stages of World War II, before the U.S. entered the war, he was stationed in Berlin, where he knew Moltke's great-grandnephew Helmut von Moltke, and had extensive conversations with him; the state security apparatus would have been unhappy with the fact, let alone the content.
The book does not really define "Bismarck's European order", unless implicitly, in which case I would understand it as a system in which Germany was prepared for all likely contingencies. There is the mention of Bismarck's determination always to be one of three among the five major powers, but that is touched on lightly. Kennan writes of Bismarck's preference for avoiding involvement in the Balkans, among those he spoke of as "sheep-stealers", and at the same time the necessity he felt for maintaining Austria-Hungary.
The heroes of the book are the professional diplomats, notably N.K. Giers, the Russian foreign minister, and Bismarck. Giers I had never read of before; he was of Swedish descent, the son of a border-town postmaster, with little to depend on but his own abilities, and the tsars' sometimes shaky support. Kennan speaks well of Bismarck's management. He does mention Bismarck's odd anxiety that the Catholic powers would unite against Germany: odd because the Italian government was on bad terms with the Vatican then and for years, the French governments were during much of the time bitterly anti-clerical, and Austria-Hungary was neither especially strong nor very stable. But Kennan quotes a prescient admonition of Bismarck's to Alexander III:
Never before, Bismarck concluded, had the great monarchies of Europe has greater interest in avoiding war. Someone, after all, had to lose a war; and peoples were now in the habit of holding their governments responsible for such reverses.The villains, or anyway those who are not helpful, tend to be the nationalists. The Russian editor Katkov exemplifies the tendency, sure that Russia's misfortunes in the Balkans are to be blamed on the Germans and Austrians. The French had their share of revanchists in the press and government. The Hungarians, though not looking for war, seemed to have had a skill at saying things that enraged the Russians. And the military establishments and their leaders had a weakness for war scares: in Germany Moltke and Waldersee, in France both Boulanger and his enemies, in Russia various members of the general staff.
Kennan spent many years of his Foreign Service career in Germany and Russia. In the early stages of World War II, before the U.S. entered the war, he was stationed in Berlin, where he knew Moltke's great-grandnephew Helmut von Moltke, and had extensive conversations with him; the state security apparatus would have been unhappy with the fact, let alone the content.
Friday, April 5, 2013
Memoirists: Wilfrid Sheed
A few years ago, I happened on a copy of Wilfrid Sheed's In Love with Daylight, which I read with interest but then gave away. More recently, I happened on another copy, and bought it, though I may give that copy away too. I had not quite forgotten how good it is, but even so the reminder was welcome.
The subtitle of the book is "A Memoir of Recovery", and the book relates three recoveries: from polio, from alcohol and anti-depressant dependency, and from oral cancer. I have the impression that at least the second of these is much written of these days. I doubt it often is with the skill that Sheed brought. The temptation when writing of Sheed is to just quote him, and why bother to resist?
On Ativan:
Of his novels, I have read The Boys of Winter, which I thought entertaining, and Max Jameson, which I did not. Today I passed up another novel of his on one of Second Story Books's outside carts. All three, not surprisingly, are set in the publishing world where he spent his professional life. Sheed is in what I have read steadily breezy--lapidary prose is not what he is after. I do mean to find and read his Frank and Maisie: A Memoir with Parents.
The subtitle of the book is "A Memoir of Recovery", and the book relates three recoveries: from polio, from alcohol and anti-depressant dependency, and from oral cancer. I have the impression that at least the second of these is much written of these days. I doubt it often is with the skill that Sheed brought. The temptation when writing of Sheed is to just quote him, and why bother to resist?
On Ativan:
Ativan turned out to be a perfect little Jeeves among pills, tactful and anonymous, tucking one into bed every night and slippering out of the room.without leaving a trace.... Zooming the lens back to that period, I'd have to say that Ativan played fair, in the sense that Agatha Christie played fair, scattering clues in my path that I easily might have picked up on if I'd wanted to.On carrying on while falling apart:
It has always been a notion of mine that sanity is like a clearing in the jungle where humans agree to meet from time to time and carry on in certain fixed ways that even a baboon could master, like Englishmen dressing for dinner in the tropics. But I'd never realized how little you could bring to the meeting. Proceeding virtually on automatic pilot, I was apparently able to produce a good enough replica of a normal human being to fool the average onlooker indefinitely.On giving up alcohol:
Closer inspection sugggested that the giant wave was something of an illusion. What I was actually being hit by was a series of incredibly bad moments, unbearable but brief, and with a small but perceptible breathing space in between. And what I did with this space was the key. If I panicked, the panic would join the moments together, the way the mind's eye joins frames film into a movie; if I tried to escape, I would be hit again on the way out, and again and again, seemingly faster and faster after that. And if I tried to look on the bright side, I would really have my face mashed in.In the end, Sheed survived his booze, pills, and oral cancer by almost 25 years.
The trick I finally tumbled to that night and the next could alternately be described as passive resistance or steering into the skid.
Of his novels, I have read The Boys of Winter, which I thought entertaining, and Max Jameson, which I did not. Today I passed up another novel of his on one of Second Story Books's outside carts. All three, not surprisingly, are set in the publishing world where he spent his professional life. Sheed is in what I have read steadily breezy--lapidary prose is not what he is after. I do mean to find and read his Frank and Maisie: A Memoir with Parents.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
New York Times Crucible Watch
Some months ago, I noticed that a headline writer at The New York Times had come up with the expression "Forged in a Crucible". More recently, there was "Cultivating Control in a Nation's Crucible" (a review of a book on Thomas Jefferson). Today, the headline on an article about the Memphis school system is "Crucible of Change in Memphis as State Takes on Failing Schools."
The first two at least suggested a familiarity with crucibles derived from the drama club rather than the chemistry lab. The third story does manage to work in "petri dish" ("a veritable petri dish of practices"), "ground zero", and "kinetic energy".
The first two at least suggested a familiarity with crucibles derived from the drama club rather than the chemistry lab. The third story does manage to work in "petri dish" ("a veritable petri dish of practices"), "ground zero", and "kinetic energy".
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Newman Books is Closing
Newman Books announced last month that it is closing, having lost its lease. This month all purchases are 35% off; any stock remaining in April will be 50% off.
Newman Books is located in Paulist College on 4th St. NE. It could hardly be worse situated for anyone not living at Paulist College or perhaps working for the U.S. Conference of Bishops next door. It is a brisk 15-minute walk from the Brookland Metro, and it is not that convenient to drive to, being at the end of long, narrow driveway--the street end was occupied by a dump truck when I got there Friday. And having arrived at the front door one must be buzzed in.
There is a good deal of philosophy and theology remaining in stock. I was interested to notice that the holdings included three or four feet of Nietzche or writings about Nietzche (including a book by H.L. Mencken), as compared to about 1.25" of Fichte and Schelling, the latter accounting for the whole inch. Kant was represented by three copies of The Critique of Judgment, that I could see. There was a spread of Marsilio Ficino's Platonic Theology, but whether the same volume over and over or the whole set I did not see. There was a fair bit of Newman of course in the theology section--I picked up A Grammar of Assent. There were quite a few Greek and Greek/Latin New Testaments.
Newman Books is located in Paulist College on 4th St. NE. It could hardly be worse situated for anyone not living at Paulist College or perhaps working for the U.S. Conference of Bishops next door. It is a brisk 15-minute walk from the Brookland Metro, and it is not that convenient to drive to, being at the end of long, narrow driveway--the street end was occupied by a dump truck when I got there Friday. And having arrived at the front door one must be buzzed in.
There is a good deal of philosophy and theology remaining in stock. I was interested to notice that the holdings included three or four feet of Nietzche or writings about Nietzche (including a book by H.L. Mencken), as compared to about 1.25" of Fichte and Schelling, the latter accounting for the whole inch. Kant was represented by three copies of The Critique of Judgment, that I could see. There was a spread of Marsilio Ficino's Platonic Theology, but whether the same volume over and over or the whole set I did not see. There was a fair bit of Newman of course in the theology section--I picked up A Grammar of Assent. There were quite a few Greek and Greek/Latin New Testaments.
Monday, March 4, 2013
At the Election, Or Not
The impending conclave reminds me that around the house there are four accounts of papal elections, covering six centuries and then some.
The oldest and most intimate is by Pius II, recounting his own election in 1458. Florence Gragg's translation of his memoirs, Secret Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope: The Commentaries of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomi, Pius II, is out of print in the older paperback edition, but Amazon seems to have it available at a range of prices. Harvard University Press provides a bilingual edition of the Commentaries; the English is Gragg's, with some revisions.
Chateaubriand was ambassador to Rome during the election of Pius VIII in 1829. What he saw of it, he tells in Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe largely by official letters and letters to Mme. Recamier. Chateubriand obtained, he said, the journal of the conclave; this he translated into French, redacting it so that the sources could not be identified, and sent to the foreign minister, with his comments on it, enjoining strict secrecy. The Italian original he burned. He was happy with the results of the conclave, for the pope, formerly Cardinal Castiglione, was regarded as favorable to France, though his secretary of state, Cardinal Albani, was known to favor Austria.
Stendahl gives a circumstantial eyewitness account of the events of 1829, in the first person, though he was not in Rome. His Roman Journal is written mostly from the notes of a cousin who had the material but not the skill in writing. If you wish to read a dramatic account of Cardinal Albani stepping out to the balcony to say "Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum, papam habemus", you will have to consult Stendahl, who was in Paris, rather than Chateaubriand, who was in Rome.
The American journalist Murray Kempton was in Rome during the election of John Paul I. His account is collected in Rebellions, Perversities, and Main Events. It is certainly not the best essay in the collection; quite possibly I'd have forgotten it but for its mention of Stendahl. But the essay and the book are both well worth reading.
The oldest and most intimate is by Pius II, recounting his own election in 1458. Florence Gragg's translation of his memoirs, Secret Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope: The Commentaries of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomi, Pius II, is out of print in the older paperback edition, but Amazon seems to have it available at a range of prices. Harvard University Press provides a bilingual edition of the Commentaries; the English is Gragg's, with some revisions.
Chateaubriand was ambassador to Rome during the election of Pius VIII in 1829. What he saw of it, he tells in Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe largely by official letters and letters to Mme. Recamier. Chateubriand obtained, he said, the journal of the conclave; this he translated into French, redacting it so that the sources could not be identified, and sent to the foreign minister, with his comments on it, enjoining strict secrecy. The Italian original he burned. He was happy with the results of the conclave, for the pope, formerly Cardinal Castiglione, was regarded as favorable to France, though his secretary of state, Cardinal Albani, was known to favor Austria.
Stendahl gives a circumstantial eyewitness account of the events of 1829, in the first person, though he was not in Rome. His Roman Journal is written mostly from the notes of a cousin who had the material but not the skill in writing. If you wish to read a dramatic account of Cardinal Albani stepping out to the balcony to say "Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum, papam habemus", you will have to consult Stendahl, who was in Paris, rather than Chateaubriand, who was in Rome.
The American journalist Murray Kempton was in Rome during the election of John Paul I. His account is collected in Rebellions, Perversities, and Main Events. It is certainly not the best essay in the collection; quite possibly I'd have forgotten it but for its mention of Stendahl. But the essay and the book are both well worth reading.
Friday, March 1, 2013
Lessons Relearned
In a week spent doing more user support than I had for years, I noticed a few things once again.
First, the models that techies take for granted, others do not.
Third, cables, about the simplest bit of hardware there is, will let you down now and then. Twenty-five years ago, my problem was likely an RS-232 connector with a pin loose or out of place that would. In 2013, a couple of times it was an RJ-11 connector with a worn-out clip. Securing them with tape worked, but replacing them would have made me feel better.
.
First, the models that techies take for granted, others do not.
- A slowly refreshing web page over Remote Desktop suprised me not at all--a terminal server in city A is rendering graphics, and sending the images over the internet to the machine in city B to display, and the machines between them are paying to encrypt, then decrypt the traffic. But to the user--a very intelligent person--this simply meant that IE is slow.
- To connect to the internet from the event center's network, one must first go open a browser, which will present a log-in page. Ah, but if you open the browser to take you to a secure site (office email, for example), the browser will (rightly) warn you of a certificate mismatch. This is not really a problem, but it looks like one.
Third, cables, about the simplest bit of hardware there is, will let you down now and then. Twenty-five years ago, my problem was likely an RS-232 connector with a pin loose or out of place that would. In 2013, a couple of times it was an RJ-11 connector with a worn-out clip. Securing them with tape worked, but replacing them would have made me feel better.
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