Empire Building in the South Seas

I've been reading "Narrative of the Voyages Round the World by Captain James Cook," because, um, I don't know, it was a free Kindle book?  And I'm teaching the long 19th century this semester, the textbook of which includes, early on, a painting by the on-board painter for one of Cook's early trips.

I am finding the absolute arrogance of Cook and the British (and the narrator) simply *breathtaking*.  The casual racism and sexism I was expecting.  Offensive,  but I knew what I'd be getting into.  What's really taking my breath away is the casual environmental colonization/invasion of the South Seas islands by these guys who really seem to think they're doing the natives a favor.  How?  By introducing non-native species of plants and animals.  Sometimes they do it by gift, but occasionally they just sneak into the woods, plant a garden full of turnips and carrots and stuff, and sneak away.  Or they'll drop off a pair of goats on a non-inhabited section of an island.  Or, ye gods, this one island?  They gave 'em rabbits.  RABBITS.  On an island.  I remember hearing that Australia still has a feral rabbit problem, they keep eating all the grass and crowding out native grass-eaters.  Thanks, Captain Cook! 

My favorite (as in, the most egregious example) is this one: a chief took a fancy to the cats on board.  So they left him twenty cats.  On an island.  Full of tropical birds without any feline predators for centuries, eons, or possibly ever. What?  They were HELPING!  Really!  I mean, these poor savages, they had never eaten chicken in their lives, or mutton, or turnips.  Oh, the humanity.  Such noblesse,  Such consideration.  "Here, have some invasive European species for your lovely little island eco-system."

Oh, and have I mentioned the syphilis?  Yeah, it's not alluded to explicitly but it's clear enough that he's talking about "accidentally" "introducing" syphilis to various island communities.

I can hear it now: "Oh, Britannia, thank you!  Thank you for the rabbits, and turnips, and the syphilis!"

Naturally, as I approach the end of the book (Spoiler Alert!) I am cheering on the natives of one of the Hawaiian islands as they take out the sorry SOB.   Unfortunately, the damage was done.  The mischief managed.  All in the name of science, exploration, and in the belief that Europeans were a vastly, unquestionably superior race. 

I have a whole other rant about the discourse regarding cannibalism in said account, but that's for another day. 

summer reading

I have mentioned before that I'm only reading women authors this year. Actually, my Year of Women Authors was supposed to start in January 09 (it was a rare New Years' Resolution), but at the time I was in the middle of a half-dozen books by dude authors. So I finished those up and commenced in June of last year. Just yesterday I was looking around the house for something to read, and found I was fresh out of new stuff by women, so I picked up one of my abandoned books by male authors. "The Art Thief" by Mansplainy Mansplainerson is what I picked up, and it's like reading an Art History 101 lecture, only without pictures. Criminy. Have I mentioned that I've been teaching Art History 101 since the mid-90s? Yeah, I don't need a lecture on van Eyck's Arnolfini portrait, which by the way is no longer called the Marriage Contract. Just, FYI. 30 pages in and I'm already skipping entire pages. Coincidentally, The Rejectionist, over at Tiger Beatdown, just posted about ManFiction and how tedious it is. For example:

"What’s a manfiction book, exactly? It is indeed, almost but not entirely exclusively, a book by a man; but it is a particular kind of book by a particular kind of man, a Real Man, a virile, manly man, who gallops around on horses in between penning great works."

Go, read the whole thing.

Now, just as I finished THAT, what appears in my google reader but this little gem:

Hot Summer Reads from 12 Literary Stars

Let's do a Guerrilla Girls style breakdown:

all 12 literary stars appear to be white, though one has a Hispanic name**
4 of them are female
10 recommended books by men
1 of the books by women was about getting your baby to sleep through the night
so! only ONE of the books recommended was a narrative work by a woman about something besides traditional lady-business*

In conclusion, well, you know: it's all about the white people. I note with interest that Mother Jones is supposed to be a progressive publication.



*I kind of want to give the one narrative book by a woman bonus points for being about teen Latinas, but then again it's a book by a nice white lady sociologist about teen Latinas, so, you know, that could go either way, right?

**Vendela Vida, whose wikipedia entry mentions her husband, a pretentious author whose name rhymes with Wave Weggers (whose first big deal famous bestseller book was so loathesomely self-absorbed I couldn't finish it) almost immediately, and then constantly, throughout her bio.

My year of no gueros.

Inspired by a post by my friend Joy (her blog is linked over there on the right), I decided I've given enough headspace to guero writers.* Who needs more fresh! manly! wisdom! from white dudes, I ask you? I'd been reading the latest Thomas Pynchon and was moseying my way through a pretty annoying T.C. Boyle book when I thought: fuck it. I will put these books down and indulge in some women writers. As it happens, I've been out of town a lot this month, so my year of no gueros, which was to begin June 1, has started off slowly.

I started by re-reading Toni Morrison's Beloved, which I had read in college in a giant hurry, and was completely bewildered by at the time. The book drifts, jumps, and skitters back and forth in time, space, and imagination without warning or clarity, but this time around I was able to make sense of it. I don't know if I was less aware of the sexual violence built into slavery when I read the book as an undergrad, and therefore missed it, or what, but somehow I had forgotten that aspect of the book. It was perhaps the least fleshed-out, most casual references to the horrific sexual violence experienced by minor characters that most took my breath away. The woman who spent her adolescence "shared by father and son" ("the lowest yet", she called it). The guards abusing prisoners on a prison farm. I could go on, but it's more than I can repeat. It is a powerful book, and a difficult read, and I'm glad I picked it up again, twenty years on, with a more finely honed feminist consciousness and the time to move through the book slowly, deliberately, taking breaks when I needed to catch my breath.

Having no time to go out and buy something new just yet, I picked Mansfield Park off the shelf. I also, clearly, needed something a little more lightweight. I keep hoping that I will find a character in MP that I like, but I just don't like anyone in it. Never have. The character study, the plotting, the witticism, all are what I love about Jane Austen, but there's just nobody to grab ahold of. Fanny's nearly spineless, and when she does have a spine, it's because of some overly correct moral compunction. I'm not into religious people. Edmund's boring, Tom's an ass, Henry Crawford an insufferable egotist, etc., etc. The women are mostly dull or vain, except for the abusive Mrs. Norris, who I want to whack with a stick. I think perhaps this is Jane's pointiest book. I won't go so far as to say it's actually *mean*, but it's definitely got an edge.

I'm nearing the end and in need of more fiction, and so I went trolling through Joy's blog for some contemporary women writers to track down. I'm pleased to report that I have books by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, Tayari Jones, and Kathryn Harrison headed my way. I've got some Kate Atkinson queued up but haven't ordered it yet. Book reports to follow, yo.

*I can't find the post I'm thinking of, but you should just go read her whole blog anyway.

media check

Just finished reading Straight Man by Richard Russo, a tale of dysfunctional academics. Am now embarking on Moo, by Jane Smiley, another slice of academic fiction.

The Devil Wears Prada was funny but I haven't quite gotten over Meryl Streep calling the waifish Anne Hathaway "the fat girl" because she's a size SIX. Still, Meryl Streep is genius and the clothes really are as gorgeous as the shoes are completely ludicrous. It's a wonder none of the actresses broke something during filming, every time I turned around Andy was running - RUNNING - in 4" stilettos.

And The Forty-Year-Old Virgin, I know I'm late to this party, but holy crap, that was funny. Despite a scene with gratuitous homophobia, which they could've done without ("I know you're gay because...," which I guess is the white-boy version of the dozens). And the ongoing kidding-on-the-square misogyny, wherein you can laugh at the dude for saying stupid sexist stuff, or you can laugh with him because you're a sexist dude, too. But I do have this to add to the plus column: the forty-year-old virgin falls in love with a forty-year-old woman. Possibly even 40-something. Oh yes, her stomach is impossibly flat for a woman who's had three children, but she's a natural-looking fortyish hot grandma. Catherine Keener really rocks that role. Steve Carell couldn't be any funnier.

New Gwen Stefani, The Sweet Escape = perfect workout music.

meme

meme

pick up the nearest book, look at page 123, reproduce sentences 6-8:

from Mira Schor's "Wet: On Painting, Feminism, and Art Culture"

"Success can lead to paranoia. Those young men everyone looks to as examples are all obsessedwith those who might want to get at them, knock them down. Because of their success they see themselves as targets, as indeed they had targeted the previous generation, for the link between progress/success and forms of patricide is grafted onto the belief structure of Western civilization."

[this is actually the second nearest book, as the nearest is a dictionary, which has no sentences in it]

Where are we now? Trip Number Seven.

Tragically, next week, for the first time in months, I will have to be in my office for five days in a row. I don't know how I'm going to bear it. I much prefer working off-site a few days a week.

In any event, I spent a few days in NOLA on Thursday & Friday, seeing a cousin who had been out of the country for two years. *Excellent* catching up with her; I'm hoping her years abroad are coming to an end and we can see each other more often now.

Thence to Pensacola, where the poet and I loaded up and headed eastward to the Atlantic Coast, specifically Ponte Vedra Beach, just south of Jacksonville Beach. Turns out that, if you look for a hotel a few days before a holiday weekend, lots of hotels are sold out! Huh. Who knew. Actually, though, the Ponte Vedra location worked out nicely. It was an easy drive to Jacksonville and a slightly longer but relaxing & scenic drive to St. Augustine.

St. Augustine, by the way, is a MOB SCENE. It's pretty cool but jampacked with tourists. I'd like to go back in the off-season (IS there an off-season?) The drive down the A1A is lovely, though. And the beach at Ponte Vedra is nice, good waves, not too crowded or rowdy. The poet was ruing his decision not to bring his surfboard, but he got some body-surfing in. I wish I could see without contacts so I could really let loose in the water, but being blind in crashing waves (even small ones) kind of scares me. The pool at the hotel is more my speed. At the beach, I stick to the kiddie-pool zone. Either way, though, I like being in the water. Must have something to do with my watery Scorpio nature. It's like the opposite of a traffic jam: all the stress is leeched out of my body, whereas in traffic, I turn into a whirling ball of stress.

Jacksonville has a great vibe, good sushi & thai & seafood restaurants, and the traffic doesn't suck. Also the Chamblin Book Mine is the most amazing bookstore, truly. I spent $70 on mostly out-of-print things, and could easily spend every saturday afternoon there, trading in books and hunting down treasures. You should see their Beat Literature section. I wanted the whole damn thing, at my house, I tell ya. I did buy a copy of Kerouac's On the Road, as my copy has gone by the wayside. No bookshelf is complete without a copy of On the Road.

Jezebella continues her jaunt.... episodes 5 & 6

Augusta,Georgia: very cool. great sized city, good vibe, the Morris Museum of Art is an outstanding museum of Southern art. It's in an office building, which is a little weird, but it's right on the river, next door to the Marriott, a few blocks from the downtown gallery/shopping street. Broad St., I think it was. Bought amazing skincare products from this little local shop, Cloud Nine, Body Yogurt yummy body moisturizer, a salt rub, and some shea butter, all amazing stuff. Also way cool earrings at Silver City. I could totally live in Augusta - it's just the right medium-sized kind of city. Plus people seem really nice and friendly in a southern way without being clubby and exclusive the way some small southern towns can be.

The Mississippi Delta: it's just hot up there, what can I say? Also, never accept a dinner invitation without inquiring whether the dinner is 1. a club meeting, and/or 2. followed by a guest speaker. I'm just sayin'. You might get trapped in an hour of self-involved speaking by a loathesomely inane local writer. It could happen to you. Don't let it. Do, however, make an appointment to visit Mama's Dream World Museum if you care for folk art or needlework.

Thence onward from the Delta to Oxford, MS: a great place to visit for a day. A day is all you need. Go to the Ole Miss Museum, go to the Faulkner House (Rowan Oak), and mosey around the Square for some recreational shopping. Square Books really is a fine independent bookstore. I bought the newest Margaret Atwood short story collection, a memoir about artists in East Hampton called De Kooning's Bicycle and a Moleskine notebook with squared (instead of lined) pages. We stayed at the Inn on campus, which is totally civilized, reasonably priced, and has an excellent pool. The breakfast is continental, so if you need protein, bring your own. Who ever heard of a college with its own hotel? Oxford is such a country club, I swear. It really is a pleasant place to spend a day but I could never live in such a country clubby environment. It'd get real old real fast. My friends who grew up there hated it.

My latest art history crush

NPR : Chasing Down History and the 'Thieves of Baghdad'

Matthew Bogdanos spoke at the AAM convention this past weekend in Boston, and was spectacular. He spoke for over an hour, without notes, while striding all around the giant hotel ballroom, and he *owned* the room. What happened at the Iraq museum is more complicated - and perhaps even more depressing - than what most of us learned in the mainstream media. At least one of the three main robberies was an inside job - a DEEP inside job, and more than half of the things stolen are still missing.

He's a colonel in the Marine reserves, a Manhattan Assistant DA, and a scholar of the classics. I think he should be the new pin-up boy for museums. He peppered his talk with quotes from Socrates, from Twain, from Shakespeare. Nice.

I haven't read his book yet, but I bought it right after the lecture and had him sign it. So far, I've read one chapter, and it's good. Profits go to the Iraq Museum, which needs money desperately for staff, for conservation, for repair, for the continuing search for stolen artworks.

Most of us learned in grade school that civilization was formed at the Tigris & Euphrates rivers, remember that? Yeah, that's in Iraq. Many of Western civilization's greatest ancient artworks are at the Iraq Museum - or were until 2003. It's easy to forget this kind of thing, the news keeps on rolling and the networks stop reporting, but Bogdanos is doing a fine job of keeping the illegal trade in antiquities, and the tragedy at the Iraq National Museum in the public eye.

can a bad man make good art?

Never mention Bukowski when commenting on a feminist blog. you can feel the chill descending, I swear. I can't blame them, the poetry is misogynist, as, most likely, was the man, but damn: a bad man can make good art, right? And how much of it was Truth and how much was stories told in first person? It's sold as poetry, not memoir. He sure doesn't make any of it sound sexy or glamorous. I don't know how to reconcile feminism with an appreciation for Bukowski, or Eminem, or most of material, visual, pop culture, for that matter. There is no escape from the patriarchy, is there?