Torsade Literary Space Assorted Opinions: Plastic
Assorted Opinions Plastic The thing you’re doing isn’t wrong. In most cases. What comes athwart environmental activism is the scorn, distrust, frustration of people who feel themselves harried over things that were always “okay in the past”. When you drink a Diet Coke and faithfully drop your bottle in […]
Best of the Season to You!
And, for today, I have a small historical anecdote, from the American Civil War, with a certain lesson to be derived. Respect the Flag A day or two after we established headquarters at the City Hall, the national flag was hanging over the street, when one of the principal ladies […]
Assorted Opinions: They
Assorted Opinions They 2020 seems a bad time for the Democrats to become the party of pronouns. History shows, of course, that they can pull it off, this snatching of defeat from the jaws of victory… And liberal forces appear to be gathering towards a […]
Of Cats and Birds (non-fiction)
Readers, I wrote the essay below a couple of years ago, in response to the thinly supported “science” that is routinely trotted out when the subject of bird losses comes back into the news. Recently we’ve been hearing that 1/4 of the bird population is gone, which didn’t happen overnight. And we haven’t been […]
Baron Haussmann’s story about George Sand (conclusion)
From Mémoires de baron Haussmann, 1890 (conclusion) I had taken care to forewarn the Lieutenant of the Gendarmerie, and upon our return to the Sous-Préfecture, we found him ready to leave with a brigade. The expedition was put in motion without delay, and in good order, thanks to the post-chaise […]
Baron Haussmann’s story about George Sand (part one)
From Mémoires de baron Haussmann, 1890 George Sand at Nérac Before I speak of what came next, I must tell a rather curious episode that arose during the last days of my life as a youth. I had been presented by M. le Marquis de Lusignan, […]
Assorted Opinions: Parity (non-fiction)
Assorted Opinions Parity In the novel I’m currently writing, All Bedlam Courses Past (Bedlam for short), one of the characters is a sometime actress. Being not attached to a company, she finds far fewer opportunities on the stage than her husband. He can play […]
A 19th Century Voting Rights Story
Excerpted from The History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians… Andrew J. Blackbird, The Ypsilanti Job Printing House, 1887 So after one payment of the treaty of 1855, late in the fall of 1856, I went up to Mr. Gilbert, who was then Indian agent, and made known to him my intention, […]
The Story of the German Ambassador
Adventures in Research The Story of the German Ambassador Leopold von Hoesch was a career diplomat whose most notable posts were at Paris, from 1924-1932, and London, from 1932-1936. For a time he was, in his dealings with the two Allied powers, the key representative for interwar Germany. But he […]
Adventures in Research: Mystery at Sea
My Curious Reading Adventures in Research Mystery at Sea My great-grandmother Barker, above, at sixteen, and then in the 1940s. Born Clara Wilda Giles, in Eldorado, Illinois, she comes from a family line not easy to trace. Her father was William Lafayette Giles, buried in Saline […]