December 21, 2005

Some Things Coming

Tags: Carnivals, due dates, Daddy-hood, destiny, “a mean house in a dull street.”

Something Historic This Way Comes: I will be hosting the 23rd edition of the History Carnival here at OitNN on January 15th. (Carnival No. 22 is up at Jonathan Dresner’s Frog In A Well.) If you read (or write!) any interesting history-related blogging between now and January 15, please let me know by commenting or emailing a link (I’m at electromail-way at-way obmacdougall-ray ot-day org-way.) It doesn’t have to be academic-style history or the work of a professional historian—quite the opposite. The guidelines say: “It must be stressed that the Carnival is not just for academics and specialists, that entries certainly don’t have to be heavyweight scholarship. … They may be focused on a historical topic, on the author’s particular research interests or, alternatively, they may be reflections on the particular challenges and rewards of studying, researching and teaching history. Other examples of possible candidates for inclusion could include reviews of history books or web resources, discussions of ‘popular’ histories (films, dramas and documentaries, novels, etc).” A few submissions have already trickled in—thanks for those, keep them coming, and tune in here on the 15th!

Something Else Historic This Way Comes: Impending parenthood comes at us in funny ways.* I was checking out some library books yesterday, and as the librarian stamped and demagnetized them, she said, “the due date is April 22nd.” And a thrill of excitement and panic washed over me. Because the due date is April 22nd! (Or possibly April 29th, depending on how we calculate.) So there are now library books in my possession, checked out by feckless childless me, that may well be returned by somebody’s Daddy. Man oh man! Thus was my borrowed copy of Lisa Gitelman’s Scripts, Grooves, and Writing Machines: Representing Technology in the Edison Era imbued with a poweful sense of destiny.

*Or, at least, it comes at me in funny ways. I suppose L possesses more strenuous reminders of her condition.

Something Ghostly, If Not Particularly Historic, This Way Runs: As a coda to my twin posts on spiritualism and photography, I rummaged around in the basement and found my own personal foray into ghost photography, this accidental double exposure from 1980 or so. (I didn’t match my socks to my t-shirt as a rule—I’m in my soccer uniform here.)

The angel of death comes for Rob.

Mr. Osbert Sitwell informed us the other day that ghosts went out when electricity came in; but surely this is to misapprehend the nature of the ghostly. What drives ghosts away is not the aspidistra or the electric cooker; I can imagine them more wistfully haunting a mean house in a dull street than the battlemented castle with its boring stage properties.
—Edith Wharton

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Comments

Posted by: Ancarett at January 10, 2006 11:03 PM