Halfway down the Danube

Friday non-cat blogging

Since I have no cats (and this condition seems likely to be permanent) I thought I'd mention some of the things I've been researching lately:

The political economy of the American empire in the Philippines, 1898 to 1913. If you think the current situation in Iraq makes no sense, you have to read about the Philippines to understand what "no sense" really means. (Actually, the last part of that sentence is pretty much invariant no matter what you're thinking of.) Picture an occupation composed of one part Richard Perle, one part the Peace Corps, and one part your favorite spaghetti Western. That's about right.

The rise and fall of the mail-order house industry the US. I was inspired by Carrie at Bad Mama, who discovered her new home was actually an Aladdin house, built in Michigan, and shipped via rail several hundred miles to its point of final assembly some time in the late 1910s. You'd never know it.

(By the way, Peanut, Bad Mama's miracle elf princess, just underwent painful osteotomic corrective surgery. You might want to post some wubba.)

What else. I have a lot of notes on the history of epic poetry, and lately I've been influenced by the poet Alice Notley's idea of the "female epic". I'd like to work up something on George Eliot, H.D.'s Helen in Egypt, Notley's own work, especially The Descent of Alette, Rebecca Borgstrom's epic in progress at Hitherby Dragons, Nina Paley's Sitayana animations, and even the work of Ayn Rand, whom I will try not to present as a bad example.

There's also the other stuff I have on epic -- Serbian, early and later Greek, the blues, and the west African griot tradition [1] -- and also the continuing series on the Code of Lek. I have some cool parallels from medieval Icelandic sagas, the work of Ismail Kadare, and a short story of Howard Waldrop's. (Guess which one!)

And there's the long-awaited piece I have on the poetry of Lorine Niedecker. I find certain elements of her biography distressing, most notably her early relationship with Louis Zukofsky, who pressured her to get an abortion of their child (the doctor later told her it was twins). This makes me think much the less of Zuk, a poet I have long admired.

Meanwhile, HDTD friend Charlie Stross has put his new novel Accelerando online. It's good transhuman fun! And there's a good discussion of the alternate history genre at the literary blog The Valve. So that takes care of the geeky stuff.

[1] Can any Romanian readers tell me about the Tiganiada? I have come across very vague references in English about it. The New York Public Library has a copy, but I'd have to cognate my way through it, and miss any of the subtleties.