Book Review

I recently listened to Sarah Vowell's The Partly Cloudy Patriot on tape (MP3, rather). She manages to convey the importance of events and put into perspective why it is that we preserve historical locations and tolerate their innate campiness. Her descriptions of these locations almost make me want to go on pilgrimages as I did with the family years ago. I'm sure I could better tolerate the drive from Indiana to Yellowstone now than then. Yellowstone was the trip where I learned to sleep in the car.

So, remember all those bizarre facts the 8th grade history editors put in the preface of the book to make pre-teens think they wanted to learn about history?

"WTF? There are giant lobsters in Massachusetts Bay? They were how big? OMG! I think I want to learn about history!"

Do you remember getting to the page about the giant lobsters at the end of the year and not even noticing that there were giant lobsters discussed with all the really terrible writing that was going on that you quit reading months before? Yeah. I do. I actually marked the page, finally figured out why, and frankly, didn't give a rats ass.

What Sarah Vowell does in this book is provide a long, long string of those interesting tidbits into a story where you're distracted from the fact that you're learning something and just enjoying the narrative. It doesn't hurt that she has people like Conan O'Brien and Seth Green helping with the reading. It's definitely worth a read if you get a chance though I would recommend the audiobook over the text version for the same reason that I will only read David Sedaris on audiobook.

The Hermitage

Reminiscent of vacations of yore, while my family was visiting Nashville this weekend, we went to visit Andrew Jackson's home, The Hermitage. This trip was slightly different from the old vacations though--my sister and I had a say in where we visited. I've always been a little fascinated with General Jackson. As described in history class, his life seemed like a breath of fresh air after the stuffy profiles of the previous presidents. Maybe 'fresh air' isn't the right phrase, given his life, but at least the (woefully incorrect) description of the homesteading duellist was enough to catch the attention of a second-grader already disinterested in history.


Back to vacations: I remember hours of trudging around various historical sites as a child, bored, sunburnt, and tired. I remember later trips where we did more trudging around and I, as a teenager, was bored, sunburnt, tired, and absolutely horrified at the thought of being seen with my parents at a historical site. For this visit, I was just tired from walking around so much, but at least interested in the story being told.


The visit was good, in general. The price of admission gets you in to see a short film about Andrew Jackson's life and the land, an audio-guided tour complete with headsets, and free reign to walk around on the grounds and listen to the audio tour until your legs fall off or you start dancing to the questionable soundtrack of the audio tour. There's a lot to see and there's been considerable effort in preserving the home.


There are a number of pet peeves that I encountered during the visit:

1. Historical films neglecting to acknowledge the fact that the subject is dead by pretending that the film was made during the time period being discussed rather than 1983.
2. A glossing over of unpleasantness (in this case, the hardships of the slaves owned by Jackson--at least they acknowledged that he owned slaves).
3. Modern conveniences (air conditioning, electricity) installed in historical sites--after they were considered a historical locations.
4. No water conveniently available for visitors and vending machines charging $2 for a bottle of water. Unacceptable.
5. Period costumes. Wear matching polo shirts and ditch the air conditioning. Seriously.

The people were very friendly and very knowledgeable. While a little campy, the audio tour offered flexibility that couldn't be met with a guided tour. I got to cuddle with Texas while he flirted with the ladies in the historical costumes. I got to make/hear comments to/from Mom and Jenn about poor decorating choices made a long, long time ago. Mostly, I got to spend time with the family and I was very content (and tired) at the end of the day.

Changes

I'm in the process of making some tweaks to my blog. I've added a "Workouts" column to the left side, but I'm not sure if it's the most practical. I'll see how the list behaves after I reach the limit of the queue. What I'd really like is a rolling Sunday-Saturday gadget with archiving capabilities and a countdown to my next race.

Any smartypants out there got something like this?
Eh?

To waste your time...

Go take the Sci Fi Sounds Quiz.

I'm terrible. Identifying sounds isn't a strength, but it's an entertaining quiz. I went back and took this, trying to go from memory, but still only scored a 71. I think Jeremy got a 71 without the advantage of multiple choice answers. I would play a clip and he would say something like, "Oh, that's HAL."

I was going to post the little tag from the website, but I couldn't get it to play nicely so you'll have to go and take the quiz and imagine the little tag at the end of this post.

**Imagine Cute Tag Here**