Crabby Old Bats

This time it was online, in Teams, and worked a bit better than some Team events I've attended, or maybe I'm just getting used to it.

A few hiccups with slides and screen sharing, but not as many as there might have been.

Possibly we would rather attend a conference not in our south-facing sitting-room on a day like today....

But even so it was on the whole a good conference, even if some of the interdisciplinarity didn't entirely resonate with me.

And That There Dr oursin was rather embarrassingly activating the raised hand icon after not quite every panel, but all but one. And, oddly enough, given that that was not particularly the focus of the conference, all of my questions/comments/remarks were in the general area of medical/psychiatric history, which I wouldn't particularly have anticipated.

The following are all in the area of environmental history: enjoy!

Rebecca Beausaert. Pursuing Play: Women's Leisure in Small-Town Ontario, 1870-1914.

Beausaert’s discussion of the growing popularity of outdoor recreation in the early twentieth century, as opposed to earlier forms of indoor leisure such as book clubs and church gatherings, also highlights the role of women in the rise of environmental activism in towns like Elora. In these communities, grassroots efforts to maintain the local environment and cater to the influx of ecotourism travelers flourished, further illustrating the agency of women in shaping both their social and environmental landscapes.

Robert Aquinas McNally. Cast Out of Eden: The Untold Story of John Muir, Indigenous Peoples, and the American Wilderness:

McNally’s emphasis on the role of race in Muir’s thinking, and, therefore, on his vision of wilderness preservation, helps readers more clearly see Muir not as wilderness prophet but as a man of his time coming to terms with the consequences of American expansion.

B. J. Barickman. From Sea-Bathing to Beach-Going: A Social History of the Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Edited by Kendrik Kraay and Bryan McCann:

The book begins with Rio in the nineteenth century and shows that Cariocas regularly went to bathe in the ocean. The work incorporates an assortment of sources to give a vivid picture of this process. For instance, it was customary for bathers to go before dawn—as early as 3 a.m.—since many in Rio went to bed early in the evening, but also due to colorism within Brazilian society. The dominant white society enjoyed swimming in the ocean but also prized fairer complexions and thus aimed to avoid the sun. Yet, few amenities existed for sea-bathers. The city dumped its sewage and trash into the ocean and provided few lifeguards, which resulted in frequent drownings.
In chapter 2, a personal favorite, Barickman discusses the evolution of sea bathing from a therapeutic practice (thalassotherapy) in the nineteenth century to a leisure activity that provided a space for socialization across gender lines by the 1920s. Locals went to the beach to escape the heat of the summer, rowing emerged as the most popular sport in the region, and, as in other parts of the world such as the United States and the Southern Cone, beach-going became a popular way to make or meet friends. In short, the beach became a public space at all hours of the day, not just before dawn. Moreover, the beach captured the “moral ambiguities” of nineteenth-century norms (51-63). Men and women of all races and classes could be present in public spaces partially nude, to observe others and to be observed, in ways that society did not permit beyond the beach, but this continually frustrated moral reformers.
Chapter 3 centers on the work of Rio’s civic leaders to “civilize” the city in hopes of altering public perception of the city as a “tropical pesthole” (p. 69).

David Matless. England’s Green: Nature and Culture Since the 1960s:

The range of sources and topics is impressive, but at times the evidence is noted so briefly and the prose proceeds so quickly that breadth is privileged over depth. For example, the deeper connections between England and global ideas of green (as defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the World Wildlife Fund), the influence of colonial experience on conservation events of the 1970s, and the tensions between the various governmental nature management organizations would all have benefited from a little more attention. Yet, even if the reader sometimes wishes for a slower pace to get their thoughts in order, Matless offers enough analysis to build the examples up into a clear and insightful picture. The reader is left with a general appreciation of the central environmental debates of the period and good understanding of how they evolved over time. For scholars, it is a multidimensional study that adds something new and long awaited to British environmental and cultural history. For others, it is a fascinating book filled with interesting stories, cultural context, and many moments of nostalgia.

Michael Lobel. Van Gogh and the End of Nature.:

Lobel makes a systematic case for a new way of seeing Van Gogh’s paintings. Carefully introducing readers to a host of environmental conditions that shaped Van Gogh’s lived experience and appear repeatedly in his paintings—factories, railways, mining operations, gaslight, polluted waterways, arsenic, among others—Lobel compellingly invites us to see Van Gogh as an artist consistently grappling with the changing ecological world around him. Color and composition, as two of Van Gogh’s most heralded painterly qualities, appear now through an entirely different perception influenced by a clear environmental consciousness.

Ursula Kluwick. Haunting Ecologies: Victorian Conceptions of Water:

The author sets out to consider how Victorians understood water, seen through nineteenth-century fictional and nonfictional writings about the River Thames. In chapter 2 she points out the existence of writing that emphasizes how polluted the Thames was as well as writing that never mentions the pollution, and wonders at their coexistence. The conclusion that the writings don’t relate to any real state of the river is not particularly surprising but points to the author’s overall intent, summarized in the book’s title.

Alan Rauch. Sloth:

Rauch views these caricatural depictions—including portrayals of sloths as docile and naive creatures, as seen in the animated film Ice Age (2002)—as potentially detrimental to the species’ well-being. Through his analysis, the author critiques how sloths have been appropriated to fulfill human (emotional, cultural, and economic) needs and how this process misrepresents sloths, leading to harmful stereotypes that diminish their intrinsic value and undermine their agency.

No bread made for reasons.

Friday night supper: I was intending having penne with bottled sliced artichoke hearts, except did not appear to have these in store cupboard: did a sauce of blender-whizzed Peppadew Roasted Red Peppers in brine instead.

Saturday breakfast rolls: basic buttermilk, 50:50% strong white/white spelt flour, turned out nicely.

Today's lunch: diced leg of lamb casseroled in white wine with thyme with sweet potato topping, served with buttered spinach and what really were quite tiddly juvenile baby leeks vinaigrette in a dressing of olive oil, white wine vinegar, and wholegrain mustard.

Is it OK to read Infinite Jest in public? Why the internet hates ‘performative reading’

You know, I was completely unaware that 'The Internet' hated upon this (whatever it is) until I came across this article and I think we are probably well into a realm similar to journo constructing a phenomenon on the basis of '6 people I spoke to in the wine-bar last week'.

Or maybe I just don't do TikTok and am missing this, but in my experience, few forms of social media are entire monoliths, what?

Why shouldn't people read in public? They're not doing it AT other people, honestly.

Can't help thinking that those who get aerated at people reading on public transport or while sitting quietly in a restaurant or coffee-shop are very likely those who think you should 'rawdog' long planeflights, sad gits.

Okay, these days I am pretty much always reading on ereader when out and about, so nobody can see what I'm reading. But back in the day I have read a lot of things that I daresay some miserable so-and-so would have considered 'performative', like Remembrance of Things Past on the Tube.

And among other things Marx and Rousseau on the train when I was commuting in from suburban Surrey.

Which phase of my life I was reminded of by a review headed 'A darker side of Lawrence Durrell' - I was not aware that there was any other side, actually - I habitually got in the same compartment of the same train each morning and there was the same young man making his way veeeeery slowwwwly through the volumes of The Alexandria Quartet. Months and months of Balthazar.

What I read

Finished The Islands of Sorrow and it is a bit slight, definitely one for the Simon Raven completist I would say - a number of the tales feel like outtakes from the later novels.

Decided not for me: Someone You Can Build a Nest In.

Started Val McDermid, The Grave Tattoo (2006), a non-series mystery. Alas, I was not grabbed - in terms of present-day people encounter Historical Mystery, this did not ping my buttons - a) could not quite believe that a woman studying at a somewhat grotty-sounding post-92 uni in an unglam part of London would have even considered doing a PhD on Wordsworth (do people anywhere even do this anymore) let alone be publishing a book on him b)a histmyst involving Daffodil Boy and a not so much entirely lost but *concealed unpublished in The Archives* manuscript of Epic Poem, cannot be doing with. (Suspect foul libel upon generations of archivists at Dove Cottage, just saying.) Gave up.

Read in anticipation of book group next week, Anthony Powell, The Kindly Ones (1962).

Margery Sharp, Britannia Mews (1946) (query, was there around then a subgenre of books doing Victoria to now via single person or family?). Not a top Sharp, and I am not sure whether she is doing an early instance of Ace Representation, or just a Stunning Example of Victorian Womanhood (who is, credit is due, no mimsy).

Because I discovered it was Quite A Long Time since I had last read it, Helen Wright, A Matter of Oaths (1988).

Also finished first book for essay review, v good.

Finally came down to a price I consider eligible, JD Robb, Bonded in Death (In Death #60) (2025). (We think there were points where she could have done with a Brit-picker.)

On the go

Barbara Hambly, Murder in the Trembling Lands (Benjamin January #21) (2025). (Am now earwormed by 'The Battle of New Orleans' which was in the pop charts in my youth.)

Up next

Very probably, Zen Cho, Behind Frenemy Lines, which I had forgotten was just about due.

***

O Peter Bradshaw, nevairr evairr change:

David Cronenberg’s new film is a contorted sphinx without a secret, an eroticised necrophiliac meditation on grief, longing and loss that returns this director to his now very familiar Ballardian fetishes.

Well, in further conferencing misadventures, woke up around 5 am with what I came to realise was a crashing migraine - it is so long since I have had one of these as opposed to 'headache from lying orkard' - took medication, and after some little while must have gone to sleep, because I woke up to discover it was nearly 9.30, and I had slept well past the alarm I had set in anticipation of the 9.00 first conference session. But feeling a lot better.

I was only just in time to grab some breakfast before they started clearing it up.

The day's papers were perhaps a bit less geared towards my own specific interests - and I was sorry to miss the ones I did - but still that there Dr oursin managed the occasional intervention. There were also some good conversations had.

So the conference, as a conference, was generally judged a success, if somewhat exhausting.

I managed to get the train from the University to Birmingham New Street with no great difficulty.

However, the train I was booked on was somewhat delayed (though not greatly, not cancelled, and no issues of taking buses as in various announcements) and I initially positioned myself at the wrong bit of the platform and had to scurry along through densely packed waiting passengers.

Journey okay, with free snacks, though onboard wifi somewhat recalcitrant.

At Euston, the taxi rank was closed!!!!

Fortunately one can usually grab a cab in the Euston Road very expeditious, and I did.

So I am now home and more or less unpacked.

Given that Mercury is, I recollect, the deity of travellers, is Mercury in retrograde?