Having recently read a biography of U.S. Grant, I was primed to visit the sites of his western service in the Army, both of which sites were on the route of my driving trip.
Having graduated from West Point and done courageous and enterprising service in the Mexican War, Lieutenant Grant spent the first few peacetime years at posts on the eastern Canadian frontier, where he could have his wife and children with him. But in 1853 he was transferred to the Pacific Coast - time-consuming, dangerous, and expensive to get to, so he had to leave his family behind.
Lonely without them, bored by his routine quartermaster duties, depressed by the damp and gloomy weather, and not getting along with his commanders, Grant began to drink heavily - or not, depending on which authorities you believe. At any rate, having been promoted to Captain in the interim, after a year on the coast he resigned his commission and returned east, to face even greater personal failure as a civilian until the Civil War arrived and he found his true metier as a commanding general.
Grant served at two posts in the west, and I visited them both. There's little relic of his presence.
Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, on the Washington state side of the Columbia River opposite Portland, is built around the Hudson's Bay Company fur-trading post of that name, but it now also includes the US Army's nearby Vancouver Barracks, still a military post when I was last here. But most of the row of impressive Victorian officers' houses that now dignify the site weren't present when Grant was here. They were built by General O.O. Howard, of passing Civil War note, who was sent out here by President Grant to improve the facilities. Grant remembered having lived in crude wooden cabins, now long gone, elsewhere on the property. One full house which was here in Grant's time is called Grant House, but he didn't live in it. The site museum says a little about all this; I learned more from conversation with the curators.
Fort Humboldt State Historic Park, on a hilltop above Eureka, California, is mostly rebuilt buildings on an open lawn. Plenty of placards but no museum. The site had been saved from housing development in the late 19C by Grant fans who wanted to preserve the site, though the original buildings had been torn apart by Grant-worshipping souvenir hunters. The placards are mostly about camp life; passing note is taken of Grant's presence, but the main one on him concerns past Grant hagiography. There's still a commemorative plaque erected by the DAR; and the placard has a photo of a now long-gone ridiculously giant statue of Grant.
Kalimac's corner: a journal by DB
Sunday, February 15, 2026
Saturday, February 14, 2026
garden in Portland
Another thing I did in Portland was visit the Lan Su Garden, which was enthusiastically recommended in some guidebooks I consulted. Portland is sister cities with Suzhou, China, a city near Shanghai which is known for its classical scholars' gardens. So about 25 years ago, Portland imported a crew of artisans and a whole lot of Chinese building material to create this garden in the authentic style.* It occupies an entire city block, and it's not all or even mostly plants, though there are plenty of those. There are pathways paved with stones arranged in the shape of various flower petals; there are fish ponds and little bridges over them; and mostly there are what are called pavilions, free-standing buildings mostly about the size of a western living room, intended for various purposes. One is intended as the resident scholar's place; it has one smaller room for his study and workroom, and a larger one as his reception area, with furniture in the Ming dynasty style. An even larger one, with two stories, has been set up as a teahouse.
It's all quite charming - you can see a video tour at the above link - and the guided tour was informative. There's also a gift shop at which I bought a pair of golden butterfly earrings as a Valentine's present for B., which is why I am writing about it today.
*Meanwhile, artisans from Portland built a rose garden in Suzhou.
It's all quite charming - you can see a video tour at the above link - and the guided tour was informative. There's also a gift shop at which I bought a pair of golden butterfly earrings as a Valentine's present for B., which is why I am writing about it today.
*Meanwhile, artisans from Portland built a rose garden in Suzhou.
Friday, February 13, 2026
museum report: A Larger Reality, Ursula K. Le Guin
OK, I'm back from my trip to Portland, I'm beginning to be rested up from the rigors of the drive, and it's time to tell you what I went for.
About three months ago I learned of A Larger Reality: Ursula K. Le Guin, a major exhibit on one of my favorite authors, being held in a museum in Portland. "Well, that's nice, pity I can't get to it," I thought, but then I determined that, health permitting, I would. I'd driven to Portland before. The first weekend in February was the closing dates of the exhibit, and it appeared the ideal time to go. So, subject only to a health scare that nearly canceled the trip at the last minute, I went.
Oregon Contemporary, as the museum is called, is tucked away obscurely in a corner of the Kenton district in north Portland. Its roughly two-and-a-half rooms of exhibit space were occupied entirely with this one exhibit. The captions, I was told, were written mostly by UKL's son, Theo Downes-Le Guin, and they were fabulously informative about her background, her writing habits, inspirations and motivations, and much more. I told the curators that I hope this information winds up in a book sometime. There was an associated book with this exhibit, but it was an anthology of UKL's writings, not a catalog.
By the entrance hallway are three cases with personal artifacts ranging from her own drawings of her childhood homes (the house in Berkeley and the ranch in the Napa Valley) and a childhood teddy bear (one of many stuffed animals about which, the caption told us, she wrote stories), magazines in which her stories were published, including that one issue of Playboy, her protest-march handbag festooned with buttons like "Question Authority" and "Reality is a Crutch," on to her Nebula for Left Hand (no Hugos on display) and her Library of Congress "Living Legend" medal.
Beyond this in the main room was a large section devoted to maps. That she made maps first and constructed invented worlds by exploring the map was a major point in her creativity. Wall displays showed many maps that had been seen before and some that were new to me: a map of Orsinia (published only in the Library of America Orsinia volume, which I hadn't seen) confirms its resemblance to Hungary, which I always found more of a model than Czechoslovakia, the other preferred candidate.
On a table lay computer tablets loaded with videos about UKL's map making, with headphones to listen to the narration (which also appeared on the screen). These told of everything from her inspirations - among them, her father's maps of Indian lands in his anthropology books - to her map-making techniques. One video showed a glimpse of a different version of "Some of the Places and Peoples Known to the Kesh" than was published in Always Coming Home; expressing regret to the curators that it wasn't on the wall led to the revelation that it's on UKL's website.
Other videos discussed artists inspired by UKL's maps, including Michael Everson, who found two unpublished maps in UKL's papers at the University of Oregon, one of the planet Athshe from The Word for World is Forest, the other of an unknown land labeled in an unknown alphabet. Everson has redrawn these in a more professional style, but if the result has been published I didn't find out where.
A cubicle set up in the middle of the room contained UKL's original manual typewriter and another of the same model as the hum-less electric typewriter she eventually got. Attendees were encouraged to sit down at both and write their own compositions. I didn't do so, feeling too humbled by UKL's work to attempt to compete, but I did give advice to some younger attendees flummoxed by how the manual typewriter worked, especially its lack of a number 1 key. I advised that custom was to use the small l in its place rather than a capital I. Also in the cubicle was a binder of replicas of numerous rejection letters, mostly of the early version of Malafrena she sent out in the 1950s, including the oft-referred-to but never previously seen letter in which Alfred Knopf said that 15 years earlier he'd have published it, but couldn't afford to do so now.
Two other items enlivened the main room. One was a tree, a model construct built of wood, on whose branches and roots were perched copies of almost every book UKL ever published, including a few translations, which attendees were invited to peruse; alas places to sit and read were lacking, although some younger people did settle on the concrete floor. And in a corner, which did have some seating, was a video display giving continuous runs of an hour-long film, "Views from Open Windows: Conversations with Ursula K. Le Guin." This was made by Arwen Curry, but is not the documentary I'd already seen; it was Curry's own interviews with UKL interspersed with clips from speeches and earlier interviews, including her appearance at the 1975 World SF Convention. Curry's interviews were both at UKL's home in Portland and at Kishamish, the family Napa Valley ranch. Lots of choice quotes; and at one point when the Blue Angels fly overhead at Kishamish, Ursula gives them the finger, on camera.
In the other room, a series of display cases showing her drawings and paintings - all of real-world places; books that inspired her (a vast selection, along with a card with a quotation to the effect that all the books she read inspired her), and a series of manuscripts and letters showing the editorial process at work on The Tombs of Atuan. Also in this room were a number of artworks by others inspired by Le Guin, including an animated film showing kites (or possibly balloons) in the shape of cats gazing hungrily on others in the shape of fish.
But the reason I wanted to come on this weekend is that Saturday evening, Todd Barton, composer of the Kesh music in Always Coming Home was giving a special presentation. This was in a hall to the side of the exhibit space. He talked about the process, how Ursula had secretly auditioned him when hearing the music he'd written for plays as house composer for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; how she sent a poem for his first setting, and he wrote back asking, "Do the Kesh speak English?" which led Ursula to take six months off to create the Kesh language; how they created the nonexistent instruments electronically; how LC at first refused to copyright the music on the grounds that they thought it was field recordings. He played recordings of some of the songs, recordings of the background material for others while he played or sung live; and he had the audience join in to sing the "heya" chant, but though it was a large and packed attendance, it didn't have the heft or moving quality of the time we did it at Mythcon. Barton did mention the Mythcon celebrating Always Coming Home at which he also performed the music, though he didn't remember the group's name. But this did give me the opportunity to introduce myself after the program. I walked up and said, "Todd, I wanted to say hello," and gave my name. "I was the chairman of that conference you mentioned." He was astonished to see me, and we spoke warmly of the memories. I was relieved, though, that he didn't ask after the woman on our committee who did most of the Kesh cultural lifting, because then I would have had to report that she sadly died in a traffic accident some years later.
Withal, this was a highly satisfying exhibit and program, and it was worth the trouble of driving to Portland for it.
About three months ago I learned of A Larger Reality: Ursula K. Le Guin, a major exhibit on one of my favorite authors, being held in a museum in Portland. "Well, that's nice, pity I can't get to it," I thought, but then I determined that, health permitting, I would. I'd driven to Portland before. The first weekend in February was the closing dates of the exhibit, and it appeared the ideal time to go. So, subject only to a health scare that nearly canceled the trip at the last minute, I went.
Oregon Contemporary, as the museum is called, is tucked away obscurely in a corner of the Kenton district in north Portland. Its roughly two-and-a-half rooms of exhibit space were occupied entirely with this one exhibit. The captions, I was told, were written mostly by UKL's son, Theo Downes-Le Guin, and they were fabulously informative about her background, her writing habits, inspirations and motivations, and much more. I told the curators that I hope this information winds up in a book sometime. There was an associated book with this exhibit, but it was an anthology of UKL's writings, not a catalog.
By the entrance hallway are three cases with personal artifacts ranging from her own drawings of her childhood homes (the house in Berkeley and the ranch in the Napa Valley) and a childhood teddy bear (one of many stuffed animals about which, the caption told us, she wrote stories), magazines in which her stories were published, including that one issue of Playboy, her protest-march handbag festooned with buttons like "Question Authority" and "Reality is a Crutch," on to her Nebula for Left Hand (no Hugos on display) and her Library of Congress "Living Legend" medal.
Beyond this in the main room was a large section devoted to maps. That she made maps first and constructed invented worlds by exploring the map was a major point in her creativity. Wall displays showed many maps that had been seen before and some that were new to me: a map of Orsinia (published only in the Library of America Orsinia volume, which I hadn't seen) confirms its resemblance to Hungary, which I always found more of a model than Czechoslovakia, the other preferred candidate.
On a table lay computer tablets loaded with videos about UKL's map making, with headphones to listen to the narration (which also appeared on the screen). These told of everything from her inspirations - among them, her father's maps of Indian lands in his anthropology books - to her map-making techniques. One video showed a glimpse of a different version of "Some of the Places and Peoples Known to the Kesh" than was published in Always Coming Home; expressing regret to the curators that it wasn't on the wall led to the revelation that it's on UKL's website.
Other videos discussed artists inspired by UKL's maps, including Michael Everson, who found two unpublished maps in UKL's papers at the University of Oregon, one of the planet Athshe from The Word for World is Forest, the other of an unknown land labeled in an unknown alphabet. Everson has redrawn these in a more professional style, but if the result has been published I didn't find out where.
A cubicle set up in the middle of the room contained UKL's original manual typewriter and another of the same model as the hum-less electric typewriter she eventually got. Attendees were encouraged to sit down at both and write their own compositions. I didn't do so, feeling too humbled by UKL's work to attempt to compete, but I did give advice to some younger attendees flummoxed by how the manual typewriter worked, especially its lack of a number 1 key. I advised that custom was to use the small l in its place rather than a capital I. Also in the cubicle was a binder of replicas of numerous rejection letters, mostly of the early version of Malafrena she sent out in the 1950s, including the oft-referred-to but never previously seen letter in which Alfred Knopf said that 15 years earlier he'd have published it, but couldn't afford to do so now.
Two other items enlivened the main room. One was a tree, a model construct built of wood, on whose branches and roots were perched copies of almost every book UKL ever published, including a few translations, which attendees were invited to peruse; alas places to sit and read were lacking, although some younger people did settle on the concrete floor. And in a corner, which did have some seating, was a video display giving continuous runs of an hour-long film, "Views from Open Windows: Conversations with Ursula K. Le Guin." This was made by Arwen Curry, but is not the documentary I'd already seen; it was Curry's own interviews with UKL interspersed with clips from speeches and earlier interviews, including her appearance at the 1975 World SF Convention. Curry's interviews were both at UKL's home in Portland and at Kishamish, the family Napa Valley ranch. Lots of choice quotes; and at one point when the Blue Angels fly overhead at Kishamish, Ursula gives them the finger, on camera.
In the other room, a series of display cases showing her drawings and paintings - all of real-world places; books that inspired her (a vast selection, along with a card with a quotation to the effect that all the books she read inspired her), and a series of manuscripts and letters showing the editorial process at work on The Tombs of Atuan. Also in this room were a number of artworks by others inspired by Le Guin, including an animated film showing kites (or possibly balloons) in the shape of cats gazing hungrily on others in the shape of fish.
But the reason I wanted to come on this weekend is that Saturday evening, Todd Barton, composer of the Kesh music in Always Coming Home was giving a special presentation. This was in a hall to the side of the exhibit space. He talked about the process, how Ursula had secretly auditioned him when hearing the music he'd written for plays as house composer for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; how she sent a poem for his first setting, and he wrote back asking, "Do the Kesh speak English?" which led Ursula to take six months off to create the Kesh language; how they created the nonexistent instruments electronically; how LC at first refused to copyright the music on the grounds that they thought it was field recordings. He played recordings of some of the songs, recordings of the background material for others while he played or sung live; and he had the audience join in to sing the "heya" chant, but though it was a large and packed attendance, it didn't have the heft or moving quality of the time we did it at Mythcon. Barton did mention the Mythcon celebrating Always Coming Home at which he also performed the music, though he didn't remember the group's name. But this did give me the opportunity to introduce myself after the program. I walked up and said, "Todd, I wanted to say hello," and gave my name. "I was the chairman of that conference you mentioned." He was astonished to see me, and we spoke warmly of the memories. I was relieved, though, that he didn't ask after the woman on our committee who did most of the Kesh cultural lifting, because then I would have had to report that she sadly died in a traffic accident some years later.
Withal, this was a highly satisfying exhibit and program, and it was worth the trouble of driving to Portland for it.
Tuesday, February 10, 2026
in Portland
At last, on my way home in the third hotel of this trip, I've finally found one with a working guest-usable computer, so I can cross-post to all the versions of my blog at once, because copying and pasting is beyond anything I can do on a tablet.
But I'm going to leave the reason I was in Portland, Oregon - for the Le Guin exhibit at a local museum - aside until I get home, and write now about my thoughts about Portland:
1. Not a sign of the hellhole that some people claim the city is. I saw a busy and prosperous city.
2. And the people are cheerful despite the weather. The regular Saturday farmer's market downtown was happy and bustling despite the cold and rain.
3. Powell's Books has changed utterly. They've moved a lot of sections around since I was last there, but the big change is this. It used to be a used book store with some new books salted in. Now it's a new book store with some used books salted in. The only part I saw where the used books outnumbered the new ones was the small section for books on comic strips.
4. Millennium Music long ago abandoned its separate classical store, but now the classical section has been reduced to one long row. Still, there was a lot of interesting stuff in there.
5. Portland specializes in road signs that point in the wrong direction, e.g. left where it should be right.
6. And its slower drivers prefer to be in the left lane.
7. The commuter-time traffic is really grim. I stayed out near the airport (it's cheaper there). where a hidden back road (Columbia Blvd) gave me a straight shot to the museum, but to get anywhere else at those hours was a puzzle.
But I'm going to leave the reason I was in Portland, Oregon - for the Le Guin exhibit at a local museum - aside until I get home, and write now about my thoughts about Portland:
1. Not a sign of the hellhole that some people claim the city is. I saw a busy and prosperous city.
2. And the people are cheerful despite the weather. The regular Saturday farmer's market downtown was happy and bustling despite the cold and rain.
3. Powell's Books has changed utterly. They've moved a lot of sections around since I was last there, but the big change is this. It used to be a used book store with some new books salted in. Now it's a new book store with some used books salted in. The only part I saw where the used books outnumbered the new ones was the small section for books on comic strips.
4. Millennium Music long ago abandoned its separate classical store, but now the classical section has been reduced to one long row. Still, there was a lot of interesting stuff in there.
5. Portland specializes in road signs that point in the wrong direction, e.g. left where it should be right.
6. And its slower drivers prefer to be in the left lane.
7. The commuter-time traffic is really grim. I stayed out near the airport (it's cheaper there). where a hidden back road (Columbia Blvd) gave me a straight shot to the museum, but to get anywhere else at those hours was a puzzle.
concert review: Oregon Symphony
Yes, I’m in Portland, and this concert in the large and old-fashionedly ornate (it doesn’t have restrooms, it has “lounges”) Schnitzer Concert Hall downtown turned out to be the perfect way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon. Music Director David Danzmayr led his crackerjack orchestra through Anna Clyne’s Color Field, a typically imaginative Clyne work with some evocative open harmonies, and concluded with a thoroughly robust rendering of the Ravel orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, in which the tuba struggled a little in “Bydlo, “ but there were otherwise no problems. The orchestra has newly acquired a custom-made bell, and this clanged out like nothing you’ve heard before in the grand conclusion.
But the highlight of this concert came in between: the Bruch Violin Concerto, and it wasn’t the highlight just because the estimable Gil Shaham was soloist. I just heard this concerto last month from San Francisco, and the soloist was smooth-toned but rather characterless, while the orchestra was even bland and dull. Not this time. Here we heard why this is one of the most popular concertos in the repertoire. The orchestra was as burstingly robust as they would be in Pictures, and Shaham, though I’ve heard him perform wonders before, was simply amazing, a standing rebuke to plainer soloists. Every note had character, and his mostly high and dry tone varied tremendously, including some of the tenderest soft passages that could still be heard over the orchestra. Thrilling.
But the highlight of this concert came in between: the Bruch Violin Concerto, and it wasn’t the highlight just because the estimable Gil Shaham was soloist. I just heard this concerto last month from San Francisco, and the soloist was smooth-toned but rather characterless, while the orchestra was even bland and dull. Not this time. Here we heard why this is one of the most popular concertos in the repertoire. The orchestra was as burstingly robust as they would be in Pictures, and Shaham, though I’ve heard him perform wonders before, was simply amazing, a standing rebuke to plainer soloists. Every note had character, and his mostly high and dry tone varied tremendously, including some of the tenderest soft passages that could still be heard over the orchestra. Thrilling.
Saturday, February 7, 2026
Lee Speth
One of my oldest friends died a couple days ago. He was in his early 80s. You can read the factual details about him on the File 770 website, in entry 4 in the miscellaneous post for February 6. I am away from home and posting on my pokey little tablet, so I can’t provide links or even write much, so I shall just say that Lee and I became friends about 50 years ago when we were both single and were regularly cast together as roommates at Mythcons.
Our friendship was not much about serious mythopoeic literature, but centered on politics in which we were both interested, him professionally as an elections supervisor. Lee also enticed me, and later B., to attend the Oz conventions which were a regular part of his schedule. For many years they were held annually at Asilomar near here. Lee and Dolores, whom he had delightfully married, would fly from LA to San Jose or Monterey and I would pick them up. We’d have dinner at Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey and then proceed to the conference center. I also visited them regularly whenever I ventured south. Neither of them drove, not as much of a rarity in Angelinos as you might think, but having a driver at his disposal didn’t alter Lee’s invariable preference for eating at the same burger/pasta/salad place a block from their apartment, where he was an esteemed regular.
As he was also in the Mythopoeic Society, where he handled back issue orders for many years and spent Mythcons mostly sitting behind the Society sales table. I shall miss his acute intelligence and occasional wicked sense of humor.
Our friendship was not much about serious mythopoeic literature, but centered on politics in which we were both interested, him professionally as an elections supervisor. Lee also enticed me, and later B., to attend the Oz conventions which were a regular part of his schedule. For many years they were held annually at Asilomar near here. Lee and Dolores, whom he had delightfully married, would fly from LA to San Jose or Monterey and I would pick them up. We’d have dinner at Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey and then proceed to the conference center. I also visited them regularly whenever I ventured south. Neither of them drove, not as much of a rarity in Angelinos as you might think, but having a driver at his disposal didn’t alter Lee’s invariable preference for eating at the same burger/pasta/salad place a block from their apartment, where he was an esteemed regular.
As he was also in the Mythopoeic Society, where he handled back issue orders for many years and spent Mythcons mostly sitting behind the Society sales table. I shall miss his acute intelligence and occasional wicked sense of humor.
Thursday, February 5, 2026
dissing on sf cons, again
Here's yet another characterization of sf cons as unwelcoming and elitist. I find that a very strange charge. In my youth I was stepped on by all sorts of elites, but I never had any trouble finding sf cons welcoming and joyous.
But I know why this is. It's because I didn't go to sf cons with a chip on my shoulder. I had figured out that literary sf cons are about written sf literature. If you go to a focused special-interest con, you have to focus on what interest you have in that, and put other interests in abeyance for the weekend. I once went to a festival celebrating Peter Jackson's Tolkien movies. I'm famously excoriating on those, but I shut up about that for the weekend and accepted the celebration of what's good about them (and there are good things about them, just not anything having to do with Tolkien). Last month I went to a Clark Ashton Smith conference. I'd never paid more attention to Clark Ashton Smith than the length of time it took to read one or another short story by him, but for that weekend I focused on Clark Ashton Smith - and learned a lot.
And the reason these small specialty conferences are hostile to other interests is because they feel beleaguered. They're a community and they have an interest. There's a lot more comics fans than there are literary sf fans, as the size of comics cons will reveal, and they've got plenty of conventions of their own. Same with movies. If they come in to the small specialty cons, they'll drown out what the con is there for. Decades ago there was a joke in the Mythopoeic Society that Star Wars was the black hole of conversation; that once it came up, it took over the discussion.
I don't expect these cons to change their focus for me. I don't march into a literary sf con and demand to be taken as a comics fan, as the poster did. They're a community; you can join that community if you have any interest in its subject. (Some of the Clark Ashton Smith attendees had barely begun reading his work, and they weren't denigrated by the hoary old specialists, because they were showing interest; they weren't demanding the con be about something else.) Blend into the environment you're in, if you have any interest in it at all. There'll be a chance for a different environment next weekend.
PS: Kayla Allen corrected a small factual error in the post.
But I know why this is. It's because I didn't go to sf cons with a chip on my shoulder. I had figured out that literary sf cons are about written sf literature. If you go to a focused special-interest con, you have to focus on what interest you have in that, and put other interests in abeyance for the weekend. I once went to a festival celebrating Peter Jackson's Tolkien movies. I'm famously excoriating on those, but I shut up about that for the weekend and accepted the celebration of what's good about them (and there are good things about them, just not anything having to do with Tolkien). Last month I went to a Clark Ashton Smith conference. I'd never paid more attention to Clark Ashton Smith than the length of time it took to read one or another short story by him, but for that weekend I focused on Clark Ashton Smith - and learned a lot.
And the reason these small specialty conferences are hostile to other interests is because they feel beleaguered. They're a community and they have an interest. There's a lot more comics fans than there are literary sf fans, as the size of comics cons will reveal, and they've got plenty of conventions of their own. Same with movies. If they come in to the small specialty cons, they'll drown out what the con is there for. Decades ago there was a joke in the Mythopoeic Society that Star Wars was the black hole of conversation; that once it came up, it took over the discussion.
I don't expect these cons to change their focus for me. I don't march into a literary sf con and demand to be taken as a comics fan, as the poster did. They're a community; you can join that community if you have any interest in its subject. (Some of the Clark Ashton Smith attendees had barely begun reading his work, and they weren't denigrated by the hoary old specialists, because they were showing interest; they weren't demanding the con be about something else.) Blend into the environment you're in, if you have any interest in it at all. There'll be a chance for a different environment next weekend.
PS: Kayla Allen corrected a small factual error in the post.
Tuesday, February 3, 2026
in the files
John Scalzi found himself in the Epstein files. (It was a reference to his "Lowest Difficulty Setting" essay in an article included there.)
It occurred to me to look up Tolkien, because I'm historically beholden to look up Tolkien in everything. And besides a couple of references in clippings included there, he's quoted in an e-mail sent to "undisclosed recipients" by someone named Will Ford. I don't know who that is; probably not William Clay Ford Jr. of the eponymous motor company, as according to Wikipedia he's called Bill, not Will.
Anyway, it's from a daily "tidbits & quotes" e-mail, and among the entries is: "The road goes ever on and on..." - J.R.R. Tolkien. Probably one of his better-known lines (the poem it comes from has been set to music an amazing number of times), but what it means in this context I can't say.
It occurred to me to look up Tolkien, because I'm historically beholden to look up Tolkien in everything. And besides a couple of references in clippings included there, he's quoted in an e-mail sent to "undisclosed recipients" by someone named Will Ford. I don't know who that is; probably not William Clay Ford Jr. of the eponymous motor company, as according to Wikipedia he's called Bill, not Will.
Anyway, it's from a daily "tidbits & quotes" e-mail, and among the entries is: "The road goes ever on and on..." - J.R.R. Tolkien. Probably one of his better-known lines (the poem it comes from has been set to music an amazing number of times), but what it means in this context I can't say.
Sunday, February 1, 2026
your favorite Tolkien
I missed this when it was published a year ago, but in a list of File 770's best articles of the last year I found Cat Eldridge surveying a bunch of authors on the question, "What's Your Favorite Tolkien?"
Most of them picked either The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, indeed some hadn't read anything else by him, and a few who picked one of those two didn't like the other. A few went for the tale of Beren and Lúthien or The Children of Húrin.
The respondent who's closest to my own views is Elizabeth Hand, who picked The Lord of the Rings because "it imprinted on me at such an early age ... it was still a cult novel, and you had a real sense that you were in some secret, marvelous group of insiders who had visited a place not everyone knew about." Sort of, for me: I'm Hand's age and also imprinted on it from an early age in the 1960's. But I didn't feel part of a group of insiders; I felt terribly alone and clutched the book by myself. From my first reading at eleven, I never found anybody else who'd read Tolkien's work and wanted to talk about it until I was seventeen.* Six years, with no expectation that the durance will end, is a long time when you're that young. As a result, when I did finally find the Tolkien fans - remember that this was long before the public internet - I wanted never to leave, and I never have. Half of what makes up my life has been built around this.
As a result of that intense interest, I have, like Hand, been drawn to Tolkien's other works. She particularly notes the "History of Middle-earth" series, and says "I'm continually so amazed by what this one man came up with, the intensity and single mindedness of his obsession. And I get sucked into it all over again." And that is quite close to what I feel. Not the intensity so much as the sheer boundless creativity of one mind, its ability to deploy the illusion of reality so profoundly.
But one reason to focus on The Lord of the Rings is that it's so large. It'd probably be my choice of desert island book. But word for word, because it's quite short, my favorite Tolkien is something that nobody on the list mentioned: Smith of Wootton Major. I once wrote an article explaining why I thought it was a perfect fairy-story: partly because of what the author chose to leave out.
*I identified with a line about Gollum in The Hobbit (my introduction to Tolkien, and also a favorite): he "always spoke to himself through never having anyone else to speak to." That sums up my childhood relation to peers in a nutshell.
Most of them picked either The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, indeed some hadn't read anything else by him, and a few who picked one of those two didn't like the other. A few went for the tale of Beren and Lúthien or The Children of Húrin.
The respondent who's closest to my own views is Elizabeth Hand, who picked The Lord of the Rings because "it imprinted on me at such an early age ... it was still a cult novel, and you had a real sense that you were in some secret, marvelous group of insiders who had visited a place not everyone knew about." Sort of, for me: I'm Hand's age and also imprinted on it from an early age in the 1960's. But I didn't feel part of a group of insiders; I felt terribly alone and clutched the book by myself. From my first reading at eleven, I never found anybody else who'd read Tolkien's work and wanted to talk about it until I was seventeen.* Six years, with no expectation that the durance will end, is a long time when you're that young. As a result, when I did finally find the Tolkien fans - remember that this was long before the public internet - I wanted never to leave, and I never have. Half of what makes up my life has been built around this.
As a result of that intense interest, I have, like Hand, been drawn to Tolkien's other works. She particularly notes the "History of Middle-earth" series, and says "I'm continually so amazed by what this one man came up with, the intensity and single mindedness of his obsession. And I get sucked into it all over again." And that is quite close to what I feel. Not the intensity so much as the sheer boundless creativity of one mind, its ability to deploy the illusion of reality so profoundly.
But one reason to focus on The Lord of the Rings is that it's so large. It'd probably be my choice of desert island book. But word for word, because it's quite short, my favorite Tolkien is something that nobody on the list mentioned: Smith of Wootton Major. I once wrote an article explaining why I thought it was a perfect fairy-story: partly because of what the author chose to leave out.
*I identified with a line about Gollum in The Hobbit (my introduction to Tolkien, and also a favorite): he "always spoke to himself through never having anyone else to speak to." That sums up my childhood relation to peers in a nutshell.
Saturday, January 31, 2026
things I learned
from reading the Feb. 2 New Yorker
1. Nancy Kerrigan is now 56 and still skating.
2. Another reason to be happy I'm married: dating apps would not be for me. The sort of things they focus on have nothing to do with what I looked for in a partner.
3. Despite what they tell you about protest marches sparking political change, they don't amount to much. Disorganized movements that allow local groups to foster independent home-grown leadership are the way to go, despite the groups often developing contradictory principles. The article doesn't explain how it succeeds despite that.
4. Japan's leading political party has ties to the Moonies. That was why Shinzo Abe was assassinated: the assailant was angry because his mother had given all the family's money to the Moonies. And he blamed Abe ... how does that follow?
5. Research into chemicals in breast milk is corrupt and unreliable.
6. Tucker Carlson is evil. Sorry, I already knew that.
7. Maybe now I'll remember who David Foster Wallace is. I'd vaguely heard of him, but if you'd presented the name without context I'd have drawn a blank.
8. I'm missing something by never having heard Morton Feldman's music performed live, only on records.
9. Tolkien's "Ent" is a favorite word for crossword-puzzle makers. It keeps showing up.
Thing I learned from another article on the same subject as a New Yorker article:
1. The Easter Island statues should be called "statues." The word moai is probably inauthentic.
The time it takes to put out a weekly magazine is long enough, and the speed of events is fast enough, that it seems quaint that the issue's current events piece is about Greenland. Now we're talking about the murder of Alex Pretti and the possibly game-changing effect of all those videos on the narrative. My thought on that is, "Once, there was just Abraham Zapruder."
1. Nancy Kerrigan is now 56 and still skating.
2. Another reason to be happy I'm married: dating apps would not be for me. The sort of things they focus on have nothing to do with what I looked for in a partner.
3. Despite what they tell you about protest marches sparking political change, they don't amount to much. Disorganized movements that allow local groups to foster independent home-grown leadership are the way to go, despite the groups often developing contradictory principles. The article doesn't explain how it succeeds despite that.
4. Japan's leading political party has ties to the Moonies. That was why Shinzo Abe was assassinated: the assailant was angry because his mother had given all the family's money to the Moonies. And he blamed Abe ... how does that follow?
5. Research into chemicals in breast milk is corrupt and unreliable.
6. Tucker Carlson is evil. Sorry, I already knew that.
7. Maybe now I'll remember who David Foster Wallace is. I'd vaguely heard of him, but if you'd presented the name without context I'd have drawn a blank.
8. I'm missing something by never having heard Morton Feldman's music performed live, only on records.
9. Tolkien's "Ent" is a favorite word for crossword-puzzle makers. It keeps showing up.
Thing I learned from another article on the same subject as a New Yorker article:
1. The Easter Island statues should be called "statues." The word moai is probably inauthentic.
The time it takes to put out a weekly magazine is long enough, and the speed of events is fast enough, that it seems quaint that the issue's current events piece is about Greenland. Now we're talking about the murder of Alex Pretti and the possibly game-changing effect of all those videos on the narrative. My thought on that is, "Once, there was just Abraham Zapruder."
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