Just in case, dear time travelers...

 

Um, it seems RUSSIA has started hacking my very harmless sites! So you might want to save what you wish (it's free to you) and if you ever find any of my sites look off (it's ridiculously obvious), just quit your browser immediately and erase any bookmarker so you don't accidentally return. So sorry! I thought Blogger took care of its bloggers! I will be checking and will simply delete any site that gets affected. Anyway I've been busy living a lovely life and have been so reticent to add to any online din I have seldom posted for a while, though this was always my next-to-favorite site!

All the best to all you time travelers

I've become so interested in so many other times in and aspects of history that this site doesn't quite reflect my interests anymore -- but I plan to keep it intact indefinitely! All the best to all of you!

The 12th of 12 installments of a guide for time travelers of particularly tasty parties to crash! and other menus

Go over to my food blog to see the last of 12 installments of a menu cum cook book with lots and lots of historical menus!

http://favoritefoodthisweek.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-last-of-12-installments-of.html

The 11th of 12 installments of a guide for time travelers of particularly tasty parties to crash! and other menus

Go over to my food blog to see the 11th of 12 installments of a menu cum cook book with lots and lots of historical menus!

http://favoritefoodthisweek.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-11th-of-12-installments-of.html

 

The 10th of 12 installments of a guide for time travelers of particularly tasty parties to crash! and other menus

Go over to my food blog to see the 10th of 12 installments of a menu cum cook book with lots and lots of historical menus!

 http://favoritefoodthisweek.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-10th-of-12-installments-of.html

The 9th of 12 installments of a guide for time travelers of particularly tasty parties to crash! and other menus

Go over to my food blog to see the 9th of 12 installments of a menu cum cook book with lots and lots of historical menus!

http://favoritefoodthisweek.blogspot.com/2022/08/the-9th-of-12-installments-of-wonderful.html

 

The 8th of 12 installments of a guide for time travelers of particularly tasty parties to crash! and other menus

Go over to my food blog to see the 8th of 12 installments of a menu cum cook book with lots and lots of historical menus!

http://favoritefoodthisweek.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-8th-of-12-installments-of-wonderful.html

The 7th of 12 installments of a guide for time travelers of particularly tasty parties to crash! and other menus

Go over to my food blog to see the 7th of 12 installments of a menu cum cook book with lots and lots of historical menus!

http://favoritefoodthisweek.blogspot.com/2022/06/the-7th-of-12-installments-of-wonderful.html

The 6th of 12 installments of a guide for time travelers of particularly tasty parties to crash! and other menus

Go over to my food blog to see the 6th of 12 installments of a menu cum cook book with lots and lots of historical menus! 

http://favoritefoodthisweek.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-6th-of-12-installments-of-wonderful.html

The 5th of 12 installments of a guide for time travelers of particularly tasty parties to crash! and other menus

Go over to my food blog to see the 5th of 12 installments of a menu cum cook book with lots and lots of historical menus!

http://favoritefoodthisweek.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-5th-of-12-installments-of-wonderful.html

The 4th of 12 installments of a guide for time travelers of particularly tasty parties to crash! and other menus

Go over to my food blog to see the 4th of 12 installments of a menu cum cook book with lots and lots of historical menus! 

http://favoritefoodthisweek.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-4th-of-12-installments.html

 

The 3rd of 12 installments of a guide for time travelers of particularly tasty parties to crash! and other menus

Go over to my food blog to see the 3rd of 12 installments of a menu cum cook book with lots and lots of historical menus!

http://favoritefoodthisweek.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-3rd-of-12-installments-of-wonderful.html

The 2nd of 12 installments of a guide for time travelers of particularly tasty parties to crash! and other menus

Go over to my food blog to see the 2nd of 12 installments of a menu cum cook book with lots and lots of historical menus!

http://favoritefoodthisweek.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-2nd-of-12-installments-of-wonderful.html

Happy Time Travelers Day!

According to a source I saw today, December 8th is an official Time Travelers Day! Enjoy!

The 1st of 12 installments of a guide for time travelers of particularly tasty parties to crash! and other menus

Go over to my food blog to see the 1st of 12 installments of a menu cum cook book with lots and lots of historical menus!

http://favoritefoodthisweek.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-1st-of-12-installments-of-wonderful.html

Coming soonish...

...is a fascinating set of historical and other menus for every meal of every day for a year. I'm up to editing the last month, and then I plan to offer them to you hopefully in the last month of this year so you can plan ahead -- perhaps even choose a particularly fun historical party-with-a-menu to crash in your time traveler capacity. :-)

I apologize that I've been here so seldom; the quite sudden loss to cancer of my beloved brilliant scientist-husband has been terribly difficult. He too enjoyed time traveling!

Another beautiful historic home

 ...where a wonderful man and his wonderful wife slept last night.

http://www.blairhouse.org/

 

Here's a beautiful tribute to a very good man: https://time.com/5930772/hours-before-inauguration-biden-looks-ahead-to-a-new-american-dawn/

Oh my. In my much less historic home I am hearing doves for the first time in years. Perhaps they know my mourning over 2016 can at last be over.

A beautiful historic home

I just discovered (in this month's at least US edition of The English Home) this beautiful home, which has a heartwarming story about how the owner (the wonderful designer Christopher Vane Percy) discovered it as a child and learned it used to be in his family, and was able to purchase it years later. It's Island Hall....The stairs are even older than the house...

http://islandhall.com/history.php

 

 

Radiocarbon dating updated

 In case you missed it...of course scientists now have more data to feed into radiocarbon dating, and they recently published an update. There's an article at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/long-awaited-update-arrives-for-radiocarbon-dating/ , referring to the special issue of the journal Radiocarbon. It's very cool that the radiocarbon dating of Thera now makes more sense given the archaeological evidence....

Tea at the theatre, 1948

I've never heard of this and haven't been able find any other mention -- apparently serving at least a small meal in a theatre is by no means a new idea. From an actress in the 1948 British novel by Angela Thirkell Love Among the Ruins:

...[That particular plotline featuring a day in a cheerful family's life] would do nicely for [live theatre] matinees with lots of women eating tea off trays, but absolutely no use, my dear, for my and Aubrey's sophisticated public.

Dinner theater became popular in the 1950s in the USA, very soon after this British mention, according to https://www.foodservicenews.net/October-2015/Culinary-Curiosities-Whats-the-History-of-Dinner-Theater/ . The historical mention in the LA Times at https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2011-jan-07-la-et-dinner-theater-side-20110107-story.html perhaps explains Ms. Thirkell's actress looking down on dinner theatre: "Theater historian Ken Bloom has a scathing view: 'Most dinner theater has been theater at its lowest-common denominator. At the small places, it could be bad ham on stage meets bad ham at the buffet table.'”

Grocery delivery for time travelers

You'll see just a bit over at my food site, https://favoritefoodthisweek.blogspot.com/2020/04/histories-of-grocery-delivery.html .

A free new booklet for you on a fascinating topic!!

I just finished a booklet on a subject I've been mulling over and enjoying for years! CALENDAR HOUSES!!! Both a quick history of actual calendar houses for you time travelers, and a way to use the idea in your own planning or whatever. Here's the link where you can get your own copy; enjoy!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CwUjwL-s7iR_GOyCiBTeOTNe08s_vmMq/view?usp=sharing

A couple screenshots to give you an idea:

Tea Rooms in 1922, No. 4

From a tea room booklet put out in 1922 by the Woman's Home Companion magazine publisher. They don't always say where the tea rooms were located, but perhaps you time travelers who try out 1922 can let us know...

Here is The Bottle Hill Tea Shop...

 I believe this is the last one I'll be using from this booklet; it was the most interesting to me. It's set in a Revolutionary War era inn that Lafayette visited.

by the proprietor, Ethel S. Decker:

The rugs, the pictures, and all the old furniture were procured from dealers to be sold on commission. Hence, our furnishings, instead of costing us money, actually made money for us….People came for miles about for ''Toast, Pot Cheese, and Jam, 60 cts." Monday was Chicken Shortcake Day. Tuesday Gingerbread. Wednesday—Waffle Day. Thursday—Hot Scotch Scones. Friday Hot Biscuit with Honey. Saturday Mushroom Sandwiches. Did you ever taste them? Every day was Wellesley Fudge Cake Day. [They donated profits to Wellesley College.]…As for gift [items], no ordinary gift was allowed in the drawers of our lowboys, on the tops of our chest of drawers, or in our cupboards. Java brass, elephant bells, quaint Italian linens, and old pottery were among the choicest. We [also] originated many gifts such as wrought iron candlesticks made from our own design….In the service an old Spanish pottery was used. Frequently the customer ate her muffins and bought the plate; drank her tea, and ordered a tea set….Everything which the tea room had to offer was for sale, except the cook, and to her we clung!

Tea Rooms in 1922, No. 3

From a tea room booklet put out in 1922 by the Woman's Home Companion magazine publisher. They don't always say where the tea rooms were located, but perhaps you time travelers who try out 1922 can let us know...

Here is The Chimney Corner, what could be a cozier name...

A wisdom in enjoying happy things

I've just finished the main parts of the brilliant Mark Girouard's book The Victorian Country House. After describing Philip Webb's somewhat tortured work on the house called Standen in Sussex (finished c1894) and of how he typically would deny himself nice food, Dr Girouard writes,

 One can't help feeling that Webb would have been a happier man and a greater architect if he had helped himself to more strawberries and cream.

About Dr Girouard, truly the best writer I've ever even tried on the history of houses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Girouard . He's obviously both brilliant and very diligent in his research; almost the only house history books I buy, read cover to cover, and always keep are by him.

Standen House, from its official website, https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/standen-house-and-garden :

Tea Rooms in 1922, No. 2

From a tea room booklet put out in 1922 by the Woman's Home Companion magazine publisher.

Here is St Andrew's Tea Room in Birmingham, Alabama, at the time actually on top of a skyscraper!

Tea Rooms in 1922, No. 1

From a tea room booklet put out in 1922 by the Woman's Home Companion magazine publisher. They don't always say where the tea rooms were located, but perhaps you time travelers who try out 1922 can let us know...
Here is The Gingham Shop...

An interesting clock proposal for a time traveler

Very adapted from "Singapore: Sights and Bites" by Maria Kozslik Donovan in the September 1970 Gourmet:

Time here must be measured with a special...clock -- a clock that has interchangeable hands for past and future and a face that, like the full moon over Changi Beach, beams with radiant pleasures.

The comfort of a good dinner and a good inn, even in the 1700s

From A Tour in the Midlands by the Hon. John Byng later 5th Viscount Torrington, for June 8, 1790, in the Turks Head Public House at Castle Donington:

The [food] was excellent, the parlour clean; and my horses now gave me no trouble....In short, I felt as much happiness as is to be found alone, without communication, and apart from those we love....After supper I felt as I shou'd do, contented and sleepy; and at 10 o'clock retired to my stucco'd floor chamber, to make up the arrears of the foregoing night.

Modern has many measurements

From the wonderful Angela Thirkell's Miss Bunting novel from 1945:

Hallbury Rectory was a modern building by Hallbury standards, certainly not earlier than 1688.

Image from archive.org, where you can borrow an ecopy via https://archive.org/details/missbunting00thir -- I'm reading through the whole series in used copies and am enjoying it immensely:

Meanwhile back in contemporary time...

I've been discovering some wonderful new interests which I've been pursuing, especially in ancestral languages and writing systems...and have also been the caregiver for a dear sick person. My apologies if this isn't fresh for a while; this may be a very long process...

Speaking of those close to us, I've discovered something hilarious in my ongoing genealogical research -- a direct descent from two GODS. Haha!! Of course when one is getting to the BCEs one is venturing into myth territory!

Home color schemes, 1917

From Interior Decoration for Modern Needs, by a woman who says she was in charge of covering interior decoration in 3 different American magazines...reflecting how much more colorful some homes could be in those days than I often see today. Um, it pasted in funny, but I thought that was just interesting...

Below in brief are a dozen suggested color schemes. 

Living-Room or Library 
Brown floor covering,
Tan walls,
Sapphire blue, tan, brown and dull pink drapery fabrics,
Sapphire blue velour cushions,
Dull pink shades trimmed with blue guimpe
or
Terra cotta floor coverings,
Linen colored walls,
Drapery and upholstery fabrics of terra cotta line colors with small areas of bright rose and yellow, 

Valances of terra cotta velour (to bring color up from floor),
Small pieces upholstered in green velvet,  
Two green cushions and one orange cushion,  
Rose and yellow shades,
Copper as accessories. 

Hall or Reception Room
Gray floor covering,
Gray walls and woodwork,
Burnt orange silk hangings,
Furniture with gray upholstery, 
with one small piece in black,
Orange and black lamp and shade, 
Clear green in two vases
or
Old blue floor covering, Old blue walls,
Black woodwork,
Black furniture,
Blue and black small striped hangings and upholstery,
Lemon yellow accessories. 

Dining-Room
Old gold floor covering,  
Old gold walls,

Old rose hangings, 
Amber colored accessories
or
Dull green-blue floor covering, 
Dull oak colored wainscoting,
Gray, brown, mulberry and green figured paper,
Mulberry gauze undercurtains,
Dull green plain overdrapes, 
Straw colored accessories. 
 
Porches and Breakfast Rooms
Light blue-green rugs,
Gray walls,
Blue-green woodwork or lattice,
Orange, yellow, gray and green upholstery and hangings,
Blue-green wicker or iron painted furniture, 
Goldfish and blue pottery bowls as accessories
or
Mulberry tone tile floor,
Mulberry and yellow woodwork,
Mulberry and yellow painted furniture, 
Yellow, green and mulberry upholstered hangings,
Plain mulberry cushions.

Bedrooms
Rose rugs,
Gray walls,
Rose, gray, black, green and yellow hangings,
Hangings and covers bound with plain green taffeta,
Rose upholstery,
Gold and rose accessories
or 
Green floor covering,
White walls,
Green, yellow and white draperies,
Green upholstery,
Bright light yellow and clear green accessories. 

Guest Rooms
Black floor covering,
Ivory walls,
Green-blue taffeta curtains and bedspreads
edged with soft yellow,
Yellow gauze undercurtains,
Painted blue-green furniture,
All over-upholstered pieces in figured yellow,
blue and gray linen, 
Vermilion accessories

or
Purple floor covering,
Purple, yellow and tan walls,
Purple for hangings and upholstery,
A deeper shade of purple in some upholstery,  
Yellow accessories. 

from the same book:

(More about colors -- this time in the kitchen, of course -- over at https://favoritefoodthisweek.blogspot.com/2019/05/kitchen-decor-1917.html .) 

Going home

One last glimpse at life in India, as chronicled in your researcher's journal very near the end of my long sojourn there, as I researched my history of early lifestyles in South Asia...

We're GOING HOME! To America! After almost 14 years researching and writing here, I'm ready to get to a safe, civilized library in my country which I love even more after all these years. I'm packing an apron to dust off stuff in our home back there...

An international move is very complicated, and I'll be doing a lot of work on that. Even after arrival in America, only some work can continue before our stuff arrives there. My Sanskrit dictionary won't fit in my suitcase, let alone other books I need.

But I'll be happier, surely! I don't talk much at ALL about it here, but there is a ridiculously terribly high amount of violence here that has plagued us more and more over the years.

...and posted a week later:

Just found out that all but maybe one of my language books simply will not be able to arrive until mid-October at the earliest. So I'll be doing what I can but won't be able to get farther along in my goals on this site. But I surely have lots I can do with the zillions of journals and books available to me digitally and soon in the USA! Plus editing...

And I of course will have the pleasure of working, for the first time since we lived in New York, in a calm, clean, safe, beautiful environment!! I can barely even write this right now as I'm still in India and the smoke is so bad that I can't stop coughing, and the noise is deafening and of course totally distracting! Mind you, this is with closed windows and stone walls 2 feet thick!

Current time travel apparatus location: The Round Library, Bangalore, India

A housekeeper's day circa 1893

This is from The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes by Helen Campbell -- about whom I must learn more. She wrote Women Wage-Earners and The Practice of Dr. Martha Scarborough! This sounds like an early home ec textbook -- I must tell my aunt who taught that! Ms. Campbell begins the book with a motto that it's best to get your work done not only well but quickly, and in Chapter IV she describes her recommended housekeeping routine -- but note I'm leaving out a couple of the grosser jobs one had to do in those days:

First, then, on rising in the morning, see that a full current of air can pass through every sleeping-room; remove all clothes from the beds, and allow them to air at least an hour....While beds and bedrooms are airing, breakfast is to be made ready, the table set, and kitchen and dining-room put in order.
The kitchen-fire must first be built. If a gas or oil stove can be used, the operations are all simpler. If not, it is always best to have dumped the grate the night before if coal is used, and to have laid the fire ready for lighting. In the morning brush off all ashes, and wipe or blacken the stove. Strong, thick gloves, and a neat box for brushes, blacking, &c., will make this a much less disagreeable operation than it sounds. Rinse out the tea-kettle, fill it with fresh water, and put over to boil. Then remove the ashes, and, if coal is used, sift them, as cinders can be burned a large part of the time where only a moderate fire is desired.
The table can be set, and the dining or sitting room swept, or merely brushed up and dusted, in the intervals of getting breakfast....
After breakfast comes the dish-washing, dreaded by all beginners, but needlessly so. With a full supply of all conveniences,—plenty of soap and sapolio, which is far better and cleaner to use than either sand or ashes; with clean, soft towels for glass and silver; a mop, the use of which not only saves the hands but enables you to have hotter water; and a full supply of coarser towels for the heavier dishes,—the work can go on swiftly....Wash glass first, paying no attention to the old saying that "hot water rots glass."...Wash silver next....If any pieces require rubbing, use a little whiting made into a paste, and put on wet. Let it dry, and then polish with a chamois-skin....China comes next—all plates having been carefully scraped, and all cups rinsed out....Put all china, silver, and glass in their places as soon as washed. Then take any tin or iron pans, wash, wipe with a dry towel, and put near the fire to dry thoroughly. A knitting-needle or skewer may be kept to dig out corners unreachable by dishcloth or towel, and if perfectly dried they will remain free from rust. The cooking-dishes, saucepans, &c., come next in order; and here the wire dish-cloth will be found useful, as it does not scratch, yet answers every purpose of a knife....Plated knives save much work. If steel ones are used, they must be polished after every meal. In washing them, see that the handles are never allowed to touch the water. Ivory discolors and cracks if wet. Bristol-brick finely powdered is the best polisher, and, mixed with a little water, can be applied with a large cork. A regular knife-board, or a small board on which you can nail three strips of wood in box form, will give you the best mode of keeping brick and cork in place....
The dish-towels are the next consideration. A set should be used but a week, and must be washed and rinsed each day....Dry them, if possible, in the open air: if not, have a rack, and stand them near the fire. On washing-days, let those that have been used a week have a thorough boiling...
If tables are stained,...a clean, coarse cloth, hot suds, and a good scrubbing-brush will simplify the operation. Wash off the table; then dip the brush in the suds, and scour with the grain of the wood. Finally wash off all soapy water, and wipe dry. To save strength, the table on which dishes are washed may be covered with kitchen oilcloth, which will merely require washing and wiping....
Leaving the kitchen in order, the bedrooms will come next. Turn the mattresses daily, and make the bed smoothly and carefully....With hot water wash out all the bowls, pitchers, &c., using separate cloths for these purposes, and never toilet towels. Dust the room, arrange every thing in place, and, if in summer, close the blinds, and darken till evening, that it may be as cool as possible.
Sweeping days for bedrooms need come but once a week, but all rooms used by many people require daily sweeping; halls, passages, and dining and sitting rooms coming under this head. Careful dusting daily will often do away with the need of frequent sweeping, which wears out carpets unnecessarily. A carpet-sweeper is a real economy, both in time and strength; but, if not obtainable, a light broom....For a thorough sweeping, remove as many articles from the room as possible, dusting each one thoroughly, and cover the larger ones which must remain with old sheets or large squares of common unbleached cotton cloth, kept for this purpose...For piano, and furniture of delicate woods generally, old silk handkerchiefs make the best dusters. For all ordinary purposes, squares of old cambric, hemmed, and washed when necessary, will be found best....If moldings and wash-boards or wainscotings are wiped off with a damp cloth, one fruitful source of dust will be avoided. For all intricate work like the legs of pianos, carved backs of furniture, &c., a pair of small bellows will be found most efficient....If oil-cloth is on halls or passages, it should be washed weekly with warm milk and water....All brass or silver-plated work about fire-place, doorknobs, or bath-room faucets, should be cleaned once a week....
The bedrooms and the necessary daily sweeping finished, a look into cellar and store-rooms is next in order...to see that...all stores are in good condition....A look into the refrigerator or meat-safe to note what is left and suggest the best use for it...and another under all sinks and into each pantry,—will prevent the accumulation of bones....
The preparation of dinner if at or near the middle of the day, and the dish-washing which follows, end the heaviest portion of the day's work; and the same order must be followed...Remember, however, that, if but one servant is kept, she can not do every thing, and that your own brain must constantly supplement her deficiencies.

Wow, I'm tired just reading about it! Though I finally understood how they dealt with dusty, grimy cities powered with coal etc.

e-typo

As chronicled in your researcher's journal as I researched my history of early lifestyles in South Asia...

Another gender, anyone?
 "the difference among anthropologists whether one was a male and the other an emale"
-- from an electronic update on an important archaeological site I was just reading...

Current time travel apparatus location: New Delhi, India

For a bit

As chronicled in your researcher's journal as I researched my history of early lifestyles in South Asia...

...I'm planning to work on some other projects for the most part, except for a few loose ends for the monster history work I want to get out of the way. This I'm planning for the next week at least, but maybe two weeks. I'm hoping to continue Sanskrit though, and maybe have some fun with French and German as well. I'm basically exhausted with 10- to 12-hour days spent with the history and think that in the long run I'll do better all around if I step back for a bit! I'll continue to work but for 8 hours only, please! and mostly on some stuff that's a bit lighter.

I just read last night a fascinating account by E.F. Benson of his writing process (in his Book of Months), which he compared to having a disease! Haha. The account includes

The patient takes nothing except his malady quite seriously....Large quantities of what is known as "sermon-paper " should be given without stint by the nurses, and special care taken that there should be in every room where the patient can possibly desire to sit plenty of black ink and suitable pens....He may refuse to go out altogether, or play any game, and here it is a mistake on the part of the nurses to urge him to do so. He may, in fact, be entirely left to himself....Then a change for the worse comes over the patient. The irritability returns, and with it an attack, more or less severe, of...indescribable misgivings. He expresses a wish for a large and settled income....Then [there] succeeds an attack of apparent coma with regard to everything except the disease itself, which is now confluent and completely encompasses him. A series of absolutely happy days ensue, accompanied by great mental activity and enormous consumption of sermon-paper. As soon as this definitely sets in the nurses may make themselves quite happy for the time being....And then the...manuscript, such as it is, is complete—and, personally, he is completely happy for about a week. Then ensues a...period, which is at times brightened by finding that something is better than one thought, but oftener darkened by finding that something is worse than one thought.

It's nice to discover "one" is not the only one who's basically gone into a writing coma when writing completely "encompasses" you!

...I even have a playlist for remembering to stop work before passing out! It's "my Take a Break playlist”…

Current time travel apparatus location: The Round Library, Bangalore, India

Oral history, oral literature

I originally wrote this not long after the much-lamented Sir Patrick "Paddy" Michael Leigh Fermor passed away in 2011...

In my leisure reading over breakfast, I was delighted and amazed to run across a mention of the much-lamented Sir Patrick Fermor. In his Travelling Heroes: Greeks and Their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer, Robin Lane Fox speaks, in his appendix on the dating of Homer, about the "memorable discussion" by J.A. Notopoulos of how "the orally composed Cretan 'epic'" had "elaborate anachronism...of the capture of the German general Kreipe by Paddy Leigh Fermor and his associates on 27 April 1944." I'm so pleased he's in an epic...

A Better Library work: preliminaries -- also writing and researching

As chronicled in your researcher's journal as I researched my history of early lifestyles in South Asia...

I've been working through my list of what I want to use at a better library, weeding out a few I no longer need, re-checking if any I still need are now digitized and accessible, and just making my overall list easier to use (like a master list I have now of every single one of the many journal subscriptions to which I need access). So far I've been happy to see that many of them are available at the University of Michigan rather than only somewhere in Germany! though I need to get much much farther along in my painstaking check before actually deciding on a library especially if it's not next door to where I would be staying anyway and would therefore entail a special trip. A couple days ago I was delighted to find a great source -- compliments of my favorite University of Cambridge! their Digital Himalaya Project with Professor Alan Macfarlane and Dr Mark Turin -- on Nepal. I'd really found too little on this whole country to call my monster work a history of lifestyles in South Asia. Yeah, it's a modern country, but I'm talking about the geographical area, which I can't mention just a few times and say I've covered it. Anyway, you can see some about their fabulous sources at http://www.digitalhimalaya.com/overview.php if you're interested.

I plan to spend a lot of today on working through some of the information for Nepal, using them where they fit in my very rough first draft, seeing where I still need more information and adding to my library list if necessary. This is probably the way I'll continue working for some time -- looking at my listed wanted sources, and if they are now available online using them right then within my already-done framework. (Of course even the framework may change some if the facts call for it.)

I've also worked with great pleasure on possible shorter works I could create now I have a very good idea of the facts available. My husband and I heard John Keay speak years ago in India, and I'll always remember this kind and intelligent man -- there with his lovely wife -- saying that yes it takes years and years of research to be ready to write, but that you can draw on that work for years and years too!

It still feels weird to be at this point! Happily weird!

Current time travel apparatus location: The Round Library, Bangalore, India

Further exultation

Also from my online journal when I was doing early work on my Lifestyles in Early South Asia, a little closer to when I moved back to my country (btw, the page count after later editing -- this was a very rough first draft, remember -- went down to under 1000):

Great exultation

From my online journal as I researched my Lifestyles in Early South Asia, not that many months before moving back to my USA pre-evil-president:

el typo

As chronicled in your researcher's journal as I researched my history of early lifestyles in South Asia...

I found it funny that a typo from an 1800s book was "Wiktionary." Hmm, where have I heard something sort-of like that...

Current time travel apparatus location: New Delhi, India

A tip for you

...and a horrifying glimpse at my non-ideal life in India as I researched my Lifestyles in Early South Asia, from my journal of the time:

-- if you actually want to relax, don't study German all morning. But I enjoyed discovering, while looking for a German magazine, a fascinating new French magazine! With easy reading and lots of pictures, so that part wasn't work!

Unfortunately India was out in full swing though, with a crazy old man out in front of the house staring in the library windows whom the guard had to chase away, and a crazy woman he was too polite to chase away, who arrived at my door with the horrible remark that she was threatening to murder her nieces and nephews! The one who came with her appeared to be insane also -- she kept LICKING our door! I've done what I can to protect these kids...but of course with these experiences had trouble sleeping, and today in settling down to my almost-always-calming work. 

Current time travel apparatus location: The Round Library, Bangalore, India 

Probably not something you need, let alone want, nowadays

From the 1915 Priscilla Helps for Housekeepers...Garnered from the Experience of Nearly 500 Practical Priscilla Housewives:

When my coal range needed a new back I bought a few cents' worth of asbestos cement and made a plaster of it...

A sketch from the same page for a different technology:

Hahaha!

As chronicled in your researcher's journal as I researched my history of early lifestyles in South Asia...

Kings, according to the Manasara, "should personally know everything." Can't you just see Mr. King: "Personally, I know everything."
They also "should kiss like a bee." (XLI.48-49) Ouch!
I am having SO MUCH FUN! This sort of work is why I started writing the history monster book/set of books. Such fascinating, fascinating stuff!!! 

Current time travel apparatus location: The Round Library, Bangalore, India 

Thoughts on an important primary source

From my journals, when I was researching Lifestyles in Early South Asia; both writing and lifestyle notes:

Today was so pleasant and busy that it took until about 4:30 to actually notice I'm sick from a particularly frightful food-available-in-India experience. But other than that the day was wonderful! Lots of work done! [Omg, on a very personal note: I just noticed my youngest granddaughter was born exactly the same day years later, definitely a good day!]

I am really enjoying the big set of ancient writings on architecture -- he's really made a miniature library out of his gazillions of years of hard work: separate volumes of the original Sanskrit critical edition; the actual translation; a compilation of architectural thoughts from other old Indian writings; a book of modern illustrations that are the closest they could think of to the original written descriptions; and an encyclopedia (and its earlier incarnation as a dictionary) of the many technical and I think other architectural ideas in the main work. But so far I'm still in the midst of the many many introductory pages for all these works, so I'll know what I'm doing. Let's hope all this prep is worth it -- but it's fun, so that's fine! Tomorrow I plan on making more certain I'm looking at this in the right time period -- oh dear, if it's like 100 years later I will have to really really change my whole book(s) plan, because the whole idea was to include a work like this as one of my primary sources. I had accepted the translator's date, figuring he knew best, but just an hour ago I finally found his reasoning...and oh dear it does not convince me at all. Of course if it's a bit earlier, or even lots earlier, that's no problem....I'll find what much more recent scholars say... 

I was so very relieved, as reported the next day:

Whew, that date I had for that extremely major primary source is correct, so all can go as planned, as much as it ever does! Actually, I probably checked scholarly specialists for this already for that, years ago. Especially relieved because today is one of India's worst: noise, rabid dogs, insane criminals at the doorstep, basic utilities including main phone and air conditioning not working, etc.

Current time travel apparatus location: The Round Library, Bangalore, India 

Radios as Decoration, 1926

I LOVE House and Garden's Second Book of Interiors, from 1926 -- and feel so lucky (and mystified) that my secondhand bookstore had the copy that Architectural Digest staff kept on hand 'way back when!

Today I enjoyed this chapter:

 

 

  

Ah, yes, isn't it a RELIEF that the horn has been dispensed with. But loudspeaker, yikes!

Of psychological disillusionment and physical explosions

Both a glimpse at life in India and my actual research of Lifestyles in Early South Asia, from hmm 2011 journals:

Finally finished a long new list of archaeological sites I made. Finally! But felt disillusioned. One of my sources I'd long regarded as Mary Poppins-esque -- practically? perfect in every way -- definitely is not. Unlike so many of my secondary sources, I thought this lady had it together, had done her homework.......until today when I finally checked her references. She'd given me a handful of the sites I wanted to check -- and lo and behold, they were MYTHICAL religious sites, spoken of in the 1700s and early 1800s as interesting literary sites, but never taken very seriously by real academics. Oh well, good to know about her (I had wondered, since the publisher of her work so often has authors with serious make-up-the-"evidence"-as-you-go-along problems). And it was good to go through such a list -- well, hers was almost completely useless, but for the great bulk of the sites to check I used the Archaeological Survey of India's newest list, which brought me somewhat at least up to date, as I hadn't checked in a year or so.

I hate being disillusioned though, and it was easier to feel frazzled after all that wild goose-chasing because a well is being dug by somebody through solid granite very close to our library and my ears are really suffering in spite of windows closed, ear protection, etc.

Hmm, and just as I was typing this up, our electrical system blew up. Twice. So I'm copying this, having turned off everything, and will post later!! Hopefully not too long from now! It's very convenient to have Mr Brilliant as a husband. Update: About 16 hours later our power is restored. And a hint for you: When in India, have a laptop with battery backup! A desktop model would have lost all unsaved data for me, because our normal TWO layers of battery backup (and FIVE layers of voltage surge and related protection) immediately turned off when this happened, but my MacBook just calmly started using its battery.

Current time travel apparatus location: The Round Library, Bangalore, India

My German Day!

From 2010 studies, as described in the last post...

That was fun! That Proposed German Day did the trick! German no longer looks incredibly weird to me!

A day in the life...

A glimpse at life in India, as chronicled in your researcher's journal as I researched my history of early lifestyles in South Asia...

Unfortunately...sick, the kind when one can barely eat. Also I get terribly off-kilter when there are things like screaming strangers suddenly appearing, and ugly construction stuff being delivered nearby. (Fav quote on such things: "I'm a pretty quick fellow, as a rule, but when it comes to homicidal maniacs in the front garden, I am not ashamed to confess myself temporarily baffled" - Lord Biskerton in Wodehouse's Big Money.) Though had a highlight when spoke with someone with knowledge of Sanskrit about a particular word that was puzzling me, which really helps explain a fascinating passage. For the last half-hour of my work day I'll try to get a good start on another chapter of that epic.

...I should read more Wodehouse. And I do think I might make my Friday this week A German Day:

> Sometime today eat some packaged German food if you can, and read the label.
> See if you can wear something from your present wardrobe today that reminds you of German fashion past or present. 
> Set up your computer's desktop to have German posters, etc in the background, preferably including some grammar help in with beautiful German-language-countries' scenery and fun eg old travel posters (I found some of the latter through allposters, which is a wonderful source; I like their French posters in my kitchen, German in my library near my language books).
> Listen to a German song.
> If you want instrumental music playing in the background today, check out German composers and put them into a playlist for today.
> Do the next step in your German plan.
> Listen to some of Earworms' Rapid German, whichever volume you're at. If you can, listen to at least a whole volume today, but if you're going to be say taking a walk later today, do part now and the rest then.
>  Go over your flashcards/work on your German review system.
> Do the next step in your German plan.
> If you're tense, listen to some German relaxing instruction if you have it (I found some on iTunes by looking up Entspannung).
>   Do work with a vocabulary book or your dictionary/s.
>  If you're far enough along, try a German history (if that's your speciality too) article or similar now. If you're not, look for at least one you'd like to read in the future.
> Listen to a German song.
> Use your German review system again.
> If you're due for a walk or whatever, do it while finishing up an Earworms' Rapid German volume.
> Do the next step in your German plan. Do more steps today only if there's time and you're able to retain stuff.
> Try out a German podcast.
>   Do work with a vocabulary book or your dictionary/s.
> Try getting some of your world news today from a German site or digital magazine.
> If you're running out of time, decide which of the following you'd really love to do today.
> Read some of a German magazine if you can and want to.
> If you have any German-packaged cosmetic, or one of those cosmetics with its "instructions" in a zillion languages, read it as much as you can.
> While listening to German vocal music (maybe you can find a radio station, or if necessary loop all the songs you have), do something creative with any vocabulary or grammar you need to work on, like drawing a picture that illustrates some of it.
> Check out a German site on a hobby/interest of yours (look up its name in German to help you find one). 
> If you're far enough along and are learning to write and/or speak German, email or call a German acquaintance if you have one.
> Toward the end of your working day, check out German cooking sites and see if there's anything that you'd like to plan to make in the next week or so, and add its ingredients to your grocery list.
> If you need to eg wash dishes, listen to more of Earworms' Rapid German, or another spoken German you like.
> If you have access to one, watch a German movie tonight with English subtitles.

Current time travel apparatus location: The Round Library, Bangalore, India

In better company

Thoughts as I researched my Lifestyles in Early South Asia:

Wow, and I thought I had been working a long time and having plenty of frustrations. Just read the intro to the critical edition of the monster work on ancient architecture (Manasara Silpasastra) that I'll be reading as my last primary work for my own monster history book(s). The poor guy who did this (in 1933, Prasanna Kumar Acharya) dealt with...
...the fact that this work, which he really wanted to translate, was only available in fragments, and he had to actually go out and find more manuscripts (he found about 10, in 4 different writing systems; 2 he'd heard of, in yet another writing system, were lost; this is not shabby for obscure Sanskrit works)
...He also dealt with literally thousands of Sanskrit technical terms whose definitions were not known -- so he not only studied those manuscripts and many other primary documents but traveled all over South Asia with architects and archaeologists and gathered information before making his conclusions.
...Unfortunately there are still lacunae after all this work. Of course his translation reflects when lacunae are present, when a term is not guaranteed accurate, etc.
...This all took SEVENTEEN years.
...Then someone had promised to get it published. And in those long-ago days before good communication the guy wasn't there when our guy showed up in his city. But finally someone else helped, and also offered him a professorship.
...Then somebody reviewed it. And of course claimed he could do much better and that our guy hadn't looked at archaeology, which is ridiculous. (Apparently the reviewer hadn't actually read the work.) And that somebody, very famous in his day, published his own a year or so later -- which I just got as a PDF and I'm pleased to report that he'd just strung together some pictures and added some captions. Definitely not better than our guy. He comes across as a crazy religious kook.

Current time travel apparatus location: Pondicherry, India