WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
The American Digest community
byVanderleunonFebruary 4, 2023
Neo again.
In the comments I’ve noticed many people mentioning that they’d like a way to continue the American Digest community. Gerard arranged for the blog to continue for two years, so that’s certainly possible here if enough people want it.
For example, I’d be more than willing to start a new open thread here every day and people could comment as they wish. Or – as some have suggested – some of you might want to come up with topics and I’d post your ideas for that. This could be done every day, or every weekday, or on some other schedule that seems best like perhaps Monday, Wednesday,and Friday. I’d stay out of the discussions – this isn’t my blog, after all – but I’d put up the posts and you could handle the rest, although I’d clear away any spam or outright trolls that came by.
Speaking of which – there also has been an accusation from commenter “Dirk” that I’m getting rid of some comments. But the only time I deleted anything here involved a few comments by a single person who came onto one of the threads about Gerard’s death and basically trashed him as a human being. I then removed a comment that had attacked the attacker, because it made no sense anymore without the original comment.
Otherwise I haven’t removed or changed a single comment in any way. However, I’ve noticed that the spam filter here is unusually active and seems to have been trapping a few random comments for reasons that are very unclear. I’m trying to figure out why it’s happening so I can prevent it, but that may take a while. I found some “stuck” comments the other day and liberated them from the spam pile so that they are now displayed. But there can be a delay before that happens, since I usually come here only once a day.
Let me know what you’d like to happen going forward.
Also, about the contributions that arrived after Gerard’s death – I spoke to his brother, who’s in charge of his mail, and at the moment the plan is to just not deposit those checks. If people have sent cash, it can be returned. However, this may also take a while, because he’s busy doing a host of things connected with clearing out Gerard’s worldly goods. If you have any different thoughts on this, please put them in the comments here or email me with them at jaybean33@yahoo.com .
Good on ya for deleting the low rent corksucker trashing someone who can’t defend himself.
How about a best of GVDL?!
There is a quite a selection to choose from.
I loved the old diner stories and the good old days of CA reports.
Many good nature desktop wallpaper photos I pilfered from AD and they are in the rotation.
ghostsniperFebruary 4, 2023, 1:25 PM
Hi Neo,
First, thank you for paying attention to what is being said by the commenters and for being accommodating to us.
An open comment each day, or even any random subject you might think of, is a good idea. You could also post some of Gerards older posts in rotation as they were all so well written and worth reading again and again. I believe all of us “regulars” indeed enjoyed reading Gerards words but we also enjoyed interacting with each other in the comments. We valued what each had to share. Plus, it’s a way for us to broaden our view when we have a lot of different feelers on the ground.
I, for one, like the commenting format here on AD as opposed to the version on the New AD. The New AD one just seems kinda weerd.
Again, thanks for your contribution in time and effort and for giving us hope for a lasting American Digest. In a way, Gerard lives on.
Lastly, if money is needed just say so. I have paid several times before and will again. Whatever it takes.
–ghost, the raging patriot
Thanks, Neo, I second Ghostsniper’s approval and ideas. I don’t know about other cash senders, but I’m not interested in receiving any cash back from the contributions made to Gerard for either his book, or access to the New AD. Gerard’s brother can purchase Olive some extra catnip, or whatever. As I did with Gerard, I may occasionally send an item of interest for your perusal, and your aye or nay in regards its post worthiness, or not, is fine by me. I hope and pray you are doing well, and I thank you once again.
CTFebruary 4, 2023, 2:20 PM
Thanks for addressing the contributions issue. You said:
“Also, about the contributions that arrived after Gerard’s death – I spoke to his brother, who’s in charge of his mail, and at the moment the plan is to just not deposit those checks. If people have sent cash, it can be returned. However, this may also take a while, because he’s busy doing a host of things connected with clearing out Gerard’s worldly goods. If you have any different thoughts on this, please put them in the comments here or email me with them at jaybean33@yahoo.com ”
When I sent my check I sent it because G. was in an impossible situation, had already suffered a lot (some of it unnecessarily, I thought), and had been left with next to nothing after the Paradise fire. Also, he was obviously a good person and a hard worker (as evidenced most recently by his creating the New American Digest site by himself—I assume—: a very big accomplishment). I sent the check because it was the only thing I could do to help and support him. Before his diagnosis was told to us, I had suggested opening a local bank account named “Friends of Gerard” (or something similar). I posted this on “More from the updater”, at “C”, January 18, 2023, 1:33 PM. There could have been the brother and another, local Chico, signatory, so that either could manage that fund. (This suggestion got no response.) These checks that have been sent could go into that, and be spent by the signatories to pay some of his outstanding bills. A local bank would probably accept the checks already sent to Gerard into that fund; why not? I do know that any checks any of us ever sent were sent to help him. To ignore them makes me feel ignored, and that the help was not needed. And hey, why turn away “helping money”? Same thing as having a gofundme or something and not using the donations. —- Well, I may get ignored again, but I’ve said my piece.
ghostsniperFebruary 4, 2023, 2:39 PM
CT, your comment comes off as whining, about something you made up. You made up the “ignoring” part. Neo never used that word. Regarding the sent checks she said, “…at the moment the plan is to just not deposit those checks.” It is Sat afternoon right now, EST, so naturally no checks are being deposited. Keep in mind the huge project Gerard’s brother has to deal with right now. He has hundreds of loose ends to work out. Similar with Neo. She already has an active blog going on, and a life that has been in turmoil for weeks at least. The money stuff will be dealt with in time. Have some compassion man! I think the word I’m getting at is “empathy”, think beyond yourself. Everything will get worked out eventually. Enjoy the “Environment Gerard Created” the best you can cause it could be gone tomorrow.
CTFebruary 4, 2023, 4:36 PM
Quote, Neo: “If you have any different thoughts on this, please put them in the comments here or ….”
That is exactly what I did. I made a specific suggestion for handling the DONATIONS.
Where did I say that I expected it could be done immediately? It was a suggestion that would benefit all concerned, donors, potential future donors, and those immediately involved.
You (ghost) have a tendency to pop off criticisms as though you “know everything” there is to know. (You don’t.) “Think beyond yourself.”
I don’t know about other people, but I don’t like my checks (especially sizable ones) floating around with no explanation. Yes, I am not a fool. I realize they are grieving and super-busy. In my opinion, others’ useful suggestions should be welcome, whether ultimately used or not. Neo asked for suggestions.
I said I FELT ignored. People are going to feel the way they feel, whether someone else thinks it is rational or not. I think Neo, as a psychologist, would agree.
At this point, with every day that passes, I give less and less of a ___ what happens.
pgt beauregardFebruary 5, 2023, 3:29 AM
my goodness,man
just cancel the check and shut up.
Or dont. but stop the whining
CTFebruary 6, 2023, 10:36 AM
This is so helpful!
CTFebruary 4, 2023, 2:31 PM
PS: the gift checks/fund could also go toward paying some of your, the brother’s, and others'(?) expenses, like travel and other necessities, if not needed for G’s bills (which is hard to imagine). In other words, we want to help.
CT:
I think Gerard’s brother is trying to iron out how to deal with checks that are addressed to Gerard and arrived after Gerard’s death, because it seems that they cannot be deposited and remain in some sort of gray area at the moment. If anyone does want them deposited, you can email me at jaybean33@yahoo.com and I’ll relay the message to Gerard’s brother. He wants to be respectful of people’s wishes, but is inundated with tasks right now (plus the emotional reaction to losing Gerard) and it will take some time.
ghostsniperFebruary 4, 2023, 2:45 PM
That gray area may be “probate” where, yes, everything is in limbo. More than likely a lawyer has power of attorney over Gerards estate and has to go through legal channels to settle things. I remember when my dad died the attorney had to post an ad in the local papers stating that he (my dad) had died and that is anyone has claim to any part of his estate they had a certain amount of time to do so. My guess is that about 90 days after Gerard’s death most of it will be cleared up.
Any checks should go to the estate. If someone wants their money back they can request it from the estate. The checks that have not been deposited (whether or not they came in after his passing) need to be endorsed “to the estate of”. There are specific responsibilities of people handling estates, especially in California.
CTFebruary 6, 2023, 10:54 AM
Quote:
Small Estates in California Probate
Small estates that only contain a limited amount of property or assets may not have to go through formal court proceedings like larger estates. In California, the process of dealing with small estates is commonly referred to as Summary Probate Proceedings, and this procedure can be used:
Regardless of whether there is a will in place for small estates.
As an alternative to more formal, complicated and time-consuming probate proceedings.
To expedite the transfer of the assets of small estates to the appropriate beneficiaries.
I support the open thread idea. I know G. had a blog style of potentially 3 posts a day, and I worry you’ll be too busy NEO. Anyway, I vote for the 3 times a week concept of posting an open thread, but your finger is on the pulse of this blog. Rather than a maintenance or a growth plan, I’d say it’s more of a glide path.
Longtime readers know the spam filter very well, and I don’t sweat it. Even G. had to struggle with the filter, which has its own mind about things.
Sending prayers, well wishes, and compliments to everyone (except the actual spammers and the very few and obvious dix who troll here every so-often).
Reporting from China Balloon Flyover Country,
Casey.
Brother, that’s covers a lot of territory since Slow Joe allowed it to traverse the entire nation.
I noticed my morning coffee consumption has gone up since I don’t have new AD posts to absorb me in the morning.
This situation reminds me of the time after a company I enjoyed working at was taken over, in many ways the best company I have ever worked at. Some of the old employees tried to form a close and closed social group of our old team. But after a half dozen lunches together it petered out.
It wasn’t vibrant any more.
Love you all.
CaseyFebruary 4, 2023, 9:24 PM
It’s no easy feat to put together a thing that contains lots of moving parts, especially human ones, and have it flow. G. had that genius, and it sounds like there was that special “light” around your original company.
Maps. The Chinamen have been notably deficient at targeting. Now they know: the number of sidewalk cracks in every entry walk leading up to the doorway that opens unto each nuke silo in Montana. They know the cell numbers, names, favorite websites, and license plates of every swinging dick who works at the nuke silos. Whereas the Google Maps are supposed to have scrambled the locations of Area 51, and the silo doors, now the exact grid coordinates of every silo door in MT are known to Charlie, down to an inch. There are many abandoned silos, but now the peopled ones are 100% evident and mapped. You can miss a silo door by 10 feet or whatever, and not penetrate the silo. Now, the data is in Chinese hands of the exact spot to hit and penetrate the silo doors. IDK if they can hit them, but I do know that they now have the best target coordinates they’ve ever had, thanks to the spy balloons gambit these past few days.
If you’ve ever flown over the Aleutians, or Mainland Alaska, you now that the empty landscape goes on, and on, and on, and on. It is huge. We could have easily shot that sumbich down there. Laymen think a nuclear war is about targeting L.A. and NYC, and Shanghai and Beijing, but they’re wrong about that. The critical opening salvo is against your enemies nukes. Kiss that shit goodbye if the Chinese have the ability to type in coordinates, and fly an H bomb to America.
This event is as bad as, at least, the Kabul Airport disaster. Biden is Benedict Arnold on steroids. He is, no shit: the worst POTUS ever. I’ll grant him that.
And you thought Red Dawn was a fiction piece, instead of a prophecy.
John A. FlemingFebruary 5, 2023, 12:00 AM
Hi Casey,
In my line of work we (my company and our competitors/partners) occasionally explore the idea of high-altitude balloons for military and commercial communications augmentation. There are many engineering challenges: power, weight, persistence, relay comms. We study it and don’t proceed to full-scale demonstrations. China has, and by doing the demo their engineers fail fast/learn fast.
I studied the payload from the best pictures I saw on the net. It’s unlikely from the relative small size of the central structure that the capabilities you ascribe to it would be possible. I don’t see the large optical aperture, or the surveillance antennas. I did see what I took to be a comms relay dish pointing out towards the side. Most of the structure is solar panel arrays, as power is constrained when the arrays are shadowed by the balloon. I do believe that if the payload has a military purpose, it is for basic sigint collection, who’s transmitting on what frequencies and with what modulation.
The only thing I think about this, is that we have clearly “lost face”. They are laughing at us, scaredy-cat candy-asses too afraid to shoot down a deliberate provocation. It is such a lame and lying excuse, “oh we didn’t shoot it down because we wanted to learn about what it was doing”. The whole world knows now that the US Armed Forces will not defend our territory from invasion. We are men of dither and inter-agency bureaucratic working groups, and not men of action. And just like the Sovs, this is not the first balloon overflight, the Feds kept the previous ones quiet lest the people of the United States start demanding action.
As soon as the U2’s started Russian overflights the Soviets started stacking SAM boosters and upgrading their radars to shoot the damn things down. The U2 pilots reported seeing the SAM smoke trails, and reported them getting closer and closer on each overflight.
Casey KlahnFebruary 5, 2023, 6:48 AM
Hi, John. My compliments.
If your observation from photos is correct, then the signals intelligence is incredibly damaging. Readers will recall a scene in the Mel Gibson movie where a radioman at Ft Benning, GA got a bounce from a firefight in ‘Nam and the command group stands around listening to a live firefight. I tell that story to tell this one: in WWII, the Naughtzie Germans were catching radio traffic from our Louisiana Maneuvers, which were large scale and ongoing army maneuvers. Just knowing the types of things said, their duration and responses, allowed the Krautz to identify which command echelons say what kinds of things. Bob’s yer uncle, and when we got to France the Germans were targeting divisional and corps HQs like they had a playbook.
The sigint traffic from around every military base is an incredible intell. haul. Saying the event was also a test is entirely correct. It’s at least a twofer.
If civilians hadn’t tweeted iPhone vids of the balloon, I wonder when the gubmint was going to tell us about the spy balloon? FFS. We. are. on. our. own. There is no news as it was once understood to be. The balloon was real, but the gaslighting from the event is pernicious and intolerable.
In the Cold War, we had big black fast movers take to the stratosphere and cowboy over the USSR and China, I suppose, like bosses. Today, a balloon with a radio is the state of the art. It’s ignominious and makes me want to vom it. Also, what’s with the Leftards using equivalence as an argument. Said in a snotty voice: “well, the US spies on China”. Yes, we do. And?
I always enjoy your comments, and “men of dither” is a keeper phrase.
ghostsniperFebruary 5, 2023, 7:29 AM
The rumor was that when I was stationed in Germany (70’s) the comm doods could use a PRC77 and a 10′ vehicle whip or a tree wire to bounce a signal to Greenland and from there to stateside to converse with their wife/girlfriend over the phoneline. I never seen it first hand.
Casey KlahnFebruary 5, 2023, 12:03 PM
I had command of a Commo Platoon, and a bunch of other platoons, but I can’t say I was ever an expert radioman. One cool trick was to string about 30′ of commo wire from a tree top to the ground, and using a C Ration plastic spoon as a resister at the ground end. It made a directional to receive from long distances. But then, normal guys could get maybe 2 miles out of a Prick with a whip antennae. It’s all witchcraft, really.
ghostsniperFebruary 5, 2023, 6:46 PM
Speaking of that balloon thing, you gotta admit this is downright funny.
BTW, my prediction is that heads will roll at the pentagon soon. The fine art of sepuku will be revived.
Lee AlsoFebruary 4, 2023, 3:41 PM
I’ve been going back though American Digest rather randomly and reading things. I went back to November 2018 — I remember reading Gerard’s blog then and how I followed the Camp For and its destruction. I read this and I wondered if he got to 300. I imagine he probably did.
“One element I have decided to restore to some extent is my library. I lost, counting those stored in the garage, some 3,000 volumes. To be honest the very thought of moving them… AGAIN… was exhausting to contemplate. Well, problem solved. But as to the NEXT library, I’ve determined one rule alone; only classics will be allowed and those I will cap at 300, and each of those will be a well-made book.”
And I wondered this time what were the classics he was looking for?
It’s funny. I have a ton of books I can’t bring myself to get rid of, and yet I need to soon. There are books few people would buy at a yard sale; they’re kind of specialized.
ghostsniperFebruary 5, 2023, 6:45 AM
Lee Also sed: “It’s funny. I have a ton of books I can’t bring myself to get rid of, and yet I need to soon.”
========
Yes it is funny, and must be universal. I think while we are sleeping books procreate. If you don’t pay attention after awhile them durty devils take over the place. Last summer I gathered up about 30 books and put them in a box and put the box in my vehicle with the intent to drop them off at the “Little Library” in the local ville. But every time I’m over there I go to grab that box and see the top 2 or 3 titles and think, “No, I can’t do this just yet.”, and I let it sit. Magical durty devils that hold you under a spell.
Lee Also:
Gerard’s apartment was overflowing with books by the time he died. He got lots of them from readers after the fire. I took a beautiful copy of Moby Dick, one of his favorites, plus the collected works of Borges.
The idea of now and then re-posting an old post of Gerard’s is something I can do. But at some point I need to get cracking on the essay book he wanted, and also I plan a poetry book. It’ll take a while to organize.
Richard G.February 5, 2023, 7:28 PM
“Queequeg,” said I, “do you think that we can make out a supper for us both on one clam?”
However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to belie the apparently cheerless prospect before us. But when that smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh, sweet friends! hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuit, and salted pork cut up into little flakes; the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt.”
-Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
Richard G.February 5, 2023, 7:53 PM
Neo, on a personal note to you and G’s brother: probate is a bitch, spoken from experience. Something that must be done before the Law, but the Law is an ass. ‘Personal Representative’ is a thankless and heart wrenching task.
My wife and I have been described as ‘hoarders’, which always cut deep, until a friend told me ‘your are not a hoarder, you are an archivist.’
Go with God.
Richard G.February 5, 2023, 8:30 PM
A fuller quote from Moby Dick:
” It was quite late in the evening when the little Moss came snugly to anchor, and Queequeg and I went ashore; so we could attend to no business that day, at least none but a supper and a bed. The landlord of the Spouter-Inn had recommended us to his cousin Hosea Hussey of the Try Pots, whom he asserted to be the proprietor of one of the best kept hotels in all Nantucket, and moreover he had assured us that Cousin Hosea, as he called him, was famous for his chowders. In short, he plainly hinted that we could not possibly do better than try pot-luck at the Try Pots. But the directions hc had given us about keeping a yellow warehouse on our starboard hand till we opened a white church to the larboard, and then keeping that on the larboard hand till we made a corner three points to the starboard, and that done, then ask the first man we met where the place was; these crooked directions of his very much puzzled us at first, especially as, at the outset, Queequeg insisted that the yellow warehouse- our first point of departure- must be left on the larboard hand, whereas I had understood Peter Coffin to say it was on the starboard. However, by dint of beating about a little in the dark, and now and then knocking up a peaceful inhabitant to inquire the way, we at last came to something which there was no mistaking.
Two enormous wooden pots painted black, and suspended by asses’ ears, swung from the cross-trees of an old top-mast, planted in front of an old doorway. The horns of the cross-trees were sawed off on the other side, so that this old top-mast looked not a little like a gallows. Perhaps I was over sensitive to such impressions at the time, but I could not help staring at this gallows with a vague misgiving. A sort of crick was in my neck as I gazed up to the two remaining horns; yes, two of them, one for Queequeg, and one for me. It’s ominous, thinks I. A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port; tombstones staring at me in the whalemen’s chapel, and here a gallows! and a pair of prodigious black pots too! Are these last throwing out oblique hints touching Tophet?
I was called from these reflections by the sight of a freckled woman with yellow hair and a yellow gown, standing in the porch of the inn, under a dull red lamp swinging there, that looked much like an injured eye, and carrying on a brisk scolding with a man in a purple woollen shirt.
“Get along with ye,” said she to the man, “or I’ll be combing ye!”
“Come on, Queequeg,” said I, “all right. There’s Mrs. Hussey.”
And so it turned out; Mr. Hosea Hussey being from home, but leaving Mrs. Hussey entirely competent to attend to all his affairs. Upon making known our desires for a supper and a bed, Mrs. Hussey, postponing further scolding for the present, ushered us into a little room, and seating us at a table spread with the relics of a recently concluded repast, turned round to us and said- “Clam or Cod?”
“What’s that about Cods, ma’am?” said I, with much politeness.
“Clam or Cod?” she repeated.
“A clam for supper? a cold clam; is that what you mean, Mrs. Hussey?” says I, “but that’s a rather cold and clammy reception in the winter time, ain’t it, Mrs. Hussey?”
But being in a great hurry to resume scolding the man in the purple shirt who was waiting for it in the entry, and seeming to hear nothing but the word “clam,” Mrs. Hussey hurried towards an open door leading to the kitchen, and bawling out “clam for two,” disappeared.
“Queequeg,” said I, “do you think that we can make a supper for us both on one clam?”
However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to belie the apparently cheerless prospect before us. But when that smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh! sweet friends, hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuits, and salted pork cut up into little flakes! the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt. Our appetites being sharpened by the frosty voyage, and in particular, Queequeg seeing his favourite fishing food before him, and the chowder being surpassingly excellent, we despatched it with great expedition: when leaning back a moment and bethinking me of Mrs. Hussey’s clam and cod announcement, I thought I would try a little experiment. Stepping to the kitchen door, I uttered the word “cod” with great emphasis, and resumed my seat. In a few moments the savoury steam came forth again, but with a different flavor, and in good time a fine cod-chowder was placed before us.
We resumed business; and while plying our spoons in the bowl, thinks I to myself, I wonder now if this here has any effect on the head? What’s that stultifying saying about chowder-headed people? “But look, Queequeg, ain’t that a live eel in your bowl? Where’s your harpoon?”
Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots, which well deserved its name; for the pots there were always boiling chowders. Chowder for breakfast, and chowder for dinner, and chowder for supper, till you began to look for fish-bones coming through your clothes. The area before the house was paved with clam-shells. Mrs. Hussey wore a polished necklace of codfish vertebra; and Hosea Hussey had his account books bound in superior old shark-skin. There was a fishy flavor to the milk, too, which I could not at all account for, till one morning happening to take a stroll along the beach among some fishermen’s boats, I saw Hosea’s brindled cow feeding on fish remnants, and marching along the sand with each foot in a cod’s decapitated head, looking very slipshod, I assure ye.
Supper concluded, we received a lamp, and directions from Mrs. Hussey concerning the nearest way to bed; but, as Queequeg was about to precede me up the stairs, the lady reached forth her arm, and demanded his harpoon; she allowed no harpoon in her chambers. “Why not? said I; “every true whaleman sleeps with his harpoon- but why not?” “Because it’s dangerous,” says she. “Ever since young Stiggs coming from that unfort’nt v’y’ge of his, when he was gone four years and a half, with only three barrels of ile, was found dead in my first floor back, with his harpoon in his side; ever since then I allow no boarders to take sich dangerous weepons in their rooms at night. So, Mr. Queequeg” (for she had learned his name), “I will just take this here iron, and keep it for you till morning. But the chowder; clam or cod to-morrow for breakfast, men?”
“Both,” says I; “and let’s have a couple of smoked herring by way of variety.”
I, too, would very much appreciate the open threads. The group here has been the best part of my daily tour through the bookmarks for a very long time. I don’t want to lose that. I was going to mention the lost comment thing to Dirk, but Neo already did. Yes, it was a nasty troll, and I pitched the flameball. My apologies, and Thank you Neo for the housekeeping.
JWM
John A. FlemingFebruary 4, 2023, 11:24 PM
If there are to be new posts, I vote for Poetics over Politics. As Thanos told Ronan “Your politics bore me!” Real poetry, real American stories. Mr. G occasionally featured a good story from a commenter, or a pithy passionate comment. He said he didn’t always agree with the comment, but it was well-written and interesting. To my horror and delight I got featured on the front page once or twice, and it made me try to always bring my best writing ever after, to find the magic of being good enough.
And I read here in these last weeks that Mr. G was the moderator of poetics in his Well days as “boswell”, something I did not know. I stayed here when I found AD in the early 2000’s for the stories. Stories of modern America.
The only trick will be to keep at bay those who would clamor and fight for the gleichschaltung, stifling all other voices; and the trolls who only find enjoyment from needling the other readers. Those who would turn AD into a skin suit and make it a mockery.
AD has been very singular, the commenters here were polite and substantive, there was never that one thorn in everyone’s side that found his raison d’être in prolific and persistent pithy put-downs, as infest Instapundit and Maggie’s Farm comment sections and make reading them rather unpleasant. That was part of Mr. G’s unique magic, it will be hard to replicate. I just learned from Neo that Mr. G dominated the room wherever he was. I never felt dominated, instead appreciated and challenged to do better.
So if there is to be continuing posts, send in our best poems, stories, art in the comments, and may we pray for a moderator in the spirit of Gerard that will upvote the best of us to the front page.
Casey KlahnFebruary 5, 2023, 7:08 AM
I second this. But I had to look up: gleichschaltung.
ghostsniperFebruary 5, 2023, 7:41 AM
I’d like posts be on a wide variety of topics, with content like Gerard’s “Strange Daze”, scattered with his old originals at least weekly.
Ghostsniper, here’s something that might interest you, and I think would’ve been worthy of inclusion in one of Gerard’s “Strange Daze” posts. An architect, looking to improve his skills in use of software tools for design, has begun rendering some of Frank Lloyd Wright’s never completed project designs. The ones at the link are not necessarily my cup of tea, but I do like many of the Wright private residences I’ve seen. We actually have one here in Grand Rapids, MI, the Meyer May House. Enjoy.
ghostsniperFebruary 6, 2023, 7:18 AM
Wright was a man of the times and a better marketer than designer and I’ve never been much a fan of his work.
15 years ago a wealthy man approached me about doing a large residential project where all of the buildings would be in the “Usonian” style. I told him up front that I believe that style to be contradictory to a successful project and he was incredulous as I’ve come to expect of Wright fans. I carefully explained to him that the Usonian style is cost preventative and reasons for it’s conception no longer exist. I also told him that if it was ornamentation he sought I can provide that in the designs as he warranted, but that my best designs come from a balance of form with function and of course top of the line curb appeal. He liked my presentation but I had failed to convince him of the banality and fraud of his Usonian goal. A year or so later I learned that he was moving ahead with his project and had several of the homes under construction and had a website about the whole thing and would check in on it every now and then. about 2 years later he had sold 4 of the homes and there were piles of lawsuits by the owners and he was in financial strife. I happened upon him a couple years ago at the hardware store and we got to yappin and he told me the financial aspect was overwhelming and his wife said enough was enough and divorced his ass and he had to sell his project at great loss to satisfy the divorce decree. 15 years after the fact he admitted that it was not financially feasible to try to replicate Wrights residential designs. I did not laugh at him and say, “I told you so.”, but I wanted to.
Ghostsniper, I understand we may disagree about some of Wright’s work, but I still think it’s interesting that the architect trying to home his design skills via CAD work is taking a unique approach to doing so, and I don’t mind seeing works of Wright that did not make it to being built.
Thankfully, Wright was never put in charge of urban design projects, I’d say. I think Thomas Lea did great work modifying Wright’s plans for his Asheville house, and actually ended up with a more aesthetically pleasing home. Plus he probably did not have to deal with Wright poo pooing his furniture decor. Thanks, Ghostsniper.
CallmelennieFebruary 5, 2023, 8:35 AM
I have always thought that several of you had the writing ability and originality of thought to be bloggers in your own right, especially those whose comments Gerard posted on his blog page
Well, here’s your blog. Keep it going. Use Gerards own reaction to your comments as your guide as to what you should post
Hale AdamsFebruary 5, 2023, 9:00 AM
Lee Also:
Ha! I do sympathize. I have more books and magazines and bits-and-pieces of odd electronic gear than I care to think about, relating to amateur radio and electronics from before about 1960, with an emphasis on the 1930s. (Real electronics glow orange in the dark.) As you said, “kinda specialized.”
My solution to having too much stuff is to pull out the surplus things, load them into the car, and lug them to the local hamfests (amateur radio flea-markets) or to the meetings of my antique (AM broadcast) radio club, set them out, and put up signs reading, “FREE! Please be greedy!” And it does go away. Yeah, I’m out the money that I spent on them, but it wasn’t much to begin with, and the stuff finds new homes where it might get used (or at least cherished), and it won’t likely wind up in the landfill. (Thank goodness!)
Neo:
Please keep this blog going as best you can. A few times a week is certainly good enough, especially because you have “The New Neo” to look after. And please do let us know how to support the continuation of AD — I’ve been reading it for most of 20 years, and I don’t like the thought of, as Gerard put it, “digital dust to digital dust”. All things pass, but it shouldn’t be any sooner than necessary.
(I still rue the dissolution and demolition of the Scranton, Montrose, and Binghamton Railway — it was an electric interurban road that was intended to unify the “trolley” systems of Scranton, Pa., and Binghamton, N.Y., by way of my hometown, Montrose. It only got as far north as Montrose before WWI, and then the advent of the automobile in the ’20s put a hurting on it, and the Great Depression finally killed it off in 1932. It was shut down 30 years before I was born, but the traces of it are still visible if you know where to look.
(Railroad dust to railroad dust. *Sigh*
(There is outrage in some dark corner somewhere in my soul when I see something built on top of what had been a railroad right-of-way — a house, or an office-building, for example. “How dare they! How DARE they! How dare they disturb the sleep of the dead!”
(Yes, I’m weird.)
Hale Adams
Pikesville, People’s Democratic Republic of Maryland
John CondonFebruary 5, 2023, 10:12 AM
“But the only time I deleted anything here involved a few comments by a single person who came onto one of the threads about Gerard’s death and basically trashed him as a human being.”
The first person that came to mind was “Arthurstone” (Do not write that name 3 times), but then I haven’t seen him lurking about around here in years (Thank goodness). Then I remembered who it was and what it was about. I was amazed at Gerards patience with that person and how he responded gently to every barb and bolt coming from… him.
Kinda sad to bring that tragic situation to Gerards’ wake. Out of respect, some experiences need to be interred with our bones until the final judgement.
Great! American Digest is still breathing. Gerard attracted some rare individuals in his audience.
AnneFebruary 6, 2023, 9:45 AM
My DH (architect) dearly loves FLW. I appreciate some of the early prairie-style homes and the hotel in Tokyo. Have had my little butt dragged to Falling Water three times. Have never liked the very thing that made it such an architectural design wonder–the placement on the creek. The man’s ego was somewhere out there on the psychiatry scale. For me, that ego can best be seen when in the process of designing a “home” for a client–particularly one that was intended to function as a relaxing gathering place for friends and family–one has to look at the kitchen which if memory serves me is only about 5′ wide. There is also the arrogant contempt of the main living room. The only place to sit is against a wall looking straight down deep stairs to rushing water. I may be wrong on this, but I remember the space between the sitting couch and the stair to be maybe less than 12 feet. The Wright-designed couch was very uncomfortable. If memory serves me the owner’s wife was severely chastised when she bought a comfortable chair to sit in! Oh, and let’s not forget the bedroom that was too short for the standard-length twin bed which is 75 inches for a dorm-sized bed. I see Wright on a par with Gehry in terms of ego-driven desire to become a big deal–not a great designer, nor a desire to serve the client!
Well, you’re definitely correct that Wright is not everyone’s cup of tea, Anne, and there is no doubt his ego was huge. I remain a fan of Wright’s exterior styling, but I could have never had him design a home for me, cause our egos would have clashed, not to mention that I wouldn’t allow anyone to tell me what I can, or cannot, put in my home in regards to furniture, or decor, well, except maybe my wife. She’s won some of those battles I’ll admit.
AnneFebruary 6, 2023, 10:21 PM
It would be a nice addition to this conversation about FLW if we could get Ghost to go into more depth as to why the Usonian houses cost more and what Ghost would to to “imitate” the Usonian type/decoration. I do like the look from curbside and the flow through from inside to outside, but I am not comfortable with flat roofs–a conundrum it seems.
Real World Address for Donations, Mash Notes and Hate Mail
Gerard Van der Leun
1692 MANGROVE AVE
APT 379
Chico, Ca 95926
Green Pants Interior by Klahn
Who Am I? by Carl Sandburg
My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading “Keep Off.”
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.
Duty, Beauty, Liberty, Country, Honor, Family, Faith — Plus a few simple easy to follow rules for guys
Men saw the stars at the edge of the sea
They thought great thoughts about liberty
Poets wrote down words that did fit
Writers wrote books
Thinkers thought about it
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
Many’s the road I have walked upon
Many’s the hour between dusk and dawn
Many’s the time
Many’s the mile
I see it all now
Through the eyes of a child
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
And close your eyes
Leave it all for a while
Leave the world
And your worries behind
You will build on whatever is real
And wake up each day
To a new waking dream
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Change, change come over
Change come over
Talkin’ about a change
Change, change
Change come over, now
Change, change, change come over
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
Gerard Van der Leun
Comments on this entry are closed.
Good on ya for deleting the low rent corksucker trashing someone who can’t defend himself.
How about a best of GVDL?!
There is a quite a selection to choose from.
I loved the old diner stories and the good old days of CA reports.
Many good nature desktop wallpaper photos I pilfered from AD and they are in the rotation.
Hi Neo,
First, thank you for paying attention to what is being said by the commenters and for being accommodating to us.
An open comment each day, or even any random subject you might think of, is a good idea. You could also post some of Gerards older posts in rotation as they were all so well written and worth reading again and again. I believe all of us “regulars” indeed enjoyed reading Gerards words but we also enjoyed interacting with each other in the comments. We valued what each had to share. Plus, it’s a way for us to broaden our view when we have a lot of different feelers on the ground.
I, for one, like the commenting format here on AD as opposed to the version on the New AD. The New AD one just seems kinda weerd.
Again, thanks for your contribution in time and effort and for giving us hope for a lasting American Digest. In a way, Gerard lives on.
Lastly, if money is needed just say so. I have paid several times before and will again. Whatever it takes.
–ghost, the raging patriot
Thanks, Neo, I second Ghostsniper’s approval and ideas. I don’t know about other cash senders, but I’m not interested in receiving any cash back from the contributions made to Gerard for either his book, or access to the New AD. Gerard’s brother can purchase Olive some extra catnip, or whatever. As I did with Gerard, I may occasionally send an item of interest for your perusal, and your aye or nay in regards its post worthiness, or not, is fine by me. I hope and pray you are doing well, and I thank you once again.
Thanks for addressing the contributions issue. You said:
“Also, about the contributions that arrived after Gerard’s death – I spoke to his brother, who’s in charge of his mail, and at the moment the plan is to just not deposit those checks. If people have sent cash, it can be returned. However, this may also take a while, because he’s busy doing a host of things connected with clearing out Gerard’s worldly goods. If you have any different thoughts on this, please put them in the comments here or email me with them at jaybean33@yahoo.com ”
When I sent my check I sent it because G. was in an impossible situation, had already suffered a lot (some of it unnecessarily, I thought), and had been left with next to nothing after the Paradise fire. Also, he was obviously a good person and a hard worker (as evidenced most recently by his creating the New American Digest site by himself—I assume—: a very big accomplishment). I sent the check because it was the only thing I could do to help and support him. Before his diagnosis was told to us, I had suggested opening a local bank account named “Friends of Gerard” (or something similar). I posted this on “More from the updater”, at “C”, January 18, 2023, 1:33 PM. There could have been the brother and another, local Chico, signatory, so that either could manage that fund. (This suggestion got no response.) These checks that have been sent could go into that, and be spent by the signatories to pay some of his outstanding bills. A local bank would probably accept the checks already sent to Gerard into that fund; why not? I do know that any checks any of us ever sent were sent to help him. To ignore them makes me feel ignored, and that the help was not needed. And hey, why turn away “helping money”? Same thing as having a gofundme or something and not using the donations. —- Well, I may get ignored again, but I’ve said my piece.
CT, your comment comes off as whining, about something you made up. You made up the “ignoring” part. Neo never used that word. Regarding the sent checks she said, “…at the moment the plan is to just not deposit those checks.” It is Sat afternoon right now, EST, so naturally no checks are being deposited. Keep in mind the huge project Gerard’s brother has to deal with right now. He has hundreds of loose ends to work out. Similar with Neo. She already has an active blog going on, and a life that has been in turmoil for weeks at least. The money stuff will be dealt with in time. Have some compassion man! I think the word I’m getting at is “empathy”, think beyond yourself. Everything will get worked out eventually. Enjoy the “Environment Gerard Created” the best you can cause it could be gone tomorrow.
Quote, Neo: “If you have any different thoughts on this, please put them in the comments here or ….”
That is exactly what I did. I made a specific suggestion for handling the DONATIONS.
Where did I say that I expected it could be done immediately? It was a suggestion that would benefit all concerned, donors, potential future donors, and those immediately involved.
You (ghost) have a tendency to pop off criticisms as though you “know everything” there is to know. (You don’t.) “Think beyond yourself.”
I don’t know about other people, but I don’t like my checks (especially sizable ones) floating around with no explanation. Yes, I am not a fool. I realize they are grieving and super-busy. In my opinion, others’ useful suggestions should be welcome, whether ultimately used or not. Neo asked for suggestions.
I said I FELT ignored. People are going to feel the way they feel, whether someone else thinks it is rational or not. I think Neo, as a psychologist, would agree.
At this point, with every day that passes, I give less and less of a ___ what happens.
my goodness,man
just cancel the check and shut up.
Or dont. but stop the whining
This is so helpful!
PS: the gift checks/fund could also go toward paying some of your, the brother’s, and others'(?) expenses, like travel and other necessities, if not needed for G’s bills (which is hard to imagine). In other words, we want to help.
CT:
I think Gerard’s brother is trying to iron out how to deal with checks that are addressed to Gerard and arrived after Gerard’s death, because it seems that they cannot be deposited and remain in some sort of gray area at the moment. If anyone does want them deposited, you can email me at jaybean33@yahoo.com and I’ll relay the message to Gerard’s brother. He wants to be respectful of people’s wishes, but is inundated with tasks right now (plus the emotional reaction to losing Gerard) and it will take some time.
That gray area may be “probate” where, yes, everything is in limbo. More than likely a lawyer has power of attorney over Gerards estate and has to go through legal channels to settle things. I remember when my dad died the attorney had to post an ad in the local papers stating that he (my dad) had died and that is anyone has claim to any part of his estate they had a certain amount of time to do so. My guess is that about 90 days after Gerard’s death most of it will be cleared up.
Any checks should go to the estate. If someone wants their money back they can request it from the estate. The checks that have not been deposited (whether or not they came in after his passing) need to be endorsed “to the estate of”. There are specific responsibilities of people handling estates, especially in California.
Quote:
Small Estates in California Probate
Small estates that only contain a limited amount of property or assets may not have to go through formal court proceedings like larger estates. In California, the process of dealing with small estates is commonly referred to as Summary Probate Proceedings, and this procedure can be used:
Regardless of whether there is a will in place for small estates.
As an alternative to more formal, complicated and time-consuming probate proceedings.
To expedite the transfer of the assets of small estates to the appropriate beneficiaries.
https://www.harrimanlaw.com/probate-lawyer/small-estates/
—————————————————————————-
Also, https://www.nolo.com/search?query=probate+small+estate&sub=www
Professional legal advice advised.
I support the open thread idea. I know G. had a blog style of potentially 3 posts a day, and I worry you’ll be too busy NEO. Anyway, I vote for the 3 times a week concept of posting an open thread, but your finger is on the pulse of this blog. Rather than a maintenance or a growth plan, I’d say it’s more of a glide path.
Longtime readers know the spam filter very well, and I don’t sweat it. Even G. had to struggle with the filter, which has its own mind about things.
Sending prayers, well wishes, and compliments to everyone (except the actual spammers and the very few and obvious dix who troll here every so-often).
Reporting from China Balloon Flyover Country,
Casey.
“Reporting from China Balloon Flyover Country”
Brother, that’s covers a lot of territory since Slow Joe allowed it to traverse the entire nation.
I noticed my morning coffee consumption has gone up since I don’t have new AD posts to absorb me in the morning.
This situation reminds me of the time after a company I enjoyed working at was taken over, in many ways the best company I have ever worked at. Some of the old employees tried to form a close and closed social group of our old team. But after a half dozen lunches together it petered out.
It wasn’t vibrant any more.
Love you all.
It’s no easy feat to put together a thing that contains lots of moving parts, especially human ones, and have it flow. G. had that genius, and it sounds like there was that special “light” around your original company.
Maps. The Chinamen have been notably deficient at targeting. Now they know: the number of sidewalk cracks in every entry walk leading up to the doorway that opens unto each nuke silo in Montana. They know the cell numbers, names, favorite websites, and license plates of every swinging dick who works at the nuke silos. Whereas the Google Maps are supposed to have scrambled the locations of Area 51, and the silo doors, now the exact grid coordinates of every silo door in MT are known to Charlie, down to an inch. There are many abandoned silos, but now the peopled ones are 100% evident and mapped. You can miss a silo door by 10 feet or whatever, and not penetrate the silo. Now, the data is in Chinese hands of the exact spot to hit and penetrate the silo doors. IDK if they can hit them, but I do know that they now have the best target coordinates they’ve ever had, thanks to the spy balloons gambit these past few days.
If you’ve ever flown over the Aleutians, or Mainland Alaska, you now that the empty landscape goes on, and on, and on, and on. It is huge. We could have easily shot that sumbich down there. Laymen think a nuclear war is about targeting L.A. and NYC, and Shanghai and Beijing, but they’re wrong about that. The critical opening salvo is against your enemies nukes. Kiss that shit goodbye if the Chinese have the ability to type in coordinates, and fly an H bomb to America.
This event is as bad as, at least, the Kabul Airport disaster. Biden is Benedict Arnold on steroids. He is, no shit: the worst POTUS ever. I’ll grant him that.
And you thought Red Dawn was a fiction piece, instead of a prophecy.
Hi Casey,
In my line of work we (my company and our competitors/partners) occasionally explore the idea of high-altitude balloons for military and commercial communications augmentation. There are many engineering challenges: power, weight, persistence, relay comms. We study it and don’t proceed to full-scale demonstrations. China has, and by doing the demo their engineers fail fast/learn fast.
I studied the payload from the best pictures I saw on the net. It’s unlikely from the relative small size of the central structure that the capabilities you ascribe to it would be possible. I don’t see the large optical aperture, or the surveillance antennas. I did see what I took to be a comms relay dish pointing out towards the side. Most of the structure is solar panel arrays, as power is constrained when the arrays are shadowed by the balloon. I do believe that if the payload has a military purpose, it is for basic sigint collection, who’s transmitting on what frequencies and with what modulation.
The only thing I think about this, is that we have clearly “lost face”. They are laughing at us, scaredy-cat candy-asses too afraid to shoot down a deliberate provocation. It is such a lame and lying excuse, “oh we didn’t shoot it down because we wanted to learn about what it was doing”. The whole world knows now that the US Armed Forces will not defend our territory from invasion. We are men of dither and inter-agency bureaucratic working groups, and not men of action. And just like the Sovs, this is not the first balloon overflight, the Feds kept the previous ones quiet lest the people of the United States start demanding action.
As soon as the U2’s started Russian overflights the Soviets started stacking SAM boosters and upgrading their radars to shoot the damn things down. The U2 pilots reported seeing the SAM smoke trails, and reported them getting closer and closer on each overflight.
Hi, John. My compliments.
If your observation from photos is correct, then the signals intelligence is incredibly damaging. Readers will recall a scene in the Mel Gibson movie where a radioman at Ft Benning, GA got a bounce from a firefight in ‘Nam and the command group stands around listening to a live firefight. I tell that story to tell this one: in WWII, the Naughtzie Germans were catching radio traffic from our Louisiana Maneuvers, which were large scale and ongoing army maneuvers. Just knowing the types of things said, their duration and responses, allowed the Krautz to identify which command echelons say what kinds of things. Bob’s yer uncle, and when we got to France the Germans were targeting divisional and corps HQs like they had a playbook.
The sigint traffic from around every military base is an incredible intell. haul. Saying the event was also a test is entirely correct. It’s at least a twofer.
If civilians hadn’t tweeted iPhone vids of the balloon, I wonder when the gubmint was going to tell us about the spy balloon? FFS. We. are. on. our. own. There is no news as it was once understood to be. The balloon was real, but the gaslighting from the event is pernicious and intolerable.
In the Cold War, we had big black fast movers take to the stratosphere and cowboy over the USSR and China, I suppose, like bosses. Today, a balloon with a radio is the state of the art. It’s ignominious and makes me want to vom it. Also, what’s with the Leftards using equivalence as an argument. Said in a snotty voice: “well, the US spies on China”. Yes, we do. And?
I always enjoy your comments, and “men of dither” is a keeper phrase.
The rumor was that when I was stationed in Germany (70’s) the comm doods could use a PRC77 and a 10′ vehicle whip or a tree wire to bounce a signal to Greenland and from there to stateside to converse with their wife/girlfriend over the phoneline. I never seen it first hand.
I had command of a Commo Platoon, and a bunch of other platoons, but I can’t say I was ever an expert radioman. One cool trick was to string about 30′ of commo wire from a tree top to the ground, and using a C Ration plastic spoon as a resister at the ground end. It made a directional to receive from long distances. But then, normal guys could get maybe 2 miles out of a Prick with a whip antennae. It’s all witchcraft, really.
Speaking of that balloon thing, you gotta admit this is downright funny.
https://gab.com/TheOutlawJoseyWales/posts/109809495027111858
Thanks. That made me spit on the monitor. 😉
JWM
I saw that on Twitter. Perfect jab at POTUS.
BTW, my prediction is that heads will roll at the pentagon soon. The fine art of sepuku will be revived.
I’ve been going back though American Digest rather randomly and reading things. I went back to November 2018 — I remember reading Gerard’s blog then and how I followed the Camp For and its destruction. I read this and I wondered if he got to 300. I imagine he probably did.
“One element I have decided to restore to some extent is my library. I lost, counting those stored in the garage, some 3,000 volumes. To be honest the very thought of moving them… AGAIN… was exhausting to contemplate. Well, problem solved. But as to the NEXT library, I’ve determined one rule alone; only classics will be allowed and those I will cap at 300, and each of those will be a well-made book.”
And I wondered this time what were the classics he was looking for?
It’s funny. I have a ton of books I can’t bring myself to get rid of, and yet I need to soon. There are books few people would buy at a yard sale; they’re kind of specialized.
Lee Also sed: “It’s funny. I have a ton of books I can’t bring myself to get rid of, and yet I need to soon.”
========
Yes it is funny, and must be universal. I think while we are sleeping books procreate. If you don’t pay attention after awhile them durty devils take over the place. Last summer I gathered up about 30 books and put them in a box and put the box in my vehicle with the intent to drop them off at the “Little Library” in the local ville. But every time I’m over there I go to grab that box and see the top 2 or 3 titles and think, “No, I can’t do this just yet.”, and I let it sit. Magical durty devils that hold you under a spell.
Lee Also:
Gerard’s apartment was overflowing with books by the time he died. He got lots of them from readers after the fire. I took a beautiful copy of Moby Dick, one of his favorites, plus the collected works of Borges.
The idea of now and then re-posting an old post of Gerard’s is something I can do. But at some point I need to get cracking on the essay book he wanted, and also I plan a poetry book. It’ll take a while to organize.
“Queequeg,” said I, “do you think that we can make out a supper for us both on one clam?”
However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to belie the apparently cheerless prospect before us. But when that smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh, sweet friends! hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuit, and salted pork cut up into little flakes; the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt.”
-Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
Neo, on a personal note to you and G’s brother: probate is a bitch, spoken from experience. Something that must be done before the Law, but the Law is an ass. ‘Personal Representative’ is a thankless and heart wrenching task.
My wife and I have been described as ‘hoarders’, which always cut deep, until a friend told me ‘your are not a hoarder, you are an archivist.’
Go with God.
A fuller quote from Moby Dick:
” It was quite late in the evening when the little Moss came snugly to anchor, and Queequeg and I went ashore; so we could attend to no business that day, at least none but a supper and a bed. The landlord of the Spouter-Inn had recommended us to his cousin Hosea Hussey of the Try Pots, whom he asserted to be the proprietor of one of the best kept hotels in all Nantucket, and moreover he had assured us that Cousin Hosea, as he called him, was famous for his chowders. In short, he plainly hinted that we could not possibly do better than try pot-luck at the Try Pots. But the directions hc had given us about keeping a yellow warehouse on our starboard hand till we opened a white church to the larboard, and then keeping that on the larboard hand till we made a corner three points to the starboard, and that done, then ask the first man we met where the place was; these crooked directions of his very much puzzled us at first, especially as, at the outset, Queequeg insisted that the yellow warehouse- our first point of departure- must be left on the larboard hand, whereas I had understood Peter Coffin to say it was on the starboard. However, by dint of beating about a little in the dark, and now and then knocking up a peaceful inhabitant to inquire the way, we at last came to something which there was no mistaking.
Two enormous wooden pots painted black, and suspended by asses’ ears, swung from the cross-trees of an old top-mast, planted in front of an old doorway. The horns of the cross-trees were sawed off on the other side, so that this old top-mast looked not a little like a gallows. Perhaps I was over sensitive to such impressions at the time, but I could not help staring at this gallows with a vague misgiving. A sort of crick was in my neck as I gazed up to the two remaining horns; yes, two of them, one for Queequeg, and one for me. It’s ominous, thinks I. A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port; tombstones staring at me in the whalemen’s chapel, and here a gallows! and a pair of prodigious black pots too! Are these last throwing out oblique hints touching Tophet?
I was called from these reflections by the sight of a freckled woman with yellow hair and a yellow gown, standing in the porch of the inn, under a dull red lamp swinging there, that looked much like an injured eye, and carrying on a brisk scolding with a man in a purple woollen shirt.
“Get along with ye,” said she to the man, “or I’ll be combing ye!”
“Come on, Queequeg,” said I, “all right. There’s Mrs. Hussey.”
And so it turned out; Mr. Hosea Hussey being from home, but leaving Mrs. Hussey entirely competent to attend to all his affairs. Upon making known our desires for a supper and a bed, Mrs. Hussey, postponing further scolding for the present, ushered us into a little room, and seating us at a table spread with the relics of a recently concluded repast, turned round to us and said- “Clam or Cod?”
“What’s that about Cods, ma’am?” said I, with much politeness.
“Clam or Cod?” she repeated.
“A clam for supper? a cold clam; is that what you mean, Mrs. Hussey?” says I, “but that’s a rather cold and clammy reception in the winter time, ain’t it, Mrs. Hussey?”
But being in a great hurry to resume scolding the man in the purple shirt who was waiting for it in the entry, and seeming to hear nothing but the word “clam,” Mrs. Hussey hurried towards an open door leading to the kitchen, and bawling out “clam for two,” disappeared.
“Queequeg,” said I, “do you think that we can make a supper for us both on one clam?”
However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to belie the apparently cheerless prospect before us. But when that smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh! sweet friends, hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuits, and salted pork cut up into little flakes! the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt. Our appetites being sharpened by the frosty voyage, and in particular, Queequeg seeing his favourite fishing food before him, and the chowder being surpassingly excellent, we despatched it with great expedition: when leaning back a moment and bethinking me of Mrs. Hussey’s clam and cod announcement, I thought I would try a little experiment. Stepping to the kitchen door, I uttered the word “cod” with great emphasis, and resumed my seat. In a few moments the savoury steam came forth again, but with a different flavor, and in good time a fine cod-chowder was placed before us.
We resumed business; and while plying our spoons in the bowl, thinks I to myself, I wonder now if this here has any effect on the head? What’s that stultifying saying about chowder-headed people? “But look, Queequeg, ain’t that a live eel in your bowl? Where’s your harpoon?”
Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots, which well deserved its name; for the pots there were always boiling chowders. Chowder for breakfast, and chowder for dinner, and chowder for supper, till you began to look for fish-bones coming through your clothes. The area before the house was paved with clam-shells. Mrs. Hussey wore a polished necklace of codfish vertebra; and Hosea Hussey had his account books bound in superior old shark-skin. There was a fishy flavor to the milk, too, which I could not at all account for, till one morning happening to take a stroll along the beach among some fishermen’s boats, I saw Hosea’s brindled cow feeding on fish remnants, and marching along the sand with each foot in a cod’s decapitated head, looking very slipshod, I assure ye.
Supper concluded, we received a lamp, and directions from Mrs. Hussey concerning the nearest way to bed; but, as Queequeg was about to precede me up the stairs, the lady reached forth her arm, and demanded his harpoon; she allowed no harpoon in her chambers. “Why not? said I; “every true whaleman sleeps with his harpoon- but why not?” “Because it’s dangerous,” says she. “Ever since young Stiggs coming from that unfort’nt v’y’ge of his, when he was gone four years and a half, with only three barrels of ile, was found dead in my first floor back, with his harpoon in his side; ever since then I allow no boarders to take sich dangerous weepons in their rooms at night. So, Mr. Queequeg” (for she had learned his name), “I will just take this here iron, and keep it for you till morning. But the chowder; clam or cod to-morrow for breakfast, men?”
“Both,” says I; “and let’s have a couple of smoked herring by way of variety.”
I, too, would very much appreciate the open threads. The group here has been the best part of my daily tour through the bookmarks for a very long time. I don’t want to lose that. I was going to mention the lost comment thing to Dirk, but Neo already did. Yes, it was a nasty troll, and I pitched the flameball. My apologies, and Thank you Neo for the housekeeping.
JWM
If there are to be new posts, I vote for Poetics over Politics. As Thanos told Ronan “Your politics bore me!” Real poetry, real American stories. Mr. G occasionally featured a good story from a commenter, or a pithy passionate comment. He said he didn’t always agree with the comment, but it was well-written and interesting. To my horror and delight I got featured on the front page once or twice, and it made me try to always bring my best writing ever after, to find the magic of being good enough.
And I read here in these last weeks that Mr. G was the moderator of poetics in his Well days as “boswell”, something I did not know. I stayed here when I found AD in the early 2000’s for the stories. Stories of modern America.
The only trick will be to keep at bay those who would clamor and fight for the gleichschaltung, stifling all other voices; and the trolls who only find enjoyment from needling the other readers. Those who would turn AD into a skin suit and make it a mockery.
AD has been very singular, the commenters here were polite and substantive, there was never that one thorn in everyone’s side that found his raison d’être in prolific and persistent pithy put-downs, as infest Instapundit and Maggie’s Farm comment sections and make reading them rather unpleasant. That was part of Mr. G’s unique magic, it will be hard to replicate. I just learned from Neo that Mr. G dominated the room wherever he was. I never felt dominated, instead appreciated and challenged to do better.
So if there is to be continuing posts, send in our best poems, stories, art in the comments, and may we pray for a moderator in the spirit of Gerard that will upvote the best of us to the front page.
I second this. But I had to look up: gleichschaltung.
I’d like posts be on a wide variety of topics, with content like Gerard’s “Strange Daze”, scattered with his old originals at least weekly.
Ghostsniper, here’s something that might interest you, and I think would’ve been worthy of inclusion in one of Gerard’s “Strange Daze” posts. An architect, looking to improve his skills in use of software tools for design, has begun rendering some of Frank Lloyd Wright’s never completed project designs. The ones at the link are not necessarily my cup of tea, but I do like many of the Wright private residences I’ve seen. We actually have one here in Grand Rapids, MI, the Meyer May House. Enjoy.
Wright was a man of the times and a better marketer than designer and I’ve never been much a fan of his work.
15 years ago a wealthy man approached me about doing a large residential project where all of the buildings would be in the “Usonian” style. I told him up front that I believe that style to be contradictory to a successful project and he was incredulous as I’ve come to expect of Wright fans. I carefully explained to him that the Usonian style is cost preventative and reasons for it’s conception no longer exist. I also told him that if it was ornamentation he sought I can provide that in the designs as he warranted, but that my best designs come from a balance of form with function and of course top of the line curb appeal. He liked my presentation but I had failed to convince him of the banality and fraud of his Usonian goal. A year or so later I learned that he was moving ahead with his project and had several of the homes under construction and had a website about the whole thing and would check in on it every now and then. about 2 years later he had sold 4 of the homes and there were piles of lawsuits by the owners and he was in financial strife. I happened upon him a couple years ago at the hardware store and we got to yappin and he told me the financial aspect was overwhelming and his wife said enough was enough and divorced his ass and he had to sell his project at great loss to satisfy the divorce decree. 15 years after the fact he admitted that it was not financially feasible to try to replicate Wrights residential designs. I did not laugh at him and say, “I told you so.”, but I wanted to.
Ghostsniper, I understand we may disagree about some of Wright’s work, but I still think it’s interesting that the architect trying to home his design skills via CAD work is taking a unique approach to doing so, and I don’t mind seeing works of Wright that did not make it to being built.
A little deeper look:
https://nypost.com/2023/01/20/artist-digitally-recreates-frank-lloyd-wrights-unbuilt-works/
and:
http://www.hookedonthepast.com/
Thankfully, Wright was never put in charge of urban design projects, I’d say. I think Thomas Lea did great work modifying Wright’s plans for his Asheville house, and actually ended up with a more aesthetically pleasing home. Plus he probably did not have to deal with Wright poo pooing his furniture decor. Thanks, Ghostsniper.
I have always thought that several of you had the writing ability and originality of thought to be bloggers in your own right, especially those whose comments Gerard posted on his blog page
Well, here’s your blog. Keep it going. Use Gerards own reaction to your comments as your guide as to what you should post
Lee Also:
Ha! I do sympathize. I have more books and magazines and bits-and-pieces of odd electronic gear than I care to think about, relating to amateur radio and electronics from before about 1960, with an emphasis on the 1930s. (Real electronics glow orange in the dark.) As you said, “kinda specialized.”
My solution to having too much stuff is to pull out the surplus things, load them into the car, and lug them to the local hamfests (amateur radio flea-markets) or to the meetings of my antique (AM broadcast) radio club, set them out, and put up signs reading, “FREE! Please be greedy!” And it does go away. Yeah, I’m out the money that I spent on them, but it wasn’t much to begin with, and the stuff finds new homes where it might get used (or at least cherished), and it won’t likely wind up in the landfill. (Thank goodness!)
Neo:
Please keep this blog going as best you can. A few times a week is certainly good enough, especially because you have “The New Neo” to look after. And please do let us know how to support the continuation of AD — I’ve been reading it for most of 20 years, and I don’t like the thought of, as Gerard put it, “digital dust to digital dust”. All things pass, but it shouldn’t be any sooner than necessary.
(I still rue the dissolution and demolition of the Scranton, Montrose, and Binghamton Railway — it was an electric interurban road that was intended to unify the “trolley” systems of Scranton, Pa., and Binghamton, N.Y., by way of my hometown, Montrose. It only got as far north as Montrose before WWI, and then the advent of the automobile in the ’20s put a hurting on it, and the Great Depression finally killed it off in 1932. It was shut down 30 years before I was born, but the traces of it are still visible if you know where to look.
(Railroad dust to railroad dust. *Sigh*
(There is outrage in some dark corner somewhere in my soul when I see something built on top of what had been a railroad right-of-way — a house, or an office-building, for example. “How dare they! How DARE they! How dare they disturb the sleep of the dead!”
(Yes, I’m weird.)
Hale Adams
Pikesville, People’s Democratic Republic of Maryland
“But the only time I deleted anything here involved a few comments by a single person who came onto one of the threads about Gerard’s death and basically trashed him as a human being.”
The first person that came to mind was “Arthurstone” (Do not write that name 3 times), but then I haven’t seen him lurking about around here in years (Thank goodness). Then I remembered who it was and what it was about. I was amazed at Gerards patience with that person and how he responded gently to every barb and bolt coming from… him.
Kinda sad to bring that tragic situation to Gerards’ wake. Out of respect, some experiences need to be interred with our bones until the final judgement.
“Memories May be beautiful and yet
What’s too painful to remember
We simply to choose to forget
So it’s the laughter
We will remember
Whenever we remember
The way we were”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifWOSnoCS0M&t=120s&ab_channel=barbrastreisandVEVO
Great! American Digest is still breathing. Gerard attracted some rare individuals in his audience.
My DH (architect) dearly loves FLW. I appreciate some of the early prairie-style homes and the hotel in Tokyo. Have had my little butt dragged to Falling Water three times. Have never liked the very thing that made it such an architectural design wonder–the placement on the creek. The man’s ego was somewhere out there on the psychiatry scale. For me, that ego can best be seen when in the process of designing a “home” for a client–particularly one that was intended to function as a relaxing gathering place for friends and family–one has to look at the kitchen which if memory serves me is only about 5′ wide. There is also the arrogant contempt of the main living room. The only place to sit is against a wall looking straight down deep stairs to rushing water. I may be wrong on this, but I remember the space between the sitting couch and the stair to be maybe less than 12 feet. The Wright-designed couch was very uncomfortable. If memory serves me the owner’s wife was severely chastised when she bought a comfortable chair to sit in! Oh, and let’s not forget the bedroom that was too short for the standard-length twin bed which is 75 inches for a dorm-sized bed. I see Wright on a par with Gehry in terms of ego-driven desire to become a big deal–not a great designer, nor a desire to serve the client!
Well, you’re definitely correct that Wright is not everyone’s cup of tea, Anne, and there is no doubt his ego was huge. I remain a fan of Wright’s exterior styling, but I could have never had him design a home for me, cause our egos would have clashed, not to mention that I wouldn’t allow anyone to tell me what I can, or cannot, put in my home in regards to furniture, or decor, well, except maybe my wife. She’s won some of those battles I’ll admit.
It would be a nice addition to this conversation about FLW if we could get Ghost to go into more depth as to why the Usonian houses cost more and what Ghost would to to “imitate” the Usonian type/decoration. I do like the look from curbside and the flow through from inside to outside, but I am not comfortable with flat roofs–a conundrum it seems.
The FLW gas station in Cloquet, MN is cool, though. And functional (I bought gas there many years ago).
https://www.mnopedia.org/structure/lindholm-oil-company-service-station-cloquet
Juliann, that is a cool gas station! Thanks for linking to it.
another chinese spy balloon has been found.
https://westernrifleshooters.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/image00000816-768×993.jpg