Thomas Wentworth Higginson and post-Civil War textbooks on American history

In the world of poetry, Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911) is known as the literary critic that Emily Dickinson sent poems to in 1862; he later co-edited her posthumously published poems with Mabel Loomis Todd. He is also well known as an abolitionist who was colonel of the first black regiment in the Union army during the Civil War. But, as I learned today from Eric Foner's "The New York Review Books" review of Donald Yacovone's "Teaching White Supremacy", he was also the author of an American history textbook which, according to Foner, was one of a number of post-Civil War works that "placed slavery at the center of the American story." (Andrew Shields, #111words, 19 September 2022)

The framing of the world and the generation of "aesthetic emotion" in W. Somerset Maugham's "Of Human Bondage"

After hanging up a photograph with a "view of the Cathedral" near his boarding school, Philip Carey in W. Somerset Maugham's "Of Human Bondage" begins to take "a new interest in" the lawns and trees "he saw from the window of the Fourth Form Room": "It gave him an odd feeling in his heart, and he did not know if it was pain or pleasure. It was the first dawn of the aesthetic emotion." The camera and the photograph made with it frame the image of the Cathedral, the window frames the view of the greenery outside, and such framing generates the uncertain feeling of an aesthetic response to the world. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 18 September 2022)

Bleeding Heart Yard, in London and Charles Dickens's "Little Dorrit", and the history of "bleeding hearts"

Bleeding Heart Yard in the London borough of Camden is where the Plornish family lives in Charles Dickens's "Little Dorrit" (1857). Its name is said to come from a Bleeding Heart pub situated there in the sixteenth century; the heart in question was the bleeding heart of the Virgin Mary. Bleeding Heart flowers have been called that since the seventeenth century. The modern sense of a "bleeding heart" as someone too sympathetic to the downtrodden is attested as early as 1951 and attributed without attestation to the anti-New Deal journalist Westbrook Pegler, who was kicked out of the John Birch Society in the 1960s for being too extreme even for them. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 17 September 2022)

 

An image of Bleeding Heart Yard from Walter Thornbury's Old and New London, 1873–8. (Wikipedia)

An Accident and Two Coincidences: An English poem in heroic couplets about our pediatrician and Roger Federer

In October 2005, I told my friend Andreas about an experience I'd had with our pediatrician. A few weeks later, he told my story to his friend Dani, who was editing a German-language medical magazine and was looking for stories about experiences writers had had. When Dani asked if I could write up my story. I asked if it was okay to write the story in English heroic couplets (rather than in German prose); after checking with the publisher, he said it was fine. And so I wrote my poem "An Accident and Two Coincidences", about our pediatrician and one of his former patients: Roger Federer when he was a child. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 16 September 2022)

 

An Accident And Two Coincidences

 

            Ein Unfall, zwei Zufälle.

 

I slipped from the ladder of Miles's bunk bed

and landed on my ankle, not my head.

He'd had a nightmare just before midnight,

and I had dozed for minutes at his side

until I'd heard his breathing settle down.

I'd wanted to get up without a sound,

and for a second after hitting the floor,

I thought I'd try out crawling to the door,

but then I knew I couldn't, so I shouted

quite loudly to my wife, although I doubted

Miles would sleep through that. He did sit up

to ask me in a daze, "Daddy, what's up?"

Andrea came to help me to my bed

then went back to check on Miles, who said

nothing more. "He's gone right back to dreamland,"

Andrea said, "snoring to beat the band."

Then she got me aspirin and ice.

And while I lay there, I thought it would be nice

to tell our pediatrician I was the one

who'd fallen from the bunk bed, not my son.

He would appreciate the irony;

Miles had often heard his warning: "I see

so many cases where my patients fell

out of their bunk beds, even though I tell

them to take care!"

                               You don't believe that I

was thinking that while lying there that night?

But surely you'll believe me when I say

I did remember it when the X-ray

showed in the morning that nothing was broken

(torn ligaments).

                            I'd have liked to have spoken

to Dr. Kaufmann sooner, but happily

my son and daughter lived quite healthily

for two months, until Luisa had

to go in for a check-up with her Dad.

And everything was fine, and then we spoke

about some vaccination dates and joked

about the funny things my daughter does.

And since the afternoon was slow, I was

able to tell the story of my slip.

And when it ended, I added one more quip,

a lovely bit of Basel irony:

that very week, that very injury

had struck down Roger Federer—I wondered

as I made the joke if I had blundered,

but Dr. Kaufmann answered with a grin:

"I was Roger Federer's pediatrician

until he was fourteen and moved away

to go to tennis school where he could play

more seriously. He was very shy

when I knew him." I told the doctor I

had been a Roger fan for quite a while.

The Basel boy who'd made it made us smile,

and then we said goodbye. We had to hurry,

Luisa and I, or our friends would worry,

whom we were going to meet beside the Rhine.

But we were hungry, and we just had time

to stop at Starbucks to pick up a snack.

While I was ordering, behind my back

I heard a voice I'd heard somewhere before,

and I thought in half a second (no more):

"Someone's talking English on his cell,

someone that I think I know quite well

but cannot place. Which expat could it be?"

I took my muffins, turned around to see

Roger sitting there, his foot in a cast,

crutches on the floor. He had the glassed-

over eyes of someone on the phone.

Coincidences—I'd have liked to wait

to share this tale with him, but we were late,

and he kept talking, so I left him alone.

            (But maybe he will see these lines sometime

            and enjoy my anecdote in rhyme.)

 

            — November 2005

 

Originally published in Primary Care 51-52, 2005

Remembering Roger Federer on his retirement from tennis

I'd begun to notice Roger Federer as a promising tennis player from Basel before I first saw him here in the Davis Cup between Switzerland and the United States in February 2001. He won both his singles matches and the doubles match to put Switzerland ahead 3-1. Later that year, I watched his five-set Wimbledon win against Pete Sampras on television, and I've followed him ever since. My single favorite moment in his career was not a Grand Slam victory, though, but one inside-out forehand on break point against Tommy Haas at the 2009 French Open in 2009, which turned that match around and made his only Roland Garros title possible. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 15 September 2022)

 

On that shot at the time: https://andrewjshields.blogspot.com/2009/06/federer-haas.html

On that shot a year later: https://andrewjshields.blogspot.com/2010/01/federers-most-important-x.html

All mentions of Federer on my blog: https://andrewjshields.blogspot.com/search?q=federer&max-results=20&by-date=true

 

Lego Roger: https://andrewjshields.blogspot.com/2007/02/lego-roger.html

John Lennon and Yoko Ono's "Imagine" as conceptual art (according to Louis Menand)

In "The Grapefruit Artist", his profile of Yoko Ono in the 20 June 2022 issue of "The New Yorker", Louis Menand concludes with a discussion of John Lennon's song "Imagine": "Lennon said that it was sexist of him not to have listed Ono as a co-writer" of the song, but Ono finally received official credit for it in 2017. Further, many of Ono's works that Menand discusses in the article, such as "Grapefruit", consist of instructions in the imperative form, in which she tells the works' audiences what to do. Hence, Menand argues that while 'Imagine' may be utopian, "it is also a work of conceptual art. It's an instruction piece." (Andrew Shields, #111words, 14 September 2022)

 

Email from Intakt Records and an album with the late Fredy Studer

I have a subscription with Zurich jazz label Intakt Records, so every few months I get an email with music to download. The last one came on 12 August, but I only downloaded the two albums today: a solo-piano recording by Katharina Weber, "In Márta's Garden" (with music by and for György and Márta Kurtág), and "50" by the Swiss quartet OM. Since Intakt sent me the email, OM's drummer Fredy Studer died on 22 August, so the album suddenly sounds quite melancholy. I never saw OM, but I did see Studer several times over the years in explosive concerts by the "Hardcore Chambermusic" trio with Hans Koch and Martin Schütz. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 13 September 2022)

Reading an old article in Republik and coming across Plato and Claude Shannon

The Swiss online magazine Republik publishes two or three long articles every day. I try to read one a day, but I don't always manage it, so I save them for later reading, and a backlog of unread texts piles up. So today I read the oldest article I had saved, "Weshalb diese Medien-Paranoia?" ("Why this media paranoia?"), by Daniel Strassberg. And I was pleased by references to two of my favorite texts: Plato's "Phaedrus" and the wonderful passage about the invention of writing, and Claude Shannon's "A Mathematical Theory of Communication", which I don't really understand the mathematics of but which was central to my father's studies in information theory. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 12 September 2022)

 

Martina Navratilova was the only WTA player to simultaneously win her first Grand Slam and become number one for the first time

I found one case in WTA history where a player simultaneously won her first Grand Slam title and became number one for the first time: at Wimbledon in 1978, second-ranked Martina Navratilova did so, defeating top-ranked Chris Evert to  claim the number-one ranking. At Wimbledon in 2002, second-ranked Serena Williams defeated top-ranked Venus Williams to become number one for the first time – but that was already her third Grand Slam title. And in a third case, which the Australian Open tweeted about, second-ranked Caroline Wozniacki defeated top-ranked Simona Halep there in 2018 in a battle for number one and a first Grand Slam title – but both had been number one before. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 11 September 2022)

Two players in their first Grand Slam final playing to be number one for the first time: apparently a first-time scenario

In tomorrow's men's singles final at the US Open, nineteen-year-old Carlos Alcaraz of Spain (currently ranked fourth) faces twenty-three-year-old Casper Ruud of Norway (currently ranked seventh). As has been frequently pointed out, the two are each playing for their first Grand Slam title, and the winner will be number one. But I haven't seen it mentioned that this is apparently a first-time scenario: I've found only one other case where a man became number one for the first time by winning a Grand Slam, and then it involved number two Mats Wilander (who had already won six Grand Slam titles) defeating number one Ivan Lendl at the US Open in 1988. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 10 September 2022)

Making a man queen – "Can a man be Chancellor?"

One of the most frequently shared tweets about the death of Queen Elizabeth II (at least that I have seen) is from Nat Guest: "Can't believe they are going to make a MAN queen. This woke nonsense has gone too far." This reminded me of a story often told in Germany as Angela Merkel's chancellorship kept getting longer: parents of children who had never known any other chancellor reported their children asking some form of this question: "Kann ein Mann Bundeskanzlerin werden?" ("Can a man be Chancellor?). While "queen" in Guest's tweet has a feminine denotation, "Bundeskanzlerin" in the children's striking question is marked as feminine by the grammatical ending "-in". (Andrew Shields, #111words, 9 September 2022)

Remembering a chart of the succession of English and British monarchs from my time in the UK in 1973-74

When I was nine and lived in Leamington Spa in England for nine months in 1973-74, I remember drawing a detailed chart, from King William I to Queen Elizabeth II, of the succession of the Kings and Queens of England and Great Britain from 1066 onwards. I was particularly intrigued by the moments when the succession was not smooth (with Lady Jane Grey after King Edward VI in 1553, say, or with the Civil War in the seventeenth century). That memory from almost fifty years ago helps me realize just how long Queen Elizabeth II's reign was, especially given that she had been Queen for over twenty years by that time. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 8 September 2022)

"It advertised them both": Free creative work in "Of Human Bondage"

Although W. Somerset Maugham's "Of Human Bondage" (1915) takes place from the late 1880s to the late 1900s, at least one moment could be from the twenty-first century. The main character Philip Carey's painter friend Lawson gets asked to paint portraits not for a money but for the exposure that it will give him: "[...]  he had arrived at that stage of the portrait-painter’s career when he was noticed a good deal by the critics and found a number of aristocratic ladies who were willing to allow him to paint them for nothing (it advertised them both, and gave the great ladies quite an air of patronesses of the arts) [...]." (Andrew Shields, #111words, 7 September 2022)

Louisa Gradgrind Bounderby in "Hard Times" as Dickens's first strong woman who does not end tragically

In Charles Dickens's "Dombey and Son" (1848), Edith Skewton Granger marries wealthy businessman Paul Dombey for her mother's comfort and can only escape her loveless marriage by running away with Dombey's manager, Mr. Carker. In "Bleak House" (1852), Lady Dedlock maintains her social position by keeping her pregnancy from before her marriage secret, and when the secret threatens to be revealed, she runs away and ends up freezing to death. In "Hard Times" (1854), though, Louisa Gradgrind marries Josiah Bounderby at her father's suggestion but later leaves him and even leads her father to regret how he raised her. Finally, Dickens writes a strong-willed woman whose life does not end tragically. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 6 September 2022)

The etymology of "kangaroo court" – nothing to do with Australia

A reference by a supporter of former President Donald Trump to the United States House of Representatives Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol as a "kangaroo court" made me wonder about the etymology of that expression for an ad hoc and thus illegitimate tribunal. I assumed, of course, that it would have something to do with Australia, but the term first appeared in the mid-nineteenth century in the United States. According to a Wikipedia article on the term, the earliest reference is in a newspaper article in 1841; the expression appears in a quotation, and the article concludes, "What is a kangaroo court, neighbor?" (Andrew Shields, #111words, 5 September 2022)

An article about my family and computers in the Palo Alto Weekly on 12 August 1981

My mother gave me an article from the Palo Alto Weekly of 12 August 1981 that interviewed two families (one of them ours) about their use of personal computers. Among other things, the article mentions that I worked at On Line Micro Center, and the journalist, Joseph Hooper, also spoke with my boss Bill Fitzgerald. The shop was at the Palo Alto Square shopping center across the street from Palo Alto High School; I got the job there after spending an afternoon going from store to store asking if anyone had a job for me. I wrote about my job there in one of my daily texts back in June 2021. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 4 September 2022)

Watching Serena Williams in 2022 and remembering her first Grand Slam title at the US Open in 1999

I was up late last night, so I decided to watch Serena Williams's match against Ajla Tomljanovic (which started at one a.m. in Switzerland). It turned out to be Serena's last match as a professional. During the match, I remembered watching Serena defeat Martina Hingis in the 1999 US Open final, two years after Venus Williams had lost to Hingis in the US Open final. I've always had a vivid memory of the eighteen-year-old Serena stumbling around the court and beaming her always riveting smile after her triumph against the eighteen-year-old Hingis (who had won five Grand Slam singles titles by that time, but won no more in her further career). (Andrew Shields, #111words, 3 September 2022)

Kettles, and Boris Johnson

Years ago, we had a series of electric kettles that always stopped working pretty soon. So about seven or eight years ago, I spent a bit more on a kettle that worked until a few days ago. So on Wednesday, I bought a new kettle that cost even more, hoping that it will survive even longer than the previous one. Little did I know that I could have followed the wisdom of Boris Johnson and purchased a kettle for £20 that would save me £10 on my electric bill per year. The only problems are that the cheap ones break quickly and that I live in Switzerland, not the United Kingdom. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 2 September 2022)

Climate change, covid, and political will

In a Republik article on their campaign to get an Advisory Opinion on climate change from the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Solomon Yeo of Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change argues that, despite decades of political resistance to effective measures to combat climate change, the covid pandemic has shown that where there is political will, anything is possible. But while the initial responses of many governments worldwide may somewhat justify Yeo's hope for movement on an effective political response to climate change, the current situation with the pandemic, in which many governments seem to have given in to the coronavirus for short-term economic reasons, is much less encouraging. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 1 September 2022)