Puttering in the Study

Easter 2008

We celebrated Easter this year the usual way, dying eggs Saturday, then getting our annual visit from the Easter Bunny Sunday morning going to Mass, and hunting eggs (and taking pictures) after lunch.  With new dogs having the back yard pretty, er, polluted at the moment, we used the front yard for hiding eggs.  You can hide a lot of eggs in two or three acres of unmowed meadow!

Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire - Judith Herrin

This not a history of the Byzantine Empire - rather it's a series of essays on different aspects of the Byzantine Empire with an overriding defensive attitude about the derogatory way the empire has been portrayed throughout history.  The idea, apparently, is to try to present the important facets or characteristics of the empire in such a way that perhaps people who would not be interested in a straight history of the subject might be challenged to read about it, and change the attitude, which still prevails to a large extent, that there wasn't much to admire or even be interested in about the late Roman Empire which was ruled from Constantinople from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries.  Basically, it's a highbrow Complete Idiot's Guide to the Byzantine Empire. 
That having been said, I like the strategy and I like the book.  By skipping the chronological history of the empire (which at 1100 years takes a while to tell and buries anything really interesting) it picks and chooses aspects of the history, telling you why the empire was important.  Whether it was Hagia Sophia, or iconoclasm, or eunuchs, or the siege of 1453, the two dozen or so things that are important are highlighted and given a chance to breathe.
My favorite (largely I think because of the music) history of Byzantium is still John Romer's TV series from about 1998, but this book adds quite a bit to it by providing if less poetic, more persuasive analysis of many issues. 
For example, I never really understood before what the driving force behind iconoclasm was - Romer makes it seem just another random bizarre theological dispute - something the Byzantines were always prone to.  Its advocates' motives are never really explained, and it's presented largely as the sort of tyrannical invasion on freedom of worship that we can be expected to abhore.  Herrin, however, explains that it arose when the empire was sustaining repeated military defeats, and since God obviously would not allow his chosen to be defeated, there had to be some reason behind it - something the Byzantines were doing that they were being punished by God for.  The emperor eventually decided that it had to be divine displeasure with the common practice of venerating or "worshiping" idols, which did admittedly have strong roots in pagan practice.  From their perspective, iconoclasm made perfect sense as an attempt to get back into God's good graces.  Far from a tyrannical whim, it was, from their perspective a responsible, and even a courageous act.
All in all, a good book, and a good addition to my growing library on Byzantium.

Shuttle launch

This past Monday, we all watched the space shuttle Endeavour lift of at Kennedy Space Center in Florida for STS-123.  Jamie, Jim & Marie drove down, and I followed two days later by air to Orlando.  After they picked me up at the airport, we drove straight to the KCS visitors center, which stayed open past the usual 6pm closing time till 4am Tuesday morning for the 2:28 am launch.
We went through the various exhibits and museums, saw the Mission to Mars show (which Grayson had a starring role in!) and rode the Space Shuttle Launch Experience, which was really neat. We took a bus tour over the the Apollo/Saturn V exhibit near the Vehicle Assembly Building, and got to see the astronauts actually riding out to the launch pad in their silver van (shown here).
For the actual launch we stayed on the lawn at the visitors center where we watched the launch on the big screen TV - we didn't actually see the shuttle until it cleared the trees, and then only for a few seconds till it went into the cloud cover.  This picture is actually really close to what we saw - the glare from the flame was so bright you couldn't see the actual shuttle, and clouds swallowed it up just after this picture was taken.  We then loaded up for the three hour drive back to Orlando (it took two hours to go the first ten miles).  We got to the hotel at 6am, and then I got up at 10 to go catch the flight back to Texas.

Great, great experience, and thanks to everyone at the KSC visitors center that made it such an enjoyable experience.

Playing in the snow - March 7

Yesterday we had about the heaviest snow I've ever seen here - snow flurries from 7 am till midafternoon.  I just worked in the study most of the day enjoying the view outside.
Later on, after the boys came home from school we went outside and built a snowman and played with the dogs.  Typical Texas weather, though, as temperature never got below freezing and by late afternoon virtually all of the snow was gone, as the temperatures were upper forties. But it was fun while it lasted.

An Instance of the Fingerpost - Iain Pears

It took me weeks to make it through this book, and at times I wondered why I was bothering, but very nearly the end it paid off.  Up till that point I thought it was a very well-written period book, but the details on political intrigue in England circa 1660 were really passing me by, and I was impatiently waiting for it to be over so I could start on one of the two new books I just got on the Byzantine Empire.
Then - and I won't detail what happened - this magnificent idea started stirring, and over the last section of the book it was like watching some incredible bird rising up and spreading its wings, shaking off the leaves.  It was not unlike watching a M. Night Shymalan movie, except that I wasn't watching for it - it starting dawning on me just as it did the narrator.  The petty political maneuverings and narrow-minded perspectives of the prior parts of the book just fell into place as I grasped the overall story.
So it's safe to say that I liked it. 

New plants outside the study

Just got in three new small shrubs for the study patio area.  I've been looking for some acanthus ever seeing it in Athens on our trips there in 1998 and 1999 - it's a dramatic plant due to its height (the flowers are at eye level), and the use of the plant's leaves in classical architecture is something else I liked about it.  (Drawing is by John Ruskin, by the way). 
I had three very small ones at the old house, and they made it after the move for a short while, but not for long - the heat (and lack of water) got to them.  A few months back I finally found a couple of hot-climate varieties of acanthus mollis online at Plant Delights Nursery and ordered them. 
This is 'Rue Ledan' - it's a smaller SW Europe/N. Africa variety that should do better in hot summers.  The second, "Summer Beauty" is a hybrid (probably A. mollis x A. spinosus) which also does better in hot summers, and is larger.   It's theoretically going to become the popular version since although it is much more cutleaf than the normal acanthus, it tolerates heat a lot better.
Also picked up a sort of dwarf elephant ear, Alocasia wentii when I remembered how much I liked the elephant ear at the old house.  This variety is from the mountains of New Guinea, and is winter hardy.  It's fairly small (about 3') and what I liked was the bronze-green leaves with contrasting metallic-purple leaf backs.  It sits near one of our dwarf magnolias, which has a sort of terra cotta leaf back that I like, so I look forward to seeing it as well.

Former president Bill Clinton visits Marshall

Former president Bill Clinton was in Marshall this afternoon campaigning for Hillary in the upcoming Texas primary, so Jamie and I took Grayson to see his first president.  (Jamie saw Reagan in college and I saw Clinton in DC, and we both saw him when we visited the White House seven years ago, but it was from a distance - this was both of our first president of any kind up close). (Actually I saw Ford campaigning at the Longview airport in 1976, but I didn't have my glasses, so all I could see was a big plane).
We were in about the second row for the speech and Grayson got a good look from my shoulders.  Then when Clinton worked the line after his speech we got up to the line and shook hands - by this point Grayson had finally figured out that this must be someone important, I think.
In the first picture here, you can see Clinton speaking - what he was doing was talking to the young Hispanic man in front of me who'd brought his son (about five years old) dressed in a suit (and asleep in his dad's arms) to see him.  Clinton told the boy he was the best dressed person there, and talked with the dad for a few minutes - where was he from, how long had he been here, and so forth.  So although I didn't speak with him, I got to watch him speak with someone up close.

Marshall Symphony Ball - Alex

Our niece Alex attended the Marshall Symphony Ball last night as the date of one of the boys being presented.  Mother went as well, and we got this very nice picture of them during dinner.

Pinewood Derby - district meet

As a result of placing second his his pack's den, Grayson got to compete in district.  He won four of his six races there, placing his fourth out of sixteen cars by Bear cubs.  That wasn't enough for another trophy, but he did get to compete in the championship round!  So by far his best year yet in Pinewood Derby.