Thanks for all the fish

It's been a fun ride - more than 2000 posts and 10,000 comments over a 12-year period - but there doesn't seem to be much recent activity other than periodically being hit by lurkers in Russia and the occasional comments offering escort services in India. I've long been curious who these Russian lurkers are. They leave no comments, but they pop up fairly regularly, suggesting that my blog is on someone's radar screen. I delete the Indian escort services.

I never intended for this to become my blog. It was initially imagined as a forum for American history readers after the old New York Times Reading forums were shut down in the mid 2000s, so I created a haven for the handful of history buffs who enjoyed doing a group read from time to time. That group thinned out over the years, with the readers reduced to two -- Trippler and me. I began posting more and more personal observations, eventually becoming obsessed with the Trump administration, which appeared to scare the old guard off completely. Haven't heard a peep from Avrds, Marti, Rick and JAbel in years, although I keep in contact with Marti and John on facebook.

Part of the problem was that hackers managed to dirty up the blog, so that former readers were complaining they were getting hit with virus alerts by visiting the site. I tried to clean it up, give it a new look, purge as much of the unwanted content as I could, but the damage was done. They didn't want to take a chance on mucking up their computers with viruses. Thanks whoever you are who did this to my blog.

At its peak this blog didn't get more than 5000 hits per month, so I don't know why these hackers bothered. I suppose it was the sport of it, or maybe I pissed off some Trumpers. Whatever the case, it wasn't like I ever reached more than a handful of people. I could hardly call myself an "influencer."

Attempts to contact Blogger went for naught. The creators were now pushing other blog sites like Medium, leaving Blogger to slowly die on the vine. Youtube opened up a whole new world of vlogging, where enterprising persons could take their punditry to the tiny screen, or provide the latest in gaming and fashion tips. The literary forum was all but dead, reduced to posting comments on book reviews in the New York Times or The Guardian, largely through facebook. Hard to believe there were actually book reading forums sponsored by Barnes and Noble at one time, where I once got into a heady discussion about Laurie Robertson-Lorant's biography of Herman Melville.

Those were the days when I was able to order a book from the US without paying a premium in shipping and customs charges. I filled up my basement with books at relatively low prices, now I consider unloading them through amazon marketplace if I can fetch a decent price for them. Not much call for English language books in Lithuania.

It's clear that I need to make a clean break. Search for something new to write about. I have been reading again, mostly books about late 19th century America, as I try to form a picture of the world my great grandfather lived on. I've been toying with the idea of writing a book for years on this subject. Haven't gotten beyond a few notes, but who knows this may finally be the year I put it all together.

Whatever the case, I've enjoyed the discussions that have taken part on this blog and hope those still around are in good health should you check in. I won't delete the blog. We had some good group reads that still appear to draw some attention. I like to look back at the old posts and discussions myself.

Make 2021 a great year! If you feel like dropping me a line you can do so at dzimas61@gmail.com. Please no spam.

Dylan in America

Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan. Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose. Looks like only yesterday. Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005

NebrisDecember 31, 2020 at 2:08 AM
I've always appreciated your blog.
TripplerMarch 10, 2021 at 12:46 AM
I do not have the words to tell you how much I miss our discussions about American History. In fact, venturing into literature was often more fun ~ no surprise given that my college major was English/American literature.

Wish it was possible to put together all of my posts here on the subject of Am-History. Could well earn a B.A. in the subject and a few post graduate credits as well. Fehrenbacher's "Slavery, Law, and Politics - Dred Scott Case" and McGarvie's "One Nation Under Law" were graduate level reading. Bob Whelan and I had a good exchange on those subjects as we both are law school graduates.

Will look over the YouTube Channel. Don't have Instagram but that channel looks really good as well.

James FergusonMarch 10, 2021 at 2:51 PM
It is too bad the forum dried up. Everyone went their separate ways, but that's to be expected. No hard feelings. What was odd was that all the views there were so few comments. I imagine it was another technical glitch on the part of blogger, as I had persons say they tried to post comments but they didn't appear on screen. After awhile, they just give up, I'm afraid.
TripplerJune 19, 2021 at 12:53 AM
So glad to see Juneteenth made into a National Holiday.

Some right wing delusionals are p!ssed at it. I guess they prefer that their hero Benedict Arnold's birthday be celebrated on his birthday June 14.

Dispatches from Vilnius

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