Women in History - The Hard Work behind Footnotes

I'm editing the book of a distant cousin and I have to add an awful lot of footnotes to explain who the people he mentions are.

There's one paragraph where he drops so many names that it generated a page and a half of footnotes.

I have a few mysteries that I needed to solve with detective skills; for example, at one point he writes about a noble lady who was the model of a sculptor (scandalous!!!) and so he only gives her initial and vaguely describes the completed statue. I had to check all the works of the sculptor and check which noble lady visited him when the statue was being created.

I think I've found statue and lady, but I'll have to check the sculptor's correspondence to make sure.

You just have to have an interest in genealogy to know that the lives of women were seldom recorded properly... which takes me to last night's footnote. I found a mention of a young woman (by chance, she was linked to the same sculptor who had the noble lady model) and a specialist of that sculptor had a mini biography about her in his book. Splendid! But when was she born and when did she die? Not a word - and that bugged me beyond words because it's unfair. So I put on my Sherlock cap and got to work, but it was bumpy...

Letters mentioned the age people thought she had, then I found her marriage briefly mentioned in archives (the registers burnt and we only have reconstituted data) and I knew she had at least one son because there are descendants.

I located the birth certificate of her son, which made me go looking for his marriage certificate. Once I found it, after checking all 20 districts of Paris over two decades, I knew that she was dead by the time he got married. Then, I checked three decades and I didn't find her, or her husband who was also dead by the time their son got married. I checked the town where the son was living - no luck.

I was ready to type that she was lost in History when I thought (because I've had the case in my family), 'What if she was registered with her birth name instead of her married name - as she should have?'. I checked the decade her son was born in the same district he was born and... bingo! There she was.

The age she was given in her death certificate wasn't consistent with the possible years of birth mentioned in the letters and I ended up with four possible years. The death certificate stated where she was born, so I went to check their registers and I finally found when she was born.

That took me about nine hours. Because I'm stubborn as hell and I didn't want her to be one of those "lost in History" women.

I have a lot more respect for footnotes now (some require a few minutes of work, but others send the historian on a quest that can take an awful lot of time).

Comment m'écorcher les oreilles

Certaines publicités peuvent être vraiment très bonnes.

Certaines publicités peuvent être très, très mauvaises.

Celle-ci m'énerve à cause de la prononciation pourrave du nom de la marque (parce que le français moyen ne pourrait pas comprendre qu'une marque anglo-saxonne a une prononciation spéciale ???).

Bon, d'un côté, ça assure que j'ai encore du boulot, mais sword, ça se dit /sɔːd/, pas /swɔːd/. C'est pas de la physique quantique non plus...

Autrement, elle est mignonne cette pub.

[Recipe] Sautéed Vegetables à la "dijonnaise"

Right.

Sorry about the title, I didn't know what to name the dish (if it has a name, do tell me!).

So... I was visiting my freezer when I found Brussels sprouts and decided to cook them, but not alone.

You'll need:

* 500 gr of Brussels sprouts

* 4 or 5 potatoes

* 2 onions

* salt

* Dijon mustard

* oil

* some kind of meat (minced meat, bits of chicken, bacon...)

1 - Slice the onions and put them in a big frying pan.

2 - Add the meat you chose to the pan.

3 - In a pot of salted, boiling water, add the Brussels sprouts and peeled and diced potatoes. Cook for about ten minutes.

4 - Drain the sprouts and potatoes. Cut the Brussels sprouts in four (it takes time, but it's worth it) and add them and the potatoes to the frying pan.

5 - Add some oil in the frying pan and sauté the meat and vegetables (I tend to turn the heat to high to have a crispy result).

6 - Add some salt and then some mustard (I added three dessert spoons of Dijon mustard).

7 - Enjoy!

Legacy Twitter 2020

Because of the time difference between me and Twitter HQ, I briefly hoped that my lovely Pale Moon might help me keep the look of my Legacy Twitter... I was wrong... Sort of because when I log in, it shows my usual background for a second, before Twitter forces its ugly UI on me.

I can't work with their horrid interface. It literally hurts my eyes.

I don't know how long it's going to work, but with Firefox, you can somehow restore Legacy Twitter thanks to the instructions there. And you can add some Stylus for good measure.

I'll stay around as long as I can protect my eyes, but I'll log off when some arrogant sociopath at Twitter decides to counter-code the tweak I just found. Merlin! This really feels like an abusive relationship: 'I know what you need, you're going to do as I say, and I'm right. Shut up and roll over.'.

Sheesh!

Botanical Mystery [Solved]

After strimming the garden and mowing the lawn, I discovered several patches of a strange plant around our lime tree.

I did some Sherlocking and it's seeds of cyclamen.

You'll understand that I briefly thought they were weird mushrooms when I show you this:

Meet My Sci-Fi Planet

I'm working on two books that focus on History, but the footnotes can be hellish, so I edit bits of my Sci-Fi story, too.
In my fourth book, I have an appendix with maps of my different continents. The main map of the planet originally had the continents in white and a somewhat blue ocean...
Yesterday, I decided to have some more fun and I worked to make the "planet" look real.
Thanks to this lovely site, I could do this (the stars are from Guille Pozzi on Unsplash):

The Utter Joy of Having an Incompetent Landlady

It's official, from now on, I'll deal with the council estate in a "baka yoke" spirit as if they were the village idiots .

Last year, there was a mistake with my water meter (no one came to read it, but they sent data to the council estate nonetheless).

I contacted the landlady, but she told me I'd have to pay (about half my wages!) and I'd get my money back later. In fact, what I paid them, when I didn't owe them that money, was used to pay the rent the  following months - not the same as "getting my money back".

A plumber came to change my meter so it could be read remotely. 

The kid didn't manage to do it.

I was the one who told the caretaker that the job wasn't done.

No news since.

Comes January and I invite my caretaker to take a picture of my meter so she sends it to the landlady (and she just confirmed me that she did).

Comes today, and they want me to pay for 140 m3 when I only used 30 m3! "Incidentally", that's about  three quarters of my wages that they want this time.

The plonkerish landlady has two months to have the mistake corrected. I swear to Zeus I'm going to rip her a new one if she doesn't do her job - again.

If I have to do her job by telling her what to do (apparently, I should have checked in January that she'd do what she was supposed to do with the photo of my meter), I'm going to start sending her invoices.

Bloody idiot.

Chivalry?... What Chivalry?

Even before we were stuck at home, I work a lot at night (it's quiet and I can focus on plot bunnies and research).

Since the weather's a tad nicer these days, when I do go to bed (between 5 and 7 am), I open my blackout curtains, open the window and listen to the birds (the seagulls make me believe that I'm by the sea - I'm not).

Sometimes, I see people going to work this early.

Last night, there was this young woman walking uphill (either she works at the nearby hospital - or somewhere - or she was going to catch a bus or the tube). Walking downhill was this young bloke.

The pavement there is very, very narrow. Now, guess who moved to walk on the road...? Yup! The young lady.

Of course, the traffic so early and with so few cars around was not really an issue, but the boy did not even try to do anything. He just kept walking as if he owned the pavement.

It's not that chivalry's dead. I think it was mostly ever only in books to make a few blokes look good - and yes, I'm tired and angry. Why?

Chers scénaristes, si vous avez besoin d'une historienne...

... ou tout simplement de quelqu'un pour vous relire, vous pouvez m'engager.

En revanche, si vous vous acharnez à commettre des erreurs historiques, je vous fais bouffer votre script. Sans sel. Sans moutarde.

Pourquoi suis-je en train de ronchonner ? Tout simplement à cause d'un téléfilm.

Je regardais tranquillement un épisode de Meurtres à..., qui est une série que j'aime beaucoup, quand l'épisode ...Aix-en-Provence (écrit et réalisé par Claude-Michel Rome) m'a fait faire un triple salto arrière avec rattrapage au plafond par les griffes.

Présentations des pièces à conviction, Madame la présidente/Monsieur le président : 

Échange n°1 :

A : Je l'ai convaincu que tu serais plus à ton aise si le manuscrit était ici.

{Gros plan sur un livre imprimé protégé par une vitrine} <- au moins, l'accessoiriste n'est pas une tanche, car ->

B : Incroyable. Un incunable du XVI^e siècle. Écrit de la main de Nostradamus ?

Là, mon plafond était déjà lacéré.

Échange n°2 : 

C : Est-ce qu'il pourrait venir du manuscrit trouvé dans la crypte ?

D : Non, personne n'a approché l'incunable après sa découverte.

C : Heu ?

D: L'incunable !

E : Livre du XVI^e siècle postérieur au début de l'imprimerie.

Là, j'ai commencé à hurler à la mort. Je n'avais pas autant râlé à cause d'un scénario depuis Gladiator, qui était pourtant pas mal déjanté dans le genre « Je fais pas mes devoirs, mais c'est pas grave ».

Un manuscrit, c'est écrit à la main par un copiste.

Un incunable, c'est un livre imprimé entre la date de l'invention de l'imprimerie (vers 1450) et avant le 1^er janvier 1501.

Un « incunable manuscrit », ça n'existe pas dans notre dimension.

Donc, le scénariste n'a pas vérifié la définition d'un incunable ou l'a lue en diagonale ou ne l'a pas comprise ou... se fichait complètement d'avoir une telle erreur dans son œuvre (je me souviens de la conférence d'un historien à qui il arrivait d'être conseiller historique sur des tournages et qui nous avait parlé d'un réalisateur qui voulait avoir des bananes dans une coupe de fruits... au Moyen-âge !).

Je ne sais pas à quoi nous avons affaire ici, mais si j'ai, un jour, le plaisir de rencontrer le coupable, je me ferai un plaisir de lui poser la question.

En attendant, si quelqu'un veut m'engager, je suis très efficace... mais je vous démonterai le squelette en place publique si vous ne corrigez pas ce genre d'erreur une fois que je vous l'aurai signalée (je fais de l'allergie aux tanches de concours et autres buses).

PS : Ce n'est peut-être pas qu'avec côtelette incunable que le scénariste a des problèmes, mais, même s'il voulait dire volume ou livre à la place de manuscrit, ça n'explique quand même pas le réplique B de l'échange 1.

Compassion, eh?

One of my mother's neighbours hopped by to see if she needed anything and she's grateful for the kindness.

Awesome.

My only issue with that bloke is that he's a weird bunny (and that's the super polite way of saying it - I could be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more colourful about that biped).

Fast-forward to today, and Mother noticed a new wall by her fence, behind the house, near the building for which the neighbour never got a permit (if he got one, bribery was involved as what he's done is fucking illegal through and through, but - hey! - what do I know? Well, I know the law, that's what!). 

Mother thinks that I must have missed the wall the last time I was there (three weeks ago! And after doing some stuff near that very fence?!).

Do you know what I believe, dear Readers? I believe that the neighbour came to talk to my mother to check if she'd noticed the wall. Full stop.

Now that he's got his info, he's gone. He never cared about her; he wanted to check something.

I'm not going to forget that one either and he doesn't know what I'm planning for him... one day.

My (Oh, Yes I'm Going to Try It!!!) Next New Hobby

I think I will definitely try sculpture, but I've found something else. Something I've been wanting to try for a long time.

The arts supply store is going to be fed up with me when they re-open...

I'm going to try this:

  

It's glass I have a hard time finding... Everything else is already located, or already in my possession.

This will be fun.

My (Possible) Next New Hobby

I'm far from being bored, as I'm still in touch with my students by e-mail (which takes even more time than "just" being in class), I've got some spring cleaning and DIY stuff to do in my flat, and I've got an invasion of plot bunnies at home (yes - even more than usual!). I've got a dress to hem and a new portrait to start, too.

I'm busy and unbored.

And yet, something new-ish is making its way into my head. In fact, there are two things I'd like: I'd like to try pottery again (the last time, I was in primary school, but I loved it - in spite of the bullying teacher who didn't allow us to create what we really wanted; she expected obedient sheeple), but, alas, I have no access to a kiln, so I'll have to store that idea for the moment and... I'd like to try sculpture.

We have sculptors in the family (artists and monumental masons) and I'd really like to try.

I could order stuff online, but I don't want to burden my post officer with trifles, so I'll go shopping when we're allowed to go back to arts stores.

Maybe I won't like it.

Maybe I'll be rubbish at it.

I'll give it a try, for fun - and because I'm curious to see if there might be some marble in my DNA...

Good or bad, I'll keep you posted.

Shopping in the Time of Coronavirus - the Easter Island Edition

Since my work schedule is utterly demented, I have been staying home since March 11th and went shopping once last week. 

Today, I went back to the supermarket that's right in front of my building not to go too far.

First of all, most bipeds don't know what a metre looks like (and I'm not the only one noticing the issue apparently: there were floor markings by the checkouts!). There was even this arrogant bloke who walked as he pleased: the others were in charge of avoiding his path (I say arrogant because I saw something deeply unpleasant in his eyes, as in "I'm more important than you").

And then... some aisles were 99% to 100% empty.

No more sliced bread? Okay, I can go queue at the baker's.

No more white vinegar? Okay, everybody wants to clean their windows; mine can wait...

No more wipes? Fine, but if my cat is sick again, things are going to be "eurgh!!!".

No more kitchen gloves? Uhoh... Dear bipeds, if I have to do the dishes without gloves, I'm not going to be a happy bunny. Just saying... *starts praying to the kitchen gods that my one pair of gloves won't die on me*

No more kitty litter? 100% empty shelves. All brands missing, even the bad ones? That is making me want to bite someone. I can find alternatives for my food, but my cat needs litter and wet food for cats (he's never eaten anything for humans - probably because of some trauma before I rescued him).

Some things are really beginning to be utterly ridiculous - and I'll have to go to another store, hoping that the stocks will be better for my poor cat there.

{Friendly warning: you may hear me howl if I can't find any kitty litter in my district...}

Movie, please! -> Charade

Just in case you'd like something swell to watch, here's Charade, a 1963 film with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant (the rest of the cast is splendid, too).
Enjoy!

Shopping in the Time of Coronavirus

I remember my nan, who'd been through two world wars, telling me to stockpile flour, pasta, rice, and tins of various kinds of food during the Gulf War because she was afraid that the conflict would spread and she didn't want our family to be as hungry as she'd been as a child, and then as a mother.

Back then, I remember some people panicking, but - Flurching Inferno! - it never was as bad as what I saw this morning...

Why did I go shopping on a Sunday morning, you ask, dear Readers? "Is Dru afraid?" you wonder.

Well, no. But I am lazy, and since I was out to go vote in our mayoral elections (funny that the politicos didn't report that one... as if someone thinks that Parisians are going to stay away from polling stations! There was a massive queue at 9 AM!!!), I decided to go do my regular, normal shopping today as that would allow me to stay home (my college has been ordered to close) until round 2 of the elections next Sunday.

It turns out that I was far from being the only one at my usual supermarket and there was a tad of "panic" shopping (I was the only one with cat food, frozen cauliflower, and a bag of onions).

The rice and pasta aisle was 99.9% empty.

The toilet paper aisle was 75% empty (Covid-19 symptoms have nothing to do with the cholera, so I'm a tad at sea on this one).

The eggs were all gone, but the rest of the store was okay - except the prices.

I don't keep my old receipts, but I'm convinced that the prices are slightly up. I mean, I literally thought that the store owner would have ended up with a shaved head if we were in 1945...

Things are really strange.

People Bipeds are really strange.

I'll admit that, having seen my usual store this morning, I'm a lil' bit tempted to stockpile... for my cat.

Plautus? Not Plautus!

I'm currently gathering data to write a play on a certain mythological topic.

I won't be the first to write on that, but I've decided to bring a new angle to it by focussing on the women in the story - instead of the men (as every [male] playwright before me).

It is quite interesting.

The very first author we have writing on this topic is Plautus (interesting approach, but I'm not a fan of his Latin).

As I was working on a twist in my plot, I finally realized that, since Plautus, the characters have been dealing with Roman gods and goddesses, but... the original story is in Greek.

I changed my characters' names to Greek ones and I'm keeping two Roman "guest stars".

I'm rather happy with what I'm plotting - and it helps me with some dry work as I'm also editing my PhD and a memoir/biography/art history manifesto that needs a lot of footnotes as the subject of this book knew each and every artist in all domains in the 19th century.

Lettre suivie internationale

Vous avez une lettre à envoyer à l'étranger, hors Europe, mais le Colissimo ou le recommandé coûtent un œil ? 

La solution peut être un autocollant de suivi international.

J'ai testé ça pour vous en décembre...

J'ai acheté une vignette de suivi "J+5", mais rien n'indiquait que ça pourrait être "J+25" si le "service" de douane de La Poste à Roissy s'asseyait dessus pendant les fêtes (La Poste vous dira que ce sont vraiment les douanes qui vérifient le courrier, mais une bonne partie des "vérifications" est faite par La Poste elle-même apparemment).

En gros, ils vous vendent un "J+5", mais ça, c'est seulement si votre lettre (ou colis) passe la "douane" en deux jours. Autrement, si votre envoi se retrouve coincé au "bureau d'échange", ça peut prendre jusqu'à vingt jours - s'ils ne perdent pas carrément le bidule ! 

Ce que j'avais envoyé aurait dû arriver le 21/12 - au plus tard le 23/12. Il est arrivé le 08/01.

En plus, si je n'étais pas allée sur le site du transporteur de l'autre côté, je ne saurais pas que ma lettre est arrivée.

Je comprends qu'il puisse y avoir des problèmes, mais un peu plus d'honnêteté quant au service qui peut effectivement être fourni, c'est tout ce que je demande. Je ne suis pas une truite - si on me dit "J+5", j'attends du "J+5". J'imagine qu'à une époque où certaines personnes s'attendent à du quasi instantané pour les livraisons, dire "J+5 à 25", ça ne fait pas très glamour.

C'est bête, hein, mais je préfère qu'on ne me mente pas.