Meanwhile, over at the Ministry of Culture…

New post about my latest strange habit. Click here for more details.

The mystery of the disappearing Fugger newsletters

Part of my latest post in The Ministry of Culture:

I have been re-reading George T. Matthews’ selection of archives of the Fugger Newsletters and wondering why they seem to have been so thoroughly overlooked. They are, in style and content, the forerunners of what we find on the Web today: An idiosyncratic description of events around the world that are frequently illuminating whether or not they are factual.

Some of the letters are nearly complete novels in themselves. This one paragraph describing Lisbon following the death of the Portuguese king in battle in 1578 tells an entire epic just from the aftermath of the event.

Otherwise business here continues as though nothing untoward has taken place. The ships that arrived from India are being unloaded, the merchants ply their trade and go to sea; it is the nobility and soldiers alone who have perished. No merchant has suffered thereby since they all stayed behind. The four regents whom the king appointed to rule the kingdom in his absence were ratified in their office by the Cardinal. The Government and Officials deal with the people in so friendly a manner that everyone is astounded thereat. In spite of these terrible tidings no riots have occurred and if a stranger, who had never been here before came to the city, he would swear by all that is holy that no ill-fortune has befallen this kingdom for a hundred years.

There are many references to the Newsletters online – but the texts themselves aren’t available. None of the descriptions on the web give a feel for the vast richness of the archive. The Wikipedia entry on the Fuggers doesn’t even mention the newsletters and they are by far the family’s most significant legacy (note to self – update Wikipedia).

One thing that has really captured my imagination reading them this time is that although the dispatches are presented in chronological order it is highly unlikely that they were received that way. Because of the difficulty of sending these letters (or anything else) The Count and his successors received different parts of stories at different times. So he might hear of a king’s decision to go to war, then of his coronation, then of his successor’s defeat and then of the original king’s death. I think this would be a wonderful way to tell a story.

Advertisement

With God and Man in Kipling’s Kim

Posted at the Ministry of Culture.

I have just read Rudyard Kipling’s novel Kim and am in awe of it.

My mother had suggested a few times that I read it and so, of course, I didn’t. This was a triumph of stubbornness over experience. My mother has a few intellectual quirks (Mets fan?) but has never, ever steered me wrong in a book recommendation.*

Prior to reading Kim, all I knew of Kipling was

1. he wrote the wonderful Just So Stories
2. his reputation as a stuffy defender of the British Empire
3. and is author of one a great poem about the plight of forgotten veterans, The Last of the Light Brigade.

There were thirty million English who talked of England’s might,
There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.
They had neither food nor money, the had neither service nor trade;
They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade.

None of which prepared me for Kim.

If you care to read it, there is more here.

Same author, additional blog

Anyone not already bored with my writing is invited to take a look at my new blog (or maybe it’s a new department of this blog?) The Ministry of Culture.

The Ministry of Culture is about looking for God in all the facets of culture — rock & roll, Shakespeare, science fiction, roller derby, opera, comedy and whatever else crosses my path. All opinions will be honest and irony free. However ,as in everything else in life, not all will be explained or made explicit.

Today’s inaugural posts are Part 1 in my highly idiosyncratic guide to gospel music and a selection from master humorist & historian Will Cuppy on Dolly Madison. Today is the 340th anniversary of Mrs. Madison’s birthday. What does this last post have to do with a Supreme Being? Not much directly. But I like to think that God likes us so much that He shared Mr. Cuppy with us for a while.

Anyone so interested might also care to read some of my favorite quotes from other writers.

FWIW, the logo above is by Neil Curtis and was scanned without permission from his magnificently strange and sublime children’s (?) book Bear Dinkum. It is a sublime meditation on art, God, Australia and the use of hand-to-hand violence in modern ballet. Sadly I have been unable to locate a copy of the sequel — not making this up — Bear Dinkum Drops His Guts.