The Demon of Unrest

The Demon of Unrest had been on my to-read list for a while, and the end of October/Start of November 2024 suddenly felt like the right time to read about Lincoln's election and inheritance of a divided America, and how the American Civil War broke out.

I am not implying that there are specific parallels to be drawn between 1860 and today, none that I want to explore. It was an interesting time in history, written about in an engaging and well structured way by Erik Larson.

While much of the book's material was sourced from Lincoln's papers and from the records of those facing the cannons on either side of the water of Charleston Harbour, the era was enriched further by excerpts from the diaries of "normal" people such as Mary Boykin Chesnut. And just like I did in 2020 during the Churchill book I found myself feeling like I should put more effort into my own diary journal in case Erik Larson or some future GPT version of him needed some source material for some book about events in 2025. But what significant world event would I need to add my observations on? And how was anything I wrote in Adelaide going to have relevance to that event? It would take some kind of major, global history making thing to happen for me to have any relevance.

Hmmm…


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The woman with the fake tan stepped into my office, sat across from my desk and lit a cigarette.
At least, she would, sometime in the next 20 minutes. Smelling the future has advantages, but precision isn’t one of them.


Utopia Avenue

I reached the end of the excellent Utopia Avenue today. It took me a few weeks. The story was an absorbing ride through the late 1960's, with fully fleshed characters and a real example of how good writing benefits from having multiple protagonists. The way they interact, when they all have their own motivations and back-stories really gives them character. As someone who has been paid to write words about music - something that is not worth doing! - I also appreciated his technical ability to bring sound to life through the written word.

I have been listening to a lot of music from the era as well, thanks to its countless name drops, to try and enrich the senses, but I don't have any inclination to go down a psychedelic rabbit hole so I am writing this now to remember reading about Dean, Griff, Jasper and Elf.

To bring this journal entry back to my own life, I listened to that audiobook this morning while mowing the lawn, pruning the vines and sweeping up half-pecked lilly-pilly berries from the backyard. Then I did some rehab, lat pulldowns and side planks.

The weather so far this May has been amazing, other than the creepy stat that it has barely rained since January. This morning's walk to the bakery with Nash was especially picturesque.

Books

The day after I posted last week's entry about reading less books, I took the lift down to the city streets at lunch with the intent to stay in the shade and stretch my legs. I didn't have anywhere specific to go, and the urge crossed my mind to walk to the city library and look at the books. Those withdrawals came a lot quicker than I expected. I didn't go to the library. I walked on the north and east sides of streets and listened to music instead of audiobooks.

The next day I was at home and it was the perfect lunchtime for sitting outside eating a giant salad and listening to an audiobook. Well perfect is an exaggeration, it was 34 degrees outside and I had to put my bowl in the freezer while I chopped up my lunch so that when I finished preparing it and took it outside the lettuce wouldn't wilt before I finished eating.

My original plan was to read two books each month. But, around that walk nearly to the library I decided that starting February's books a week before February would be okay, as that would still be finishing it in February. February was a lot more than a week away on the twelfth of January, but I started a new book anyway. I promised myself I would only consume this book at the same time I consumed salads on sunny days. With the recent heat wave, this has been every day.

This morning when I was out walking before work I saw this chalked on the sidewalk...


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My 2024 Resolution - Read Less Books

I read 44 last year, and that was with a month off during June for travel.

I finished my second book of 2024 this afternoon, Pax by Tom Holland. Another history book that was very interesting, but it's questionable how much of what I learned I'll actually retain. The tale of Sporus, most definitely… I'd hoped that having actually visited Rome now might help me feel more connected to the past when reading about it, but it did not really. So much changes during the lives of these people - including their names - that immersion two millennia later was always going to be a whimsy.

Reading less books should ideally reduce these feelings of over-consumption and disconnection. This will mean I enjoy the books I do read more, and maybe listen to the kind of song numbers this year that I did back in 2008.

I Mammal

I enjoy reading history books, though it typically leaves me feeling infinitely small in the zeitgeist of human history aka the universe. There's been approximately 108 billion humans on this Earth (according to Chat GPT), and a number several magnitudes greater of total mammals (Chat GPT refused to get specific). Since synapsids broke off from reptiles and started on the evolutionary high way to developing LLMs (Dimetrodon isn't a dinosaur, but actually my great-grandpa?) there have been generations and radiations of so many layers and layers of creatures throughout the epochs that eventually gave us humans and golden retrievers and elephants without scrotums.

I found Liam Drew's I, Mammal: The Story of What Makes Us Mammals endlessly fascinating as he took me through the stages of evolution that led to nipples and middle ears and brains. Every time he explained how one of our mammalian traits could have developed - like hearing, and being able to survive out of water without oxygen - it made so much sense. Like, well, yeah I can see why that trait led to a higher success rate than other animals without it.

There were also lots of good titbits of a lighter nature. Like, apparently sperm were first observed by the person who invented the microscope. He didn't even let anyone else have a go first.

The chemistry of genes and hormones also was insightful. Apparently in one experiment with rats - who usually press a lever to be rewarded with food - were given a lever that resulted in baby rat pups being pushed out the chute. All the rats did not press this lever, except the group that they dosed with oxytocin triggering hormones and those rats pumped that lever until they had twenty babies at their feet. That explained a lot.

While I now feel even more miniscule, I do feel less like I am at the top of an evolutionary tree, or even a leaf on a branch. On timescales of millions of years I'm basically overlapping Napoleon in comparison to Dimetrodon. I am essentially background noise.

Themes

I experience a moment of self awareness at lunchtime. I was walking back to the office from the city library. A borrowed book and a kilogram of low fat strawberry yogurt balanced in one hand while I tried to slide my sunglasses on between the headband of my noise cancelling headphones with the other. I realised that I was probably peaking.

Unruly

Last year I listened to Power and Thrones as an audiobook. As it regaled from start to finish of the Middle Ages in a thoroughly entertaining way I couldn't help wishing that Mark Corrigan (aka David Mitchell) were narrating it. Mitchell is the perfect comedian for me, wordy, not smug, but not too much self-deprecation. The perfect combination lampooning the past while still possessing a historian's authority.

Well, when I saw he'd written Unruly: A History of England's Kings and Queens and that he'd also personally narrated the audiobook I felt like the simulation had come up aces. This is the exact kind of content I'd wished for during Power and Thrones, albeit for a much narrower slice. Mitchell is in top form for this book. I'm not the type of person who'll ever piss themselves laughing. The equivalent for me would be a short, audible chuckle. And by those standards I was doing the equivalent of pissing everywhere. It's the first audiobook I've needed to slow to normal speed I think ever so that I could catch everything in its rich comical, historical detail.

The only reason I considered not rating this book 5 Stars is because it coasts along through the centuries with delightful cadence, then stops abruptly after Elizabeth the First. I understand why it stops there, but I still felt disappointed. But if wanting more is what you feel after a read like this I think you can say it was a good book.

After listening to David Mitchell's voice for so much of the past couple of days he is now appearing in my dreams.

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