Artist: UnknownTitle: TchotchkeDate: 1970s?Culture: Turkish (?)Provenance: Bought by my grandparents probably on vacation in Turkey in the 1970s My grandfather is an endless source of inspiration for me. Many of the things that fascinate me about American culture relate to him in some way--to the world he would have been a part of. I loved … Continue reading No. 22: Turkish Souvenir
Artist: UnknownTitle: ViolinDate: 1950s?Culture: AmericanProvenance: Handed down to EAH via her mother and grandfather. At the back of my closet, hidden behind a curtain of long-unworn dresses, is a brown-canvas violin case with a worn leather handle. The violin has schlepped with me to each of the thirteen residences I've had since college, not finding … Continue reading No. 20: My Violin
Artist: UnknownTitle: UntitledDate: Early 20th Century?Culture: American?Provenance: Ended up with EAH's Christmas things after the death of her mother. My Christmas tree is a minefield of memories, adorned as it is in ornaments given to me over the years and ornaments I've given to my children since their first Christmases and ornaments that used to … Continue reading No. 19: Miniature Embroidered Doll
Artist: Unknown Title: Collection of School Awards Date: 1998 Culture: American Provenance: Awarded to EAH in her senior year of high school High school looms large in my memory, as I guess it does for many people. But aside from one tattered old t-shirt, a collection of five or six diaries that I kept religiously … Continue reading No. 14: High School Awards
Artist: Willa Cather & Houghton Mifflin Company Title: My Ántonia Date: 1918; copyright renewed 1977 Culture: American Literature Provenance: Given to EAH by her mother in July of 1987 I recently found myself thumbing through my old copy of My Ántonia and felt an unexpected ache. I'm sure this is partly because I associate the … Continue reading No. 13: My Ántonia
I am hard stone pulled from the earth. For millennia I was pressed and squeezed and heated. My universe was dark and compact. I was limestone, and then as the earth roiled and shifted around me, year after year, millennium after century after epoch, I became what you now see. A "metamorphic rock," a stunning … Continue reading Winged Victory of Samothrace, 220–185 BCE
It recently occurred to me that my memories as conveyed on this blog often involve driving through and around the different landscapes I've inhabited. "The verdant hills of Vermont." "The expansive plains of the Midwest." And so on. I guess this is partly because I'm from a driving family. Gotta get to college in Ohio? … Continue reading Just Passing Through
Here's the thing. I am not, nor have I ever been, particularly cool. If you've read any of my blog posts, you have no doubt picked up on the fact that I am sentimental. I appreciate life's simple beauties. Without sarcasm or cynicism. Though I am a bit of a pessimist, I'm not jaded; my … Continue reading Sunny Days & Lonely Times
All good leaders appreciate the grave importance of protecting their citizens from the threats of invading barbarians, be they Eurasian nomads, Visigoths, Huns, or . . . Mexicans. Donald Trump knows his history and looks to that history with concern and anticipation. He will protect his people from the Great Mexican Horde, just as the … Continue reading The Great Trumpian Wall of Southern America
One of the things that most captivated my imagination in graduate school was pre-modern cartography. The maps produced before the modern era are not only visually fascinating, but they speak of so much more: mystery, knowledge/ignorance, longing, hope, adventure, human limitations. But mainly of hope, since, if you don’t know what is beyond your world, … Continue reading Found!
Ellen A. Hurst 