* A tip of the hat to the great Sam Cooke. If I’m not mistaken, this is my grandfather Otto Treude circa 1904. In those days, moms put all babies in dresses, both male and female. To be successful, works of historical fiction, or in a quasi-historical genre, need to have an air of […]
In 1895, the Lumière brothers Louis and August debuted their invention a camera-projector for motion pictures called the Cinématographe. On December 28th of that year, they showed their films, a series of short clips of scenes from everyday life, at the Grand Cafe in Paris. Though they had shown their films to the public before, […]
Christmas is one of the few times in the year when we Americans celebrate our nation’s European heritage. Though Christmas itself dates back over a millennium and some of our holiday traditions are ancient, many hail from the Victorian era. I believe this is partly due to the surplus of great literature from that […]
Professor Ione D. would be fascinated to hear this one. I first heard this story on on the NPR program “All Things Considered.” It concerned a chef in the north of England who has been recreating Christmas dinners of centuries past. Ivan Day is a food historian who disdains the “boring” turkey of the modern […]
One hundred and six years ago today, Roald Amundsen’s expedition reached the South Pole, being the first humans to do so. The expedition went smoothly, though it was not without controversy. Amundsen had been planning to head for the North Pole, but hearing that Americans Frederick Cook and Robert Peary had gotten the jump on […]
Today is the 100th anniversary of Finland’s independence from Russia. Just weeks after the Bolshevik Revolution, Finland broke free and thus avoided all the carnage that most of the former Russian Empire suffered. Finland may be a small country, but it’s got moxie. In the Winter War of 1939-1940, it fought back the mighty USSR […]
Good day to all! I am writing this during my journey to the American West. I always enjoy my quests here. The people are friendly and the homemade food is a divine pleasure. One of the main characters in Vaughn Treude’s latest book Fidelio’s Automata, is Tallulah Hightower, a Choctaw Indian opera singer. This inspired […]
