I asked chatbot about Gothic novels, when were they all the rage and who were the writers most noted for Gothic novels. This came up when I was reading Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and he was describing a thunder- / electrical storm during a sit-down meal at Doctor Manette's home.
AI prompt: I have two different sources talking about the "best" race horse ever, with regard to progency. These were both in the mid-19th century. One was Lexington (name of the horse) and the other was "Electioneer" -- a Leland Stanford horse. Is this an "apple-to-apple" comparison or two different classes of horse?
Google search:
If we use the dates, 600 - 580 BC, that's an incredible "narrow period of time" in the big scheme of things. But it's much more complicated than that: AI prompt:
Historians divide the Jewish / Biblical / Babylonian deportations into three events (605, 597, and 587) -- this is an incredibly short period of time -- about 20 - 30 years. Could one argue that from the perspective of the average Jew, he and/or his family was constantly o the move during those thirty years?
Greeks and Egyptians during this period of time.
During this period, the Greeks were in a period of development, Greek city-states were rising; developing its political systems, including the first democracy in Athens. This period is marked by the rise of Greek civilization.
The Babylonians at this time: the Chaldean Empire, the last independent Mesopotamian power and was at its height around 600 BC under rulers like Nebuchadnezzar II.
So, the Jews were "squeezed" by the Babylonians to the east/south and the Egyptians to the west. Egypt and Babylonian empires were fighting for control of the Levant. Egypt installed vassal kings in Judah to try to hold back the Babylonians / Chaldeans.
This period, 605 - 580 BC: three periods of captivity / deportations of the Jews:
Some escaped deportation to Babylon by fleeing to Egypt -- including the prophet Jeremiah, around 585 - 582 BC.
Jeremiah:
Cosmo Sapiens: Human Evolution From The Origin Of The Universe -- John Hands -- c. 2016
Chapter 31. Conclusions and Reflections on the Emergence and Evolution of Humans.
1. Human anatomical and genetic characteristics differ only in degree from those of other primates. What distinguishes us .....reflective consciousness ... not only does an adult modern human know but also it knows that it knows.
2. This is key .... the emergence of reflective consciousness -- was not merely degree but it marked a change of kind from the evolution of inanimate matter.
3. It is not possible to trace the lineage of the rise of consciousness to the point that consciousness became conscious of itself from a specific prehuman ancestor.
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28.1
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29.1
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35. While humans have been shaped by their genetic inheritance and their cultural environment, their possession of self-reflective consciousness has given them a unique capacity to transcend both.
Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and The World, Malcolm Harris, c. 2023.
This book inspired me to re-read the history of California. Along the way, I learned a lot of new words, and a lot of new jargon.
Book for the weekend. Just arrived. Amazon. Published 2023.
Author's bio. Something tells me this will be a history of Palo Alto of which few are aware. LOL.
The
author appears to be a bit farther to the left than Nancy Pelosi, and a
bit crazier than Hunter S Thompson. This should be fun!
Introduction and first few pages of chapter 1: really, really good writing. I'm impressed.
Chapter 1.1
To Whom Time Is Money
Dates:
Ohlone Indians.
General John C. Fremont
San Francisco Bay: South Bay
the short-lived Bear Republic -- p. 12 - 13
Johann Sutter, p. 19 -- Sacramento Valley, via Vancouver, Hawaii; from Europe
introduced the concept of time to the Indians; the bell;
1848: James Marshall, working for Sutter, found gold
Andres Castillero; land grant to an ancient cinnabar (mercury ore) mine
Mercury helps isolate gold by forming an amalgam, a mixture where mercury dissolves gold from crushed ore. After mixing the finely powdered ore with mercury, the amalgam is heated, which vaporizes the mercury and leaves behind the gold. This process, often called amalgamation, was historically used to separate gold from other materials.
The practice of using mercury to isolate gold is not attributed to a single discoverer, as the technique was developed independently in different cultures. The Incas in the Andes used mercury amalgamation to refine gold for centuries before its use in Europe, and the technique was also known in ancient Greece. However, the large-scale industrial use of mercury amalgamation for ore processing began with Bartolomé de Medina in 1554 in Mexico for silver, a process later adapted for gold.
explanation of how the '49ers affected the Alta California Indians way of life as opposed to the Spanish and the Mexicans.
"placer" (river bottom sand / sandstone) first mention, p. 17, along with jumping claims
the quick history of California statehood; via compromise to balance Texas;
The Compromise of 1850 was a legislative package that addressed the issue of slavery after California applied for statehood as a free state, which threatened the balance between free and slave states. The compromise admitted California as a free state, established a Texas-New Mexico boundary, and organized the Utah and New Mexico territories under popular sovereignty, while also abolishhing the slave trade in Washington, DC, and enacting a stricter Fugitive Slave Act.
1850: the Foreign Miners' Tax Act, p. 17.
Interesting, bottom of page 18 and top of page 19: Louisiana senator Judah P Benjamin. Connects with Fremont.
The story of how Americans literally took all this land from Mexico without any formal treaty. Of course, that begs the question, how did Spain, and then Mexico, acquire this land in the first place?
Plantation economy, p. 19.
Bottom of page 19: capitalist work around the world.
"The Age of Empire was dead." p. 20.
"Beginning in the 1840's the whole world became a British colony." -- p. 20.
British economic system -- need to quote -- genericity -- not in the dictionary -- p. 20. Even Google Gemini cannot answer the question.
Amadeo Giannini, The Bank of Italy / Bank of America. Story begins on page 33 -- but his story begins a page or two earlier.
Chapter 1.1 completed. An incredible chapter.
Chapter 1.2
The Combine
Leland Stanford
Lelad Stanford: a slacker. Born, 1824, Albany, NY. The fourth of seven sons.
Grandfather, Lyman Stanford, fortune with a shop near a toll-road stop along the Erie Canal.
Eldest brother, Josiah, Jr, first of the sons to go out west; was a forty-niner. Wow. Made him money selling shovels, not panning for gold.
Leland was the last brother to get out to California.
Michigan City --> Michigan Bluff (Placer County). Wiki.
Midway between Sacramento and Reno. The town was founded by gold miners. Mining began in earnest in 1853, and town was shipping $100,000 in gold per month by 1858. Leland Stanford ran a store in the town from 1853 to 1855. After hydraulic mining was banned, the town entered decline. The town is now registered as California Historical Landmark #402.
Leland started a tavern.
Rose to governor for one two-year term.
Moved to Sacramento.
The Associates: Leland Stanford and three fellow shopkeepers. Associates were abstemious.
Luck: Leland was GOP, and Abraham Lincoln had just been elected president.
1859: New-York Tribune founding editor and leading Republican Horace Greeley -- went out to California via Yosemite. Became huge railroad proponent.
Story of the transcontinental railroad.
Sierra Nevadas.
The Gadsen Purchase.
Theodore Judah: railroad engineer from Troy, NY.
The Associates raised a piddly $20,000 to execute Judah's plan.
Leland: governor, 1861 - 1863. Called himself governor for the rest of his life.
Civil wars at that time: China, Mexico, US, and the beginnings of Japan.
1862: Pacific Railway Act -- chartered the Union Pacific to build west from the Missouri River (ultimately from Omaha, NE) and the Central Pacific to build to the east until they met somewhere in the middle.
1864: the Pacific Railway Act of 1864.
1869: Ogden, Utah. Central Pacific meets the Union Pacific. Laid telegraph lines at the same time!
Money from around the world poured into the railroad scheme.
Global financial upset things, 1873.
Railroads folded. Central Pacific survived; owners -- the Associates-controlled railroad subsume the Central, earning the budding monopoly the Combine (combined the Central Pacific with the Southern Pacific).
The Combine was an octopus: timber, communications, wine, mining, large commodity farmers, fruit growers, stage coach lines, and wheat exporters. Frank Norris and the Associates: 1901 novel, The Octopus. Wiki. The Octopus and the Story of California.
Then the story of The Octopus, 1880s fictionalized account, Mussel Slough, an irrigation ditch in California's wheatful Central Valley. Leland Stanford was a very, very bad man. Makes me think of Noah Cross in Chinatown.
Then several pages on joint-stock ownership. Fascinating. Need to read again and again.
Sailed .... skipped ahead.
Chapter 1.3Blood That Trots Young
Horse Power -- The Palo Alto System -- Edward Muybridge (Helios) and the First Movie -- Leland Stanford, Jr. -- Founding Standford University
Will do notes later, perhaps. the subheadings for this chapter gives one a good start on this chapter.
Other names, etc:
the trotting horse: Electioneer
Stanford: moves from Nob Hill, San Francisco
1876: from Nob Hill to a 650-acre farm, Mayfield Grange in Santa Clara County off the train tracks south of the city.
Stanford renamed the area Palo Alto for the big tree next to the tracks.
Leland, Jr, born 1868, p. 65.
"unsupported transit," p. 71
Muybridge
Marey: pp. 71 - 73
see note re: Muybridge, begins bottom of p. 73.
The School of Sorrow
the story of Leland DeWitt Stanford, p.79; born in Sacramento in 1868.
"as a son of nearly peerless wealth" -- p. 80
Lelad Standford: and then he was dead, p. 82. March 13, 1884 -- two weeks before his 16th birthday. Typhoid, Greece --> Italy.
Announces university, 1887.
Two years later, Leland Stanford, dies.
Section II
1900 - 1945
Chapter 2.1
Local Ghosts
Battle for LSJU (Leland Stanford Junior University) -- The Almost Certain Murder of Jane Stanford -- Earthquake Federal Telegraph
1889: Leland Stanford dies.
Stanford University president Jordan vs Jane Lathrop Stanford (p. 89, fourth line). From then on, author used JLS, first use p. 90. Could be wrong but it appears that way.
Other People's Dreams: p. 94. The murder of JLS and the earthquake, 1906. Destroyed much of Stanford's personal and public real property.
1905: Jane Stanford poisoned; survived, January 14; fled to Hawaii; poisoned second time; died, February 18.
1906: earthquake.
The Age of Synergy -- p. 97.
P. 98: "West Coast Met." -- what does that refer to -- google West Coast Metropolitan.
First full paragraph p. 98 is the best one paragraph summary of the start of Palo Alto and Stanford University.
In 1909, recent Stanford graduate Cyril Elwell turned to [President of Stanford] Jordan and the civil engineering department head, C. D. Marx, to help him start a West Coast wireless telegraph and telephone company based on a license Elwell acquired to use French transmission technology.
The men jumped at the opportunity, and Jordan invested $500 of hismoney and wrangled more San Francisco capital.
In 1911, the Federal Telegraph Company (FTC) completed the first transmission between California and Hawaii.
Stanford integrated its first tech start-up with the school's facilities, giving FTC access ot the campus's high voltage laboratory for testing in exchange for some donated equipment. Elwell had the foresight to take his transmitter to Washington, where he wowed navy officials with his machine's long range and silent operation. The officials ordered ten of them on the spot, but more important, they developed immediate brand loyalty, signing up FTC for incrasingly big projects whether they matched the firm's existing capabilities or not.
When America entered World War I, contracts and jobs flooded into Palo Alto,where FTC built a new, larger factory. Over the course of a decade, the rural univerity town became a regional center for the new radio industry.
AI prompt:
In the 2023 softcover edition of Malcolm Harris' "The History of Palo Alto, p. 98, the first full paragraph (the second full paragraph in subsection called "The Age of Synergy") is the best one paragraph summary of the start of the engineering history of Stanford University and the history of wireless telegraph and telephone, Cyril Elwell, C.D. Marx, the TFC, and the first transmission between California and Hawaii. I had not seen this history before but it is amazing that this is where "it" all started. It could have been almost anything else but it was 1909, Stanford, and wireless telegraph.
What follows is amazing.
ChatGPT reply: transcribed elsewhere.
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Chapter 2.2
Bionomics --Making Me -- Lewis Terman and His Intelligence Quotient -- Finding Genius in California -- The Raisin Ku klux Klan -- The International-Radial-Communist Anarchist Club
Getting started.
Vernon Kellogg. Wiki.
Jordan (school president) and Kellogg were popular professors.
Bionomics: Leland Stanford and Charles Marvin -- history
Eugenics
Essentially horse breeding --> great men (intellectual strength).
White male.
Illinois student Ellwood Patterson Cubberley, p. 102, and then another Hoosier student, Lewis Terman, p. 103.
Alfred Binet "intelligence test," p. 103.
Evolved: a Stanford-Binet test.
Military testing --> school testing --> A-E which evolved to A-F.
Taller students at Stanford --> longer beds needed. Sports, p. 109. Similar to horse breeding. Discover bright students as early as possible (genes won't change) and grab them to give them a head start.
Football: the Stanford man.
"Today the Bay Area teams have left the Ivies far behind, but it wasn't a smooth ride."
Stanford and Berkeley initiated a fierce rivalry, imitating Harvard and Yale on the East Coast.
Pop Warner, p. 110.
Like a Rolling Stone: A Memoir, Jann S Wenner, September 13, 2022.
Part One: Beginnings
Chapter 1 -- Rainbow Road
rural suburbs of San Rafael, CA -- county seat, Marin County
Ruth Naomi "Sim" Simmons
Edward Wenner
Originally NYC
US military during WWII -- stateside
she: New Orleans, a quartermaster, US Navy
he: Lt, Monroe, LA -- Army Air Corps; taught pilots how to bomb targets
Married, 1943 -- NYC
Jann b. January 7, 1946.
At the edge of the generation that would become:
the largest,
the best educated,
the wealthiest
in American history.
In NYC, his pediatrician -- Dr Spock.
Parents started a company in the Bay Area -- BABY FORMULAS
custom-made bottles of formulas for Bay Area hospitals
Two sisters:
Kate, b. 1947;
Martha, b. 1949
Jann was a problem child; expelled from school early on, twice
His parents, with others, founded Marin Country Day -- private school
Summer camp: Camp Lagunitas -- rented later by the Grateful Dead
Mother: Democrat activist; with Alan Cranston
ultimately led to Pat Brown, Jerry Brown
First record player he recalls: 78 rpm GARRARD!!
BABY FORMULAS: ultimately 90% of all babies within 125 miles of San Francisco hospitals -- p. 9
Mentioned Robert Heinlein -- p. 9
A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens, 1855.
Gutenberg Project. In PDF, full book here.
Set in London, Paris, 1775 -- one year before 1776.
France:
England:
Book The First
Recalled To Life
Chapter 1
The Period
Very first page; second paragraph: reference to the events in America (1775)
""Sister of the shield and trident" refers to Britannia, the female personification of Britain. The phrase is most famously used by Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities to compare Britain to France, with the shield representing military strength and the trident symbolizing naval power.
Second page: grisly scene of a teenager burned alive before being tortured, and the the description of the guillotine.
The first chapter, only two and a half pages, gives an overview of London and Paris. French monarchy in absolute control; the British monarchy apparently can't control London.
Chapter 2
The Mail
This chapter introduces the protagonist of the story, a passenger in a carriage -- The Dover Mail -- likely traveling from Dover to London. Shooter's Hill is mentioned, located in southeast London, southside of the Thames, and on the southeast edge of Greenwich.
The passenger of interest: Mr Jarvis Lorry.
Apparently The Dover Mail was heading out of London when a rider, Jerry, approached the carriage to give Mr Lorry a message. Lorry was an employee off Tellson's Bank.
Message: wait at Dover for Mam'selle.
Reply from Lorry: recalled to life.
So, Mr Jarvis Lorry, of Tellson's Bank was heading to Dover (probably to Paris) when he was urgently recalled to London by his employer. But he would have to go to Dover -- complete the route -- and then wait for "Mam'selle."
Chapter 3
The Night Shadows
"The shadows of the night," page 17, back to the carriage on the southeast side of London. It sounds like "Lorry" is transporting cash to Dover, probably to France. Interesting name, "Lorry," as a transporter. Etymology of lorry: apparently first seen in England in 1830. A Tale Of Two Cities was published in 1859.
Lorry with an imaginary conversation with himself. He was 45 years old, remembering a death / a burial eighteen years earlier. Huge amount of symbolism. A very "difficult" vignette / an imaginary conversation. Apparenlty talking about someone buried alive for 18 years.
Important books published between 1850 and 1870 include Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities (1859) and Great Expectations (1861), Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace (1869), and Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). Other key publications were Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) and John Stuart Mill's On Liberty (1859).
Chapter 4
The Preparation
The coach is called the Concord coach, possibly named after Concord, New Hampshire. This might be the coach in which he will cross using the ferry from Dover.
It is incredibly difficult for Google Gemini to find the meaning of "drawer" in this chapter.
"... digging, digging, digging." Reappears -- major use of this phrase in previous chapter.
Mam'selle, Miss Manette, arrives by coach to meet Mr Lorry in the restaurant.
Not more than 17 years of age. She reminds him of a passage a very long time ago, perhaps 15. years ago.
Miss Manette was told by letter by the bank to meet Mr Lorry in Paris for an inheritance from her long-dead father. Tellson Bank is a bank of both Paris and London.
Page 25: "curtsied in those days." Takes place in 1755, first chapter begins in "winter, 1755." The book as published in 1859. Almost exactly one hundred years later.
Apparently Miss Manette's father has been found alive, 18 years after his supposed death -- "brought back to life... after 18 years."
At end of chapter another woman servant runs into the room and yells at other servants to get Ms Manette packed for trip to Paris.
Mr Lorry seems to be robot business man.
Chapter 5
The Wine-Shop
Now in Paris. Opens with bizarre episode of wine casket spilling.
Paris: everyone starving.
Opens in wine-shop / inn / bar. In the Sait Antoin district.
Monsieur Defarge -- wine-store owner.
Worked for Ms Maette's father many, many years earlier
Her old father lives upstairs.
Book The Second
The Golden Thread
Chapter 1
The Period
Chapter Six
Hundreds Of People
Doctor Manette and his daughter Lucie live in a two-story home; if not a mansion, a very, very nice and a very, very respectable home.
They have a housekeeper Miss Pross who has been with Lucie since the beginning.
Manette and daughter live near Soho Square.
Mr Jarvis Lorry lives in Clerkenwell, a bit more rundown and a bit more dangerous than Soho.
Need to google Clerkenwell and Soho to get a sense of the difference.
Lorry and his body guard Mr Sydney Carton were at the house.
At the trial: in the early part of A Tale of Two Cities, at the trial of Charles Darnay for treason, the two lawyers on the defense team were Mr. Stryver and Sydney Carton. Their roles were as follows:
Mr. Stryver was the ambitious, loud, and confident barrister (counselor) who presented the case in court and took public credit for the work.
Sydney Carton was Mr. Stryver's associate (solicitor, or "jackal," in the novel's terms) who did the bulk of the research, paperwork, and strategic thinking behind the scenes. It was Carton's keen observation of his own resemblance to Darnay that ultimately led to Charles Darnay's acquittal at this trial.
The other person to visit Doctor Manette and his daughter: the defendant, Darnay.
P. 106: Doctor Manette tells the story of something that was written and buried in the prison. Unknown what was written.
Mr. Lorry, Charles Darnay, and Sydney Carton became regular visitors at the Manette home, and their arrivals were generally separate events. The specific evening described (in Book 2, Chapter 6) unfolds as follows:
Mr. Lorry arrived by himself earlier in the day on a Sunday, as was his habit, to have dinner and spend time with the Manettes.
Charles Darnay was present for the dinner and the subsequent conversation, arriving sometime after Lorry but before Carton's later appearance.
Sydney Carton arrived much later, during teatime, after everyone had moved inside due to rain.
Therefore, they did not arrive all at once or in pairs. The order of arrival at the house that evening was Mr. Lorry, then Charles Darnay (who was already there for dinner), and finally Sydney Carton.
Wiki.
AI prompt:
How does Robert Kirk describe "second sight" in "The Secret Commonwealth" (1961)?
"Second sight" is specifically related to Scotland.
"Second sight" is a subset -- primary cultural -- of "the sixth sense," of ESP.
From the inroduction, p. xvii, Everyman's Library, Johnson and Boswell:
How would you interpret this paragraph written by Samuel Johnson: Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking begins. Far from me and from my friends, be such frigid philosophy as ay conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any groud which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied, whose patiotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose peity would ot grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.
Modern paraphrase:
Anything that lifts our minds above the immediate pull of our senses—anything that lets the past, the far-off, or the future outweigh the present—raises us toward the dignity of true thought. Let me and my friends never be so coldly rational that we could walk, indifferent and unmoved, over places hallowed by wisdom, courage, or virtue. A person deserves little admiration whose patriotism is not stirred on the plain of Marathon, or whose piety does not deepen among the ruins of Iona.
Explaation, plain language:
“Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses…”
Johnson says that true thinking begins when we rise above immediate, physical sensations and let memory, imagination, and reflection guide us.
He rejects a “frigid philosophy.” He doesn’t want a cold, emotionless outlook that treats historical or sacred places as ordinary ground.
Great places should move us.
A truly appreciative mind should feel stirred:
Marathon = site of the famous battle where Athenians resisted Persian invasion; symbol of courage and freedom.
Iona = an early center of Christian learning and spirituality in Scotland.
His point:
A person who feels nothing in such places is missing an essential human response—patriotism, reverence, imagination, connection to history.
In essence
Johnson is saying:
A mature mind should be capable of rising above the senses, and a worthy heart should be moved by places where great human deeds or spiritual acts occurred.
