Showing posts with label rare books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rare books. Show all posts
Monday, June 15, 2020
They Did It! Rare Book Dealer Interviews
>> READ THIS POST ON THE NEW PLATFORM AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM
Monday, May 20, 2019
Why Do Old Books Smell? / Plus from the Archives: "What the Muse Sent Me About the Tenth Muse, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz"
By C.M. Mayo www.cmmayo.com
A most wonderful rare book about a 17th century American poet, whom I aim to write about, has arrived in my library. But phew, it STINKS. It stinks so nasty, I cannot even bear to read half a page of it.
>> CONTINUE READING THIS POST AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM
A most wonderful rare book about a 17th century American poet, whom I aim to write about, has arrived in my library. But phew, it STINKS. It stinks so nasty, I cannot even bear to read half a page of it.
>> CONTINUE READING THIS POST AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM
Monday, November 06, 2017
Further Notes on John Bigelow, Jr. (1854-1936): ON THE BLOODY TRAIL OF GERONIMO, the Rare 1958 Westernlore Press Edition
 |
| John Bigelow, Jr. |
>>CONTINUE READING THIS POST AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM
Last Monday's post was a batch of notes on John Bigelow, Jr. (1854-1936), an undeservedly obscure personality in late 19th century and early 20th century American history. This Friday at the Center for Big Bend Studies conference I'll be giving a talk about the diverse periods of his life and achievements. The title: John Bigelow, Jr.: Officer with the Tenth Cavalry, Military Intellectual, and Nexus Between West and East.
I'm not aiming to write Bigelow's biography, although he certainly merits one,* and I hope my work may encourage and aid some other scholar in that endeavor. Apart from this talk and, fingers crossed, resulting paper for the Journal of Big Bend Studies, my project is a literary travel memoir, World Waiting for Dream: A Turn in Far West Texas, in which Bigelow appears, briefly, or at some length, in various chapters, as he was stationed in or traveled through Fort Stockton, Fort Davis, Peña Blanca (now Peña Colorado, a public park south of Marathon), the Guadalupe Mountains, and other sites in the Trans-Pecos, that is to say, Far West Texas at different times in the late 19th century. Hence, it behooves me to do this research-- and wagonloads more about the Apaches and Comanches, et al-- and if you find this subject half as fascinating as I do, gentle reader, you're in for a fiesta with more than a few firecrackers.
*An excellent partial biography by Marcos Kinevan is Frontier Cavalryman: Lieutenant John Bigelow with the Buffalo Soldiers in Texas (Texas Western Press, 1998).
 |
| My copy of the 1958 edition of John Bigelow Jr's ON THE BLOODY TRAIL OF GERONIMO (The cover shows an illustration by Frederic Remington) |
Bigelow's articles in Outing, and as reproduced in this tome, are accompanied by illustrations by a number of artists including Poultney Bigelow's Yale University classmate, the then-unknown Frederic Remington.
As Woodward writes in his foreward, "It was a fortunate combination. Bigelow the young lieutenant who was breaking into print for the first time, and Remington, who was likewise doing his first important commission as an illustrator."
In fact, this was not Bigelow's first publication-- although it was his first for a general readership. Two years earlier, in 1884, Bigelow had published his study of two major battles in the Franco-Prussian War, Mars-La-Tour and Gravelotte. And, over the years, he would go on to produce an important oeuvre on military strategy.
Bigelow's Outing essays comprised his diaries as an officer in the Tenth Cavalry, published as a series of 14 articles under the title "After Geronimo," beginning in March 1886 and concluding in April 1887. As in Texas, Bigelow remained with the 10th, an African American regiment first established in 1866, but in this action they had been sent further west, to Arizona, to mop up the last of Apache resistance. The Comanche had been defeated in Palo Duro Canyon in 1874, and with Geronimo's surrender in September 1886, the wars in the southwest ended. (On the northern Plains, the Ghost Dance War, Pine Ridge Campaign, and Massacre at Wounded Knee would be over by 1891.)
Despite the title, Bigelow's diary says little about the Apaches and less about Geronimo, but it provides a rare and colorful felt sense of what is was like to serve in the West in the last days of the Indian Wars. It is also a window onto Bigelow as a military intellectual, one supremely well-versed on the literature of war and, in particular, battles of the U.S. Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War-- and one who, even while chasing Apaches on horseback, was thinking about the logistics and professionalism required for the industrialized wars of the future.
THE APACHES
Linguistic evidence suggests that the Apache arrived in the southwest of what is now the United States after having migrated from the northwest centuries ago. The story of the wars against them, first by the Spanish, then the Mexicans, sometimes the Comanches, and then beginning in the 1830s, the Americans, is an ugly one with many chapters. By 1885 the Apache had been decimated, and survivors eked out a meagre life on reservations (another ugly story in itself, with many chapters). On May 17, 1885, a small contingent of Chiricahua Apache led by Geronimo and Nachez bolted the reservation with over 100 other warriors, women and children, heading towards Mexico. Writes Woodward in his introduction of Bigelow and his men:
"[T]heir work guarding the mountain passes leading out of Mexico into Arizona was a most important one. No one knew exactly where Geronimo and his band would strike."
A graduate of West Point's class of '77, Bigelow had no personal animus towards the Apache. He was a patriot from the very core of the Eastern Establishment, a career officer in want of the field experience that could bring him a promotion. Previously, he had served in Texas with the Tenth Cavalry from late 1877 through the end of 1879, participating in the Victorio Campaign, then returning to West Point as an assistant professor of French. He married in Baltimore in 1884, then returned to Texas again, this time with his bride and baby, first stationed at Fort Davis, Texas, then to Fort Grant, Arizona for the Geronimo campaign.
There is much more to say about his varied and outstanding career, but to return to the Geronimo Campaign, Bigelow made no bones about his motives for returning West. As he writes in his diary for May 19, 1885 (Outing, April 1886):
"I had rejoined my regiment with the expectation of gaining in efficiency from experience in the field, and I realized the fact that the opportunities for doing so in our army were becoming fewer and harder to seize every year. I also realized that laurels were scarce along Indian trails, and that they grew in difficult places. It was principally for the practice of looking and reaching for them, with the hope that the skillfulness this acquired might some day serve me under more favorable conditions, that I aspired to getting on the trail of these Chiricahuas."
But in the same entry, Bigelow also says:
"The American public does not know the meaning of the phrase, Indian atrocity-- not its true meaning... There is no public organ to give them utterance. Their revolting indecency often excludes them from every respectable paper..."
MORE ABOUT THE 1958 EDITION
In the past, for this sort of research I would have made do with online materials or purchased an ex-library or otherwise beat-up "reading copy" from whatever used bookseller. But I have become a rare book nerd! And this fine, mylar-covered and autographed (by the editor, Arthur Woodward), was not so expensive after all (say, half the cost of a pair of not-quite-Ferragamos, or less than the cost of 4 pounds of brisket BBQ). It is a finer edition than I expected, and with a crisp, two-color title page. Check this out:
 |
| The two color title page, 1958 edition, in pristine condition |
 |
| The editor of the volume, Arthur Woodward, was Chief Curator of History and Anthropology of the Los Angeles County Museum, and the author of several books on Western history. |
 |
| The end papers, front and back, show the same map: OUTLINE MAP OF THE FIELD OF OPERATIONS AGAINST HOSTILE CHIRICAHUA INDIANS |
This first illustration, a portrait of Geronimo, is not by Frederic Remington but by J.R. Chapin, dated 1885.
 |
| Portrait of Geronimo by J.R. Chapin |
And here are several of the Remington sketches:
 |
| "Tenth Cavalry Types" by Frederic Remington |
 |
| "Arrival of the Doctor" by Frederic Remington |
 |
| "The Dog of Nogales" by Frederic Remington |
 |
| "A Six-Mule Government Team and Wagon" by Frederic Remington |
 |
| "Reading the Orders" by Frederic Remington |
 |
| "The Race" by Frederic Remington |
 |
| "One of the Pack Mules Turned a Somersault" by Frederic Remington |
 |
| "Surprised by a Party of Mexicans" by Frederic Remington |
LT. BIGELOW AND HIS DIARY
Bigelow was an unusually well-educated officer. His father was a renowned New York newspaper editor and eminence of the Republican Party whose friends included such literary lights as Charles Dickens, Joaquin Miller, Mark Twain, and Oscar Wilde. (Bigelow, Sr was also the editor of Josiah Gregg's iconic best-seller Commerce of the Prairies, and when serving as US ambassador to France during the Civil War, had rescued Benjamin Franklin's autobiography. More about Bigelow, Sr. anon.) John Jr.'s diary is wonderfully rich with vivid detail, e.g.:
"May 19, 1885... The men and officers have not remained in the fiery furnace in which the command unsaddled. The men are mostly strewn along the railroad track, asleep in the shade of the freight cars; others are in the pump-house, through which water is brought up from an artesian well into the railroad tank; others are lounging on the platform of the station. They officers are in the warehouse. They are an ennuyé-looking set at this hour of 4 P.M.; one of them is sleeping on the hand-truck... About 5 P.M. took place the great excitement of the day-- a passenger train came in from the West, and stopped about five minutes. A brisk sale ensured of newspapers and California fruit, in which a crushing railroad monopoly possessed itself of many a last cent. One officer paid 4 bits (50 cents) for four oranges." (Outing, April 1886)
"September 6, 1885... Like most primitive American towns [Harshaw] consists of one street, lined with box-like frame houses, largel eating and drinking places; in front of these we saw an assortment of Harshaw's men of leisure, whose facial expressions conveyed a seeming determination not to be the first to say good-day." (Outing, June 1886)
A LANDSCAPE OF INDUSTRIALIZATION
While Bigelow does describes the saguaro cacti, gila monsters, and other exotica, including Mexican tortillas, pinole, and panocha, he and his men traverse a rapidly industrializing Arizona of railroads and hardscrabble mining towns. When possible, to spare the horses, he would march them along the railroad.
In Clifton:
"October 3, 1885... While coming into the town, I had noticed a peculiar intermittent light... which I thought might come from an electric light; now I saw that it came from a smelting work across the river. It was produced by the fresh slag; the pigs-- that is, I believe, what they call them-- breaking open as they rolled down the side of the dump, exposing the incandescent mass inside. having seen to the feeding and grooming of my horses, I started out with Lietnenant Reade in search of a dinner. We wandered down the street to near the end of the town, and entered the largest and brightest-lighted of the many resorts that we passed-- a typical mining-town amusement hall. From a sort of large box I looked over a breast-high, counter-like partition into the main room upon a crowd of men and women of various ages and nationalities. At the middle of the side opposite the entrance was the bar. At the farthest end, from which came the sounds of lively music on the violin and other instruments, I could see figures bobbing and whirling through square and round dances. About the middle of the room was a mixture of Mexicans and Americans, sprinkled with Germans, English, Irish and other nationalities... Some of these people were playing at the billiard-tables, others were seated on the side of the room opposite the bar, or standing about the floor engaged in more or less excited conversation. The women, coming up in their promenades between the dances for a change of scene and air-- sometimes for refreshment at the bar-- were fewer here than at the farther end of the room. As seated at one of the restaurant tables, I took in the animated scene, I questioned to myself the propriety of my being where I was, especially of my being seen here in uniform. Before I had answered this questioning to my entire satisfaction, a couple of well-dressed gentlemen came into our little room, and as they sat down at the table next to ours, one of them was designated to me as the Governor of the Territory. I had no further concern as to the propriety of my situation. Having eaten a good supper, I repaired, rather tired, to my saddle and blankets for the night." (Outing, August 1886)
"January 21, 1886. My authority for a leave having come yesterday, I... boarded a train and settled down with my Spanish grammar and my papers and periodicals to their enjoyment from a spring-cushioned seat. At Benson, the junction with the Southern Pacific Railroad, I lunched at a Chinaman's, at the small cost of twenty-five cents, and I think I know what I ate. It brought me back to civilization to find myself, as I did at one o'clock, seated in a sleeping car opposite a young man in a close-fitting checked suit, carrying an extreme height of collar and sporting a varnished cane."(Outing, November 1886)
WHITHER GERONIMO?
 |
| Not a scene Lt. Bigelow saw: Geronimo and his warriors in Mexico, prior to their surrender in Skeleton Canyon, Arizona |
Bigelow did not see much action nor even get close to Geronimo; the Apache warrior-shaman seems an almost ghost-like presence in the diary.
"Sept 8, 1885... Geronimo is thought to be making for the San Mateo Mountains, the Indian strongold in New Mexico. I expect soon to hear of a movement of troops from the border towards the interior" (Outing, July 1886)
"October 7, 1885... About an hour after dark I made out a fire among some trees ahead of me. Having proceeded to within a few hundred yards of it, I halted, dismounted the troop, and advanced with my ranking non-commissioned officer to determine what it was. The corporal put his ear to the ground and reported, "They are cowboys, sir; I hear the voices." So I mounted and pushed on. When about one hundred yards farther, we crossed a railroad and a hard level stretch beyond it, and came upon a stream about twenty feet across, which I took to be the Gila. I worked my way along it toward the fires on the opposite bank, hallooing for some one to come and show me where to cross. I was soon answered by a man standing close to the water's edge, who told me to do so where I stood, and asked me who I was. Upon telling him, I asked him, with lively curiosity, "Who are you?"
"I am Lieutenant Reade."
It turned out to be my friend and classmate, Lieutenant Reade, of my regiment, and my corporal's alleged cowboys were his men." (Outing, August, 1886)
"October 4, 1885... I went to the telegraph office for news. Learned that... General Crook concludes that the Indians have returned to Sonora." (Outing, August, 1886)
"February 3, 1886... I apprehend that Geronimo is not yet ready to make an unconditional surrender." (Outing, December 1886)
"March 4, 1886... Camp-life seems drearier and emptier than ever. I try to reconcile myself to it as a wholesome discipline in preparation for the intervals of inaction in real way, but it is hard to imagine this inanity in real war." (Outing, January 1887)
"March 18, 1886. It is now three days since General Crook was to have met Geronimo, but we have not yet heard of his doing so." (Outing, January 1887)
"March 21, 1886... This time last year I was packing to move from Texas to Arizona and I have been pretty constantly in camp or on the march ever since. When I consider what little professional advantage that this roughing it is affording me, I am satified with the prospect of a return, without honor or distinction, to my garrison home." (Outing, January 1887)But the violence, and for Bigelow, the chase, heats up in May. Bigelow and his men are in the field, hearing stories of killings and kidnappings, seeing signs of Indians, visiting abandoned and pillaged ranches-- but still, no Geronimo. The last article in the series, published in April 1887, in the main diary entries from June 1886, have Bigelow and his men roughing it out in the field.
"June, 1886... we found the body of a man shot through the heart. From papers lying near him and from his appearance, I judged him to be a German. He was evidently camping here, cultivating a small vegetable garden.. I noticed on the top of his head a raw, white circle about the size of a dollar, which showed him to have been scalped." (Outing, April 1887)
They cross the border into Mexico, passing near American-owned mines:
"San Lazaro, Mexico, June 14, 1886... I am told that the day after I passed through here going east, a party of Indians, numbering thirty-seven, crossed the road some twenty-five miles below, testifyng to their hot pursuit by eating raw meat." (Outing, April 1887)
Without ceremony, the diary trails off with the last installment in Outing April 1887, when presumably, readers would have known of Geronimo's surrender in September 1886 in Arizona's Skeleton Canyon.
In the diary published in Outing Bigelow says little of the Chiricahua Apache. Most of his descriptions of Indians of are of his own scouts, Tontos and Mojave. However brief and light his focus, Bigelow has an eye for novelistic detail:
"December 14, 1885...After issuing them their arms, ammunition, accoutrements and camp equipage, I proceeded to take down the wants of my Indians in the way of clothing. which struck me as rather capricious. Some wanted a hat, and some did not; the same was the case with boots... In order to get at the sizes they needed, I had toi let them try on my own boots and hat and gauntlets.... One Indian amused us very much in his first attempt to utilize a boot-jack." (Outing, September 1886)
"January 30, 1886... Tonto Jim... did not stay long, as I offered him nothing to smoke. These Indians are greater smokers if cigarettes than the Mexicans. Not smoking myself now, I have discontinued keeping tobacco, and I apprehend that my Indian friends will fall off from me. They used to come in and make long visits on my tobacco-box, and would often ask me for tobacco and cigarette papers, of which I kept an extra supply for them. They never say "thank you," or anything that seems like it. I do not think there is any such phrase in their language." (Outing, December, 1886)
GERONIMO THEN, GERONIMO NOW
I cannot help but wonder what Bigelow would have made of the rest of Geronimo's life, and whether he reflected upon his own influence on Geronimo's fame. (Perhaps I shall find out, if I can consult his diaries, which are in the Library at West Point.) After a stint as a POW in Florida, then Alabama, Geronimo lived out his life in Fort Sill, Indian Territory. Writes William A. Clements in Imagining Geronimo:
"Geronimo became a celebrity. He attended world's fairs in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1898; Buffalo, New York, in 1901; and Saint Louis, Missouri, in 1904. He participated in Theodore Roosevelt's inauguration in 1905 and was courted by Wild West show entrepreneur Gordon Lillie (Pawnie Bill). He was a tourist attraction and provided good copy for journalists who speclated that he had gone mad, that his much heralded conversion to Christianity was only a sham, and that he was plotting an escape. Newspapers sought his opinions on topics such as the Filipino resistance to the American presence following the Spanish-American War and the education of Apache children. Geronimo died in 1909 from pneumonia that he contracted after lying out all night after one of his protracted drinking bouts." (p. 10)
Much more anon.
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
# # #
NOTE: Normally I post on Mondays, but since I'll be at the Center for Big Bend Studies conference, the next post will appear mid-week. Speaking of tardiness, because of multiple household moves this year, I am behind schedule with the podcasts, mainly interviews, apropos of my book. Stay tuned! Podcasts 21 (Seminole Scouts), 22 (Sanderson), 23 (Archaeologist Andy Cloud) and the final 24 (The Blue Lady, Maria de Agreda) are all in-progress and will be posted, starting early in the new year. In the meantime, I invite you to listen in any time to the other 20 that have been posted to date.
Monday, September 04, 2017
What is "Writing" (Really?) / And a New Video with Yours Truly Talking About Four Exceedingly Rare Books
On his always thought-provoking blog, the author of Deep Work, Cal Newport, recently posted "Toward a Deeper Vocabulary" on how we need more words for "writing." As a productivity expert (among other things) Newport has often been invited to "dissertation boot camps." He writes:
I agree. In writing all of my books it has been my consistent experience that "writing" is not a linear process akin to clocking in, and, say, ironing shirts. It's a complex, zizaggily circular-ish process-- to quote Newport, "involving different cognitive efforts"-- that oftentimes doesn't look like "writing."
(That said, sometimes-- sometimes-- you've just gotta velcro your posterior to the chair and bang the words into the Word doc.)
As those of you who have been following my blog have heard ad infinitum, I am at work on a book about Far West Texas. Um, that means I need to write it. But there are other tasks directly relevant to ending up with a published book, for example, reading about Far West Texas, traveling in and observing Far West Texas, taking notes, transcribing notes as dictation, reviewing photographs and videos, interviewing people, transcribing those interviews, and so on and so forth.
Right now, for example, I am finishing Andrew Torget's excellent Seeds of Empire: Cotton, Slavery, and the Transformation of the Texas Borderlands and last week, I plowed through Andrés Reséndez's also superb The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America. Pending writing for me is an essay / podcast (to be edited and incorporated into my book in-progress) about the Seminole Scouts (many of them ex-slaves) in the Indian Wars...
If I were to simply sit down and commence typing, it would be akin to trying to cook without having assembled the proper equipment and ingredients. In other words, I need to have read Torget and Reséndiz (among many other works), to have transcribed my notes, and so on and so forth.
Not that I have not done quite a bit of the writing already, I mean, there are words on paper, there are bits and pieces, an introduction, some sections... Like I said, the process is zigzaggily circular.
I oftentimes compare "writing," in its broadest mushiest sense, to cooking. And chefs will understand me when I say, you have got to master mis-en-place.
YE OLDE "MIS"
What is mis-en-place? In plain English, you don't want to start the whipped cream for what might be a chocolate cake when your countertops, stovetop, and sink are cluttered with pots and spoons and dishes and splotches from the mushroom croquettes. Or whatever it is you were making. You need to start clean; then assemble your utensils and equipment; then assemble your ingredients; then wash, cut, chop; then cook.
So to follow the analogy of writing as cooking: reading and researching could be compared to assembling utensils and equipment; taking notes, transcribing, and filing could be compared to washing, cutting and chopping... and typing, say, to putting the skillet onto the burner... that is to say, actually, finally, cooking.
Back to starting clean. In 2014 I published Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual (a book that was, in a way, a digression, however, the Mexican Revolution will appear in Far West Texas book, as you might guess, if you've ever seen a map of the Texas-Mexico border). This week, I wanted to be working on the Far West Texas book, but two long-pending tasks for that Mexican Revolution book were nagging at me. These were to
So that is what I did the past few days--I read Torget, I finished editing the transcript of my talk and posted the PDF (which you are welcome to download here), and, whew, I just uploaded that video I have been meaning to make since 2014(!)
Was this procrastination? No, gentle reader, it was good old fashioned mis-en-place. Stay tuned for the podcast on the Seminole Scouts in Far West Texas. (Listen in anytime to the other 20 podcasts posted to date here.)
Back to the question of the writing process. How do you know when what you're doing is a legitimate task towards finishing a book (or thesis or story or essay), and when it's procrastination? To my writing workshop students, I say, you need to decide that for yourself. As for me, I rely on intuition and common sense (which sometimes contradict each other), and then, no drama, I just decide. Yes, once in a while (usually when I did not heed my intuition), I look back and think, hmm, maybe thus-and-such could be done differently next time. And whatever, it's fine. I don't ruminate about woulda coulda shoudas (that would be procrastination!), I just get to the day's work, as best as I can.
> For more about the writing (and publishing) process, check out my talk of yore for the Writer's Center, "The Arc of Writerly Action."
> See also "Thirty Deadly Effective Ways to Free Up Bits, Drips & Gimungously Vast Swaths of Time for Writing."
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
"Something that strikes me about these events is the extensive use of the term 'writing' to capture the variety of different mental efforts that go into producing a doctoral dissertation; e.g., 'make sure you write every day' or 'don’t get too distracted from your writing by other obligations.' The actual act of writing words on paper, of course, is necessary to finish a thesis, but it’s far from the only part of this process. The term 'writing,' in this context, is being used as a stand in for the many different cognitive efforts required to create something worthy of inclusion in the intellectual firmament of your discipline."
I agree. In writing all of my books it has been my consistent experience that "writing" is not a linear process akin to clocking in, and, say, ironing shirts. It's a complex, zizaggily circular-ish process-- to quote Newport, "involving different cognitive efforts"-- that oftentimes doesn't look like "writing."
(That said, sometimes-- sometimes-- you've just gotta velcro your posterior to the chair and bang the words into the Word doc.)
As those of you who have been following my blog have heard ad infinitum, I am at work on a book about Far West Texas. Um, that means I need to write it. But there are other tasks directly relevant to ending up with a published book, for example, reading about Far West Texas, traveling in and observing Far West Texas, taking notes, transcribing notes as dictation, reviewing photographs and videos, interviewing people, transcribing those interviews, and so on and so forth.
If I were to simply sit down and commence typing, it would be akin to trying to cook without having assembled the proper equipment and ingredients. In other words, I need to have read Torget and Reséndiz (among many other works), to have transcribed my notes, and so on and so forth.
Not that I have not done quite a bit of the writing already, I mean, there are words on paper, there are bits and pieces, an introduction, some sections... Like I said, the process is zigzaggily circular.
I oftentimes compare "writing," in its broadest mushiest sense, to cooking. And chefs will understand me when I say, you have got to master mis-en-place.
YE OLDE "MIS"
What is mis-en-place? In plain English, you don't want to start the whipped cream for what might be a chocolate cake when your countertops, stovetop, and sink are cluttered with pots and spoons and dishes and splotches from the mushroom croquettes. Or whatever it is you were making. You need to start clean; then assemble your utensils and equipment; then assemble your ingredients; then wash, cut, chop; then cook.
So to follow the analogy of writing as cooking: reading and researching could be compared to assembling utensils and equipment; taking notes, transcribing, and filing could be compared to washing, cutting and chopping... and typing, say, to putting the skillet onto the burner... that is to say, actually, finally, cooking.
Back to starting clean. In 2014 I published Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual (a book that was, in a way, a digression, however, the Mexican Revolution will appear in Far West Texas book, as you might guess, if you've ever seen a map of the Texas-Mexico border). This week, I wanted to be working on the Far West Texas book, but two long-pending tasks for that Mexican Revolution book were nagging at me. These were to
(1) Finish the editing on the transcript of my 2016 talk at the Center for Big Bend Studies Conference about the book (this is for an academic readership, extensively footnoted, and includes new material about another edition of Madero's book)
(2) Finish a short video to share some images and information about four exceedingly rare books in my personal library, which for scholars of the Mexican Revolution, and especially anyone studying Francisco I. Madero, would be vital to see.
So that is what I did the past few days--I read Torget, I finished editing the transcript of my talk and posted the PDF (which you are welcome to download here), and, whew, I just uploaded that video I have been meaning to make since 2014(!)
C.M. MAYO TALKS ABOUT HER BOOK AND
FOUR EXCEEDINGLY RARE BOOKS
Was this procrastination? No, gentle reader, it was good old fashioned mis-en-place. Stay tuned for the podcast on the Seminole Scouts in Far West Texas. (Listen in anytime to the other 20 podcasts posted to date here.)
Back to the question of the writing process. How do you know when what you're doing is a legitimate task towards finishing a book (or thesis or story or essay), and when it's procrastination? To my writing workshop students, I say, you need to decide that for yourself. As for me, I rely on intuition and common sense (which sometimes contradict each other), and then, no drama, I just decide. Yes, once in a while (usually when I did not heed my intuition), I look back and think, hmm, maybe thus-and-such could be done differently next time. And whatever, it's fine. I don't ruminate about woulda coulda shoudas (that would be procrastination!), I just get to the day's work, as best as I can.
> For more about the writing (and publishing) process, check out my talk of yore for the Writer's Center, "The Arc of Writerly Action."
> See also "Thirty Deadly Effective Ways to Free Up Bits, Drips & Gimungously Vast Swaths of Time for Writing."
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
Monday, May 19, 2014
Cyberflanerie: Better Books, Books of Note, Decluttering Books, Rare Books
Making Better Books:
The Book Designer's archive of articles "practical advice to help build better books"
Chronicling America in the Library of Congress (newspaper archives)
Book Aesthete Tumblr
Books of Note:
Sam Quinones' Tell Your True Tale East Los Angeles
The Daily Beast's Ted Gioia says The Smartest Book About the Digital Age Was Published in 1929. (José Ortega y Gasset's The Revolt of the Masses.)
My book! Updated edition in Kindle, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual.
>see also recent Madam Mayo posts on Gregory Gibson's Demon of the Waters and Bruce Berger's The End of the Sherry.
>see also lists of recommended reading on Mexico; creative process; craft of creative writing; literary travel memoir.
Decluttering Books:
Early Retirement Extreme on How to Get Rid of Books
>see also Madam Mayo's easy-peasy 10 Question Method
Rare Books:
Mexico Desconocido on Mexico City's antiquarian bookstores (en español)
>see also recent blog post, Una ventana al mundo invisible (A Window to the Invisible World) or, Master Amajur and the Smoking Signatures
COMMENTS always welcome
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Una ventana al mundo invisible (A Window to the Invisible World): Master Amajur and the Smoking Signatures
 |
| My go-to antiquarian bookstore in Mexico City |
Window to the Invisible World
Una ventana al mundo invisible. Protocolos del IMIS
Editorial Antorcha, Mexico City, 1960.
[A Window to the Invisible world: Protocols of the IMIS]
 |
| A Window to the Invisible World: Protocols of the Mexican Institute for Psychic Research Mexico City, 1960 |
This book, Una ventana al mundo invisible, is nothing less than the official, meticulously documented records of the dozens and dozens of research-séances of the Instituto Mexicano de Investigaciones Síquicas or IMIS (Mexican Institute of Psychic Research) from April 10, 1940 to April 12, 1952, members of which included-- the book lists their names and their signatures-- several medical doctors and National University (UNAM) professors; an ex-Rector of the UNAM, the medical doctor and historian Dr. Fernando Ocaranza; several generals; ambassadors; bankers; artists and writers, including José Juan Tablada; a supreme court justice; an ex-Minister of Foreign relations; an ex-director of Banco de México, Carlos Novoa; Ambassador Ramón Beteta, ex Minister of Finance; and... drumroll… both Miguel Alemán and Plutarco Elías Calles. *
 |
| Close up of the subtitle. Madam Mayo disapproves of the font. (Dude, what were you smoking?) |
 |
| President of Mexico, "El Jefe Máximo" Plutarco Elías Calles. In retirement he joined the IMIS and was a regular participant in the research-séances documented in Una ventana al mundo invisible |
When Una ventana al mundo invisible was published in 1960, Alemán was long gone from power, and Calles had passed away.
I had heard, as has anyone who goes any ways into the subject, that Alemán and Calles and other Mexican "public figures" were secret Spiritists, but here, dear readers, in the Protocolos del IMIS, are the smoking signatures.
Yes, There are Other References to Una ventana al mundo invisible
 |
| The Revolution as dolor de cabeza |
Of course, I googled. A Mexican writer, Héctor de Mauleón, had discovered Una ventana al mundo invisible in a different Mexico City antiquarian bookstore and written up a summary for the October 2012 issue of Nexos. (But he complains of his copy's missing the picture of the conjured spirit, "Master Amajur." More about that in a moment.) And also recently, Grupo Espírita de la Palma, a Canary Islands Spiritist blog, which has posted several important bibliographic notes as well as a bibliography of Spanish works on Spiritism, posted this piece about the Jesuit Father Heredia's involvement with the IMIS--thanks to his friend, none other than Calles--and about this book.
How about WordCat? Yes, there are several copies of the 1960 edition of Una ventana al mundo invisible in libraries in Mexico City. And three copies in the United States: the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, and (why?) the University of West Georgia. Ah, and WorldCat also shows several copies in Mexico of an edition © 1993 and published in 1994 by Planeta and another, expanded edition published by Posadas in 1979.
(A research project for whomever wants it: to delve into the Mexican hemerotecas of 1960-61 for any newspaper coverage, and 1979 and 1994 for anything about the Posadas and Planeta editions. My guess is, not much, for the press was largely under the thumb of the ruling party and this sort of information about Mexican Presidents would have been, to say the least, unwelcome. But that's just my guess.)
So, Now, Delving into the Contents...
 |
| Rafael Alvarez y Alvarez (1857 - 1955) Mexican banker and founder of the Instituto Mexicano de Investigaciones Síquicas (IMIS) |
I dove right in and learned that the founder of the IMIS, to whose memory the book is dedicated, was Rafael Alvarez y Alvarez (1887-1955), a distinguished Mexican banker, a president of the Monte de Piedad, and a congressman and senator. (Looking at his portrait with my novelist's eye-- that gaze! the bow tie!-- yes, the intrepid maverick.)
The introduction is by Gutierre Tibón, an Italian-Mexican historian and anthropologist, professor in the National University's prestigious faculty of Philosophy and Literature, and author of numerous noted works, including Iniciación al budismo and El jade de México.
A Brief Bit of Background on 19th Century Parapsychological Research
The goal of the IMIS was to progress in the tradition of pioneer American, English, and European parapsychological researchers. From my book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution, the first chapter, which provides 19th century background for Madero's ideas about Spiritism, which he considered both a religion and a science:
"The exploits of mediums such as the Fox sisters, D.D. Home, the Eddy Brothers, and later in the nineteenth century, prim Leonora Piper (channel for the long-dead “Dr Phinuit” and the mysterious “Imperator”), and wild Eusapia Palladino (whose séances featured billowing curtains, floating mandolins and, popping out of the dark, ectoplasmic hands), spurred the studies of investigators, journalists and a small group of elite scientists. Noted German, Italian, and French scientists, such as Nobel prize-winning physiologist Charles Richet undertook the examination of these anomalous phenomena, but the British Society for Psychical Research, founded in 1882, and the American Society for Psychical Research founded three years later, led the fray. Though their ranks included leading scientists such as chemist William Crookes, naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, physicist Oliver Lodge, and William James (the Harvard University professor considered the father of psychology). Yet their researches almost invariably met not with celebration, nor curiosity on the part of their fellow academics, but ridicule, often to the point of personal slander."
Read more at www. cmmayo.com
On that note, for anyone interested in learning more about 19th century parapsychological research, a very weird swamp indeed, I recommend starting with science journalist Denorah Blum's excellent Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death. (See also Blum's website.)
Medium Luís Martínez and "Spirit Guide" Dr. Enrique del Castillo
As James et al had Leonora Piper, and Richet and Lombroso, Eusapia Palladino, the IMIS employed the medium Luis Martínez, who was able to evoke a broad spectrum of phenomena, from ringing bells to apports, ectoplasm, breezes, raps and knocks, levitation, and so on.
 |
| Luis Martínez Mexican medium |
In séances with Martínez, the IMIS heard from its spirit guide on the "other side," one Dr. Enrique del Castillo, a Mexican doctor of the 19th century. According to Dr Tibón in his introduction to Una ventana al mundo invisible (p. 20, my translation):
"The way he looked was perfectly well known because once he "aported" his photograph, which was later made into a larger size, framed and displayed the Institute's workroom. Another aport of Dr. del Castillo were his spectacles, identical to those in the portrait. He brought them on October 24, 1944, at 10:30 pm, in a séance that was documented in Cuernavaca, and he said these words, directing them to Rafael Alvarez y Alvarez: 'In leaving my spectacles to you, dear son, it is with the wish that you will see clearly the future road we must take. May these spectacles take you on the path where we will always be companions.'"
Enter "Master Amajur"
Of special note was the séance on the evening of September 24, 1941, when Plutarco Elías Calles invited Carlos de Heredia, S.J., author of a book debunking Spiritism-- and Father Heredia, sufficiently awed (and according to Calles, converted) affixed his signature as witness to genuine phenomena. That séance is documented in its entirety in Una ventana al mundo invisible. From Dr. Tibón's introduction (p.21, my translation):
"That memorable night there materialized another spirit guide for the circle: an oriental doctor named Master Amajur; and he did not only show himself completely to Father Heredia, he also spilled a glass of water, saturated it with magnetic fluid, and gave it to him to drink. Then there appeared the phantom of Sister María de Jesús and, before the astonished cleric, illuminated her face in a most unusual manner. Finally, Dr Enrique del Castillo appeared, surrounded by many tiny lights. These levitated the medium, chair and all-- the equivalent of raising almost 100 kilos-- and silently left him in the other end of the room. This phenomenon was verified for the first time. Later, I had the fortune to attend its repetition and I literally saw the medium fly two meters into the air."Master Amajur he started showing up from the first documented séance of May 8, 1940 (p. 89, my translation of some of the highlights):
"Master Amajur [appeared] very clearly, he touched all of us and he wrote a message which says: Go forward and I will help you. When we asked him [for a message] he left a message for Colonel Villanueva that says: It would be good for you to attend a séance. [… ]The first materialization produced an electric spark above the lightbulb that was loose in its socket[… ] There was an aport: a small bottle of perfume and its essence sprinkled above us. The music box passed over our heads. The Master gave us his cloak to touch, which seemed to all of us a piece of gauze. One again he produced a fresh breeze: it smelled of ozone.On June 12, 1940 (p.90, my translation):
[…] the Master came in. This manifestation appeared first as a human hand covered with a veil, imitating a human figure. Then it increased in size and luminosity until it came txo a height of about 1.5 meters. Only the head and bust could only be seen. It was covered in a bluish white veil which I touched with my face. It gave me the impression of being a cotton fabric… It gave me a large glass of water to drink… It put flowers in our hands, it gave us a perfumed air, and when luminous blobs passed near my face I perceived the smell of phosphorous."On June 22, 1941 (my translation, p. 92):
In front of all of us, Amajur left on the wall an inscription that said: Go forward. Upon request, he gave fluid to a magnolia and then he began to cut the petals. One by one these were deposited in the mouths of the participants.
And so on. Séance after séance after séance--96 in all--with sparks, music, levitations, ectoplasmic this & that, perfumes, flowers, and frequent appearances not only by Master Amajur and sundry others, but also a childlike spirit, "Botitas" (Little Boots), who would tug on the participants' pant legs.
Photographing Master Amajur
 |
| Close up of "Master Amajur" From the cover of Una ventana al mundo invisible |
"According to Mrs. Padilla [wife of Ezequiel Padilla, ex Minister of Foreign Relations, also in attendance on this occasion], and in agreement with all the other participants, at the moment of the explosion or flash from the photographer's lamp, in the shadow could be seen the complete figure of the master, as if a statue of about 2 meters covered in a cloak, from head to foot. It was also noted that Master Amajur received a powerful shock and on asking him if he would permit another photograph to be taken, he said no."
According to the dust jacket flap text, this is the very photograph that adorns the cover of the book. But, um, it looks more like a drawing to me. (As, by the way, many purported "spirit photographs" do. Google, dear reader, and ye shall find. Lots on eBay, by the way.)
 |
| Madame Blavatsky The monumental figure of modern esotericism Author of The Secret Doctrine and Isis Unveiled, etc. Founder, Theosophical Society |
For historians of the metaphysical, it is interesting to note that Master Amajur claimed to be a member of the Great White Brotherhood, a term which came into use in the West with Madame Blavatsky, co-founder of the Theosophical Society, in the 19th century. She claimed that her teachers, who often met with her on the astral plane, were the Great White Brothers or Mahatamas, the Ascended Masters Koot-hoomi (Kuthumi) and Morya. Later, her follower A. P. Sinnett expanded on this topic in a sensational book of its day, The Mahatma Letters (1923). Over the decades, other psychics claimed to receive channeled messages from various Ascended Masters, most notably "St. Germain" and Alice Bailey's "Djwahl Khul" or "The Tibetan." It would seem that "Master Amajur" falls into this rather blurry and ever-morphing category.*
*So are the terms Great White Brother, Mahatma, and Ascended Master one and the same? In this article in Quest, modern-day Theosophist Pablo B. Sender elucidates.
Interesting to note also that a google search brought up the tidbit that "Amajur" was the name of an astronomer of 10th century Baghdad-- though I hasten to add, according to the IMIS reports in Una ventana al mundo invisible, "Master Amajur" spoke Mexican Spanish. And of further note: there are Spiritist groups that continue to channel messages from Master Amajur today.
Dear readers, conclude what you will, and whether this finds you embracing a gnosis that "resonates" with you, cackling like a hyena, or just numbly confused, surely we can agree that this is all very remarkable.
So What, Pray Tell, Does All This Have to Do with Don Francisco I. Madero?
 |
| Francisco I. Madero President of Mexico 1911-1913; leader if the 1910 Revolution; and as "Bhima," author of the 1911 Spiritist Manual |
My book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution, is about Madero as leader of the 1910 Revolution and President of Mexico, 1911-1913 and how his political career was launched as an integral part of his Spiritist beliefs. (The book includes my translation of his secret book of 1911, Spiritist Manual, which spells it all out-- all the way to out of body travel and, yes, interplanetary reincarnation.)
Not all-- Enrique Krauze, Yolia Tortolero Cervantes, Javier Garciadiego, Alejandro Rosas Robles, Manuel Guerra de Luna, among others, are important exceptions-- but most historians of Mexico and its Revolution sidestep, belittle, or even ignore Madero's Spiritist beliefs. In my book, I have quite a bit to say about why I think that is (key words: cognitive dissonance), but in sum, few have any context for Madero's ideas which, for most educated people in the western world, fall into the category of absurd nonsense and "superstition."
My aim in my book-- and this blog post-- is not to convince the reader of the truth or falsity of any religious beliefs (ha, neither do I poke tigers with sticks for the hell of it), but to provide a sense of the history and richness of the matrix of metaphysical traditions from which Madero's beliefs emerged. And with this context, I believe, we can arrive at the conclusion that Madero was not mad, nor so naive and weak as many have painted him, but that, in fact, he was a political visionary of immense courage who found himself on a counterrevolutionary battlefield of such rage and chaos that, if it was fatal for him, would have been for almost anyone else as well.
Madero did not, like some mad alchemist, cook up his ideas by himself; they fit into what was then and is now a living tradition. Madero's Spiritism was French, itself an off-shoot of American Spiritualism, and with roots in occult Masonry and hermeticism and mesmerism; in the early 20th century, Madero also adopted ideas from a wide range of difficult-to-categorize mystics, such as Edouard Schuré, and from the Hindu holy book so beloved of the Theosophists, Thoreau, and Mohandis Gandhi: the Baghavad-Gita.
After Madero, on the one hand, we see Spiritism melding with folkloric and shamanistic traditions, as with the mediumistic healers Niño Fidencio, Doña Pachita, and the "psychic surgeons" of Brazil and the Philippines. On the other hand, a very small and adventurous group of what was primarily members of the educated urban elite-- as we see in Una ventana al mundo invisible-- continued the international tradition of parapsychological research that, as we know from his Spiritist Manual and his personal library, Madero greatly admired.
SURF ON:
>My book, now in paperback and Kindle:
Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual
>En español (Kindle):
Odisea metafísica hacia la Revolución Mexicana. Francisco I. Madero y su libro secreto, Manual espírita
>Resources for Researchers: Blogs, Articles, and More
>Mexico City's incomparable Librería Madero
MADAM MAYO
>Después de la muerte por Léon Denis or, A Super Brief Introduction to the Opportunity Cost of Rare Book Collecting
>Madame Blavatsky, Messenger from the Mahatmas
>Niño Fidencio
>Madero's Commentary on the Baghavad-Gita
>Marfa Mondays: We Have Seen the Lights
COMMENTS always welcome
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)