Arizona

Arizona is another western state in which the landscape (and the efforts of the Department of the Interior) provides most of the attractions. These are to their credit some of the more mythic of our attractions, at least to me, and as I have noted elsewhere on social media lately, walking around the southwest in a cowboy hat and ducking out of the heat into a western bar for a night of imagined adventures has always been an unrealized personal ambition of mine (I have never been to Arizona).

1. Grand Canyon National Park, in North Central Arizona, 37 miles from Flagstaff, west of U.S. Route 89.

Over 6 million visitors a year, the second most of any national park (I have been to the most-visited, Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, several times). There is an entire section on the official website dedicated to avoiding crowds. Teddy Roosevelt himself declared it the one great site every American should see. I have a feeling right now that I'm not going to make it out there, but maybe if I can keep myself alive long enough an opportunity of the kind will eventually present himself. Then there are the other sixteen essential Arizona sites presented in this chapter.

2. Canyon de Chelly National Monument, in the northeast, in the Navaho Indian Reservation, north of U.S. Route 66. "Prehistoric Indian ruins built at the base of sheer red cliffs or in caves in canyon walls; modern Navaho Indian homes and farms."

This site feels pretty iconic to me as well. It only (compared with the Grand Canyon anyway) gets around 440,000 visitors a year, though this still makes it one of the most visited National Monuments in the United States. All of the land is owned by the Navajo Nation, not the federal government. It is also free to visit.

I'm having trouble finding pictures of nice looking girls at these sights. There were a few at the Grand Canyon, but they all accompanied articles stating that they had died or been murdered there so I didn't want to use them.

3. Casa Grande National Monument, in south central Arizona, 2 1/2 miles from Coolidge, west of U.S. routes 80 & 89. "Ruined adobe tower built by Indians who farmed the Gila Valley 600 years ago; only prehistoric building of its type still standing."

This is the sight. According to the internet maps, it is set in a small park with the full array of fast food, etc, restaurants across the street. I suppose if I want to see it I'll have to remember to stop in on my way somewhere else. It looks like it isn't too far from Phoenix, maybe 50 miles, not that I have any reason to go there, but you wouldn't have to get too far off the main roads. I used to seek out sites like this in New England when my child were younger, we'd go out and drive for an hour or more to be some notable rock or something and when we'd get there everybody would say "Is this all?" I have fond memories of those outings but no one will go for them anymore unless it happens to be just me and the three smaller children, and then I have to promise to get them ice cream or something afterwards.

4. Chiricahua National Monument, in the southeast, 70 miles from Douglas, west of U.S. Route 80. "Wilderness of unusual rock shapes; layers of rock tell the story of nearly a billion years of the earth's history."

"A wonderland of rocks" proclaims the website, with a 8 mile paved scenic drive and 17 miles of hiking trails at the site. You can camp there as well. It receives 60,000 visitors a year. The average high temperatures from May to September are, respectively, 104, 108, 109, 103, and 100. In 1980 a naturalist disappeared in he park without a trace. It is about an hour and 20 minutes to the Mexican border, which is probably not a big deal but to someone like me who has never been close to it and still has an idea of Mexico as a somewhat dangerous and decidedly un-U.S. like place, though this is doubtless an outdated view, I would be getting some butterflies at thought of being so close to exiting the country. To be honest, I have something of the same sensation when I go into Canada, which is only about two hours from where I live, like it is going to be so different, yet I always feel at first like I am being naughty somehow for going out of the country, though the farther I get from the border, I become more comfortable and get over it.

5. Navajo National Monument, in the northeast, in the Navajo Indian Reservation, east of U.S. Route 89. "Three of the largest of the known cliff dwellings--Betatakin, Keet Seel, and Inscription House."

Approximately 61,000 visitors a year. This is yet another place that seems like it is really famous, but maybe just to people like me who read a lot of encyclopedias as a child. The Inscription House, mentioned above, has been closed to the public "for many years." The area designated as part of the National Monument is quite small, only around 360 acres. It is free to visit, and there is a visitor's center on site with a museum, auditorium, bookstore, etc.

6. Petrified Forest National Monument, in the northeast, 19 miles east of Holbrook, on U.S. Routes 260 and 66. "An abundance of petrified trees in brilliant and varied colors; Indian ruins; part of the Painted Desert."



Upgraded to a National Park in 1962. 644,000 annual visitors. It contains 9 sites, mostly archaeological, that are part of the National Register. Seven hiking trails. Visitors center, museum, etc. The area was the setting of the 1935 play The Petrified Forest by IWE author Robert E. Sherwood (Abe Lincoln in Illinois) and the 1936 movie of the same name starring Bette Davis, Leslie Howard, and Humphrey Bogart.

7. Pipe Spring National Monument, in the northwest, 13 1/2 miles west of Fredonia, on U.S. Route 89. "Historic Fort and other structures built by the Mormons, 1867-70."

25,000 visitors a year. It's close to Utah, in what looks like an especially remote place. The site offers tours and "a glimpse of American Indian and pioneer life in the Old West (Wikipedia)." Sounds great to me.

8. Saguaro National Monument, in the southeast, 20 miles east of Tucson, on U.S. Route 80. "Cactus forest containing giant saguaro, found only in deserts of southern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico."

Just under a million visitors a year. Upgraded to a National Park in 1994. Hiking, bicycling and horseback riding are the primary recreational activities. I assume most of the nature-oriented National Parks will be safe from either re-assessment or the effects of market forces for the time being, though I suppose even in the desert they would be considered to be on stolen land that must be taken away from the acting American state and its supporters and returned to its rightful owners. But I continue to focus on the current status of these sites in my reports. 

9. Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, in the southwest, crossed by the Sonoyta-Rocky Point Highway. "Rare desert plants found nowhere else in the United States."

The southern boundary of this park is concurrent with the Mexican border. Plans are afoot to construct portions of the controversial Wall here, indeed two miles of panels are evidently already in place. The National Park Service is on record opposing the construction of the Wall here due its potential destruction of ancient artifacts. The internet is telling me I can currently fly here for $97. 260,000 annual visitors pre-pandemic. In 2002 a ranger was shot and killed by a drug smuggler. In fact the drug running and illegal immigration activity was so out of hand that the park was largely closed from 2003 to 2014. Supposedly it is safe to visit now.

10. Sunset Crater National Monument, in the north central part, 14 miles northeast of Flagstaff, east of U.S. Route 89. "An extinct volcano, and large fields of cinders and lava; upper part of volcano colored as if by sunset glow."

100,000 visitors a year. There is a hiking trail around the base but you cannot go the summit. A Hollywood production of a Zane Grey novel in 1928 planned to detonate explosives on the side of the mountain to create an avalanche, which served as the impetus for protecting the site. This looks like an interesting place to me, who does not live near anyplace with such recent volcanic activity--this mountain is believed to have erupted as recently as 1085, though it is considered to be extinct now.

11. Tonto National Monument, in central Arizona, 3 miles southeast of Roosevelt, north of U.S. Route 80. "Well-preserved cliff dwellings occupied by Pueblo Indians six hundred years ago."

Only around 40,000 visitors a year. Surprising, as it does not look like it is terribly far from Phoenix, it seems like it would be interesting, and there are even a river and a lake nearby, which is rare in this part of the world.

12. Tumacocori National Monument, in the south, 18 miles north of Nogales, on U.S. Route 89. "Historic Spanish Catholic Mission building near site first visited by Father Kino, a Jesuit, in 1691."

Nogales is right on the border with Mexico, so this place is pretty far south as well. Nowadays there is an interstate highway (I-19) that runs right by the site. 40,000 annual visitors. The building has been considerably restored over the past one hundred years from being essentially a ruin. Some of the pictures show flowers and grass growing on the patches of earth in front of the mission, which are quite beautiful, though evidently this occurrence is seasonal. Father Kino, who was actually a native of Italy, appears thus far to have avoided cancellation. His extensive Wikipedia page makes him out to be not such a terrible guy--"he opposed the slavery and hard labor in the silver mines that the Spaniards imposed upon the native people"(!)--but all of these people seemed not so horrible to us once, and he was clearly zealous for the Roman Catholic God, which I think sends your problematic score into the stratosphere no matter how pure your motives may have been. He has an elaborate tomb in Sonora, Mexico where his skeletal remains are still visible (he died in 1711).

13. Tuzigoot National Monument, in central Arizona, 2 miles east of Clarkdale, on U.S. Route 89. "Some of the most interesting prehistoric pueblo ruins, lived in almost one thousand years ago."

Pretty much in the same vein as the rest of these smaller sites. About 100,000 annual visitors. Administered by the National Park Service. Native American relics. Etc.

14. Walnut Canyon National Monument, in north central Arizona, 8 miles from Flagstaff, on U.S. Route 89. "Cliff dwellings built by Pueblo Indians about eight hundred years ago."

Not far from Tuzigoot, and a seeming similar sight. 167,000 annual visitors. One thing about these western attractions is that being for the most part national parks or monuments, they are all still open and mostly unchanged from what they were fifty years ago when this list was made (for the time being). When we get back into some of the older states the attractions either no longer exist or have been seemingly forgotten.

 15. Wupatki National Monument, in north central Arizona, 28 miles northeast of Flagstaff, on U.S. Route 89. "Red sandstone prehistoric pueblos built by a group of farming Indians".

Near Sunset Crater (#10 above). 200,000 annual visitors. Based on the photos, this site looks like it may have the most actual ruins by mass, number of bricks, etc, at least, of the monuments featuring ancient ruins in this post. As with all of these places, there is doubtless a lot for most people to learn if they have the chance to go there.

16. Painted Desert, 366 miles long, in north central Arizona, Route 66. "A region of plateaus, brilliantly colored red yellow, blue, and brown." 

The modern Wikipedia entry lists this as more like 160 miles long, "running from near the east end of Grand Canyon National Park and southeast into Petrified Forest National Park." The way it is described I am imagining this as a scenic passage that one drives through in crossing the state, but that doesn't seem to be exactly what it is. The major road roughly following the area laid out in the descriptions of this area is Interstate 40, which has largely replaced the old, and famous Route 66, but it isn't clear to me how much, if any, of this Painted Desert you would pass through on this road. With the new Blogger update/interface, I am having trouble with getting the pictures to not come out super gigantic here at the end.

  

 17. Tombstone, in the southeast, on U.S. Route 80. "The most famous of the old mining towns, once noted for its violence and lawlessness."

Legendary western boomtown, famous for being the home of the O. K. Corral, this place looks like a pretty kitschy tourist trap even by my forgiving standards. I suppose if you are passing through that part of the world and would like to stop off someplace with people and bars, which I would certainly want to do, it doesn't look like there is much else around in that area. Most of the hotels on the town's official tourist website look rather ratty. Even the Tombstone Grand Hotel, which I imagined might be a sort of cool relic from the frontier days, appears to be essentially a Hampton Inn, though currently you can stay there for $77 a night, which is inexpensive compared to the part of the country where I live. The current temperature (4 or 5 pm local time on August 27) is 98 degrees. 

  

William Makepeace Thackeray--The Book of Snobs (1846-7)

This was a bit of a strange choice for the list. While Thackeray was, and still is to some extent, one of the most prominent Victorian novelists (two of his other books are also on this program), this book, a collection of comic pieces written for the legendary Punch magazine, has not, judging by what is available for sale on the used book websites, been reprinted much going back to about 1900. My copy of the book is a 1999 edition put out (in English) by a German publishing house, Konemann, based out of Cologne. The IWE, in its characteristic enigmatic fashion, promotes the selection by observing that "Thackeray enjoyed writing humor and fancied himself as a humorist but was not so good in the field as he supposed. The Book of Snobs is his best humorous writing but is not in a class with his novels." There is some truth in this critique--Thackeray did not have the extreme natural talent for humor of a Dickens or a Fielding and at times he is noticeably straining for an effect more than would be evident in those other writers--but this book really is quite funny, if somewhat repetitive, it has considerable value as an unusually informal portrait by a top rank writer of the society of the time, and it has the benefit as well of being relatively unknown and not beaten to death through being manhandled by everybody in the Western world with a humanities degree. It also calls to mind the great periodical writings of the 18th century, The Spectator (which for better or worse was the impetus for me to start blogging), The Tatler, The Rambler, and so on, which rank among the most enjoyable things I have ever read. So I liked this a lot, though it is not without some problems which must be acknowledged.

Even though he denounces American slavery several times, he uses the "n"-word every time he refers to people who are dark-skinned, whether they are American slaves, or Othello. It's his default word for black people. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the book is generally always out of print. There is also a brief reference to Disraeli and Sir Robert Peel, the Prime Minister at the time who was of the opposite party, which is innocuous enough to read if you are not aware of the house politics of Punch, but there is a footnote which explains that "there were campaigns at the time to remove disabilities on Jews, but Punch was far from sharing this liberal opinion..." It should also be noted that this book contains illustrations drawn by Thackeray himself, and in the same footnote regarding this Disraeli item, it states that "Thackeray added one of his more regrettable illustrations to this item (not reproduced in the present edition)."

p. 86 One more rather insensitive section to take note of (it is The Book of Snobs after all). From the chapter 'A Little About Irish Snobs": "I think the shams of Ireland are more outrageous than those of any country. A fellow shows you a hill and says, 'That's the highest mountain in all Ireland;" or a gentleman tells you he is descended from Brian Boroo, and has his five-and-thirty hundred a year...or ould Dan rises and says the Irish women are the loveliest (ed--there is a case to be made that this is true), the Irish men the bravest, the Irish land the most fertile in the world: and nobody believes anybody." The shots at Ireland seem a little cruel considering that the country was enduring mass starvation and depopulation at the very time this was being written. But I have noted a similar indifference to this crisis in other famous English writers of this period, Ruskin, etc. 

p. 150 On visiting the country: "Do you suppose that an agreeable young dog, who shall be nameless (ed--he is peaking of himself), would not be made welcome? Don't you know that people are too glad to see anybody in the country?"

p. 155-6 In an interlude characteristic of the Spectator, the author publishes a charming letter which he claims came from a girl in the north of England asking him whether she might be a snob or not. It contains a number of nice details about how the family always got the magazine on Sunday and would tear it open in the carriage on the way home from church and that sort of thing.

p. 162 Referring to an episode in a popular society novel of the era called Ten Thousand a Year, about a gentleman who has experienced a decline in his fortunes: "It is about seven o'clock, carriages are rattling about, knockers are thundering, and tears bedim the fine eyes of Kate and Mrs Aubrey as they think that in happier times at this hour--their Aubrey used formerly to go out to dinner to the houses of the aristocracy his friends. This is the gist of the passage...What can be more sublime than the notion of a great man's relatives in tears about his dinner?"  

p. 163 The great Mr Goldmore, the East India Director, on hearing that a friend had had dinner at the house of a lawyer acquaintance of theirs who was known to have no practice: "'What! Do they give dinners?' He seemed to think it a crime and a wonder that such people should dine at all, and that it was their custom to huddle round their kitchen-fire over a bone and a crust."

"Snob" by the way is not exclusively used in the book in the manner in which we use it, but it refers to everyone who buys into any of these absurd value systems and social customs, even if one is himself is not in a position where he is benefiting from them. 

p. 202 On poor Mr Sackville Maine, who sounds like me: "He agreed in everything everybody said, altering his opinions without the slightest reservation upon the slightest possible contradiction."

Belonging to a "club", is something that, whenever I read anything about them, I always feel like I ought to do. I lack gravity (gravitas?), somehow, which I feel like is one of the things holding me back from qualifying for admittance to a club, but there is no reason why I should to such a socially crippling extent. At the same time the country clubs seem to be begging for members now, so maybe I could get in, but would the quality of the bar and the lounge or the library (assuming they have one?) really be the same (once they started letting people like me in)?

p. 207 "What a deal of vanity that club mirror has reflected, to be sure!" 

The Bourgeois Surrender Challenge

There are a lot of upsets available in the qualifying for this one, so matchups will be everything in the early rounds. 

1. Donna Tartt--The Secret History............................................................................3,592

2. Anthony Bourdain--Kitchen Confidential..............................................................2,952

3. Julia Child--Mastering the Art of French Cooking................................................1,265

4. Phillipa Gregory-Tidelands.......................................................................................883

5. MacColl & Wallace--To Marry an English Lord......................................................687

6. Julian Fellowes--Snobs.............................................................................................653

7. M. C. Beaton--Snobbery With Violence....................................................................208

8. M. C. Beaton--Minerva: The Six Sisters Book I........................................................142

9. Elizabeth Hayley--Sex Snob.......................................................................................120

10. Marion Chesney--Hasty Death..................................................................................81

11. Garry Wills--The Future of the Catholic Church With Pope Francis........................69

12. Jeffrey Steingarten--It Must Have Been Something I Ate...........................................45

13. A. O. Scott--Better Living Through Criticism............................................................37

14. Stephen T. Um--Why Cities Matter.............................................................................35

15. Julian Fellowes--Society Rules: Two Novels: Snobs and Past Imperfect....................24

16. Aeschylus--Four Plays................................................................................................24

Round of 16

#16 Aeschylus over #1 Tartt

Here we go right off the bat with an almost impossible match-up between one of the more acclaimed books of the last thirty years having to square off against, well, Aeschylus. As an IWE author Aeschylus gets a more or less free passage into the semifinals under the rules of this game unless he encounters a book which has any immunity of its own, but Tartt, making her first appearance in the tournament, did not have that here.

#2 Bourdain over #15 Fellowes

The late Bourdain, besides being a celebrity author, also comes in armed with an upset. However, Fellowes is only half-eliminated, since the first volume of the book eliminated here also qualified in its stand-alone version.

#14 Um over #3 Child

Child is a classic as well but I'm probably not going to read a two volume cookbook as part of my program here.

#13 Scott over #4 Gregory

I eliminate genre books, which qualify for this game a lot, whenever I can. Do you what kind of books almost never qualify for this? Popular history and other non-fiction titles from the 1945-1990 era, which is a class of books I am partial to. 

#5 MacColl & Wallace over #12 Steingarten

Obviously this is the result of having an upset card. 

#6 Fellowes over #11 Wills

I am a little concerned that I have too many novels winning in this contest lately (though looking over the recent winners I would say that only about half of them actually are novels), but my interest is piqued by this Snobs book, which is also fairly short.

#10 Chesney over #7 Beaton

So now I am finding out that Marion Chesney and M.C. Beaton are the same person, or rather were, as this author of many names passed on last December 30th at the age of 83. Both of the books in this contest are part of a series of "Edwardian Murder Mysteries". 

#8 Beaton over #9 Hayley

Beaton had a upset to deploy here, maintaining her formidable presence in the tournament.

Super 8

#2 Bourdain over #16 Aeschylus

Bourdain has a second upset to carry him past the goliath Aeschylus into the Final Four. But he has spent them all now.

#5 MacColl & Wallace over #14 Um

To Marry an English Lord came in armed with a double-barrel of upsets as well. Do you think I really want to read this? 

#6 Fellowes over #13 Scott

I was interested in the Scott book--I like the short introductory videos on classic films he used to do on the New York Times website--but Fellowes looks to be the better received book.

#8 Beaton over #10 Chesney

It's a toss-up. Minerva has the better cover.

Final Four

#2 Bourdain over #8 Beaton

Bourdain doesn't need an upset to finally oust the pesky Beaton/Chesney from the tournament.

#6 Fellowes over #5 MacColl & Wallace

Championship

#6 Fellowes over #2 Bourdain

Bourdain triumphed over Fellowes in the first round, but he is not able to overcome him twice and falls in a very competitive final. 

 

August 2020

A List: Aristotle--(The Nichomachean) Ethics.................................................99/248

B List: W.M. Thackeray--The Book of Snobs.................................................217/218

C List: Shirley Jackson--The Haunting of Hill House......................................83/221

I was a little thrown off today by the new Blogger format, which I had to spend about an hour figuring out how to use. 

The Ethics, along with the Politics, are the "easy" Aristotle books, as opposed to the Metaphysics and especially the Physics, which one of my tutors at school said had never been translated properly into English and spent many years working on his own translation of the book, which, while it may well have been the most accurate, may also I think have ended up being the most unreadable of them all. One should learn Greek to read these things anyway. I did read a decent amount of fundamental Western philosophy in college, including this of course, though I never formed a coherent view of who was correct or which positions I thought were especially significant. Re-reading this, the arguments laid out are very familiar, particularly the idea of moderation and that the truth or ideal state of action usually lay between the extremes, and I am sure that I have long incorporated this understanding of the nature of things into my day to day life to some extent, and I assume there is something of truth in it, as it seems to make some sense, or more sense than what you find elsewhere in life. But I have never gotten much past this in my studies in philosophy.

I don't usually like haunted house type stories, but Hill House is pretty much literature, or close enough to it, it has the clean, direct 1950s style of writing that I love so much, as well that rarest of attributes in my present life, I can read it in the evening without straightaway falling asleep, so, whatever happens or whatever it means, I am enjoying reading it. 

This month's photos are more outings around New England, actually I think all three of the states (VT-NH-ME) are covered, which I hadn't realized.

This swimming hole is in Fairlee, Vermont

This place was in the White Mountains. My wife thought the spot was more beautiful than the famous Flume--she is in my opinion prejudiced against the Flume because it is crowded and expensive, but this site is celebrated for a good reason. 

Back at the place in Vermont

Candid photo of me attempting to read on the beach in York, Maine. (Empty pizza boxes not mine, I no longer eat pizza unless I am at some kind of gourmet pizza place, which obviously during this time I have not been to any such place).

I don't mean to be posting so many pictures of myself, but I am under 200 pounds now for the first time since probably 1998 or 99 and who knows if I will be able to maintain it, so I figure I had better record it while I can.

At home.