Meanwhile, speaking of policy, of which Trump has none, J.D.
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lolonursereplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @KarenStrickholm
Off on a tangent, interrupting a very intelligent conversation, I do love Rene Magritte! Pardon me. -
lolonursereplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @KarenStrickholm
I'm intruding again, just because storytelling is many thousands of years older than literature. The importance of oral histories of families, societies and peoples were the bases of so many of our greatest stories/books. Who isn't drawn to a good story or raconteur?! I know my maternal history because of stories passed down by the women. -
@lolonurse @wdlindsy A. You are NOT intriding!
B. Was just thinking maybe we could hashtag this convo. I enjoy both of you!
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@KarenStrickholm @wdlindsy
Hash away! I likewise enjoy both of you️ -
William Lindsey :toad:replied to lolonurse last edited by
@lolonurse @KarenStrickholm Thank you so much.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to lolonurse last edited by
@lolonurse @KarenStrickholm Not intruding in the least! Yes, what would literature be without a story? Homer surely didn't create his story out of whole cloth, but was telling stories long handed down. The earliest Irish literature — same thing. I love Amy Tan's work because it preserves and retells stories told by women in her culture.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to lolonurse last edited by
@lolonurse @KarenStrickholm Not interrupting at all. He's someone I should educate myself about more. I have always liked his "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" after encountering it in literature courses in college, and thinking, "What the heck? What does that even mean?" When I finally got the point, a whole world of insight opened up.
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lolonursereplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @KarenStrickholm
Native Americans, Mauri, Mongols, Ethiopians, and ........... the Jews! Books like The Source and Exodus and The Physician, to name a few, draw from stories told for centuries and millennia that give us insights into how people lived, interacted & thought. I love archaeological/anthropological/historical stories, including novels. (And yes, when it came out, I gobbled up Clan of the Cave Bear - willing suspension of disbelief.️ ) -
Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @lolonurse Totally. We are created inside stories, our social stories of who we are.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm last edited by
@KarenStrickholm @lolonurse I love the way of putting that point. I love this line from Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union: “The story, Detective Landsman, is telling us. Just like it has done from the beginning”
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to lolonurse last edited by
@lolonurse @KarenStrickholm Yes, absolutely. Right now I'm reading Abraham Verghese's The Covenant of Water, and it shows the deep importance of storytelling traditions in the Mar Thomas community in India and its branches in Ethiopia. And, yes, such a strong storytelling tradition in Yiddish communities and other Jewish communities. It has long tugged at me as a reader.
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lolonursereplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @KarenStrickholm
Good book!
My family didn't/doesn't know Yiddish, but having been German for 700 years, French before that... there are a lot of historical family stories that happen to be about Jewish Germans, etc. My family members were shocked by Hitler, bc they saw themselves as Germans who happened to be Jewish, as opposed to Jews in Germany. -
Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @lolonurse Bookmarked it thanks ️
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@lolonurse @wdlindsy Yes that was so true. If you ever meet someone with Spanish heritage whose last name is a city name, it is highly likely they were descended from conversos, the Jews who had to convert or get out, when Ferdinand and Isabel finished conquoring the country. Interestingly there are still families here in rural New Mexico that light a candle every Friday night. They don't know why, just that it is a tradition still honored. Descendants of conquistadores.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to lolonurse last edited by
@lolonurse @KarenStrickholm Yes, I'm enjoying Verghese's book very much. In traveling in Germany, again and again I've seen monuments in German villages to the fallen of WWI and noticed that they include Jewish names that would, in WWI, be dishonored, with members of those families murdered by the Nazis. One of my professors in grad school was from a Jewish family in Berlin that was totally assimliated to German culture, making real contributions in WWI — and was targeted by the Nazis.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm last edited by
@KarenStrickholm @lolonurse The conversons are so fascinating, and from what I read, many New Mexico families have discovered that their ancestors were conversos who went to New Spain and faraway New Mexico to escape persecution.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Karen Strickholm last edited by
@KarenStrickholm @lolonurse I'm finding it fascinating.
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Karen Strickholmreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy @lolonurse Most of my German ancestors left in the mid-1800s, there was an immigration wave of "German free thinkers" back then. Not sure they were specifically part of that but they were in NYC and in areas like music and architecture. My grandmother's side. She married a man from the deep south with heritage going back to pre-revolutionary times, owned slaves and plantations. Later divorced, rare for the time. Other half is Estonian. So interesting, America!
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@KarenStrickholm @wdlindsy
There is (was) a priest in NM who learned he was a crypto-Jew, & he helped his congregation figure out how many were Jews. One of my great-great-grand-uncles went to CA in 1849, found gold & went home, but another one moved to NM, married, lived in Albuquerque with his wife & son & daughter. He's buried in Truth or Consequences. I have a photo of them in front of their cabin. I gave their info to the NM Jewish History museum/archives. -
William Lindsey :toad:replied to lolonurse last edited by
@lolonurse @KarenStrickholm These stories are so fascinating. I had a whole book recounting them, and after reading through it, put it out into my little free library and was glad to see that someone took it.