The River of Doubt, or: Oh, My Theodore Roosevelt Was Quite a Badass

Readers, I've been reveling in my new found ability to read whatever random book that strikes my random fancy, and this week I'm all in a froth over one called The River of Doubt by Candice Millard (a suggestion from my friend Kathy--thanks, Kathy!). It's about Teddy Roosevelt's ill-planned & near-disastrous expedition down the River of Doubt, a then-unmapped tributary of the Amazon River, on which he almost died of malaria and/or dysentery.

He was making the exploratory journey under the quasi-endorsement of the American Museum of Natural History--which reacted with horror after Teddy changed his plans just after arriving in South America. He had initially planned a relatively sedated tour which included only a minimal amount of exploration, but switched to the more dangerous, death-wish conjuring expedition at the last minute (ostensibly because he was still sulking over a thorough spanking in the 1912 presidential election, running as the Progressive Party candidate, losing to Woodrow Wilson. He was such a sore loser that he didn't even take consolation in the fact that he at least beat poor Taft...). Have you ever seen the Herzog film Aguirre, the Wrath of God? Roosevelt's plan evoked similar themes of peril, misery, madness and death on the Amazon.

The President of the museum was Henry Fairfield Osborn (the paleontologist who named the T Rex and velociraptor, for all you Jurassic Park nerds out there), and he had a shit fit over Roosevelt's new plan. My favorite Roosevelt quote so far is his response to his dithering pal Frank Chapman, who was nervously mediating between Osborn and Roosevelt:

"Tell Osborn I have already lived and enjoyed as much of life as any nine other men I know; I have had my full share, and if it is necessary for me to leave my bones in South America, I am quite ready to do so."

Snap!

All's Well That Ends Well...?

We here at MM have been on full alert since it was reported last week that the New Albany flood wall was stolen in what will surely be known as the crime of the year (in New Albany). Compare the theft to the usual criminal activity of underage boozing, meth-related hijinks and marginally-illegal fireworks smuggling across state lines and what you have is a crime that belies the otherwise Mayberry-esque township. This, readers, seems like a crime that necessitates a deliberate, organized and well-planned inside job--very different from the usual heat-of-the-moment type of post-meditated mischief the area usually breeds.

Of course, none of my theories have thus far been supported by any hard facts. Authorities claim the theft is still "under investigation," but according to today's Courier-Journal the flood wall has been recovered! A Louisville recycling plant called "Freedom Metals" had apparently accepted the 40 foot square, 1-inch thick aluminum panels that make up the wall for scrap, but recognized them as New Albany's flood wall after reading the story last week. But I guess they don't keep records of their "donors" because the thieves are still at large. Hmmm...the plot thickens! You can be sure we'll be keeping a close eye on this one, readers!

As always, anyone having information about who may have stolen the New Albany flood wall should call the NAPD tip line at 812-948-6273.

New Albany Flood Wall Stolen!

Perusing the local news sites at work on the night shift can get pretty boring, especially on Mondays during football season. After 7pm or so it gets really quiet, and I'm left pretty much to my own devices. That's why I'm always thankful to our neighbor to the North: New Albany, Indiana (AKA: "the sunny side of Louisville") for always seeming to have hilarious problems. Problems like people going out and stealing their flood wall.

According to investigators the wall is valued at around $9,000. Anyone having information as to the whereabouts of the wall should contact the New Albany Police tip line at 812-948-6273.

"We Must Have Bodies"

A passage I absolutely must share from The Devil in the White City that concerns: 1. my home state, 2. the University of Louisville, & 3. unabashed grave robbing!

"After a foiled raid on a graveyard in New Albany, Indiana, on February 24th, 1890, Dr. W. H. Wathen, head of the Kentucky Medical College, told a Tribune reporter, "The gentlemen were acting not for the Kentucky School of Medicine nor for themselves individually, but for the medical schools of Louisville to which the human subject is as necessary as breath to life." Just three weeks later the physicians of Louisville were at it again. They attempted to rob a grave at the State Asylum for the Insane in Anchorage, Kentucky, this time on the behalf of the University of Louisville. "Yes, the party was sent by us," a senior school official said. "We must have bodies, and if the State won't give them to us we must steal them. The winter classes were large and used up so many subjects that there are none for the Spring classes." He saw no need to apologize. "The Asylum Cemetery has been robbed for years," he said, "and I doubt if there is a corpse in it. I tell you we must have bodies. You cannot make doctors without them, and the public must understand it. If we can't get them from any other way we will arm the students with Winchester rifles and send them to protect the body-snatchers on their raids."

(Larson, 150)

Wow! I wonder if today's up-and-coming young U of L med students are in some way touched by this plucky, unapologetically brazen "yeah, so what?" attitude from a century ago. Maybe each student, upon passing the enrollment exam for entrance into the medical school, receives a ceremonial Winchester rifle to keep in their dormitory. The students accept this token with baffled excitement, wondering at the purpose of such an offering. Dismissing it as an eccentricity (perhaps a cryptic sort of reminder of the Hippocratic Oath?), they blow it off as something symbolic, whose meaning has been lost to antiquity, never guessing that they are functional: ready for service when the State's supply of medical cadavers dry up.

The Devil in the White City

Readers, I am very happy to report to you that my graduate school toilings in library school at the distinguished University of Kentucky are now at an end. I sat for my nerve-shattering comprehensive exam in November and just last week received word that I passed ("with distinction," said the letter) the final examination for the Master's Degree in Library and Information Science. Hurrah!

So what does this mean for you, the loyal readership of the Missiles of Mercy? Well, it means I now have much more time to devote to pleasure reading: an activity that has shamefully been pushed to the wayside since the beginning of the Fall semester to make way for the dry, dense foliage that is LIS literature. And of course, in the spirit of our semi-regular summer reading 2009 rap sessions, I will be reporting on the various singularities and curios that I find especially reminiscent of our mission statement here at MM.

Case in point: I began reading Erik Larson's the Devil in the White City this weekend, and am currently 150 pages in. It's one of those non-fiction-written-as-fiction types of books that have began cropping up in the last decade or so (see also: Swanson's novelized narrative Manhunt, about the search for John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln assassination conspirators. It is excellent), and I have to say i'ts a trend I can certainly get behind. They are generally fun to read, packaging historically accurate information into a guess-what-happens-next kind of layout--this lends a kind of tension to the narrative that is lacking in your everyday biography or history book.

The story is, like so many about America at the end of the 19 century, pretty incredible. It concerns the conception, construction and operation of the Chicago World's Fair--including the architects who designed Chicago's "White City" (Daniel Hudson Burnham! Frederick Law Olmstead! Louis Sullivan!) and a handsome young sociopath who became America's first serial killer. Buffalo Bill Cody, Thomas Edison and Archduke Ferdinand also make appearances in the story(!) and you get to hear all about the grit & shit that accompanied the Gilded Age. Oh, Boy!

I am speeding through The Devil so I can start my next awesome non-fic pleasure cruise: Candace Miller's The River of Doubt, which is all about Theodore Roosevelt's crazy adventures exploring an unmapped tributary of the Amazon! You heard it here first! (Maybe!)

LOL Romance Novel Covers

Wow, in the course of doing some "research" (i.e. random internet surfing) I stumbled, Google image search style, onto a delightful phenomenon in the vein of the immortal LOL Cats: Photoshopped romance novel covers! Wow! It must be a pretty popular thing, because they actually made it difficult to find original, unaltered covers...

I will post a few of my favorites below:

Talking to Married Guys

I've noticed recently that some--maybe most--married men act sorta strange when a lady who is unknown to them tries to engage them in conversation. I've noticed this mainly in the course of my job at the local public library. Generally they'll be courteous, but there's something about the interaction that says "I can't talk to you! Lookit this ring!"

It almost comes off as insulting, but most of the time the guy is so obviously struggling to maintain some balance between stand-offish aloofness and polite discourse (and somehow failing on both accounts) that it actually has the opposite effect: I tend to want to talk to them more. I suspect it is this sort of thing that attracts women to married men in the first place--this kind of behavior could easily be perceived as adorable and nonthreatening (two things that girls like, btw, gentlemen).You've heard the old complaint: once a dude gets married he suddenly feels like women are hitting on him, women who would not have given him the time of day when he was single! My husband tells me stories all the time about women brazenly batting their eyes at him, willfully disregarding his fully-visible wedding ring. Well, readers, I think I may have busted this one wide open.

Case in point: I helped a guy find a book the other day. He was probably 35-40-ish, sensibly dressed, with a 6 or 7-ish little girl in tow (another cliche female turn on: fathering skills on display). The book I got for him was Manhunt by James L. Swanson. Anyone who kept up with my summer read list this year knows I was completely ga-ga for this novelized non-fiction narrative about the 12 day chase for Abraham Lincoln's assassin. So of course I was in "sell" mode to this guy--I really wanted him to read it! I should note that most people I talk to want to read Danielle Steel or the new Oprah hotcake--nobody wants me to flex my readers' advisory muscles in the direction of Lincoln lore, they just want me to show them to the mystery-solving cat novels (yes, mystery-solving cat novels. it's a horrifying genre all its own). So I was very insistent about him checking out this book, making not less than 3 statements about it's "readability."

This seemed to freak him out, and from then on he communicated to me exclusively through comments to his daughter. "Daddy would like to read this, don't you think?" he asked her desperately. "Daddy will check out the book now," "Daddy can't find his library card, do you think he can use his drivers license?" Girl: "Ask if they have princess books!" She did not appreciate the dramady unfolding in front of her.