NARRATIVE HISTORY AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

Transcription

1 And yet in fact you need only draw a single thread at any point you choose out of the fabric of life and the run will make a pathway across the whole, and down that wider pathway each of the other threads will become successively visible, one by one. Heimito von Doderer, DIE DÂIMONEN NARRATIVE HISTORY AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

2 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1781 September 9, Sunday: James Arnold was born to the Quaker family of Thomas Arnold and Mary Brown Arnold in Providence, Rhode Island. As a youth, Friend James would enter the whaling enterprise of Friend William Rotch, Jr. in New Bedford, eventually getting married with the boss s daughter, Friend Sarah Rotch, and becoming a partner, and accumulating a vast whale-oil fortune for which eventually he would find there to be no blood heirs. The whaler was a kind of pirate-miner an excavator of oceanic oil, stoking the furnace of the Industrial Revolution as much as any man digging coal out of the earth. Philip Hoare, THE WHALE: IN SEARCH OF THE GIANTS OF THE SEA (NY: HarperCollins, March 2010) MOBY-DICK, THE OIL SPILL NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University Stack of the Artist of Kouroo

3 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1786 June 3, Saturday: Sarah Rotch was born on Nantucket Island, in the Quaker family of William Rotch, Jr. NO-ONE S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

4 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1807 October 29, Thursday: Denmark allied with France against Britain. Friend James Arnold got married with Friend Sarah Rotch. The couple would have one daughter, Elizabeth Rotch Arnold, born during January 1809, who would get married with a Dr. Tuttle but without issue, and who would die during October 1860 just after the death of her mother his wife leaving him entirely without a blood heir for his accumulated vast whale-oil gains. The whaler was a kind of pirate-miner an excavator of oceanic oil, stoking the furnace of the Industrial Revolution as much as any man digging coal out of the earth. Philip Hoare, THE WHALE: IN SEARCH OF THE GIANTS OF THE SEA (NY: HarperCollins, March 2010) MOBY-DICK, THE OIL SPILL Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 29th of 10th M / Rode to Portsmouth with E R stopt at P L, & from there to the meeting house with my endeared H - In our first meeting soon after taking my seat my mind was very feelingly cloathed with the precious ownings of divine favor which so rejoiced my spirit that a song of thankfulness arose to the Lord for once more favoring me with the light of his countenance - Our friend O W Stood up & very feeling invited us in the language of Come brother come sister let us go up to mountain of the Lord & to the House of the God of Jacob & he will teach us his ways & we will walk in his Paths & said it was the desire of his mind that we might come out of the form & cleave to the Substance, come from the outward to the inner temple where his holyness dwells & he believed was this the case with us we should find in us a well springing up unto eternal life A Robinson soon rose & said she could say in sincerity that her Spirit Said Amen to the invitation but a query soon rose Who shall go up this holy mountain without a preparatory exercise? even Moses that faithful servant of the Lord could not ascend without first putting off his Shoes for the Ground whereon he stood was holy, she very feelingly pointed out the way to prepare to ascend the holy mountain & encoraged all to begin that their days work may be completed the part of the meeting for discipline was pretty well conducted & for my own part I feel thankful I was there & it is the Secret prayer of my soul that the present favor may not vanish like the early dew but remain for many days - Dined at P L; & rode home before dark - R T was appointed clerk of the mens & H R of the womens Meeting,

5 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY I feel desirous strength may be given them in proportion to their trials & in proportion to their faith I trust help will be afforded unto them -6th day 30 of 10 M 1807 / If it was safe to boast I should be allmost ready too of this as a very favord day for me, Oh soul Dwell deep for it is in the deep & thro the deep that we must travel ere we can become inheriters of the promised land of rest - In the eveng called a R T s & at Aunt M Gould - RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? NO, THAT S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN S STORIES. LIFE ISN T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

6 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1815 Benjamin Bussey, the proprietor of the Dedham Woolen Mills, built his mansion home at Woodland Hill, his West Roxbury farm. THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

7 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1835 Benjamin Bussey, the proprietor of the Dedham Woolen Mills, willed the 135-acre grounds of his farm estate in West Roxbury, including his mansion Woodland Hill, to Harvard College to be used as an agricultural station. This bequest would for a time bear his name, as the Bussey Institution. THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

8 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1847 Friend James Arnold, an owner of a whaling vessel, participated in the formation of a New Bedford Horticultural Society.

9 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY A city charter was granted by the Massachusetts legislature. Abraham Hathaway Howland was elected as the city of New Bedford s first Mayor. DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University Stack of the Artist of Kouroo

10 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1851 In New Bedford, Friend Sarah Rotch Arnold donated a home she had inherited to the Port Society for use as a mariners home (this edifice still stands as such on Johnny Cake Hill next to the Seamens Bethel and across from the Whaling Museum). CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University Stack of the Artist of Kouroo

11 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1859 George B. Emerson received the degree of LL.D. from Harvard College. NEW HARVARD MEN Petroleum was discovered in Pennsylvania. This was, of course, a disaster for New Bedford, Massachusetts, and for oil magnates there such as Emerson s in-law the whaleship owner Friend James Arnold. Petroleum would soon replace whale oil as the primary lighting fuel, setting in motion the irreversible decline of the whaling industry, there and elsewhere.

12 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY The whaler was a kind of pirate-miner an excavator of oceanic oil, stoking the furnace of the Industrial Revolution as much as any man digging coal out of the earth. Philip Hoare, THE WHALE: IN SEARCH OF THE GIANTS OF THE SEA (NY: HarperCollins, March 2010) MOBY-DICK, THE OIL SPILL

13 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1860 It is remarkable, how differently different rich old men dispose of their excess funds, once they have them and have nothing with which to preoccupy themselves! In this year Henry Grinnell contributed to the voyage of Isaac Israel Hayes, and he would contribute to the three expeditions that would be made during the decade by Charles Francis Hall. He would regularly correspond with the unsuccessful explorer William Parker Snow. THE FROZEN NORTH Meanwhile, late in the year, having suddenly come to be without a blood heir for his oil wealth upon the deaths of his wife and only child, Friend James Arnold was revising his will and contemplating the commission of a philanthropy. The whaler was a kind of pirate-miner an excavator of oceanic oil, stoking the furnace of the Industrial Revolution as much as any man digging coal out of the earth. Philip Hoare, THE WHALE: IN SEARCH OF THE GIANTS OF THE SEA (NY: HarperCollins, March 2010) MOBY-DICK, THE OIL SPILL In this matter Friend James turned to three men of repute, his in-law George Barrell Emerson who was engaged in the growing of trees on the promontory that stretched into Boston Bay on the northeastern side of Chelsea harbor, the family friend John James Dixwell, president of the Massachusetts Bank, who was active in the Boston Society of Natural History and was engaged in the growing of trees on his Jamaica Plain estate on Moss Hill, and the Boston trust attorney Francis E. Parker. WHAT I M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University Stack of the Artist of Kouroo

14 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY May 9, Wednesday: The New-York Tribune had an advert for James Redpath s ECHOES OF HARPER S FERRY, a volume about the raid by Captain John Brown on Harpers Ferry which contained Henry Thoreau s A Plea for Captain John Brown and his Remarks at Concord on the Day of the Execution of John Brown. J(ames) M(atthew) Barrie was born in Kirriemuir, Scotland. Samuel Griswold Goodrich, best known under the pen name Peter Parley, died in New-York. Sarah Rotch Arnold died at New Bedford, Massachusetts. Thoreau was being written to by L.L. & C.H. Smith in New-York, for a large supply of plumbago. New York May 9 th /60 Mr H. D. Thorreau Dear Sir Please send as soon as possible One Hundred pounds of Black Lead. Yours Truly, L.L. & C. H. Smith Late L. [J.] Smith May 9. River five and three fourths inches below summer level. I think I heard a bobolink this forenoon. A boy brought me what I take to be a very red Rana sylvatica, caught on the leaves the 6th. Have had no fire for more than a fortnight, and no greatcoat since April 19th. Fir balsam bloom. Sugar maple blossoms are now a tender yellow; in prime, say 11th. Thousands of dandelions along the meadow by the Mill Brook, behind R. W. E. s, in prime, say 10th. [By the 18th are much concealed by grass.] P.M. To Flint s Pond. It is a still, cloudy, thoughtful day. Oven-bird, how long? In Ebby Hubbard s wood, I climb to a hole in a dead white pine, a dozen feet up, and see by the gray fur about the edge of the hole that it probably has been used by the gray squirrel. Maryland yellowthroat. We sit by the shore of Goose Pond. The tapping of a woodpecker sounds distinct and hollow this still cloudy day, as not before for a long time, and so do the notes of birds, as if heard against a background for a relief, e.g. the cackle of the pigeon woodpecker, the note of the jay, the scratching in the dry leaves of three or four chewinks near us (for they are not shy), about the pond, under the blueberry bushes. The water is smooth. After sitting there a little while, I count the noses of twenty frogs within a couple of rods, which have ventured to come to the surface again, so quietly that I did not see one come up. At the fox-hole by Britton s Hollow there are some three cart-buck-loads of sand cast out. That large pine-tree moss that makes beds on the ground, now fruiting, when I brush my hand over its fruit is surprisingly stiff and elastic like wires. Yellow lily pads begun to spread out on some pools, but hardly yet on the river; say 10th on river. Golden robin. The wall by the road at the bars north of Cyrus Smith s chestnut grove is very firmly bound together by the Rhus

15 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY Toxicodendron which has overrun it, for twenty feet in length. Would it not be worth the while to encourage its growth for this purpose, if you are not afraid of being poisoned? It runs up by small root-like stems, which cling close and flat to the wall, and which intertwine and seem to take a new start from the top of the wall (as from the ground), where the stems are generally larger than below, so that it is in fact a row of this rhus growing on the top of the wall to some three or four feet above it, and by its rooty stems binding the stones very firmly together. How much better this than sods on a wall! Of that early sedge in Everett s meadow, [Carex stricta.] the top-most spikes are already effete; say a week, then. I see a second amelanchier with a distinct pink or rosaceous tinge like an apple blossom. Elm seed has begun to fall. Cattle going up country for ten days past. [Yes, and the 14th.] You must keep your gate shut. October: Elizabeth Rotch Arnold, only blood heir of the oil-rich widower James Arnold, died. The whaler was a kind of pirate-miner an excavator of oceanic oil, stoking the furnace of the Industrial Revolution as much as any man digging coal out of the earth. Philip Hoare, THE WHALE: IN SEARCH OF THE GIANTS OF THE SEA (NY: HarperCollins, March 2010) MOBY-DICK, THE OIL SPILL

16 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1868 December 3, Thursday: James Arnold died at New Bedford, Massachusetts (and we have been told that it is a firm rule, that nobody s allowed to take their oil money to Heaven with them). The whaler was a kind of pirate-miner an excavator of oceanic oil, stoking the furnace of the Industrial Revolution as much as any man digging coal out of the earth. Philip Hoare, THE WHALE: IN SEARCH OF THE GIANTS OF THE SEA (NY: HarperCollins, March 2010) MOBY-DICK, THE OIL SPILL

17 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1872 March 29, Friday: George Barrell Emerson had influenced his brother-in-law James Arnold the New Bedford whaling vessel owner who had lost both his wife and his only child and therefore no longer had any blood heir to leave a bequest. At this point Arnold Arboretum was officially established as the three trustees of that bequest, Emerson, Dixwell, and Parker, signed it over to the President and Fellows of Harvard College with the institution s pledge to use the money for no other purpose than to develop the some 120 acres of real estate that had been bequeathed in 1835 by Benjamin Bussey, as: an Arboretum, to be called the Arnold Arboretum, which shall contain, as far as is practicable, all the trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants, either indigenous or exotic, which can be

18 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY raised in the open air at the said West Roxbury, all which shall be raised or collected as fast as is practicable, and each specimen thereof shall be distinctly labelled, and [for] the support of a professor, to be called the Arnold Professor, who shall have the care and management of the said Arboretum, subject to the same control by the said President and Fellows to which the professors in the Bussey Institution are now subject, and who shall teach the knowledge of trees in the University which is in the charge of the said President and Fellows, and shall give such other instruction therein as may be naturally, directly, and usefully connected therewith. And as the entire fund, increased by the accumulations above named, under the best management and with the greatest economy, is barely sufficient to accomplish the proposed object, it is expressly provided that it shall not be diminished by supplementing any other object, however meritorious or kindred in its nature.

19 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1881 March 4, Friday: While Charles S. Sargent and Frederick Law Olmsted were at the height of their campaign to convince city officials to bring the Arnold Arboretum into the Boston park system, George Barrell Emerson died at the Brookline home of his daughter Lucy Lowell, in the 84th year of his age (Emerson Preparatory School in Washington DC would be named in his honor). As James Abram Garfield succeeded Rutherford B. Hayes as President of the United States, President Garfield s Inauguration March by John Philip Sousa was receiving its initial performance How could anyone tell they hadn t heard it before? All these Sousa thingies sound like the same piece of bombastic crap: Wham wham wham. Ta, ta de ta ta, doodle oh tee ay. (Repeat.)

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21 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY 1886 The Arnold Arboretum in this year: MAGISTERIAL HISTORY IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project Arnold Arboretum of Ha

22 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this read-only computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace resulting in navigation problems allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the Stack of the Artist of Kouroo Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC Please contact the project at <Kouroo@kouroo.info>. It s all now you see. Yesterday won t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago. Remark by character Garin Stevens in William Faulkner s INTRUDER IN THE DUST Prepared: April 18, 2015

23 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT GENERATION HOTLINE This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot Laura (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button.

24 OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary writerly process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world. First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with <Kouroo@kouroo.info>. Arrgh.