Timothy Miller's Blog, page 23

Thomas

 

"Every device there is in language is there to be used, if you will. Poets have got to enjoy themselves sometimes, and the twistings and convolutions of words, the inventions and contrivances, are all part of the joy that is part of the painful, voluntary work." 

                       --Dylan Thomas

The Blue

 By the way, if you liked the post on the Indigo Revolt, you might be interested in finding out more about the history of  the color blue--which is a fascinating history, believe it or not. And a seminal part of that history is chronicled in my friend Nancy Bilyeau's brilliant novel 

                                               The Blue, a tale of 18th century industrial espionage.

"With the heart and spirit of her Huguenot ancestors, Genevieve faces her challenges head on, but how much is she willing to suffer in pursuit and protection of the color blue?"

Kings River Life: Review/Giveaway/Interview

It's an interview.It's a review.It's a giveaway of my book.It's a threefer--It must be seen to be believed!
The Strange Case of Eliza Doolittle By Timothy Miller: Review/Giveaway/Interview:  by Lorie Lewis Ham of  Kings River Life Magazine.

From the review:"This story is filled with many twists and turns, most of which I never saw coming. It was so much fun having all of these familiar characters thrown together in this new story. I felt like Miller’s portrayal of Holmes and Watson was accurate, which is always a key for me in enjoying a new Holmes adventure."
From the interview:"For me, writing is like blowing up a balloon. I start with a few puffs: beginning, middle, and end, and then expand, and let the breaths mingle and heat up. I just have to keep from spitting too much."

Reading Club

Phil Krampf presses his free bookplate into service as a Covid mask. Desperate times call for desperate measures. If you'd like a bookplate to press into your copy of the novel, just send me your address in an email on the right. Neither address will be sold or shared with anyone, may the gods strike me dead.
 

Brautigan

 

“I will be very careful the next time I fall in love, she told herself. Also, she had made a promise to herself that she intended on keeping. She was never going to go out with another writer: no matter how charming, sensitive, inventive or fun they could be. They weren't worth it in the long run. They were emotionally too expensive and the upkeep was complicated. They were like having a vacuum cleaner around the house that broke all the time and only Einstein could fix it. She wanted her next lover to be a broom.”

― Richard Brautigan, Sombrero Fallout

Blue Jean Blues

 Did you know that those Levis you're wearing were responsible for a deadly revolt in India? Well, partly, anyway. You see, back in 1777, the British started planting indigo in India,

especially Bengal. As a matter of fact, that what indigo means--India. Indigo? That's the dye that makes your blue jeans blue. And the British didn't really grow indigo --they tricked the Indian farmers into growing indigo. Even gave them loans.

But when they came to sell their crops, the farmers didn't make enough to pay back the loans and the exorbitant interest, because the buyers set the price. But it was okay, the buyers just loaned them more money. So the debt mounted. And the growers became, in effect, slaves. Growers were still trying to pay off the debt of their fathers and grandfathers. Men committed suicide rather than endure the torture.

It wasn't a unique situation. Former black slaves in America were effectively still in bondage due to the system of share-cropping. And coal miners were in a similar jam. Remember that that line from Sixteen Tons?

"Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cuz I can't go. I owe my soul to the company store."

 Same strategy. And demand for blue indigo dye just kept growing, especially in America, where a young man named Levi Strauss was selling copper-riveted indigo-dyed denim pants--blue jeans--as the inexpensive uniform of the working man. So when Indian farmers protested their situation, they were put down--violently.

"The Peasants Are Revolting"

In 1859, the peasants did indeed revolt. And so was bred the Indigo Rebellion, which involved the whole of Bengal. Indigo depots were burned to the ground. Some plantation owners were captured, tried, and hung, The rest fled for their lives.British response was swift and merciless.  The peasants were slaughtered or hung. And then, in true British fashion, they appointed a commission to investigate the matter, and the truth of the British planters' oppression was laid bare. And then, in true British fashion, they recommended no action be taken.

Germans to the Rescue

There's a line you won'r see every day. You see, the Germans were completely boxed out of India and the extremely lucrative indigo trade. So German chemists sought the Holy Grail--synthetic indigo. Time and again, it eluded them. Then, in 1890,  Karl Heumann and Eugene Sapper hit on a method that was both practical and economical. By 1897, they brought it to market. And in a very few years, the bottom dropped out of the natural indigo market.

There is still indigo grown in India, but in a very small way. And the farmers got their land back--once the British left. And in 1955 James Dean put on a pair of jeans, and they became cool forever.

Sixteen Tons

Beautiful boy

I just realized I never showed you any baby pix from when the book dropped last January 19th. Isn't he cute? I think he has my serifs.

Beautiful Boy

  I just realized I never showed you any baby pix from when the book dropped last January 19th. Isn't he cute? I think he has my serifs.

Homage

 By the way, there are two vehicles which figure prominently in The Strange Case of Eliza Doolittle: Morello's Moreau-Lepton, and the Widgeon Seven which Holmes commandeers late in the action. If you are a stickler for historical detail, you might try to get a peek at one of these autos online. Alas, you will find no pictures of either. They never existed. Well, they did exist. But only in literature.

"Ah! I must confess that in rolling over the boulevards that surrounded the old Norman city, in my swift thirty-five horse-power Moreau-Lepton, I experienced a deep feeling of pride, and the motor responded, sympathetically to my desires."

"Well, you may say that sacking, considered in the light of a bed, isn't everybody's money, and in saying so you would be perfectly correct. But after half an hour in the seat of a Widgeon Seven, even sacking begins to look pretty good to you."
You see, the Moreau Lepton was the car of famed burglar Arsene Lupin, while the Widgeon Seven was the two-seater so beloved of famed fat-head Bertie Wooster. The two cars existed only in the imaginations of authors Maurice LeBlanc and P.G. Wodehouse, whom I wanted to give a nod to, and so continue the proud tradition of fictional automobiles.

Graves

The Devil’s Advice to Storytellers 
 Lest men suspect your tale to be untrue, Keep probability – some say – in view. But my advice to story-tellers is: Weigh out no gross of probabilities, Nor yet make diligent transcriptions of Known instances of virtue, crime or love. To forge a picture that will pass for true, Do conscientiously what liars do – Born liars, not the lesser sort that raid The mouths of others for their stock-in-trade: Assemble, first, all casual bits and scraps That may shake down into a world perhaps; People this world, by chance created so, With random persons whom you do not know – The teashop sort, or travellers in a train Seen once, guessed idly at, not seen again; Let the erratic course they steer surprise Their own and your own and your readers’ eyes; Sigh then, or frown, but leave (as in despair) Motive and end and moral in the air; Nice contradiction between fact and fact Will make the whole read human and exact.                                        —Robert Graves