Posted on

Our House, Our Capitol

At the Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, the Capitol dome was still under construction. Photo at Wikipedia/ Library of Congress.

Vandals attacked Our House yesterday, but as the aimless barbarians they were, they could do little but pose for idiotic selfies. We can repair the windows; no real damage to the Apotheosis of our Democracy. The walls have been refurbished before. Our House–Our Capitol–has long been a work in progress, changing continuously. After all, it’s built on words.

By Jove

I did not, until today actually understand the distinction between “capitol” and “capital,” which means I’ve probably misused them for years. I thought “capitol” meant the governmental head of something whereas “capital” meant money or referred to a good idea. Actually, the “capitol” is the building, and the “capital” is the place. “Capital” can also refer to a size of a letter or wealth, i.e. the source of wealth.

Jefferson invented the specific idea of the “Capitol,” or rather he stole borrowed it from Rome. The original architect for the Capitol building–and we’ll get to architects in a minute–wanted to call it the “Congress House,” to be distinguished from the “President’s House” or executive mansion, the White House. But Jefferson, always a guy who understood the optics, thought it needed to have classical influences.

Continue reading “Our House, Our Capitol”
Posted on

The Secrets of Mary Jane …Somebody

She was born Mary Richards, or Mary Jane Richards. Or Mary Elizabeth. She married and became Mary Bowser/Mrs. Wilson Bowser. Also Mrs. John T. Denman and/or Mary J.R. Gavin. Sometimes she used the name Mary Jane Henry or Richmonia Richards. Maybe Ellen Bond, although that has been disputed. Maybe this is her photograph, although that has been disputed.

Grainy photo Mary Bowser
Mary Bowser, but which one? Photo from Wikipedia and Pinterest.

If you were an educated black servant in the slave-owning state of Virginia in 1861, little would be known about you. Your words would not have been written down and what was written about you by others, even the wealthy abolitionist friend whose family you served, would be filtered through their lenses. Scraps of information remembered later by family members who were children when they saw you would come to be taken as fact, whether true or not. Grainy photos replicated might be mislabelled, speculations treated as accurate, oral embellishments become history. All truth would be distorted, like seeing through a glass darkly. This would be especially true if you were a Union spy in the Confederate White House.

Continue reading “The Secrets of Mary Jane …Somebody”
Posted on

Speaking of BS…

My father was a consummate BS artist.  He would tell stories about fellow soldiers pulling scams when he was in Germany in the 1950s or describe 45-minute solos taken by jazz musicians in the smoky nightclubs of Detroit. The exaggeration was part of the atmosphere. He could talk about going to the bakery at the Food Lion in Sarasota, and end up with a lengthy yarn which included fake southern accents and mishaps about Danish crates that fell off the delivery trucks.

See, right there, I’ve already lied.

What We Bloggers Do

Fellow blogger fivedotoh suggested a provocative question for today’s post:

How do you feel about people who always seem to exaggerate when relating a story? Do you equate embellishment with lying? As a blogger, when, if ever, is stretching the truth, other than when writing fiction, permissible?

Of course, I immediately thought of my dad. I also thought about a news story I read the other day about Duke University.  I was chewing over using it for this post but hesitating because maybe it would be too snarky. How about both?

My answer to this question is that there are Memoir Facts, Sarcasm/Snarky Facts, and then there are Fact Facts. As a blogger, I would feel entitled to use all three, yet in a way that the reader can clearly tell the difference.

I Only Lie 25%

At home, I occasionally find myself exaggerating, usually to win an argument with my spouse.  I will stop and correct myself, if I think it’s particularly unfair, although I’ve also been known to keep track and write down the number of indiscretions by the other person, which may win an argument but is not conducive to marital harmony. Now, if it’s a story about a particularly rude other person driving, everyone knows that you must exaggerate those stories because of the risk to your car and your very life. These are Memoir Facts which are highly likely to contain exaggeration. I went back and looked at some of my memoir blog posts, and I calculated. Continue reading “Speaking of BS…”