recap

It's been a busy week. And at the same time, not so busy. Mostly, this week has been a time to relax punctuated by unique opportunities. Allow me to recount them here.

The first event was a trip to Salem last Sunday with a group of fellow grad students from my dorm. The following pictures offer a taste of what I considered to be the best parts of Salem. It actually seems like a rather sad little city if you spend enough time there. It's completely a tourist trap, running off a single gimmick (does this sound like anything familiar? possibly west river?). And the sad part is what it is remembered for. Yes, the witch trials happened there, and yes, it was a tragedy that shouldn't be forgotten, lest we repeat scapegoating behavior. But the city of Salem has done a lot for the US in the past, including being one of the major shipping ports of the coast in the hey day of American shipping. One of America's great writers, Nathaniel Hawthorn, also came out of Salem. But all people remember is the witch trials--and not even the trials so much as the association with witches. It's a strange thing, really, that at the same time as we memorialize those wrongly executed during the hysteria (in a monument that really ought to be labeled better so people don't assume it's a vacant lot), the city has been permanently associated in the minds of Americans with real witchcraft. I would have thought that since the general assumption today is that those executed were innocent (no doubt we're convinced more by "The Crucible" than strict historical fact, but that's beside the point) we would associate the town with not having witches. But instead, enthusiasts and wiccans alike flock to the place. Everything in town has to do with witches, and most of the touristy shops smell funny from incense and offer various amulets and herbs purported to make one successful in love and other aspects of life. The first such shop was amusing, but the next 47 got progressively more annoying. Thankfully, I was not the only one in the group who was interested in seeing more historical sites.


Ironically, Salem is already decorated for Christmas. I rather enjoyed the juxtaposition of this sign by the witch dungeon. Here they charge us eight dollars to see a reenactment of a trail that was carried out by a bunch of mannequins and two women arguing. In the basement they have reconstructed a model of the dungeon the accused were kept in, which was full of more creepy mannequins.

After eating our sack lunches on the wharf, Christina and I took a tour of the Friendship, a reconstructed merchant ship from the early 1800s. We also got to see the customs house where captains would register their cargo and pay taxes. Also, Nathaniel Hawthorn apparently once worked there as a clerk, which he uses the first chapter of The Scarlet Letter to complain about. There was only one other person on the tour, so our National Parks guide gave us extra time and attention, which was great. Here's the ship:

After our tour, we went to the oldest candy shop in America, where I bought some traditional recipe molasses stick candy, which I still haven't tried. Our next stop was the House of Seven Gables, also made famous by Nathaniel Hawthorn. Unfortunately, this site also charges admission, but we didn't feel like paying twelve dollars, since we had less than an hour at that point anyway. So Christina talked the girls behind the counter into giving us stickers and letting us onto the grounds just so we could go to the gift shop. Even though we had promised not to tour the buildings, there was no reason not to take pictures of the outside. So here it is, Nathaniel Hawthorn's House of Seven Gables:

The house he was born in is also on the site, having been moved there sometime in the past.

So, all things considered, Salem was an interesting place, and I wouldn't mind going back again so long as we stuck to the historical sites. Perhaps next time I'll actually go into the House of Seven Gables, or visit the rather random Pirate Museum.

My next big event was Thursday afternoon. I believe I already mentioned that I was going to take a field trip to Mount Auburn Cemetery with SCoSAA. Because the trip had been rescheduled from last week, a lot of people had to cancel, and it ended up only being three of us who got the tour. It was great. We didn't even see half of the place, at least not closely, and I would definitely go back again in the spring. The site is absolutely beautiful, because it was designed to make the existing trees and the monuments work together. The result is breathtaking--I can totally understand why people would want to have Sunday picnics there. It is designed to be very peaceful, to allow for and inspire reflection not only about departed loved ones but about our own mortality. And the statuary on most of the monuments is incredible. The first picture is an example of a "curbed" family plot.

And here is one of the statues I was talking about:

It was cloudy the whole time, and began to rain just as we were getting back into the car, so we had perfect timing.

On Friday I went swimming for the first time in a couple months, and it felt great. At the same time, the water was turned off in my dorm because something was flooding in the basement. thankfully they got it dealt with quickly this time. In the evening we had a movie night and discussion in the dorm. There have been instances of hate speech on the residence campus lately (more details provided later, I don't feel like going into it right now), so our RA showed us a documentary from the 90s that consisted of eight men of different ethnicities talking candidly with each other over the course of a weekend. Of course, what they said was almost overshadowed by what they were wearing, and they were all in the same class as far as fashion sense--all of the men had flamboyant neon patterned shirts.

And today, in the midst of off-and-on rain showers I made my way downtown to the Boston Antiquarian Book Fair, where I spent the afternoon gawking at beautiful old books and manuscripts that I would never be able to afford in my lifetime. I saw first editions of Tolkien and Lewis that would bankrupt me for a single volume, let alone the set, and more famous works that cost more than my college education. The 1928 edition of Candide illustrated by Rockwell Kent is valued at $25,000, and I saw it today. I also saw, under glass and brought over by booksellers from England, a set of first edition Lord of the Rings, valued at $80,000. By the end of it all, I couldn't even focus on what I was seeing. However, I collected a great many business cards and free catalogs, so I can continue to drool over the rare and valuable volumes available. Coming back, I got absolutely soaked. I wasn't wearing my rain boots, and in order to avoid walking into trafic, I had to step through a puddle that turned out to be much deeper than it looked. It will probably take a couple days for my shoes to dry out comletely.

This evening I attended a production of the Simmons Theatricla Society entitled "May the Farce Be With You." It is a superhero comedy, and it was performed by a bunch of girls and one random guy. The budget is clearly limited, but the actors and audience were all enjoying themselves. A couple girls from my program were in it, and I'm glad I could see them perform. Emma was a very good gibberish-spewing alien.

Now it's off to bed--tomorrow N.T. Wright is speaking at church, and in the afternoon a few of us are going to the MFA to listen to a talk about a new exhibit. Actually, we're invited to hear one of the workers practice her speech about the exhibit, but I'm looking forward to it.

-Kim

sleeping in

I've been having trouble getting up in the morning this week, probably because I've had fewer things to get up for now that my internship has ended. In order to help me with this, God sent a riding lawnmower and a big noisy truck that may have been compacting leaves or transporting said lawnmower to park below my window at 8:00 this morning and make an awful lot of noise. I suppose I shouldn't be too annoyed, since it did make me get up pretty much on time for only the second time this week. Though, it's hard to care much about keeping a schedule when my earliest commitment (other than trying to get some homework done) is at 12:30. Most weeks I would be starting my shift of tutoring at this time, but today I am headed out on a SCoSAA (Student Chapter of the Society of American Archivists) field trip, for which my tutoring schedule had to be changed. We're headed to the Mount Auburn Cemetery, which is one of the oldest in the area, and prettiest (people used to have Sunday picnics there) and even today you have to pay a fee to get in. We get in for free today, which if why I'm going. The site is also one of the few cemeteries anywhere to have it's archives on site, which we will also tour. It should be a good time. I'll try to post pictures of it within the next few days, along with a short recap of my trip to Salem last weekend.

-Kim

Registration

Just a quick not to tide you over: I got the classes I wanted for spring!

I got to register Friday night at 6:36pm--a completely random time, I know--and I was all set to push the button as soon as my clock changed. Apparently the school's clock is a few seconds behind, because it still wouldn't let it go through at first and I had to try again. But then it worked. I was actually nervous, because the section of cataloging I wanted only had one seat left in the class, but I got it.

So, next semester I'll have cataloging on Tuesday afternoons with a professor who the vast majority of my neighbors recommended. It's an intense class, so I'm glad I'll have extra time next semester to devote to it, what with not having an internship and all.

I'm also still going to have a Saturday morning class, unfortunately. I mean, I really wanted to take the rare books class, I'm just less than thrilled that it meets on Saturday. But, the professor works in the field full time and can only teach that day, so I guess I'll just have to deal with it. After all, I'm already used to having class then, so it shouldn't be to hard. And I'll be learning about rare books, so I should be more eager to get up and go.

My third class meets on Friday mornings and is taught by my adviser, Jeannette Bastian. It's on archives, history and collective memory, a topic she has written on numerous times. Her book, Owning Memory: How a Caribbean Community Lost Its Archives and Found Its History (Contributions in Librarianship and Information Science) , looks especially fascinating. I don't think it will be required for the course, but I would love to read it before the class begins. Unfortunately, it's insanely expensive on Amazon, but I think I can get it for a discount on the SAA (Society of American Archivists) website, now that I'm a member. At any rate, it should be a fascinating class, so I'm really looking forward to next semester. Now I just need to finish this one well so I can come home for a break!

-Kim

Sermonizing

This week is the annual missions conference at Park Street Church. Sadly, I don't have time to be involved in any of the extra events throughout the week. However, I was in church this Sunday, when the whole thing was kicked off in grand style with an amazing sermon from Stephen Lungu, International Team Leader of African Enterprise. Basically, what he shared with us was his own testimony, but it was one of the most powerful I have ever heard. This man was in a street gang, knifing people by the age of twelve and only attended the church tent meeting where he was saved because he intended to blow it up. It's a long message, and his accent makes some things he says difficult to understand, but it is well worth listening to. I think Dianna and Berty would especially appreciate hearing this man's amazing story.

You can access an audio file of the sermon here, along with an archive of previous sermons.

And as long as we're on the topic, I'll be sharing this link again in a few weeks because N. T. Wright is going to be speaking at Park Street in just two weeks. That's right, be jealous. But don't worry, you'll be able to hear what this amazing theologian has to say only a few days after I do, when the church's tech guys upload the podcast.

And if you'd like a taste of what my usual preacher sounds like, check out October 26, "City of Truth," it was especially good. That was also the week Sherwin was here, and I think he would agree that this sermon about telling the truth in love was both solidly grounded and well delivered.

out of the past

Today I finished my internship at the Congregational Library. It was an interesting day. First let me explain that at the start of this internship I was given two small-ish projects to complete that were supposed to take the full 60 hours required for my class. They were a collection of correspondence, which I've mentioned in a previous post, and a collection of church records dating from the 1780s to the 1950s. The second collection was more challenging in the variety of formats of documents, but I was really getting into the groove of arrangement by then, and it didn't even slow me down. I finished the first project in three and a half days and ran through the second one even faster, in only two and a half days. My supervisor was definitely surprised. In fact, for the last hour of my time on Friday and for my entire eight hour shift today, she had to find other things for me to do to keep me busy.

(If you've been paying attention and doing the math for my 7.5 hour days [including half hour lunch breaks], you'll realize I'm actually not up to the full 60 hours yet, but am sitting at 52.5. My supervisor decided that it didn't make sense for me to come in and putter around on my own while she is on vacation all month, especially since I've already proved I can do what was required of me.)

She ended up giving me a box of random items the librarians had pulled from their stacks and decided to give to the archives. My job was to look at each folder of materials and search the catalog for a collection it might fit with to be added to. If no such collection existed, it would become a new "small collection." Today Jessica showed me how to create catalog records, and I made several new entries for the items in the mystery box. In the end, only four folders contained items that could be added to existing collections, the rest had to have new records created.

And yes, I finished this last project before 5:00. I ended up spending my last hour just talking to my supervisor about archives, Simmons and vaguely related topics. She's going to be on vacation in Mexico by the end of the week, so she didn't feel much like working either. In the end, she let my go twenty minutes early just because there was no point in my sticking around. And she gave me gifts. I left with a load of three used, but still usable small-size acid-free storage boxes which will be great for properly storing the collection I have at home of my grandmother's love letters from grandma during WWII. She also gave me a catalog for archival supplies so I can order the rest of what I'll need (acid-free folders and mylar windows for photographs) to properly take over my role as family historian, though I think I'll stick with just the one project for now. Taking the subway home, clutching the awkward boxes on my lap, I realized what a nerd I am for getting excited over boxes. I must be going into the right profession. Oh, and Jessica wrote me a great recommendation letter for a summer internship I am applying for, which was very much appreciated.

I'm actually somewhat disappointed I won't be working in the archive anymore, bot I really need the time now for my other projects, which seem to have snuck up on me while I wasn't looking. But, Jessica said I'm allways welcome as a volunteer, and I can come claim as many boxes as I want from the "used" pile, so I may end up taking her up on both of those counts sometime in the future when I have time to spare again, say, after I finish my degree. For now, my focus needs to be out of the past and back in the present, working on the now rather intimidating volume of work to be completed before Thanksgiving.

-Kim