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Jun. 4th, 2009 12:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsIn case anyone was wondering, Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer last night = AWESOME.
I only actually saw about half the show because I was bartending the other half, but I could hear the whole thing really well. Highlights included Neil reading an as-yet-unpublished story about a CREEPY CREEPY LIVING STATUE that I refuse to believe was not influenced by a Certain Episode of Dr. Who, the two of them discussing Amanda's fondness for being naked and the suit that Neil bought off a drunk, and the book that got auctioned off for $1200, all proceeds going to Housing Works! (It is sort of amazingly exciting being at an auction when you actually have a vested interest because the money is For Your Organization, you get to cheer every time the prices goes up and do booty dances! Admittedly the beer may also have helped with that.)
It was actually on the way home, at midnight after the beer and some heavy lifting and no food since noon, that I finished Edward Kritzler's Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean. So I may not have the most coherent thoughts on it. But I am going to try anyways!
I'd been meaning to read this book ever since![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
obopolsk mentioned it on her LJ, because . . . well, I mean, the reasons should be obvious, yes? I had to know!
And many parts of the book - mostly the middle, that deals with the pretty well-documented exploits of the Jewish traders and privateers and their complicated web of alliances with the Dutch and the English, generally against Spain - were really fascinating, and made me very glad I picked it up. There was a whole lot of political maneuvering going down with the Jewish settlements in Amsterdam and the Spanish colonies that I had never known about. And dude, let's face it, Samuel Palache, PIRATE RABBI, is just kind of awesome. (He brought his own kosher chef with him when out privateering, guys!) My other favorite part was Spain's cunning plan to kick illegal immigrants off of Tortuga:
TORTUGAN IMMIGRANTS: We're pretty happy here, foraging and farming cattle! Life's good!
SPAIN: We don't want you staying. But you're too hard-core for us to attack you directly, so . . . Hidalgos! ATTACK THOSE CATTLE HERDS. SPARE NO ONE.
TORTUGAN IMMIGRANTS: . . . well okay then, if that's how you want to play it. Guys, since we don't have cows anymore, let's become a deadly pirate scourge on all the Spanish ships! :D
SPAIN: . . . . . . shit.
At other parts, especially the introduction and first few chapters, where Kritzler talks cheerfully about Jews sailing with and financing Columbus to try and find a home of FREEDOM FOR ALL, I found myself very very uncomfortable - first of all, because oh, how I did not need to read more encouraging rhetoric about SETTLEMENT IN THE NEW WORLD! For FREEDOM! AWESOME! for everyone except the people who already lived there but we'll be glossing over that in a few lines, and second, because when you are talking about Jewish settlements in specific, there are some pretty uncomfortable parallels that could be drawn with present issues. And whatever your opinions may be on that, I think it's probably worthwhile to address them and with something less than boisterousness.
And then at other parts I was just kind of raising my eyebrows, because, while I'm no historian in his enthusiasm, Kritzler starts pulling in bits of evidence that I'm . . . not really sure count as evidence. There's one bit where Kritzler decides that because one guy was tried by the Inquisition, he and his wife and his wife's family and all her relatives were all secret Jews and goes racing off and pulling all kinds of conclusions from this, and - while this is certainly a possible hypothesis - given their reputation, I do not really trust the testimony of the Inquisitors to accurately determine who is Jewish and who isn't. And every so often he will decide that, because some Portuguese settlers were conversos, or converted Jews from a few centuries back, that means that when this letter refers to the Portuguese it TOTALLY MEANS JEWS, guys, YES REALLY. When sometimes, I am fairly sure, Portuguese just means Portuguese. All of which meant that I took a lot of his concludions with a grain of salt.
Also it does not really lend you scholarly credibility when you conclude your book with an account of your efforts to find COLUMBUS' LOST GOLD MINE. Just saying.
I only actually saw about half the show because I was bartending the other half, but I could hear the whole thing really well. Highlights included Neil reading an as-yet-unpublished story about a CREEPY CREEPY LIVING STATUE that I refuse to believe was not influenced by a Certain Episode of Dr. Who, the two of them discussing Amanda's fondness for being naked and the suit that Neil bought off a drunk, and the book that got auctioned off for $1200, all proceeds going to Housing Works! (It is sort of amazingly exciting being at an auction when you actually have a vested interest because the money is For Your Organization, you get to cheer every time the prices goes up and do booty dances! Admittedly the beer may also have helped with that.)
It was actually on the way home, at midnight after the beer and some heavy lifting and no food since noon, that I finished Edward Kritzler's Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean. So I may not have the most coherent thoughts on it. But I am going to try anyways!
I'd been meaning to read this book ever since
obopolsk mentioned it on her LJ, because . . . well, I mean, the reasons should be obvious, yes? I had to know! And many parts of the book - mostly the middle, that deals with the pretty well-documented exploits of the Jewish traders and privateers and their complicated web of alliances with the Dutch and the English, generally against Spain - were really fascinating, and made me very glad I picked it up. There was a whole lot of political maneuvering going down with the Jewish settlements in Amsterdam and the Spanish colonies that I had never known about. And dude, let's face it, Samuel Palache, PIRATE RABBI, is just kind of awesome. (He brought his own kosher chef with him when out privateering, guys!) My other favorite part was Spain's cunning plan to kick illegal immigrants off of Tortuga:
TORTUGAN IMMIGRANTS: We're pretty happy here, foraging and farming cattle! Life's good!
SPAIN: We don't want you staying. But you're too hard-core for us to attack you directly, so . . . Hidalgos! ATTACK THOSE CATTLE HERDS. SPARE NO ONE.
TORTUGAN IMMIGRANTS: . . . well okay then, if that's how you want to play it. Guys, since we don't have cows anymore, let's become a deadly pirate scourge on all the Spanish ships! :D
SPAIN: . . . . . . shit.
At other parts, especially the introduction and first few chapters, where Kritzler talks cheerfully about Jews sailing with and financing Columbus to try and find a home of FREEDOM FOR ALL, I found myself very very uncomfortable - first of all, because oh, how I did not need to read more encouraging rhetoric about SETTLEMENT IN THE NEW WORLD! For FREEDOM! AWESOME! for everyone except the people who already lived there but we'll be glossing over that in a few lines, and second, because when you are talking about Jewish settlements in specific, there are some pretty uncomfortable parallels that could be drawn with present issues. And whatever your opinions may be on that, I think it's probably worthwhile to address them and with something less than boisterousness.
And then at other parts I was just kind of raising my eyebrows, because, while I'm no historian in his enthusiasm, Kritzler starts pulling in bits of evidence that I'm . . . not really sure count as evidence. There's one bit where Kritzler decides that because one guy was tried by the Inquisition, he and his wife and his wife's family and all her relatives were all secret Jews and goes racing off and pulling all kinds of conclusions from this, and - while this is certainly a possible hypothesis - given their reputation, I do not really trust the testimony of the Inquisitors to accurately determine who is Jewish and who isn't. And every so often he will decide that, because some Portuguese settlers were conversos, or converted Jews from a few centuries back, that means that when this letter refers to the Portuguese it TOTALLY MEANS JEWS, guys, YES REALLY. When sometimes, I am fairly sure, Portuguese just means Portuguese. All of which meant that I took a lot of his concludions with a grain of salt.
Also it does not really lend you scholarly credibility when you conclude your book with an account of your efforts to find COLUMBUS' LOST GOLD MINE. Just saying.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 06:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-04 06:56 pm (UTC)(Me? Book-kink? NEVER. ...that is, I sort of live in a library.)