Stori3d Past
@stori3dpast.bsky.social
Harold Johnson. Maine (from away!). Bookseller. Pilgrim. Word Guy. Skeptic. History & Archaeology. Tolkien. Trek. Italy. Old English. Used to make YouTubes, now I make typos. 19th C antiquarian — Sideburns included! 🏺📖🧙🏻♂️
If you thought grammatical commentaries didn't need a defense, boy were you mistaken.
November 14, 2025 at 3:59 AM
If you thought grammatical commentaries didn't need a defense, boy were you mistaken.
New read, "The Accidental Detectorist" by Nigel Richardson. A travel writer whose wings were clipped by Covid lockdowns looks for a more local adventure.
20 pages in, I like it a lot! Smart, funny, ethical, poignant. With what seems to be a cast of characters straight out of "Detectorists."
20 pages in, I like it a lot! Smart, funny, ethical, poignant. With what seems to be a cast of characters straight out of "Detectorists."
November 13, 2025 at 9:57 PM
New read, "The Accidental Detectorist" by Nigel Richardson. A travel writer whose wings were clipped by Covid lockdowns looks for a more local adventure.
20 pages in, I like it a lot! Smart, funny, ethical, poignant. With what seems to be a cast of characters straight out of "Detectorists."
20 pages in, I like it a lot! Smart, funny, ethical, poignant. With what seems to be a cast of characters straight out of "Detectorists."
Hell with it. Ultima VII Part I is a great story and I can just pretend that the rest never happens. Diving back in.
Also, Nerd Achievement: reading the runic map without a translator 🤓
Also, Nerd Achievement: reading the runic map without a translator 🤓
November 13, 2025 at 7:13 PM
Hell with it. Ultima VII Part I is a great story and I can just pretend that the rest never happens. Diving back in.
Also, Nerd Achievement: reading the runic map without a translator 🤓
Also, Nerd Achievement: reading the runic map without a translator 🤓
In "The Wood Pile" (which I'm reposting here in full), Robert Frost elevates an abandoned cord of firewood so that it feels like a hoard of Roman gold. Abandoned through some whim or calamity, to be discovered in after-days.
November 13, 2025 at 6:44 PM
In "The Wood Pile" (which I'm reposting here in full), Robert Frost elevates an abandoned cord of firewood so that it feels like a hoard of Roman gold. Abandoned through some whim or calamity, to be discovered in after-days.
The cat is not allowed on the printer.
November 13, 2025 at 4:12 PM
The cat is not allowed on the printer.
To be fair, Leo was able to transcribe (and thus translate) the front page a lot better. Unfortunately, it seems that the back page has the real meat.
November 13, 2025 at 1:15 PM
To be fair, Leo was able to transcribe (and thus translate) the front page a lot better. Unfortunately, it seems that the back page has the real meat.
...this.
Looks like I've gor more work to do. I honestly don't understand why its been so hard to get some scholar or institute interested about this. It's a document signed by a guy named Alcayaga who actually exists in history -- and who had family connections to the Bishop of Cuzco!
Looks like I've gor more work to do. I honestly don't understand why its been so hard to get some scholar or institute interested about this. It's a document signed by a guy named Alcayaga who actually exists in history -- and who had family connections to the Bishop of Cuzco!
November 13, 2025 at 1:12 PM
...this.
Looks like I've gor more work to do. I honestly don't understand why its been so hard to get some scholar or institute interested about this. It's a document signed by a guy named Alcayaga who actually exists in history -- and who had family connections to the Bishop of Cuzco!
Looks like I've gor more work to do. I honestly don't understand why its been so hard to get some scholar or institute interested about this. It's a document signed by a guy named Alcayaga who actually exists in history -- and who had family connections to the Bishop of Cuzco!
For years I've tried to get someone interested in this remarkably rare 1570s Spanish legal deed from Cuzco, Peru that I picked up randomly.
With online transcription/translation services booming, I tried one of the better ones out (Leo). It gave me...
With online transcription/translation services booming, I tried one of the better ones out (Leo). It gave me...
November 13, 2025 at 1:09 PM
For years I've tried to get someone interested in this remarkably rare 1570s Spanish legal deed from Cuzco, Peru that I picked up randomly.
With online transcription/translation services booming, I tried one of the better ones out (Leo). It gave me...
With online transcription/translation services booming, I tried one of the better ones out (Leo). It gave me...
Imagine being a tree. Day to day, month to month everyone thinks you're just sitting there. But you're not. You're an unstoppable force. A juggernaut. You will destroy concrete, brick, rock. All you need is time.
November 13, 2025 at 12:10 AM
Imagine being a tree. Day to day, month to month everyone thinks you're just sitting there. But you're not. You're an unstoppable force. A juggernaut. You will destroy concrete, brick, rock. All you need is time.
The $20 gold coin was majestically called the Double Eagle. If you have one of great-grandpa's old Double Eagles lying around, its gold content alone makes it worth about $4000 today.
November 12, 2025 at 8:59 PM
The $20 gold coin was majestically called the Double Eagle. If you have one of great-grandpa's old Double Eagles lying around, its gold content alone makes it worth about $4000 today.
"Waste Land" done. On to another 20th C American poet just as multilayered & revolutionary as Eliot. But Eliot's poems seem to bleed WWI trauma - the old rules & values feeling meaningless. Frost reads like mossy stone walls in a woodland that was once a field - old ways finding new meanings.
November 12, 2025 at 8:12 PM
"Waste Land" done. On to another 20th C American poet just as multilayered & revolutionary as Eliot. But Eliot's poems seem to bleed WWI trauma - the old rules & values feeling meaningless. Frost reads like mossy stone walls in a woodland that was once a field - old ways finding new meanings.
Just finishing TS Eliot's "Waste Land and Other [Early] Poems." And this has been my experience of it. This one page, 20 meager lines, has 12 endnotes. At least one of which helpfully states "the relevance is not clear."
November 12, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Just finishing TS Eliot's "Waste Land and Other [Early] Poems." And this has been my experience of it. This one page, 20 meager lines, has 12 endnotes. At least one of which helpfully states "the relevance is not clear."
I drive a 2024 Kia Forte 4dr sedan. Thoroughly forgettable car, except that its old-school gasoline engine can do 52.4 MPG when I'm driving its 3000 lbs down backroads across southern Maine and it's barely 40° out. It's not that most carmakers can't; they just won't.
November 12, 2025 at 5:44 PM
I drive a 2024 Kia Forte 4dr sedan. Thoroughly forgettable car, except that its old-school gasoline engine can do 52.4 MPG when I'm driving its 3000 lbs down backroads across southern Maine and it's barely 40° out. It's not that most carmakers can't; they just won't.
"Man in nation that had been Protestant for 140 years writes mean thing about Catholicism. Film at 11."
Whenever you despair at the amount of deeply-ingrained hatred on social media, check out what people were writing about each other in the 1600s.
Whenever you despair at the amount of deeply-ingrained hatred on social media, check out what people were writing about each other in the 1600s.
November 11, 2025 at 2:16 AM
"Man in nation that had been Protestant for 140 years writes mean thing about Catholicism. Film at 11."
Whenever you despair at the amount of deeply-ingrained hatred on social media, check out what people were writing about each other in the 1600s.
Whenever you despair at the amount of deeply-ingrained hatred on social media, check out what people were writing about each other in the 1600s.
Sometimes I want to go back and play Ultima VII -- not to defeat the Guardian, but just to clean up Lock Lake again.
November 10, 2025 at 11:44 PM
Sometimes I want to go back and play Ultima VII -- not to defeat the Guardian, but just to clean up Lock Lake again.
Also not unlike a "Tell" -- a community (often but not always found in the Middle East) that grows vertically across thousands of years as each generation's rubbish & building materials is buried & built over. The town becomes its own hill-town over millennia.
November 9, 2025 at 11:39 PM
Also not unlike a "Tell" -- a community (often but not always found in the Middle East) that grows vertically across thousands of years as each generation's rubbish & building materials is buried & built over. The town becomes its own hill-town over millennia.
Watching a "Great Courses" series on US National Parks, I've learned about "Nebkha Dunes." Desert sand collects around small tufts of hardy plants. Eventually the sandhill grows high, then the plant reroots & grows higher to stay above it. And on & on til it's a genuine dune.
Not unline an atoll.
Not unline an atoll.
November 9, 2025 at 11:36 PM
Watching a "Great Courses" series on US National Parks, I've learned about "Nebkha Dunes." Desert sand collects around small tufts of hardy plants. Eventually the sandhill grows high, then the plant reroots & grows higher to stay above it. And on & on til it's a genuine dune.
Not unline an atoll.
Not unline an atoll.
If you ever thought the term "bookworm" was just a saying, it's not.
This formerly gorgeous 1723 leather-bound French book has been reduced to kindling. Thoroughly unsellable, maybe worth $5 to someone at a country craft fair.
This formerly gorgeous 1723 leather-bound French book has been reduced to kindling. Thoroughly unsellable, maybe worth $5 to someone at a country craft fair.
November 9, 2025 at 4:01 PM
If you ever thought the term "bookworm" was just a saying, it's not.
This formerly gorgeous 1723 leather-bound French book has been reduced to kindling. Thoroughly unsellable, maybe worth $5 to someone at a country craft fair.
This formerly gorgeous 1723 leather-bound French book has been reduced to kindling. Thoroughly unsellable, maybe worth $5 to someone at a country craft fair.
Capellanus's 12 rules of love
1 Don't be greedy
2 Be faithful
3 Don't harm another's affair
4 Love one you'd be OK marrying
5 Don't lie
6 Don't blab about your affair
7 Obey your lady
8 Be modest
9 Speak no evil
10 Don't blab about others' affairs
11 Be courteous
12 Take only what she freely gives.
1 Don't be greedy
2 Be faithful
3 Don't harm another's affair
4 Love one you'd be OK marrying
5 Don't lie
6 Don't blab about your affair
7 Obey your lady
8 Be modest
9 Speak no evil
10 Don't blab about others' affairs
11 Be courteous
12 Take only what she freely gives.
November 9, 2025 at 1:56 PM
Capellanus's 12 rules of love
1 Don't be greedy
2 Be faithful
3 Don't harm another's affair
4 Love one you'd be OK marrying
5 Don't lie
6 Don't blab about your affair
7 Obey your lady
8 Be modest
9 Speak no evil
10 Don't blab about others' affairs
11 Be courteous
12 Take only what she freely gives.
1 Don't be greedy
2 Be faithful
3 Don't harm another's affair
4 Love one you'd be OK marrying
5 Don't lie
6 Don't blab about your affair
7 Obey your lady
8 Be modest
9 Speak no evil
10 Don't blab about others' affairs
11 Be courteous
12 Take only what she freely gives.
🚨Bunker Hill Truther Alert🚨
This book from 1857 states that the Battle of Bunker Hill never happened because the combatants were good Christians & wouldn't do that kind of thing.
This book from 1857 states that the Battle of Bunker Hill never happened because the combatants were good Christians & wouldn't do that kind of thing.
November 9, 2025 at 1:06 PM
🚨Bunker Hill Truther Alert🚨
This book from 1857 states that the Battle of Bunker Hill never happened because the combatants were good Christians & wouldn't do that kind of thing.
This book from 1857 states that the Battle of Bunker Hill never happened because the combatants were good Christians & wouldn't do that kind of thing.
New read: "The Art of Courtly Love" by Andreas Capellanus.
The modern intro suggests that Medieval European ideas of courtly love (many of which have trickled down to us still) came from an unexpected mix of Ovid and Spanish-Moorish influences & thought. It'll be interesting to see where that goes.
The modern intro suggests that Medieval European ideas of courtly love (many of which have trickled down to us still) came from an unexpected mix of Ovid and Spanish-Moorish influences & thought. It'll be interesting to see where that goes.
November 8, 2025 at 5:41 PM
New read: "The Art of Courtly Love" by Andreas Capellanus.
The modern intro suggests that Medieval European ideas of courtly love (many of which have trickled down to us still) came from an unexpected mix of Ovid and Spanish-Moorish influences & thought. It'll be interesting to see where that goes.
The modern intro suggests that Medieval European ideas of courtly love (many of which have trickled down to us still) came from an unexpected mix of Ovid and Spanish-Moorish influences & thought. It'll be interesting to see where that goes.
Finishing "High Renaissance." Michael Levey, who I loved in "Early Renaissance," peppers this one with untranslated passages in French, Latin, Italian, German. He makes in-jokes about obscure 19th C art historians. He undermines his Mannerism author-colleague. He shows off & just looks like a dick.
November 8, 2025 at 2:03 AM
Finishing "High Renaissance." Michael Levey, who I loved in "Early Renaissance," peppers this one with untranslated passages in French, Latin, Italian, German. He makes in-jokes about obscure 19th C art historians. He undermines his Mannerism author-colleague. He shows off & just looks like a dick.
There's something fabulous about 14th C Italian painting. It's not quite Renaissance yet. There's still a two-dimensionality, an overlayering of allegory. But people are starting to become true people - real individuals, recognizable. There are *huge* things bubbling up, almost ready to burst forth.
November 7, 2025 at 11:40 PM
There's something fabulous about 14th C Italian painting. It's not quite Renaissance yet. There's still a two-dimensionality, an overlayering of allegory. But people are starting to become true people - real individuals, recognizable. There are *huge* things bubbling up, almost ready to burst forth.
