Where Are My Choices?

 

 

 

Sometimes capitalism is enough to inspire communists! We’ve been told since were little that, unlike “socialist” countries, our economic system provides choices. The myth of capitalist choice is all around us. Almost every town has a gasoline alley with numerous stations cheek by jowl that are theoretically in competition with each other. Yet each sells gasoline that's a mere penny or two from other stations. Does anyone ponder over whether to pay $3.01 versus $3.02? It hardly matters given that pennies are being pulled from distribution!

 

The lack of personal choice dictates what we wear. The hot colors for 2026 will be teal, green, and blue. What if those colors don't flatter you? Millions of people will wear those colors anyhow, even though they think they look like they were mugged by park rangers. How about skinny jeans? They were hot just a few years ago until someone said you were supposed to wear wide legs that make you look as though you needed extra space to tuck in your peers when you go out. Trash ‘em; skinny jeans are back! For the record, I wear skinny jeans. It’s not because I think people wish to gaze at my physique; it’s because I'm old and my arse has disappeared.

 

Capitalism is supposed to work on a supply and demand principle. In theory, consumers drive the demand bus and suppliers respond by meeting their demand. As supply goes up, price is supposed to drop. In reality, capitalists create their own demand. They make “hot” items hard to obtain so the price skyrockets. It doesn't matter if the item is shoddily made; next year they will create a new demand and the sheeple will dump skinny jeans and wear construction worker pants with a tape measure in the side pocket once they see Kendall Jenner wearing them. Think I’m crazy? Explain why anyone would pay $100 or more for ripped jeans that look as if the wearer was mauled by raccoons. (I'll be wearing my skinny jeans unless I magically grow an arse.)

 

My rave  du jour is the size of automobiles. I need to replace my Prius Prime because disc surgery made me shrink by more than two inches  and I have trouble seeing out of it. I'm now around 5 foot 3 inches height and apparently the only person that short in all of America. My Prius Prime is now called a “compact” car. Dave Berry once joked about the new Ford Land-Grant, the first car to come with its own zip code. Maybe he wasn’t joking!

 

You might think that the answer to my dilemma is to look at subcontract compact cars. What are those? Yeah, I could buy a Smart Car. It should be called an Idiot Car as it gets less than 40 mpg. Who determines what mileage small cars get? In Europe the same vehicle that gets 30 mpg in the U.S. gets 50 or more. Maybe I should buy either an electric car or another plug-in hybrid. Have you seen the design of the new Leaf? Don't call it a Leaf; it’s more of a mature maple. I’ve viewed cars so wide that I need my phone GPS to find the glove box.

 

It's not hard to figure out who is behind big vehicles and low mileage; it's the oil capitalists of course. I'd say they lobby politicians to protect their singular desire to pump petroleum until they sell the last thimbleful to some rich fool who can afford $1000 per half oz. The truth is there’s little need to lobby because much of Congress is made-up of oil investors. They are the ones who answer the question of an old documentary: who killed the electric car? Anyone with more than 17 brain cells knows that large petroleum-consuming vehicles are not sustainable. Who needs big cars in a culture where a swelling tide of the people are taking Ozempic or Wegovy? Never fear; car dealers will regroup to sell us sailboats once the polar ice caps collapse and everything east of the Appalachians is under water. (Big Sale on Sails!)

 

I haven't completely given up. I can still check out Toyotas, Honda, and Kei. If they come through, I’ll  wait for retailers to offer skinny jeans with arse inserts. I'm sure I’ll be tempted to buy those at any price. Who needs choices?

 

Rob Weir

 

PS: Next year’s “hot” auto color is powder blue, if you believe marketers.

 

The Bookshop by Evan Friss

 

  

 

 

The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore (2014)

By Evan Friss

Viking, 312 pages + Back Matter

★★★★

 

An unusual aspect of the town where I live is that we have two independent bookstores and a large used bookstore in a place with just 30,000 residents. That didn't used to be odd, but many towns these days have no bookstores beyond a rack of best sellers at Walmart.

 

Evan Friss, a history professor at James Madison University, traces American bookstore evolution, proliferation, and reinvention. His title is slightly deceptive as he devotes much of his study to New York City. Of course, New York City dominates the publishing world, though the first bookstore of note was that of Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia. You wouldn’t recognize it; in 1742, it held but one novel, Pamela by Samuel Richardson. Franklin sold books at his printing shop, most of which were sermons, philosophical treatises, textbooks, religious tomes, self-help works, and political tracts such as Thomas Paine's Common Sense. But the scale was small; he once boasted of having sold 600 books in a year. As the American Revolution drew near, there were but two bookshops in the entire Chesapeake region.

 

Friss cleverly places interstitial asides between chapters that are devoted to such related topics as the smell of books, the role of buyers, eccentric shopkeepers, oddball customers, devotees, and “The Guy Who Never Buys Anything.”

 

Friss cites Boston as the prototype for modern bookselling, especially the Old Corner Bookshop (Washington and School streets), which opened in 1828. In less than 10 years Boston held 137 booksellers, the bulk situated on Washington Street. They catered to an increasingly literate post-Revolutionary War readership. William Ticknor and James Fields thrived by sprinkling notorious titles among its offerings such as Lydia Maria Child's defense of African Americans. (Racists smashed the window where it was displayed.) Hawthorne was a constant presence at the Corner Bookstore; Whittier, Longfellow, and Thoreau sold well. Still, there were just 1,553 American titles in the 1840s. By way of comparison, Penguin Random House alone publishes 15,000 new books a year.

 

As the 19^th century progressed, New York City passed Boston as the leader of the publishing business. No city does big scale as well as Gotham. D. Appleton had an elaborate 6,000 square foot shop in New York that combined publishing, wholesale, and retail. It anticipated a scaling up of the book business. Ironically, many future magnates began as peddlers: Roger Mifflin, Helen McGill, and Frank Collins. A post-Civil War observer could have predicted that department stores would become the future of book sales: Stewart, Wanamaker’s, Marshall Field…. They would be among the innovators for paperbacks, Pocket Books, and outrageous ballyhoo such as Julie the elephant flogging Rand McNally “slotties,” books that came with inserts like elephant puzzle pieces.

 

By the early 20th century, though, books were sold every conceivable way. Writers and readers crammed into the rooms of Gotham Book Mart owner Francis Steloff for fellowship, discussion, and new titles. Steloff introduced a Parisian touch, outdoor book stalls. This paved the way for a constant battle between vendors and NYC officials bent on getting rid of loiterers and unlicensed vendors. The streets and bookstore windows also became battlegrounds between moralists, surrealists, Beats, hippies, black nationalists, and gay activists. Friss also highlights famed and infamous bookstores such as the Oscar Wilde, the rightwing Aryan bookstore, and Drum & Spear.

 

Many will recall that the next stage was a surge of gigantism in the late 20th century. Elegant stores such as Scribner’s gave way to Walden, Barnes & Noble, and Borders. Then came Amazon, whose first venture was selling books and music from storefronts before it became the online retailer that swallowed Walmart.

 

Friss is not a pessimist. He shows us that bookselling has been an ever-changing pursuit. Of late, famous authors have bought bookstores. Ann Patchett started Parnassus in Nashville. Louise Erdrich followed with her own store in Minneapolis, Garrison Keeler in Saint Paul, Judy Blume in Key West, and Emma Straub in Brooklyn. These new ventures make venerable City Lights in San Francisco look like a grey beard, though it is still a vital concern.

 

To return to western Massachusetts, bookstores have reinvented themselves, some by going retro and selling everything from toys and cards to calendars and socks; others by sponsoring author readings and lectures. It is said that Americans don't read anymore. If you believe that, you're hanging around with the wrong people.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

Thanksgiving Etiquette: Don’t Be a Turkey

 

In movie terms, a “turkey” is a flop; in slang it means a foolish or obnoxious person. Thanksgiving is my favorite American holiday because it is the most democratic. It doesn’t overtly involve religion, gift-giving, commercialism, or anguish (beyond properly timing the bird). It’s devoted to food, friends, family, and thankfulness. Yet, a non-edible turkey can ruin the day. Here are some tips for hosts and guests, the common denominator being: Don’t be a turkey.

 

If you are hosting, advise guests in advance that politics are off the table for everyone. It’s not exactly breaking news that Americans are deeply divided, which is true even for those who think they’re on the same side. For instance, many liberals disagree vehemently about the Israel versus Palestine conflict. A metaphorical show of hands if an angry argument over politics ever made wish to emigrate to Mongolia. Hosts should remind everyone to avoid politics and shut down anyone who violates that wish. You don’t have to get huffy about it; just a friendly-but-firm reminder that everyone has agreed to leave political battles for another day.

 

If you’re a guest, remember that you are in someone else’s home and they get to set the house rules. Bringing up contentious topics when asked not to is just as rude as passing gas.

 

Guests should adopt a mind-your-own-business (MYOB) attitude for the day. Chances are good that someone will be gay, lesbian, transgender, an aluminum siding salesperson, have green hair, have ugly tattoos, or possess some other quality that makes you uncomfortable. It is hypercritical to MYOB if it’s a relative or friend of one. Poet Robert Frost once sagaciously observed, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” Codicil: That doesn’t give you the right to be a jerk.

 

Whether you are host or guest, if you invite someone to dinner who might stick out like the proverbial sore thumb, stick close to them and sit with them. Every family has the equivalent of Oscar the Grouch, so don’t set up that person for a miserable experience unless that guest is comfortable dealing with cranks. Surprisingly, many people are, but let that be their choice not the product of some anal seating arrangement.

 

Never criticize the food– even if it sucks! If you’re vegetarian, vegan, or subsist on road kill, stay home. There was a recent Boston Globe article about a man who has hosted Thanksgiving for decades and has grown so sick of guests who announce their food preferences as they walk through the door that his invites come with the advice that if you are vegan or vegetarian, “Bring your own disgusting food with you.” That’s harsh, but we’ve all been there, yes?

 

Hosts, be chill; it’s a real bummer when the host collapses with a nervous breakdown. Get a large bunch of people in one room and chances are good something will go wrong–a spilled drink, a broken plate, a gravy spill…. These are trivial things. Don’t try to be Martha Stewart perfect. Even if you pulled it off you’d make your guests uptight. The point of the day is to be grateful for one another’s company.

 

It’s not necessary for a host to make so many dishes that a solid oak table bows in the middle. If you have enough food for all, it’s fine to make just a few side dishes instead of trying to replicate a Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post Thanksgiving. For the record, the Saturday Evening Post ceased publication in 1969, about the time standards became less formal. It’s also not a good time to experiment with recipes you’ve never made before. Plus, inevitably numerous people will bring a favorite Aunt Edith recipe, even though you’ve said, “Just bring yourself.” Men will bring myrrh, which is actually a bottle of Johnny Walker.    

 

Guests, offer to help, be it carrying items to the groaning board or volunteering to wash the dishes. Chances are approximately 99.43 to 1 your offer will be politely refused, but it’s a nice gesture. 

 

Turn-offs for most: (1) Hogs at the trough. (2) Thinking your young kids are so wonderful that everyone will think so. (3) Young kids preparing food. (4) Discussing medical issues at the table. (5) Using cellphones at the table.

 

Guys, no football until the meal is done, the table cleared, and you are banished to the TV room. Rushing to the TV with your plate in hand makes you an inconsiderate gobbler and a sexist in the eyes of many women. You’re a double turkey if you see everything related to the feast as “women’s work.” 

 

Getting plastered or stoned is an absolute no-no. It’s not a bad idea for the host or a trusted friend to designate someone to deal with such an unfortunate event. Don’t let a loud-mouthed lush or rambling space cadet ruin everyone’s day. You can and should drive that person home, but first separate the person from others, perhaps a room where the turkey can return to the planet. 

 

Non-negotiable: You can have as many kinds of pie as you wish, but one of them must be pumpkin. Not squash. Not sweet potato. Not yam.  P-U-M-P-K-I-N. If you disagree, we can’t talk. Ditto if you think carob is “just as good” as chocolate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dream of the Middle Ages at Beynac

                                         

 

This might have been my favorite place that I visited. Like many places in the Périgord, it is rich with history but this one not only engages the imagination, it sends it into high gear.

 

The “et” alerts us that two small villages have been combined into a single administrative unit (commune), that collectively contain but 447 residents. When you are in the region through which the Dordogne River flows, wine, fois gras, truffles, walnuts, cheese, duck, goose, and pork roasted in duck fat are staples. To my taste buds, all but the fois gras (duck liver) are quite tasty.

 

The other unavoidable reality is that Eleanor of Aquitaine will be mentioned. When you hear that name, you know you are in an area that was contested during the Hundred Years War (1337-1453). Some quick arithmetic will tell you that the struggles between the French and English crowns is misnamed, as it actually took 116 years. Is that because the “116 Year War” doesn’t roll off the tongue. Not exactly. During the period known as feudalism, you can’t think of “France” or “England” as you would like today’s nation-states. Wealth was measured by land and it didn’t need to be contiguous. The Aquitaine region of modern France often saw the English nobles and kings own more land than the French, which was sort of what was behind the Hundred Years War. (A bigger reason was dispute over the rightful heirs to the thrones of each country.) Eleanor factors prominently into this, as she was married to Louis VII, King of France from 1137-1152. Louis had his marriage to Eleanor annulled on the grounds of consanguinity (being too closely related), but she subsequently married Henry II of England. Though she was 11 years older (30) than Henry, she bore eight children between 1152 and 1189, five of them sons. Three, Henry the Young, Richard, and John, were anointed as English kings whilst William and Goffrey became the dukes of  Poitiers and Brittany.  Matilda, Joan, and Eleanor Junior, married into royal families (Saxony, Castille, and Sicily).  

 

One historian aptly labeled Eleanor’s children a “den of vipers” that allied with or fought against their father depending on how the winds of ambition blew. When Henry died in 1189, Richard became King of England, though he spoke Occitan and Gascon, dialects related to French. He spent less than six months of his ten-year-reign in England and perhaps never spoke a word of English.

 

What’s this have to do with Beynac? The Beynac line died out in the 12^th century and guess who inherited the castle. A gold star if you guessed Eleanor of Aquitaine. She gave the castle to Richard (as the third son he never expected to be king, but his older brothers predeceased him). A lot of what most people think of as medieval times occurred during Richard’s reign. He spent four years of at the Third Crusade (1189-93), battled Saladin, and was seldom out of armor. By the time of his death in 1199, English vassals owned more land in France than the French king, hence his sobriquet Richard the Lionheart. 

 

 

Alas for England, when Richard died in 1199, the crown went to Eleanor’s youngest son, John, often considered the worst king in English history for losing much of the land Henry II and Richard gained (including Beynac), and so much control over the English aristocracy that was forced to sign the Magna Carta. He is the only King John of England and a future monarch wouldn’t dare assume his name!

 

Getting back to Beynac, the château and castle sit high above the Dordogne River, prone to being swallowed by morning fog. It’s relatively empty, as most castles were. Few kings had just one castle. Most shifted royal residences several times a year, moves that entailed moving wall hangings, kitchen utensils, beds, chairs, etc. from one place to another. Only things like feasting tables were left behind because they were too massive to move. Beynac’s sparse furnishings allows you to imagine the dampness, darkness, rush-covered floors, fireplaces whose heat seldom filled a room, austere furnishings, the bustle of the kitchen, courtiers in echoey chambers, and servants and plotters clattering on stone steps. Build your own mental castle!

 

The village below is the usual assortment of small shops, eateries, services, and stone blocks. The riverfront village is built for ambling. Beynac is also a place where the Dordogne is wide and deep enough for boat sightseeing, the subject of a future travelogue.     

 

Rob Weir

 

State of the Union Isn't About Today. It Just Feels That Way!

 

 

 

 

State of the Union (1948)

Directed by Frank Capra

MGM, 124 minutes, Not-rated.

★★★ ½

 

State of the Union feels strangely contemporary. More’s the pity. This Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn vehicle is about a populist Republican presidential candidate who becomes a tool for a tawdry cabal bent upon self-enrichment. Relax, no one was anticipating the events of 2020s. First of all, this is a Frank Capra-directed film. Capra was a conservative and, for a time, sympathetic to both Franco and Mussolini. Most of his films champion the proverbial “little guy,” but what’s on the screen is more about fair play than partisanship. Within film history, Capra is the quintessential master of the screwball comedy (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, It Happened One Night, It’s a Wonderful Life, etc.)

 

As if often the case, the bloodiest politics took place off the screen. It wasn’t supposed to be a Tracy/Hepburn movie. Capra originally wanted Claudine Colbert (It Happened One Night) as his female lead, but the two quarreled and Colbert walked away from the project. Hepburn, an ultra-liberal, took her place and couldn’t stomach Adolph Menjou, a right-winger who outed radicals during the post-World War II Red Scare assault on Hollywood. Hepburn was upper-crust Connecticut civil to Menjou, frosty but proper. Ultimately, the film was a satirical take on the politics of its day, not ours.

 

Capra’s film was based on a 1945 Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name written by Russel Crouse and Howard Lindsay. In 1945, Franklin Roosevelt began his fourth term as president–a subsequent Constitutional amendment limited presidents to two terms–but Roosevelt died in April 1945, with Vice President Harry Truman assuming the White House. By the time the movie was released, World War II had been won and smart money said Republican candidate Thomas Dewey would defeat Truman in the 1948 presidential release. It was such a given that several newspapers announced that Dewey won; Truman actually took the popular vote by 4% and the electoral vote by a 303 to 189 margin.

 

State of the Union begins with publisher Sam Thorndyke–modeled after William Randolph Hearst or Frank Gannett–about to die. His daughter Kay (Angela Lansbury) vows to take revenge on liberals (read Democrats) per her father’s wishes. She doesn’t bother to tell him that she’s having an affair with married aircraft manufacturer Grant Matthews (Tracy). Grant has folksy opinions galore. He utters nostrums with such conviction that they sound convincing even when they are short (or devoid) of detail. At times even his estranged wife Mary (Hepburn) is semi-convinced, though she doesn’t take it seriously when he considers running for president. Mary does not yet know that Kay Thorndyke is putting those ideas in his head. One wonders if Grant knows he’s being set up to become Kay’s puppet.

 

Grant comes off as for forgotten Americans and borrows other Roosevelt tactics such as fireside chats and appearing with his son Georgie, perhaps a substitute for FDR’s dog Fala. Kay uses her newspaper empire to sandbag GOP frontrunners such as Dewey, Robert Taft, Douglas MacArthur, and others. She also uses secret threats to align business interests with Grant’s burgeoning campaign.

 

The problem with the Matthews bandwagon is that Grant believes his own speeches about taking on both Big Labor and Big Business, bipartisanship, and his various promises to the proverbial “average” Americans (waiters, bellhops, his barber, and blue-collar workers). Kay’s next step is to manipulate Grant with campaign strategists such as Spike McManus (Van Johnson) and Jim Conover (Menjou). Kay even convinces Grant to go back to Mary and put their affair on hold until after the election. But when Mary gets wise, all strategy and counter-strategy passes to the women.

 

This being a Capra film in the era of the Hollywood Code, you can anticipate a “cat fight,” to use the sexist parlance of the day. Nor was Capra bashful about pouring on the schmaltz, and he simply didn’t do bleak endings. In other words, there’s little reason to think of State of the Union as serious political commentary. If there is a weightier moral to the film, it is that American politics have been an act of performed theatrics for a long time (as in, from the founding through 2025).

 

A final note, if one of the minor characters looks fainty “witchy,” it’s because she is Margaret Hamilton from The Wizard of Oz.

 

Rob Weir

 

What We Can Know

 

 

 

What We Can Know (2025)

By Ian McEwan

Alfred A. Knopf, 299 pages.

★★★★

 

I’ve heard people complain that the fiction market is saturated with lightweight junk. If you hunger for literary fiction, Ian McEwan might be your pheasant under glass, if you can stomach a bit of futurism. McEwan writes for a sophisticated audience that wants stylish and intelligent prose, not just a “good read.”

 

His latest, What We Can Know is set in both 2014 and 2119. The dual fulcrum in each time period is poet Francis Blundy and his wife Vivien. At a party not-so-modestly dubbed the “Second Immortal Party–the first in 1817 introduced John Keats to such luminaries as William Wordsworth, and Charles Lamb–Blundy reads his latest work. “A Corona for Vivien” is devilishly difficult poem. Coronas usually hail an honored person via a string of joined 14-line sonnets, 3 quatrains with alternating stressed and unstressed rhyme patterns followed by a rhyming couplet. In a typical corona, 7 sonnets are joined with the last line of the first sonnet becoming the first line of the second, etc. Blundy allegedly strung together 15 sonnets, a staggering 210 lines. One can only imagine that Blundy really loved Vivien. But according to records, Blundy presented Vivien with the original and then it disappeared. It was said to be brilliant and mentioned Francis in the same breath as T.S. Eliot. His corona became the most famous poem that nobody ever saw! For a literary scholar, locating it would be like finding the Holy Grail.

 

In 2119, British scholar Thomas Metcalfe teaches American history 1990-2030. The latter date is significant. A combination of climate collapse, dictatorial leaders, and nuclear blasts have altered the planet dramatically. Metcalfe and his on/off lover Rose seek to solve the problem of Blundy’s missing corona. Thomas thinks important clues are in the Bodleian Library where he and Rose teach. That would the Bodleian at Oxford University Snowdonia; the old Oxford campus is under water and the United Kingdom is an archipelago of disconnected slices of land. Most of the world’s digital archives are controlled by Nigeria, as are communications systems. Forget fancy dinners; the drastically reduced populace gets most of its nutrients from protein bars. The humanities are in crisis, though Thomas archly observes, “The humanities are always in crisis. I no longer believe this is an institutional matter–it’s the nature of intellectual life …. Thinking is always in crisis.” Ouch!

 

McEwan has written a mash up of Waterworld, a murder mystery, a (metaphorical) ghost story, and tales whose message is what goes around comes around. McEwan’s title encapsulates this. Can we know if there was there a corona in the first place? Metcalfe is a romantic who never considers the possibility that Blundy should have been named Bluffer. He romanticizes his area of study and imagines the 21^st century as inherently more creative and free than the 22^nd. At one point he enumerates the things that once existed that are now gone, a list that runs the gamut from music festivals and gardening to stupid sports (football comes to his mind), and tasty food. He is shocked by students who think he’s an old fogey who excused 21^st century people for screwing up the planet. Thomas and Rose find clues alright, but what really happened? What was Vivien like? Did she return Blundy’s affection? Are they replicating the lives of their quarry?

 

As a historian, it struck me that McEwan was writing about the dilemma of my profession. Consider Pompeii, which experienced what its citizens would have viewed a global catastrophe. If it is the nature of the humanities to be in crisis, is it not the nature of historical clues to lie hidden? Pompeii was lost until an accidental discovery in 1599 and wasn’t excavated until 1748. We didn’t even know the city’s name until 1763, and to this day new finds tell us more. What is lost in a disaster? We know precious little about social relations. What partners were faithful and which were libidinous? Who was gay? Who hated their neighbors? But the reason we write history is that not everything is lost. McEwan cleverly gives us an alt.version of Francis and Vivien to ponder.

 

McEwan may be guilty of being needlessly oblique. He definitely privileges style over narrative, a practice that will infuriate those who dislike ambiguity. What can we know? Like history, we sometimes paint with broad strokes to hide details that we don’t know.

 

 

Rob Weir

 

 

 

History and Myth at Rocamadour

 

 

Rocamadour is a tiny place, but one full of wonder. It perennially shows up on lists of the most beautiful villages in France. It is indeed a village–just 604 residents–but it has a dramatic setting and a rich history. In some ways it’s more like a small Italian town in Tuscany in that part of it occupies a hilltop. Quite an imposing one. Tour buses wend their way to a small parking lot at the summit. From there you can walk through a parklet devoted to the 14 Stations of the Cross devoted to the life and passion of Christ. Even if you’re a scowling heathen you can appreciate the devotion and artwork of believers.

 

The view from the top is enough to inspire religious fervor. Rocamadour is crowned by a 12^th century château. That building isn’t open to view, but you can walk about the defensive ramparts. One wonders how often they needed to rely upon them as this part of Rocamadour is built into the cleft of a limestone cliff that sits nearly 500 feet above the Alzou, a tributary of the Dordogne River. If you time your trip correctly you can view the Alzou Valley cloaked in fog in the morning and appreciate the panorama when it burns off by the afternoon.

 

If you’re not a mountain goat you can take a lift to the bottom, but I recommend you strap on your knee braces and brave the 216 stairs of Le Grand Escalier as there are important things to see on the journey down. Plus, you can take solace the medieval pilgrims climbed up those stairs on their knees. Despite its small population Rocamadour holds an oversized importance in French medieval history. Its name derives from Saint Amadour–the name is linked linguistically to amor, French for love–who might or might not deserve sainthood depending on what variety of Catholic you ask. He was either a devout hermit from sometime in the first century AD, or a complete invention. What we know for sure is that in 1162 an unmarked grave was found near the entrance to the 12^th century Our Lady (Notre Dame) Chapel that looked quite old, though the body therein had not deteriorated. It was declared to be the body of Amadour who was venerated as a saint. (FYI, the 1969 Vatican II council removed some 200 saints’ feast days from the calendar as it could not be verified they actually existed. Try telling that to someone wearing a St. Christopher medal!)

 

Whether Amadour existed or not is just one of Rocamadour’s mysteries. Pilgrims have been coming there since the 10^th century because of miracles–I warned you in an earlier post it would come up again–associated with its version of the Black Madonna (above). In this case, it is a statue inside the church carved from walnut of Mary and the infant Jesus. Rocamadour was also on the road to Compostella and a veritable parade of medieval luminaries: kings, queens (including Eleanor of Aquitaine), and holy men.

 

Both St. Dominic and St. Bernard of Clairvaux visited and wasn’t often the founder of the Dominicans and reformer of the Benedictines and founder of the Knights Templar set up shop in the same place. The Black Virgin carving is said to be over a thousand years old. Who carved it? Some say Zacchaeus, a tax collector disciple of Jesus. His wife was Veronica who supposedly wiped Jesus’ face on his route to his crucifixion and left his facial imprint on the cloth. You might recognize that as the famed Veronica’s Veil. Still others claim the Black Madonna was carved by Amadour, whom Mary commanded to live as a hermit. Why a Black Virgin? No one is quite sure. Is it because Mary and Jesus were darker-skinned Semites, soot from candles, the age of the artifact, or…? Will someone please call Sherlock Holmes?

 

As if all of this weren’t enough, Rocamadour is also connected to Charlemagne (748-814 AD). There are few medieval literary works more famous than the epic poem La Chanson de Roland, which appeared in the 11^th century. It tells of a trap set by enemies at the Roncevaux Pass in 778 AD. An advance guard led by Roland held the pass long enough for Roland to blow a horn warning Charlemagne of danger. History or myth?  Were the attackers Basques, Saracen Muslims from Arabia, or from Spain? Who wrote the poem? Sense a theme here? To add another romantic flourish, visitors are shown cleft in the rock from which iron protrudes. It’s said that an angel gave Roland a sword called Durandal, said to be the sharpest blade in existence. Roland was able to hold off scores of Saracens until Charlemagne counterattacked. Imagine Western history had Charlemagne died at the age of 20.

 

Whew! If you make it down to the main street of the village after all that, it’s lined with small shops, artisan ware, restaurants, and places to sample fois de gras (non, merci), its famed goat cheese (oui, s’il vous plait), and wine (encore, encore!). Then it’s time to board the toy-like Quercy Rocamadour train, which just barely fits through the town gate to be shuttled back to the top.

 

Rob Weir