Thanksgiving Blog
We are up early and managing our orders today. Our international customers don't celebrate the holiday and want their merchandise. We were so excited that we were up in the wee hours, long before dawn. The thought of cooking aromas and all the books we purchased the last couple of days are giving us a kind of excited insomnia. We have what the staff calls "nervous energy" not exactly a certified medical condition, but an excess amount of enthusiasm that translates into an early A. M. trip to the coffee maker. We checked the e-mails, wrapped the packages, and we will be checking the mail box for deliveries made late yesterday.
Our most remarkable acquisition is a short book about African-American hairstyles through the ages. We will feature it in an upcoming blog. The book has an astonishing amount of detail, line-drawings and historical information about the curious evolution of a significant proportion of the American population from their tropical origins near the Equator centuries ago, to the current trends of braiding and the use of a wide variety of materials to accentuate appearance in both a fashion and a practical sense.
Its 1973 copyright makes it something of an historical interest. We will be giving thanks for having found this interesting book.
And we will be thinking about the chile wreath that we just received from a traveling visitor who just returned to us from New Mexico, who is carrying a bountiful gift from the Native Americans in the pueblos of the Southwest. And we will be eating pumpkin pie, maybe some cornbread, and potatoes also made from the long labors of generations of peoples from Maine to Peru who grew those plants. It is not just the foods we eat, but the careful selection of different plants by ladies in their gardens, farmers in their fields, even hunters in their searches that have all combined over the centuries to contribute to the repast we will enjoy.
We like to think about corn, beans, squashes, and chiles and admire them. For they did not just appear on the table, but represent the careful care and breeding of a long line of contributors here in the Americas, or as our European visitors like to joke: "The New World". We salute the native peoples who spoke about, wrote about, and even had art that elevated these quotidian items of consumption to a level of reverence and humility for nature. We traveled to Peru in years gone by, the home of the original potato and found that in pre-Christian times they worshiped Axomama, the godess-mother of potatoes. Having come from a long line of enthusiastic potato-eaters we were astonished by our lack of knowledge about this. A veritable godess, with a name and probably shrines in stone, for the humble tuber which we will admire and incorporate as one of our favorite foods.
So we will thank our predecessors, foreign and domestic, as we partake of our holiday dinner later today. And wish our visitors a happy Thanksgiving, a single part of a still larger ritual cycle of holy days that was observed in many places and by many peoples. And we will recline on our divan afterwards and take a brief interval of rest, for today is a National Holiday. No shipping of books today.
They will lie to one side, wrapped and ready to go when the work-day world starts up tomorrow and the trusty messengers in grey and blue will once again go forth on their appointed rounds to bring our products of knowledge and information to you across the globe. We give thanks today for the infinite number of auspicious causes and conditions and the many people, places and things that bring our repast to such an enjoyable fruition. Such things are not just random coincidence, but logically speaking, the careful work of generous and loving human hands. Perhaps even, from an aesthetic point of view, these are gifts that can be seen as the benevolence of unseen spiritual beings who protect our destiny. Even practically speaking, from a purely materialistic point of view, we gratefully consume the sacrifice and labors of the myriad actions and efforts that assemble before us the tangible results of this year's bountiful harvest.
Our most remarkable acquisition is a short book about African-American hairstyles through the ages. We will feature it in an upcoming blog. The book has an astonishing amount of detail, line-drawings and historical information about the curious evolution of a significant proportion of the American population from their tropical origins near the Equator centuries ago, to the current trends of braiding and the use of a wide variety of materials to accentuate appearance in both a fashion and a practical sense.
Its 1973 copyright makes it something of an historical interest. We will be giving thanks for having found this interesting book.
And we will be thinking about the chile wreath that we just received from a traveling visitor who just returned to us from New Mexico, who is carrying a bountiful gift from the Native Americans in the pueblos of the Southwest. And we will be eating pumpkin pie, maybe some cornbread, and potatoes also made from the long labors of generations of peoples from Maine to Peru who grew those plants. It is not just the foods we eat, but the careful selection of different plants by ladies in their gardens, farmers in their fields, even hunters in their searches that have all combined over the centuries to contribute to the repast we will enjoy.
We like to think about corn, beans, squashes, and chiles and admire them. For they did not just appear on the table, but represent the careful care and breeding of a long line of contributors here in the Americas, or as our European visitors like to joke: "The New World". We salute the native peoples who spoke about, wrote about, and even had art that elevated these quotidian items of consumption to a level of reverence and humility for nature. We traveled to Peru in years gone by, the home of the original potato and found that in pre-Christian times they worshiped Axomama, the godess-mother of potatoes. Having come from a long line of enthusiastic potato-eaters we were astonished by our lack of knowledge about this. A veritable godess, with a name and probably shrines in stone, for the humble tuber which we will admire and incorporate as one of our favorite foods.
So we will thank our predecessors, foreign and domestic, as we partake of our holiday dinner later today. And wish our visitors a happy Thanksgiving, a single part of a still larger ritual cycle of holy days that was observed in many places and by many peoples. And we will recline on our divan afterwards and take a brief interval of rest, for today is a National Holiday. No shipping of books today.
They will lie to one side, wrapped and ready to go when the work-day world starts up tomorrow and the trusty messengers in grey and blue will once again go forth on their appointed rounds to bring our products of knowledge and information to you across the globe. We give thanks today for the infinite number of auspicious causes and conditions and the many people, places and things that bring our repast to such an enjoyable fruition. Such things are not just random coincidence, but logically speaking, the careful work of generous and loving human hands. Perhaps even, from an aesthetic point of view, these are gifts that can be seen as the benevolence of unseen spiritual beings who protect our destiny. Even practically speaking, from a purely materialistic point of view, we gratefully consume the sacrifice and labors of the myriad actions and efforts that assemble before us the tangible results of this year's bountiful harvest.
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