Ordinary Philosophy's Podcast

Saturday, May 4th, 2018, continued

After parting with Simon, Laurence and I step out of the Tower grounds for a quick lunch, though when we return, our first stop features sights and stories that could turn anyone’s stomach. As you may have guessed, it’s the torture room of the Lower Wakefield Tower. As the signage indicates, the chamber now dedicated to the history and artifacts of the Tower’s legacy of torture was likely not used for that purpose at the time. However, it’s well chosen for its current purpose. The underground stone chamber is entered via a series of short stairways and small narrow doorways, evoking an increasing sense of entrapment among stones as cold and impassive as were the torturer’s sympathies.

There is no direct link between this chamber and Thomas More or Elizabeth I, but both of them had strong associations with the use of torture...

Saturday, May 4th, 2018, continued

Simon, Laurence, and I leave the Queen's House and follow Simon past the Tower Green to the Royal Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula ('St Peter in Chains'). We descend a narrow stone stairway which leads to a chamber underneath the chapel and find ourselves in a chamber with low, arched ceilings. The room is constructed of stone or brick, perhaps both; it's hard to determine exactly which since it's thickly painted, and plastered in some places. The walls are lined with black tablets with names inscribed in curly script. Before the names, some contain such inscriptions as 'Here lieth the body of...' or 'To the memory of...'

A tablet on the north wall, above several of these black name-inscribed tablets, explains:

'Within this wall are deposited in two chests the remains of many distinguished persons who suffered death on Tower Hill and which were for a time interred beneath the floor of the chancel and nave of St Peter ad Vincula of the Tower of London * The removal of which was necessitated by repairs and alterations within the chapel by H.M. Office of Works in the years 1876-7 * The reinterment of these remains was under the supervision of Lieut-General Milman * Major of the Tower * A member of the committee appointed to carry out the alterations April 1877.'...

Saturday, May 4th, 2018

I first visited the Tower of London in January of this year with my friend Steven, a fellow student of history; I at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, he at King's College, London. We had great fun, two history nerds running around London for a couple of days! While we were at the Tower, I looked for the cell where Sir Thomas More was imprisoned for over a year before he was executed for treason on July 6th, 1535. Like many brought up in Catholic families after the film was made, I grew up watching the adaptation of Robert Bolt's Man for All Seasons starring Paul Scofield, seeing it so many times I believe I could have parroted the dialogue from entire scenes from memory with little effort. Going back and watching clips, I still remember just about everything that every character will say and do ahead of time. The tragic story of and Scofield's compelling characterization of the clever lawyer and saint captured my imagination. Since then, I've read more about him over the years and broadened my understanding of this man, who was much more complex than the stellar but somewhat two-dimensional martyr of integrity and righteousness portrayed in the film...

Journal: Hannibal, Missouri, evening of July 31st, 2017

I’m sitting here on the waterfront between the Mississippi River and the train tracks, facing northwest. My back is leaning against a stone wall. The train whistle was deafening, but now the engine has passed and the freight cars are rumbling slowly by. The low, warm, dark peach last light of sunset is glowing gently through the steel truss bridge. I have a bottle of wine at my side and my laptop computer on my lap. The night is warm and humid. I’ve found a dark alcove beneath the park's perimeter footpath so I can better see the last light of the sunset, and to avoid the clouds of mayflies swarming in the light around every post lamp.

Old town Hannibal is very old-timey America. Lots of brick, and false fronts, and clapboard siding. Look to the west end of the street and you’ll see a steep tree-covered hill with a perfect little white lighthouse perched on its side. The main street’s storefronts are mostly full, with antique and novelty shops, souvenir shops, cafes, ice cream and candy parlors, and bars and restaurants...

New Salem, Sunday, July 31st, 2017

From the Michael J. Howlett building in downtown Springfield (part of which stands on the site of the Ninian Edwards house where Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln were married and where Mary died), I head northwest on highway 97 to New Salem Historic Park. This is the site of New Salem, the small frontier commercial village which played no small role in Lincoln's life as a young man striking out on his own. It's a pleasant drive through farmland with homes and farm buildings and gas stations and tiny general stores scattered here and there. In a little under half an hour, I reach a wooded area, and soon after that, take the turnout to my left to New Salem. I stop for a snack at the little cafe offering a modest selection of hot dogs, nachos, sandwiches, and other things that take the edge off but don't suffice as a meal. The park's visitor center buildings are all closed because the air conditioning system isn't working. I don't blame them at all for not opening up: it feels very much like a summer day in the Midwest, hot and humid, and I imagine a full day indoors would get stuffy and miserable. But the park itself is open to roam, so I do...

Springfield, Illinois, Saturday, July 30th, 2017

I sleep in then linger over a continental breakfast-of-sorts in my rented room as I catch up on some rest, writing, and research. When I finally bestir myself in earnest, I head over to D'arcy's Pint to enjoy a local delicacy for lunch. My brother John lived in Springfield for a time some years ago and told me I must eat a horseshoe while I'm in town. The internet tells me that this gastropub is the best place to enjoy this decadent regional take on the open-face sandwich, so here I am. I order a full-size one with the works, spicy, and a pint to wash it down with. They bring me a small mountain on a plate composed of Texas toast, french fries, ground meats, chopped tomatoes and other veggies, and cheese sauce, the spiciness added at the discretion of the diner from the little cup of (mildly) hot sauce on the side...

Springfield, Illinois, Saturday, July 29th, 2017, continued

I leave the Myers Building at the former site of Joshua Fry Speed’s store and Abraham Lincoln’s last law office on S 5th Street, and head north, crossing E Washington St, and continue halfway up the block. On my left (west), at 109 N 5th St / NW Old State Capitol Plaza, is a historical marker for the Stuart & Lincoln Law Office. John Todd Stuart was Lincoln's first law partner, the man from whom he borrowed the law books he needed for his legal training, and his future wife Mary Todd's first cousin. Lincoln received his license to practice law two years after he began his studies, and joined Stuart's law practice as a junior partner in April of 1837. He was living over Speed's store, having moved here to Springfield to embark on his legal career, so he walked more or less the same route to get to work as I walk today from the Myers Building...

Springfield, Illinois, Saturday, July 29th, 2017, continued

After my visit to the Old State House, I notice one of those Looking for Lincoln historical placards on a building to my left as I walk towards my next destination. It's an attractive three-story red and yellow brick Italianate building from the later 1800's, too late to be from Lincoln's time. I draw near and read the placard and the small house-shaped bronze plaque near it.

This building stands at the southeast corner of 6th and Adams, on the former site of the American House Hotel. It was the largest hotel in Illinois, admired for its huge size and praised for its lavish, exotic, 'Turkish' interior design. Despite its reputation and the fact that it was the hotel of choice for dignitaries and the better-off, there doesn't seem to be any easy-to-find photos of it. There's one on the placard of the Old State House with the plain white walls of the three-story, rather plain Hotel in the distance, but that's about it. I can find no photos of its splendiferous interior either. It stood here from 1838-1870, a little too long ago for me to find a postcard image of it, my tried and true source type for images of historic buildings...

Springfield, Illinois, Saturday, July 29th, 2017, continued

After my visit to the Lincoln Tomb at the Oak Ridge Cemetery and a quick stop to drop off my luggage at the room where I'll be staying, I continue my Springfield journey downtown at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, at 112 N. Sixth St. It's a large complex, the two public buildings each stretching the length of one city block along N. Sixth St. It has a very late-1990's - early 2000's style, neither particularly handsome nor offensive in my view, just... generic. I associate it with municipal buildings such as city halls, branch libraries, and large post offices, perhaps because so many were built in this general style in my native California throughout my teens and early adulthood.

I start with the Museum at the northeast corner of N. Sixth and E. Jefferson...

Journal: Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, Illinois, Monday morning, July 31, 2017

Here I am in the handsomely designed, nicely lit, spacious reading room of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. I don't at this moment require any research materials from the collection, but as I often do, if I find myself with access to a grand space dedicated to the acquisition, preservation, and dissemination of knowledge, such as the Reading Room of the Library of Congress' Jefferson Building or the National Library of Scotland, I feel the urge to go inside and do some thinking and writing just because I can. So here I am...