The highlight of my day was that I got to tell Benedict Arnold to suck it. I don’t think he heard me, which is a real shame. I imagine that actor gets that a lot.

It all works like this: there are loads of shops and demonstrations all day long, but the real fun comes in the late afternoon when the actors come out to put on a show. There were four sessions which, disturbingly, took place several years apart. These change from day to day. On the day I was there, I got 1) a Continental Army recruitment event, 2) a handful of slaves contemplating escape to join with the British who “promised freedom” (um hmm), 3) new British officer Benedict Arnold coming straight off sacking Richmond to sit on Williamsburg and shut its Revolutionary mouth, and 4) a pep rally with the Marquis de Lafayette who was on his way to victory at Yorktown.

Let me backtrack a bit to the phrase “sacking Richmond.” This was something I hadn’t heard of. Sometime between penning the Declaration of Independence and the end of the Revolutionary War, Thomas Jefferson was elected Governor of Virginia. He moved the capital from Williamsburg to Richmond and, feeling British heat down south, moved all the state guns and things that went boom to a building outside of town. This is always a good idea. Especially when your enemy is a traitor with a friend or two still on your side to tell him where to find the basket with all your eggs.

So, Benedict Arnold rode to Richmond to get the guns and, the cherry on top, Thomas Jefferson. Being a lover not a fighter, Jefferson ran, thus setting the stage for generations of liberal hate in Virginia. Arnold then burned all the weapons and a whole lot of Richmond to the ground on the way through. I like to imagine that Arnold sat on the pile of ashes like a dragon stroking its treasure until Our Hero the Marquis de Lafayette rode in to chase him out and rescue damsel Jefferson. In reality, Arnold moved on to loot a few more towns while Lafayette slipped in behind, took Richmond, and tracked Arnold south until Arnold left for New York due to a gout flare-up. Sexy, Benedict. This left Lafayette to hold off Cornwallis until the Washington-Rochambeau party made its way into town. This is significantly less awesome than the Jefferson-Arnold-Lafayette chain of events that I imagined, but it does bring us back to the story at hand.

Since I went to Williamsburg in early September, I have the feeling that I missed most of the activities that probably go on during the summer. There was also the annoyance that everything seemed to cost extra, and the restaurants didn’t have much in the way of vegetarian fare. The things that “cost extra” might have been a blessing in disguise if I’d realized beforehand. If you don’t go in any of the buildings, you can walk the streets for free, and the evening events are almost as good as the stuff during the day. Had I realized this, I might have skipped general admission and just bought my evening ticket since I got there so late in the day.

But then I would have missed getting a tour of the capitol with “Patrick Henry” and telling “Benedict Arnold” to suck it.

The capitol building is, unfortunately, a reconstruction due to fire. Apparently it’s also a reconstruction of an earlier version of the building and not the Revolutionary era structure.

Still, “Patrick Henry” did a really good job of telling us where things would have happened anyway, and that actor was so completely immersed in character that it was a whole lot of fun. Occasionally, he would go off on a philosophical tangent, raise his voice, and get this crazy little gleam in his eye, but then a moment later he would be mild mannered and gentlemanly again. Bravo.

(I don’t think I was supposed to take this picture, but I post this here because “Patrick Henry” was awesome.)

In other news, I don’t know who this guy is, but I like the (18th century) cut of his jib.

And here is “Benedict Arnold” on horseback moments before the redcoats in front of him threatened to bayonet me for standing in his way.

I need to just take a minute here and wax poetic over how great this actor was. His goons rounded up all the tourists and forced us to listen to his spiel, and he was actually convincing. He told some sob story about how he did what he did because he loved America, and he made a good enough case that it was really hard to hate him afterward (but no less fun to do so).

Now for a corps of Continental Army drummers.

These guys were just pretty. Everyone was. I wish I had more photos of the costumes. They were all really nice. The problem with 18th century clothing in America, though, is that it all kind of looks the same after a while, and the women’s clothing is so plain as to be boring. I promise I’ll have some really nice period costume porn when I post about the next day at Mount Vernon, though. Patience!

I can’t wrap up this installment without a mention of Lafayette. His act was the day’s big finale, and as you can see below, Gil brings all the ladies to the yard (and one awkward-looking dude).

I don’t know who these two soldiers were, but I like to imagine that they were trying to work out Lafayette’s broken English amongst themselves:

And then we have the actor playing the Marquis, who, appropriately, I caught with his mouth open shouting about something or other and swinging a sword. That’s my Lafayette. I don’t know who this guy is, but he really seemed to enjoy himself. Also, he was really loud. I have to believe that that was an accurate portrayal.

The night’s activity was a ghost tour, which wasn’t like any ghost tour I’ve ever seen. We were taken into several buildings, which were all dark and lit only by candlelight. Once we were seated and quiet, an actor would come in who was “the ghost” and who would pretend to be the spirit of a real person who had lived and died in the town. There was some powerful stuff in that tour and some legitimately creepy stuff. Lot of crazy crime and broken hearts in Williamsburg’s history. I highly recommend this if you find yourself in Williamsburg when they’re doing one.

And that wraps up Williamsburg. It’ll probably take me another three months to get installment #3 (Mount Vernon!) up, so hold tight!

Old Friends (where Sunshine Forever now lives) is an interesting organization. It surprises me a bit that no one was able to pull off such a high-profile rescue before them. When Sunshine Forever got shipped to Japan and faded into obscurity, I spent an unhealthy amount of time worrying that he would meet the same fate as Ferdinand, but these guys got him out and back home to Kentucky. If nothing else, I will always be grateful to them for that.

Another quick side trip on the way to someplace else: the Virginia State Capitol.

Sadly, I don’t have much to show or say about the capitol itself. For this visit, I was on a mission, and since I drove to Richmond, Va., from Tennessee this time, I had only 30 minutes before closing to complete it.

My mission: to see the Houdon bust of the Marquis de Lafayette (commissioned by the state of Virginia and based on a life mask of Lafayette).

(Of course, there was also the full-sized Houdon statue of Washington, also based on a life mask, and yeah, I saw that too, but MISSION, you guys. I was on one.)

And I saw it. Now you can, too.

I didn’t have a lot of time to be picky about the photos by the time I got there, but by this angle, you may note that the bust was way up high off the ground in an alcove. You know. To keep the ladies off of it.

Here’s as good of a close-up as I could get given that I only had a few minutes, I was in the state capitol, and I didn’t want to come off as a terrorist:

The Houdon busts that I’ve seen done from life masks always seem like the face is pasted on the head, thus making the head seem longer from front to back than it otherwise should. Given that all the portraits I’ve seen of Lafayette give him an frighteningly receding hairline and a nose that seems to start behind his ears (adorable though it may be), this may not be entirely inaccurate here. Also, it’s not as pronounced from this side as it is from the other.

Houdon also did a life mask of Washington from which he sculpted a full-length statue (also here in the Virginia State Capitol) and some busts. I like the way that the Washington statue is positioned as though it’s looking out to Lafayette’s bust on the wall almost at his eye level. For those not in the know, Washington considered Lafayette as an adopted son, so I find this very sweet.

You’ll note that little fence around George. Also for the ladies. (As evidenced by this letter in which George gives Lafayette some crap threatens to steal the Marquise Adrienne from our good friend the Marquis:)

But at present must pray your patience a while longer, till I can make a tender of my most respectful compliments to the Marchioness. Tell her (if you have not made  a mistake, and offered your own love instead of hers to me) that I have a heart susceptable of the tenderest passion, and that it is already so strongly impressed with the most favourable ideas of her, that she must be cautious of putting loves torch to it; as you must be in fanning the flame. But here again methinks I hear you say, I am not apprehensive of danger. My wife is young, you are growing old and the atlantic is between you. All this is true, but know my good friend that no distance can keep anxious lovers long asunder, and that the Wonders of former ages may be revived in this. But alas! will you not remark that amidst all the wonders recorded in holy writ no instance can be produced where a young Woman from real inclination has prefered an old man. This is so much against me that I shall not be able I fear to contest the prize with you, yet, under the encouragement you have given me I shall enter the list for so inestimable a Jewell.

- George Washington to the Marquis de Lafayette, September 30, 1779

Before I go, I should give the Washington statue it’s due. It’s based on this life mask, and I always find it stunning to look at Washington’s true face in comparison to the multitudes of less accurate portraits with which Americans are bombarded throughout their lives. In that life mask is a very real face that I could imagine seeing somewhere on the street today.

So, it is little surprise to me that Lafayette declared this statue the most accurate likeness of Washington upon his return visit to the States in 1824.

Bonne nuit!

* * *

Virginia State Capitol
1000 Bank Street; Richmond, VA
Hours and Tour Information
Free admission (though parking is a pain)
Capitol Tour Desk: (804) 698-1788 or capitoltourguides@house.virginia.gov

Since the last couple of posts have been text-heavy, let’s start this one with a photographic bang:

KA-BOOM!

That’s an English gun that Lafayette recognized on his 1824 “victory lap” as one he took during the big fight thanks to this cannonball dent on the side:

The gun was also used to fire the half hour salute at Lafayette’s death ten years after.

The “Lafayette Gun” is in the welcome center at the Yorktown battlefield, which is now a national park and a sad, sad monument to diminishing park funding. There is a small museum inside that looks like it was last updated in the 1970s. The same can be said of the grainy film in the welcome center theater. There’s also a shocking $10 entry fee to the park which struck me as exceedingly high and made the condition of the welcome center and some parts of the park all the more frustrating. It does include admission to Jamestowne, though. Although I couldn’t take advantage of the dual admission, knowing this takes a little sting out of the sticker shock.

I made the whole trip the week of September 11. While the rest of the country was self-flagellating over the anniversary of the attacks 10 years ago, I thought it would be more constructive to celebrate Washington and Rochambeau’s ride south in reverse, ending with a reenactment in celebration of their Mount Vernon encampment anniversary on Sept. 10-11. (I’ve also been nursing an inexplicable obsession with the Marquis de Lafayette this year, and I had to see all these places while I was still in the area.) So, I started where it all ended at the Yorktown battlefield.

(I was also stupid enough to try doing Yorktown and Colonial Williamsburg on the same day after driving down from Washington, D.C. It CAN be done, but there’s lots you won’t see. Unless you’re like me, and you have no other choice, I don’t recommend it.)

The ranger at the welcome center front desk had his spiel down so well that he couldn’t really deviate from it. I listened to him give the same robotic speech to the visitors in line before me, and he couldn’t be convinced that I didn’t need to hear it again when I got to the counter. When I stopped him to ask if he could just tell me where Lafayette’s troops had been, I swear I heard the record skip while he stopped, thought a second, told me he had no idea, and then finished the spiel.

He did give me a driving map, though, that lacked any mention of Lafayette but did have all the major beats of the story and their locations.

Emphasis on the words “driving map.” I thought I’d be able to walk, which tells you how ill-planned this trip was.

I was on a schedule, and I was already late, so I didn’t get out or get any good photos at any of the weed-covered redoubts. Also, I always fail to realize how battlefields will affect me emotionally. I had an unexpected dread at the idea of walking out where so many died so painfully, so I took advantage of my tight schedule and cruised on past to the battlefield’s famous warm fuzzy: the surrender field.

It’s here where Cornwallis sent an underling to deliver his surrender to Washington either out of shame at the loss or pride that wouldn’t allow him to deliver the surrender in person to a rebel general. George took it in stride by sending his own underling to accept it in his stead.

Love that man.

It’s not a suprise to me that my favorite part of the whole park was Washington’s headquarters.

No idea how it looked then, but today it’s a small cul-de-sac off the main drag in the middle of a copse of trees. Even with the shade, it was the brightest, most beautiful, best-situated spot in the entire park. Typical Mason.

Despite my hurry I had to get out of the car and stand in the sun for a bit, and I saw what looked like a picnic area.

I can’t help but think that it would make George very, very happy to see what’s become of this space.

I’m not so sure I can say the same about the French cemetery, though, and I have to say it was the low point of my visit. When I saw it on the map, I didn’t really know what to expect.

From a distance, the single, simple cross is striking and makes me think more than a little of the American cemetery at Colleville sur Mer in Lower Normandy.

Up close? Not so much.

You’ll note a few things about the cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer and this unknown American’s tomb: its beauty, its impeccable upkeep, its decided lack of satanic graffiti.

Oh no. I’ve given away the surprise. Well, anyway, let’s get closer to that grave at Yorktown.

Translated:

Here Lie Fifty Unknown French Soldiers, Dead at Yorktown for American Independance, 1781

Let’s have a look at that tombstone.

[I've freed up the rights on these two so you can view large versions of them on Flickr and read the graffiti for your own groans and giggles.]

FRONT:

BACK:

“Mike Loves Hope” (front). Aww. Well, they were Frenchmen, and they were probably all about the love. But the back with “Lucifer” and all the X’s? Somebody’s been watching too much Supernatural. Classy, Park Service. Would it be possible to sand down the stone and get rid of that stuff? (Or would it damage something special? I honestly don’t know anything about the marker or its history.)

At this point, I have to wonder if the French troops’ are actually still “resting” there or if they were dug up for nefarious purposes by some jackass long ago. I doubt anyone knows, and if they can’t be cared for better than this, it might be best to exhume what’s left and move it to someplace that I can point out to my French friends with a little less shame.

After that, I decided it was high time I get to Williamsburg and get some lunch. (Being a vegetarian, I was more successful with the first than the second task, but more about Williamsburg in a later post.)

* * *

Yorktown Battlefield, part of Colonial National Historical Park
$10 for Seven-Day Park Entrance Pass
(Includes Historic Jamestowne, which I sadly couldn’t visit, in addition to Yorktown.)
See website for dates and hours of operation.

I only found this book thanks to the dearth of Kindle format-compatible eBooks offered by my public library. Determined to get eBook check-out to work, I gave up on finding any books for Kindle that I actually wanted to read and just typed “pirates” in the search box. Why not? I like pirates. Of the handful of choices that came up, I had roughly 15 incipid historical romances, a Michael Crichton book, and this one. I thought about the Crichton book, but in looking at this one’s descriptions, it only took the words “Thomas Jefferson” and “Barbary Pirates” to hook me.

So far it is utterly fascinating. Who knew that I’d stumble across a book on America’s first (post-Revolution) war with, of all nations, Tripoli (now Libya) the week when its long-lasting and now deceased despot met his gruesome end?

(By the way: thanks Paris Match for throwing those gruesome Gaddafi snuff photos right up on your front page without even a click through. I didn’t really need lunch that day anyway. I knew I could count on you to be completely crass. What’s that tagline: “le poids des mots, le choc des photos?” Yeah. Maybe I should know better. Anyway, moving on.)

This William Eaton is a character I clearly need to learn more about. (The Wikipedia link doesn’t really do him justice.) Anything involving historical naval giants Stephen Decatur and William Bainbridge should be a fun read. I’m embarrassed to say how little I knew about both of them before reading this book (even though I’ve been on the ground where Decatur had his fatal duel). Consider that problem solved.

Wow, but I love early American history. The rest of the world just sat on the edge of their seats waiting for the U.S. to collapse in on itself. Somehow, we didn’t. I’m not sure if it’s because of colorful characters like this or in spite of them.

Fast forward to now. I’ve read a lot more about the American side of the Age of Revolution, and I know a lot now that I didn’t know I didn’t know then. Now I’m wildcatting through John Adams episodes as a lazy way to research his time as President for a project that I’m working on. It’s a different experience.

Add to this the fact that I’ve also read a couple of David McCullough books since then, and my mind turns to storytelling. When Hollywood makes a biopic of some epic personnage that’s allegedly based on some famous, best-selling biography (Frida, Marie Antoinette, John Adams, etc.), I wonder what it is about the film and screenplay that allows the screenwriter to point out one specific biography out of the many as their source material. Now that I’ve read a bit of McCullough (though still not John Adams), I think I know.

McCullough litters his books with excerpts and evidence: letters, newspaper articles, speeches, etc. This makes for great if slow reading, and for nerds like me, a single one of these texts can be a springboard for an entire lost weekend of Wikipedia hopping and library raiding. These do not, however, always translate into compelling visual storytelling. I think that’s what’s happened with HBO’s John Adams. I get the impressions that letters have been turned into conversations, and it feels like we get the clippings McCullough included straight from John and Abby themselves when they angrily read the news out loud. If this is true, and I haven’t read the book to confirm or deny, then it might account for some of the stiff and choppy dialogue between otherwise amazing performers.

Still, I have to admit, what other choice did the writers have? Seriously, what screenwriter is going to say, “Pfeh, throw this crap out. I know how to write the Declaration of Independence better than Thomas Jefferson himself!” It’s one thing to put words in Marie Antoinette’s mouth. I get the impression she wasn’t much of a writer. But woe to the writer in the afterlife who dared tell John Adams that he could have said something better!

In short, the miniseries benefited from a second pass, but a better understanding of side-character backgrounds helped a lot.

Overall, in all the biographies, articles, and treatises on the man, one fact stands clear: historians can. not. stand. him. He’s a problematic character in any story, and people just don’t know where to put him. Lately, they either dismiss him as unimportant or leave him out altogether.

This is a shame because he really was such a catalyst. From age 19 until he died at age 76, he started a lot of trouble and inspired others to cause exponentially more than he himself managed to do. He was right in the thick of the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and most of the successive changes of French government from Napoleon on. Whether or not people think he was important, it cannot be argued that he was at least supremely interesting.

If there ever was such a thing, he would definitely be in the running for Patron Saint of Broken-Hearted Idealists everywhere. That I can definitely identify with right now, which is probably why I’m reading so much about him.

There’ll be more here. It’s hard to know what to say. He’s not an easy character to pin down.

“In the mid 1950s, Vonnegut worked very briefly for Sports Illustrated magazine, where he was assigned to write a piece on a racehorse that had jumped a fence and attempted to run away. After staring at the blank piece of paper on his typewriter all morning, he typed, ‘The horse jumped over the fucking fence,’ and left.”

- from Wikipedia’s entry on Kurt Vonnegut.

To be fair and balanced, he really should have gotten a pull quote from the horse.

(en version originale)

Les grandes personnes aiment les chiffres. Quand vous leur parlez d’un nouvel ami, elles ne vous questionnent jamais sur l’essentiel. Elle ne vous disent jamais: “Quel est le son de sa voix? Quels sont les jeux qu’il préfèrent? Est-ce qu’il collectionne les papillons?” Elles vous demandent: “Quel âge a-t-il? Combien a-t-il de frères? Combien pese-t-il? Combien gagne son père?” Alors seulement elles croient le connaître. Si vous dites aux grandes personnes: “J’ai vu une belle maison en briques roses, avec des géraniums aux fenêtres et des colombes sur le toit…”, elles ne parviennent pas à s’imaginer cette maison. Il faut leur dire: “J’ai vu une maison de cent mille francs.” Alors elles s’écrient: “Comme c’est joli!”

(my English translation)

Grown-ups love numbers. When you talk to them about a new friend, they never ask you the important questions. They never say to you, “What does his voice sound like? What are his favorite games? Does he collect butterflies?” They ask you, “How old is he? How many brothers does he have? How much does he weigh? How much does his father make?” Only then do they believe they know him. If you say to grown-ups, “I saw a beautiful pink brick house with geraniums in the windows and doves on the roof…” they will never manage to imagine it. You must tell them, “I saw a house worth 100,000 francs.” Then they will cry out, “Oh, how pretty!”

• Athos: He’s cursed with horrendously bad luck, and he gets others to do the really dirty work for him anyway. Verdict: no.
• Al Swearengen: He’s ruthless enough, and he’s gutted plenty in his time. Lately, though, he’s sent his goons to do most of his killing for him, so he’s gotten soft. Verdict: maybe.
• Vincent Van Gogh: Well we know he’s good with a knife (as evidenced by HIS OWN EAR*). Plus, he has one advantage over the other two: he’s completely off his nut and not afraid of anything. Verdict: WIN.

But I didn’t get very far into the first episode of Pillars of the Earth before I had to stop it. Picked it up again this week to discover, lo and behold, it also features Kim Pine (Allison Pill).

New verdict. On a particularly bad day, Kim Pine could take out all of them in one spin. FA-TALITY.

The end.

* To be fair, there’s doubt whether or not this incident happened quite the way we’ve been taught, but for our purposes, let’s go with, “He cut off his own ear.”