Longish weekend

[ltmurnau]

I took Friday off to work on my article for a bit, then in the afternoon after Aki's tutor lesson we went to Pender Island to see my favourite uncle, who is visiting my dad. We almost left it too late to get the ferry as there was a huge lineup for... ships... going... somewhere... BC Ferries doesn't seem to know where or when, but you should line up all the same.

Saturday we went fishing and caught a big pink. I don't go fishing very often and catching something is even less frequent, so this was good. My Dad gave it to Aki - we took the 5:00 ferry home and I cooked the salmon on the barbeque for him, just that and some rice and he was fine.

Sunday I worked on my article all day and I would say that it's finished! Although I might add one small sidebar on the Greek Civil War's place in the Cold War as a whole - hm, maybe I will just work that into the body of the article. The darn thing is probably too long, I'm guessing it's well over 9,000 words. That's the problem with writing about these conflicts for gamers - some will have little idea what happened so there has to be lots of narrative; others already know the gist so you have to have lots of niggling detail. And there's never a lot of room left for analysis, without all that supporting narrative or detail. And if you're wrong about something trivial, they will let you know about it - well, maybe not: in all the articles I have had published in this magazine, I have only ever had one error pointed out to me, and it was a misplaced border in a map that I never saw until the article was printed, between two countries that were not germane to the subject of the article. But I suppose the correspondent felt obligated to say something.

Anyway, glad I am finished - I always curse while I am doing it, "whatthehellamIdoingthisfornoonereadsthedamnthingsandit'sjustsixcentsafreakingword" but I am always glad when it's done (and even happier when I see it in print). Next, something on Dieppe, but I have until the end of the year to write it.

Comments

[lewbasnight.livejournal.com]

Grilled salmon and rice... There is no food in my apartment that sounds nearly as appetizing.

It occurred to me while reading this post that you would be the man to ask: if a fellow was looking for a good, readable general history of the Balkan peninsula, would you have any recommendations? Maybe something you stumbled across while working on your article, or something you keep in the home library?

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Yep, it was good, and about as fresh as it could get! I think more people would enjoy fish if they had the chance to eat it really fresh.

Hm, a general history of the Balkans: I am maybe not quite the guy to ask, as my library contains mostly finely focused books about irregular warfare in the Balkans during WW II, or books on counterinsurgency with chapters on the Balkans. Such books contain quick rundowns of the history of the Balkans, or at least mentions of the centuries-old hatreds and vendettas that fuelled the infighting inside the larger war.

You can go really overboard with the many events and movements in the Balkans. I recall reading years ago about the cottage industry of writing devoted solely to the Battle of Kosovo of 1389 and its aftermath that had sprung up in Serbia, and was used and encouraged by Slobodan Milosevic.

Without looking too hard, I found "25 lectures on Modern Balkan History" which seems to be a readable, friendly introduction to the subject (though it's from 1995 and rather dated) that would give you a quick read and a notion of what other topics within Balkan history might interest you more. Find it at http://staff.lib.msu.edu/sowards/balkan/, check out the bibliography too.

[lewbasnight.livejournal.com]

Yah, it's such a convoluted piece of terrain, historically, that most of the books I've found focus on one or another specific era or locale. I do know how much speculation and myth have been added into the field around that Battle of Kosovo-- I am surprised that we haven't been treated to a Dan-Brown-style thriller based around it yet.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

As you say, a general history could be difficult to find. If you regularly access your local university library (where you live has slipped my mind), you might check with a librarian there, they are very helpful. Or perhaps someone in the history department.

Yeah, lots of nations seem to have one or more battles with a connected myth of supernatural intervention - the Angels of Mons, for example.

[r1vethead.livejournal.com]

I would really love to read your Greek civil war article - you probably know where my sympathies/interests extend in that particular conflict but it's one of the 20th century ones I'm not very well versed on.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Well, as I said it's more narrative and military-oriented detail than political analysis - even at that I think am kind of pushing the limit of what the usual readers of that particular magazine are looking for.

I'm typing it up and editing as I go, and should be done pretty soon. The thing is due at the end of the month. I can shoot it over to you if you like. No smartass second-guessing, though!