What's New in Old News?
The official newsletter of the Peripatetic Historian. December 2023, Vol. 3, no. 7.
Welcome to the December issue of What’s New in Old News.
In this Issue:
Peripatetic Field Report: Living Large in Irbid
Book News
Then and Now
Let’s get started…
Peripatetic Field Report: Living Large in Irbid
If you were following the news in mid-November, you will have seen that a Sotherby’s auction set a new world record for the most expensive bottle of scotch. A bottle of Macallan 1926 sold for $2,724,967. The bottle is one of forty, drawn from a batch that aged in a sherry cask for sixty years.
Wondering who would make such a profligate purchase? Well, I can now reveal that it was me. Christmas is coming, my lovely wife enjoys scotch, so I thought, “why not?” She deserves a treat. It has been a difficult two months, and sometimes you just need a little indulgence.
Last month I announced that the State Department had yanked us out of Palestine and reassigned Mary to Irbid, Jordan. As October drew to a close, we found ourselves scrambling to find a new place to live. We took a quick apartment scouting trip to the city and settled on a three bedroom, three bathroom, third floor flat that was located near the bus station.
I’ve changed my living accommodations many times over the years, but I can safely assert that I have never endured a rougher settling-in period. After degreasing the apartment, we discovered that the deep layer of gunk and crud may have been all that glued the place together. Two toilets died immediately; the third limped along at half strength. During our early weeks, the roof-top water tank that feeds our flat ran dry at unpredictable intervals. We had to learn when the water truck comes (Fridays) and remember to run the pump that transfers water from the holding tank at ground level to the roof tank.
I should mention that when flowing, the tap water can only be used externally—your gastrointestinal tract won’t thank you if you drink it. It will drip everywhere, just like it did when the inlet valve in our washing machine admitted a slow dribble of water that filled the laundry tub and flooded onto the kitchen floor.
It obviously wasn’t the first time this had happened. A seeping damp delaminated the cheap wood veneer of our kitchen cupboards. The doors now bubble and bulge like a collection of kitchen hernias. We’ve become adept at opening the cabinets cautiously, lest a piece break off in our hands.
Large gaps around the window frames admitted a cooling draft (summer ended mid-month and the overnight temperatures dropped about twenty degrees). The openings also offered easy ingress to the local mosquito population. I spent six nights hopping around at 2:00 a.m. swatting the local bloodsuckers.
Nor we should forget the dead body in our best bathroom. You can’t see it now, but it left the putrid smell of decaying flesh baked into the ceramic tiles. Vigorous scrubbing and doses of bleach poured into the drains have failed to exorcise the stench. We have resorted to keeping the door firmly closed.
We spent much of November writing and forwarding to-do lists to our landlord. She is slowly checking items off, and I have just started to lose the feeling of being a sailor trapped in the bilge of a sinking ship, pumping for all I’m worth. The apartment is slowly righting. It only has to float until June.
Number 25 on the Top Ten List
Irbid doesn’t make many Top Ten Places to Visit in Jordan lists. Amman, Aqaba, Wadi Rum, Petra, Jerash — all worth a visit. Irbid? Not so much. Despite one writer’s optimistic claim that the city is known as “The Bride of the North”—a reference to its stunning beauty—Irbid sprawls across the landscape like the El Paso of Jordan.
There is an arts scene. Daily we are entertained by the raucous oratory of the Angry Vegetable Salesman and the musical talents of the Fur Elise Propane Delivery Service. I made a short video to share this experience with you:
On a good day I will hear the Fur Elise truck drive down our street twenty-five times. On a bad day it will be more like fifty. He circles the neighborhood relentlessly, from 9 a.m. until well after sunset, hoping that someone will run downstairs, stop him, and take delivery on a propane tank. The same twenty-four bars of Fur Elise, repeated ad nauseum. When I asked a Jordanian friend about this practice, he said that I should feel lucky: the propane trucks used to drive up and down the streets honking their horns all day.
So that’s progress…
Ancient Arbela
People have lived in Irbid since the Bronze Age. Scholars generally agree that during the Roman Empire, the city was called Arbela. It may have been one of the cities that formed a loose political unit under the Romans known as the Decapolis, but this identification is controversial. Decapolis (Ten Cities) implies a group of ten metropoli. Certain cities are commonly labeled members of the Decapolis in the works of ancient writers. Amman (ancient Philadelphia), Jerash, and Umm Qais (Gadara) are well-established members. Then there is a fuzzier group of cities (like Irbid/Arbela) that only appear in some accounts.
Because of this ambiguity in our ancient sources, many historians believe that the term Decapolis is just a fuzzy reference to the cities in northern Palestine, Jordan, and the southern half of Syria—rather than an established collection of ten specific cities. If that was true, then Irbid/Arbela is in. Otherwise, despite its antiquity, it didn’t make the select group.
I have not been able to get a line on any ancient ruins within Irbid, but the city is close to a treasure trove of antiquities, like Umm Qais, pictured above. Even if Irbid lacks archaeological features, the city will serve as a convenient central location for exploring the great cities of the Decapolis.
More on that to come.
Book News
The Changing of the Guard
The final month of 2023 brings a change of emphasis in the book marketing business (graphically illustrated by my imaginative image). My active efforts to promote Comet Madness draw a close. In a little more than six months, LA Birdmen will land on bookshop shelves; as crazy as it sounds, the time has already arrived to spin up the engine and get this one into the air.
I imagine there will be many aviation metaphors between now and takeoff. Hope you enjoy them.
I still have a couple of Comet Madness lectures left on the schedule, but I am no longer actively soliciting engagements for the book. I will continue to offer my Fear and Loathing in the Heavens lecture to any groups that would like an entertaining evening, but my major push will be taking the lessons I learned from the past year and applying them to promoting the new book.
Then and Now
Rialto Bridge, Venice
I must confess to a slight Venice obsession. Some might term my love “dangerously obsessive,” but I know better. What could be healthier than a warm fondness for the world’s greatest city?
Considering the depths of my affection, it is a little surprising that I don’t devote more installments of this feature to Venetian scenes. But, as 2023 draws to a close, it seems only appropriate to break that pattern and finish the year with one of the city’s great icons, Rialto Bridge.
Henry James, also a fervent Venetophile, was rather dismissive of this famous attraction. James wrote: “The Bridge of the Rialto is a name to conjure with, but, honestly speaking, it is scarcely the gem of the composition….The great curve of its single arch is much to be commended, especially when, coming from the direction of the railway-station, you see it frame with its sharp compass-line the perfect picture, the reach of the Canal on the other side. But the backs of the little shops make from the water a graceless collective hump.”
A white marble picture frame, in other words.
The stone span replaced an earlier wooden bridge in 1591. Rialto has survived Napoleon’s invasion, the tromp of millions of tourists, and a 2017 plot to blow it up.
Since it is an iconic and heavily photographed structure, finding an original vantage point for a portrait is a challenge. I was pleased with this attempt, although it doesn’t frame the canal in the manner so admired by James:
For me, Rialto Bridge is an enduring symbol of the city I love, a horizontal Eiffel Tower.
If the high-priced Scotch sale didn’t capture your attention, it might have been because you were distracted by the story about the most expensive Ferrari sold at auction. On November 13, Sotheby’s sold a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO for $51,700,000.
I wonder if these widely-reported instances of overpriced luxury items are part of a master plan to grease the wheels for Christmas shopping? We are all subject to anchoring bias; maybe these incredible prices are intended to soften us up for less extravagant purchases. That $150 bottle of scotch seems like a bargain when placed beside the Macallan 1926; and surely you can justify $38,000 for a Ford Explorer when you think about all the money you are saving by not bidding on the Ferrari. A few more apt comparisons like this, strategically seeded in the daily news, could limber up the old credit card.
Something to think about.
Until then, be safe, be sensible,