docNahum Ball Onthank - Kouroo Contexture
download 
Report Transcription
Nahum Ball Onthank - Kouroo Contexture
NAHUM BALL ONTHANK “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Nahum Ball Onthank HDT WHAT? NAHUM BALL ONTHANK INDEX NAHUM BALL ONTHANK 1823 July 19, Saturday: Nahum Ball Onthank was born in Holliston, Massachusetts. His father William Newton Onthank was (per a descendant of this family) a carpenter and farmer. In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7th day 19th of 7 M / This morning took John, crossed both ferrys & went to Willet Carpenters in Boston Neck, after setting his Clock to going, we went to cousin Hannah Gardiners to dinner, after setting with her & her family we crossed to Connanicut went to Hazard Knowles’s & cleaned his Clock in season to get to Joseph Greenes to lodge. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Nahum Ball Onthank “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? NAHUM BALL ONTHANK INDEX NAHUM BALL ONTHANK 1841 Would it have been in about this year that Nahum Ball Onthank painted his portrait of John Thoreau, Jr. of Concord?1 DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. 1. Richard J. Schneider, in his HENRY DAVID THOREAU: A DOCUMENTARY VOLUME, dates this to circa the previous year. The painting is now to be viewed at the Concord Museum. HDT WHAT? NAHUM BALL ONTHANK INDEX NAHUM BALL ONTHANK 1845 Nahum Ball Onthank painted a portrait of Annie Hosmer of Concord, Massachusetts, at the age of 3. LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Nahum Ball Onthank HDT WHAT? NAHUM BALL ONTHANK INDEX NAHUM BALL ONTHANK 1848 The paintings of Nahum Ball Onthank were exhibited at the National Academy. THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Nahum Ball Onthank HDT WHAT? NAHUM BALL ONTHANK INDEX NAHUM BALL ONTHANK 1850 The paintings of Nahum Ball Onthank were exhibited at the National Academy. (Later they would be exhibited at the Boston Athenaeum.) THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Nahum Ball Onthank HDT WHAT? NAHUM BALL ONTHANK INDEX NAHUM BALL ONTHANK 1859 Summer or Fall: Nahum Ball Onthank painted a portrait of “Captain” John Brown of Osawatomie, with beard, on the basis of a Daguerreotype that had been brought to his studio by Dr. Thomas Webb in the company of Brown himself. By my estimation of Brown’s movements during this eventful year, the last day on which this visit to the Boston studio might have been made would have been June 2d. The painting in question can now be viewed at the Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History at the New York Historical Society. CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT Nahum Ball Onthank “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? NAHUM BALL ONTHANK INDEX NAHUM BALL ONTHANK 1868 Nahum Ball Onthank painted a portrait of US Senator Charles Sumner. This painting can now be viewed in Memorial Hall at Harvard University. HDT WHAT? NAHUM BALL ONTHANK INDEX NAHUM BALL ONTHANK 1872 November 9, Saturday/10, Sunday: At 7PM a conflagration began in Boston that would continue through the following day. 2,163 firefighters from 31 communities participated in the effort to stop the flames, which would finally be halted by dynamiting buildings in their path. This destroyed 776 buildings over 26 hectares of the downtown. 33 people were killed and the damage would be estimated at $73,500,000. (In this fire the Boston studio of the artist Nahum Ball Onthank was destroyed.) WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF Nahum Ball Onthank “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? NAHUM BALL ONTHANK INDEX NAHUM BALL ONTHANK 1873 Nahum Ball Onthank copied John Singleton Copley’s 1772 life portrait of Samuel Adams (a painting you can view now at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston), as a private commission intended by George A. Simmons as a gift to Independence Hall in Philadelphia. HDT NAHUM BALL ONTHANK WHAT? INDEX NAHUM BALL ONTHANK HDT WHAT? NAHUM BALL ONTHANK INDEX NAHUM BALL ONTHANK 1875 In about this year Nahum Ball Onthank painted the portrait of US Senator and Vice President Henry Wilson that now hangs in Faneuil Hall. HDT WHAT? NAHUM BALL ONTHANK INDEX NAHUM BALL ONTHANK 1888 November 24, Saturday: Dale Breckenridge Carnagey was born poor, and on a farm, in Missouri. This Carnagey family was no relation to the rich and famous family of the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie — but the names did more or less sound the same and when in 1916 he would lease an office in the building of Carnegie Hall in New York and rent its lyceum hall to deliver lectures in “effective speaking,” of course he would correct the spelling of his family name. Wouldn’t you want to win friends and influence people by letting on that you’re somebody important?2 At the age of 65, Nahum Ball Onthank died in Boston. “MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY 2. By the way, when someone tells you they “sold out” at Carnegie Hall, be sure to inquire “Oh, which auditorium, the grand auditorium —or the other auditorium —or the little one?” HDT NAHUM BALL ONTHANK WHAT? INDEX NAHUM BALL ONTHANK COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at <[email protected]>. “It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST Prepared: December 3, 2014 HDT NAHUM BALL ONTHANK WHAT? INDEX NAHUM BALL ONTHANK ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT GENERATION HOTLINE This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT NAHUM BALL ONTHANK WHAT? INDEX NAHUM BALL ONTHANK Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world. First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with <[email protected]>. Arrgh.
