a note on the name

My blog's name comes from a quote - "History is the great dust heap" - attributed to Augustine Birrell. Birrell, an Irishman, was a politician in the early 20th century, at the time of the Easter Uprising (I direct you to At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill, a lovely bit of historical fiction with that event at its center). I won't pretend to know much about European history, but there's a good wikipedia article about Birrell (doubting my reliability yet? You should be).

The quote reminds me of some of the better landmarks I've visited - the enormous repositories of pure stuff. Birthplaces of forgotten Presidents, replicas of oldtime stores, or my personal favorite, the Smithsonian American History Museum. These places, and others like it, house the kind of stuff everyone else had forgotten about. They have the things that no one remembered until they were rescued for that purpose, and then forgotten in a completely different way. These artifacts are at once preserved and neglected, leaving us to wonder why anyone would have kept that and simultaneously thrilled that someone did. They are items that, for an hour or two, have a real importance. We'd never have imagined them before. We might never think of them again. But they are there for us in these museums, presented to us as living memory from this great dust heap, this pile of information and ideas, eras and figures, facts and fictions. We look at them, think on them, draw conclusions - and let them gently gather dust in our memories.

I plan to celebrate these tidbits, in a fashion similar to the way these museums have done so - with reverence, love, and humor, but also with criticism. I'd like to pick through the heap, evaluate it, and attempt to make sense of it. I'd love for you to join me.