um...

[ktron]

how the hell did i just sink more than 4 hours into looking up various bits of chilean history?

well, ok, so it helps that i started knowing almost nothing about south american history in general except what i learned in evita... and, well, a few vague ideas like "simon bolivar was important" and "conquistadors claimed everything they could for the sake of the 3 g's: glory, god, and gold." the tennessee school systems have failed me. (i'll also admit that they haven't made me take any history that included that part of the globe since 8th grade.)

all i really wanted to know was why leprosy wasn't a problem in chile... the unexplained comment (again, in the motorcycle diaries) struck me as odd.

i still haven't figured that one out. but now i know a lot more than i did. especially about easter island, strangely... it tends to come up in searches for leprosy and chile; when it was all a big sheep-farm run by evil foreigners, before they discovered the magics of tourism, they had a leper colony... and somehow, from there, i ended up looking up various conquistadors, who-killed-whos, etc. pedro de valdivia's a fun one - went in to help francisco pizarro find and kill diego de almagro (and got payed with a silver mine, mind you, not gold!), almagro's men then got angry and killed pizarro, meanwhile valdivia was taking over almagro's beat and trying to conquer chile and doing a far better job at it, then, oops, lautoro, a former captured-native and personal servant of valdivia who learned all kinds of military strategy from him and ran away, leads a rebellion resulting in valdivia's capture and subsequent (according to legend, anyway) death and staking... then they ate his heart. it's got a certain soap opera-esque allure...

oh well. if i'm going to waste four hours at the computer, at least it was educational for once... maybe i shouldn't try to take notes next time i start to read a book.

oh yeah, and happy 4th. obviously, i'm not doing much. (although the dogs are starting to drive me nuts, barking at the pre-dark firecrackers being set off...) but i hope it's sunny and fantastic for everybody else... off to mow the lawn now!

Comments

[owl-tn.livejournal.com]

Isabel Allende offers great insight into Chilean history in her novels:

House of the Spirits
Of Love and Shadows
Eva Luna

Those are at least the ones I've read. You may have already read at least one of them, but otherwise they might be worth your time.

[ktron.livejournal.com]

ooh, no, i hadn't read anything by her, didn't even know what she wrote about! today's theme is peruvian factoids, as alberto and ernesto got a ride over the border, but i want to come back to chile. is isabel allende related to the allende who was ousted when the US put pinochet in? (planning to look up that whole episode in bigger detail anyhow. i spent a lot of this morning looking at things on the mines at chiquicamata, and it's really interesting just guessing how that fits into the rest of the story... but i have a feeling it'd be better to know. and there's a book fitting together the histories of chiquicamata and butte, montana, that i really want to read now too...)

[owl-tn.livejournal.com]

Your zeal puts me to shame. I've mostly been reading sci-fi/fantasy, Kurt Vonnegut, and Chuck Palahniuk. Mostly fiction, nothing too noble.

That being said, yes, Isabel Allende is related to the late Salvador Allende. I don't know much about it, but her website has some stuff:

http://www.isabelallende.com/roots_timeline_001.htm

[ktron.livejournal.com]

thanks for the link! nothing at all wrong with vonnegut or palahniuk... i haven't actually read anything by palahniuk yet, but audio versions of his books make great company.

and as for my zeal, i'd say it's mostly a result of sticking to the comic books until my brain got hungry for something a bit more substantial... (but we just got back from the comics shop, so i may be sounding a bit less dead serious for a few days :) )