I didn’t want to write about Syria (I wish them luck) or us (I wish us luck) or Juan Soto (always been a bit greedy) or Elon Musk (obviously, him, too), so I went to a random shelf in a closet (just a box missing the box) and will report on this particular pile. The pile itself had about twice the number of items I will mention today, but relax: I promise there will be no Part 2.

You remember Grigori Rasputin, the fanatic religious favorite of the last tsar and tsarina of Russia, who supposedly cured their son of genetic hemophilia. He was murdered by a group of young Russian nobles (to eliminate his influence on the royal family) in 1916 at the St. Petersburg mansion of the Yusupov family.

When it is safe again to travel to St. Petersburg, you will be able to visit this remarkable “palace” and see how the nobility lived, even visiting the room that housed their elegant private theater. And you can go to the basement level, where mannequins have been set up to reenact the murder.

After the revolution, the majority of Yusupovs, like much of the Russian nobility, wound up in Paris. And Felix Felixovich Yusupov, the leader of the gang, wrote and published this book in 1927.

Yusupov lived another 40 years and I was surprised to find a rather detailed description of F.F. in actress Kitty Carlyle’s memoir. She and Yusupov’s daughter went to school together in Paris and Yusupov, who often picked his daughter up from school, was quite the character.

I have quite a bit of antisemitic literature hidden away in my collection, including brief book, written by someone I know nothing about.

The book was published in 1947, shortly after the end of World War II. It doesn’t really mention, as far as I can see, the Holocaust itself, but it casts the blame for American involvement in this war and in the first World War on three interrelated factors: British pressure to keep their empire, world financial interests who want to increase their wealth, and “Organized World Jewry, their constant companion”.

The frightening thing about this book is that although it was written over 75 years ago, you can buy new reprints being churned out today.

Grieb has written two other similar books, one with a title that seems especially ominous today: “The Balfour Declaration: Recipe for Genocide”.

This is a cute book which has information about the White House itself, as well as a full page engraving of each president, up to the then current president, Theodore Roosevelt. Each president also gets a full page narrative, which gives (a) basic biographical information, and (b) more importantly, what New York Life Insrance Company was doing during their presidency. For example, you might think that the drift towards secession and civil war were the most important aspects of James Buchanon’s one term. But no! You only think that because you didn’t know that NY Life opened its first San Francisco office while he was president. And their first in the State of Tennessee.

And, although Wm. Henry Harrison was only president for one month before he died in 1841, it was quite a month. New York Life was founded in that month.

Moving forward in time, this brochure shows Milles’ work in Stockholm at his home Millesgarden, now a museum. The black and white photography in the 75 page or so  booklet is excellent.

Of course, Milles is interesting to me because he sculpted “The Meeting of the Waters” in front of Union Station, St. Louis.

I was going to talk about a book accompanying a Cocteau film, a guide to Ephasus, then Greek, now Turkish and a few more things.

But…..you get the picture, and time is short.