My reading in 2021

January 4, 2022 Mark Watkins Leave a comment

2021 was an interesting year in reading for me. Somewhat oddly, I felt a real challenge being interested to read this year. I say oddly because between the pandemic and what I do for work (Bookship, a social reading app), it should have been lab conditions for a great year in reading.

Still, I managed to read 36 books (45 in 2020, 41 in 2019). My reading in 2021 centered around a few themes: my book club reads (for the Greener Reader bookclub), my trip to Iceland and associated historical interests, and the usual dose of “Comfort Food” reading: some science fiction and thriller old favorites and new reads.

One of the highlights of my year was a trip to Iceland with Michelle and our old friends the Jensens. That lead to some focused Iceland reading: Jar City (Arnaudur Indradason) and The Darkness (Ragnar Jonasso), two thrillers by Icelandic authors, and the Book of Reykjavik, a collection of stories by Icelandic authors about Reykjavik. But we can’t go to Iceland without thinking about one of my long-term interests, the “Northern Thing” as Auden called it: the fascination with all things Viking, northern, Odin, Thor and all that. So together with my travel companions we read Grettir’s Saga, which I had been struggling with in past attempts. This time we read the Jesse Byock translation and it was a revelation: hilarious, scary, modern. I wrote more about it, here and here.

Cocktail I made in Iceland with hand-foraged crowberrries, and an Icelandic folktale book

While we were in Iceland, my friend Thomas recommended The Last Duel, by Eric Jagar, another medieval tale soon to be a motion picture starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck????, so we all read that together as well. The Last Duel was another revelation: a time portal to medieval France through the lens of the last judicial trial-by-combat, a duel to the death over an accusation of rape. A true story, and not a bad movie either. Continuing the Northern thing, I read Hrolf Kraki’s Saga again (Poul Anderson version, I dunno, 4th or 5th time probably). Then read Poul Anderson’s trilogy The Last Viking, about the life of Harald Sigurdsson, aka Harald Hard Rede, aka Harald Hardrada, who’s life would not be believable as fiction, it is so fantastical. Forced into exile in Russia after a disastrous battle at the age of 15, he landed at the court of Prince Yaroslav, where he remained until he sailed to Constantinople, joining and eventually leading the Varangian guard responsible for protecting the Emperor himself. From thence he crusaded to Jerusalem, led many battles and gained much wealth. He was imprisoned after a jealous Empress wanted to marry him, whereas he had eyes for someone else. Escaping back to Russia, he married Yaroslav’s daughter, eventually returning to Norway and became King. He then claimed, but was unsuccessful in actually obtaining, the Kingship of both Denmark and England. The latter cause led him to England in 1066, to his death at the hands of Harold Godwinson, who would himself shortly die at the hands of William the Conqueror. Crazy story.

Finishing up the Anderson series led me to read 1066, by David Howarth, a shortish book wonderfully recounting all the events that led to William the Conqueror and the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. That led to another grisly read, The Crusaders by Dan Jones, which I also read with, and at the recommendation of, my friend Thomas. Harald makes a minor appearance there as a Crusader, but really it’s the entire history of the Crusades in this book. If you think humanity has not improved in the last 1000 years, think again and read this book. It’s a litany of horror and cruelty on all sides. However bad we are, we’re not that.

Lastly, in the historical vein, my favorite author, Steven Pressfield, released A Man at Arms, a tale set in the holy land shortly after the death of Christ. Perhaps not as a good as Gates of Fire (one of my favorites), it’s still a great read.

Through the book club I am in, I read some wonderful fiction, much of which I probably would not have read otherwise. Kawai Strong Washburn’s wonderful mythical/modern Hawaii tale Sharks in the Time of Saviors, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Another Country by James Baldwin, and outside book club but via my book club leader, Justine Espiritu, the wonderfully cynical and scandalous Bonjour Tristesse by Francois Sagan, about a wonderfully cynical French teenager. Infomocracy is a near-future sci-fi exploration of what a global democracy might look like. A good effort, although (un-intentionally by the author I am sure), it felt more like a 1984-inspired info-autocracy).

A couple of one-off books I really enjoyed, outside my major themes:

The Ministry of Truth: the Biography of George Orwell’s 1984. Last year I read, and was horrified by, 1984, which I’d not read since high school and seems so prescient about today’s media landscape (and I am not just, or even primarily, talking about our previous knucklehead-in-chief.). The Ministry of Truth explores Orwell and all the ways this book came to be.

How Music Works, by David Byrne. I’m thinking about, and have started work on, a new form of music discovery (read more here.) Looking for inspiration, I read How Music Works, by the former leader of Talking Heads. It is about how music is made, marketed, discovered, consumed, appreciated, taught, and more. I particularly loved his chapter on Curation, which, if you’ve read my other writings, is something you know I am interested in. I read this book with Thomas and another friend, and continue to be surprised at how much social reading improves my enjoyment of a book.

In the “comfort food” category, I re-read William Gibson’s seminal Neuromancer and Count Zero ( I love both but I think the second book is even better than the well-known first book ). I really enjoyed Midnight, Water City by Hawaii-based author Chris McKinney. I re-read Foundation in anticipation of the some-what disappointing tv series. A few of the notable thrillers I read: Dragonfish, by Vu Tran; I Am Pilgrim, by Terry Hayes, An Honorable Man (Paul Vidich), and two Israel-focused thrillers: The English Teacher (Yiftach Atir) and A Long Night in Paris (Dov Alfon). The former was particularly enjoyable and felt like an Israeli version of A Perfect Spy, complete with a wonderfully realized middle-aged male self-deception. Victoria Dougherty’s Welcome to the Hotel Yalta was a fun collection of cold war Eastern Europe spy tales, a set up to her novels.

So, for 2021: social reading was a big win. The most meaningful books I read, I read socially. I plan to do more in 2022. As for what I’ll be reading? Well, I have a bunch of good books lined up through book club. Outside of book club, I hope to read Brave New World, Circe, and hopefully some good history. I’m already started on The Thin Red Line (fiction on battle of Guadalcanal), Two Years Before the Mast (historical sailing adventure), and The Windup Girl (for book club). And I hope to read more about music discovery!

Books, Ruminations

My shoulder. The Obstacle is the Way

December 15, 2021 Mark Watkins Leave a comment

So, I’m having shoulder surgery in January, for a torn rotator cuff. Too much tennis, not enough outside strength training. I basically won’t be able to use my right arm for a month after the surgery, it will be in a sling. And tennis is probably 1 year away after rehab.

The shoulder really hasn’t been right for some years now. While this surgery is seriously inconvenient, and likely painful for awhile, I’m looking at this at the path to getting my shoulder back to full health and full strength. Rather than looking at the downsides. As Ryan Holiday says, The Obstacle is the Way.

To get myself ready, I’m collecting some of my favorite Marcus Aurelius quotes from The Meditations, the “bible”, if you will, of Stoic philosophy. These from the Gregory Hayes translation. (This is more for me than you :)).

The first one seems a bit too literal 🙂

Practice, even things you don’t expect to need.

Practice even what seems impossible.

The left hand is useless at almost everything, for lack of practice. But it guides the reins better than the right. From practice.

I’m going to be practicing left hand stuff for awhile!

Control your mind and attitude:

Don’t be overheard complaining about life at court. Not even to yourself.

Shorter, my adaptation: Never be overheard complaining – even to yourself.

How not to feel a victim:

“It’s unfortunate that this has happened.”

No. It’s fortunate that this has happened and I’ve remained unharmed by it—not shattered by the present or frightened of the future. It could have happened to anyone. But not everyone could have remained unharmed by it. Why treat the one as a misfortune rather than the other as fortunate? Can you really call something a misfortune that doesn’t violate human nature? Or do you think something that’s not against nature’s will can violate it? But you know what its will is.

Does what’s happened keep you from acting with justice, generosity, self-control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility, straightforwardness, and all the other qualities that allow a person’s nature to fulfill itself? So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune.

It’s not what happens to you. It’s how you respond.

Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed.

Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been.

Control your mind, as well as your outward behavior.

From Apollonius I learned: to be the same in all circumstances—intense pain, the loss of a child, chronic illness.

Looking at events as opportunities, not problems.

That every event is the right one. Look closely and you’ll see.

Not just the right one overall, but right. As if someone had weighed it out with scales.

Keep looking closely like that, and embody it in your actions: goodness—what defines a good person.

A visual to help you

To be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it.

Managing pain

[On pain:] Unendurable pain brings its own end with it.

Chronic pain is always endurable: the intelligence maintains serenity by cutting itself off from the body, the mind remains undiminished. And the parts that pain affects—let them speak for themselves, if they can.

Mental vacations

People try to get away from it all — to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like.

By going within.

Other people

What’s there to complain about? People’s misbehavior? But take into consideration: • that rational beings exist for one another; • that doing what’s right sometimes requires patience; • that no one does the wrong thing deliberately; • and the number of people who have feuded and envied and hated and fought and died and been buried.

. . . and keep your mouth shut.

and

Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people—unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful. You’ll be too preoccupied with what so-and-so is doing, and why, and what they’re saying, and what they’re thinking, and what they’re up to, and all the other things that throw you off and keep you from focusing on your own mind.

The big picture

You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.

Peace

The tranquillity that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do. (Is this fair? Is this the right thing to do?) < . . . > not to be distracted by their darkness. To run straight for the finish line, unswerving.

Focus on essentials

Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, “Is this necessary?” But we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well. To eliminate the unnecessary actions that follow.

Maintaining control of your emotions and reactions

The best revenge is not to be like that.

How the mind conducts itself. It all depends on that. All the rest is within its power, or beyond its control—corpses and smoke.

Have purpose and chase that

Then what is to be prized? An audience clapping? No. No more than the clacking of their tongues. Which is all that public praise amounts to—a clacking of tongues. So we throw out other people’s recognition. What’s left for us to prize? I think it’s this: to do (and not do) what we were designed for.

The Obstacle is the Way

In a sense, people are our proper occupation. Our job is to do them good and put up with them.

But when they obstruct our proper tasks, they become irrelevant to us—like sun, wind, animals. Our actions may be impeded by them, but there can be no impeding our intentions or our dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting.

The impediment to action advances action.

What stands in the way becomes the way.

The Obstacle is the Way.

( This article edited left handed 🙂 )

Books, Literary Curiosities

Madness is better than defeat

October 9, 2021 Mark Watkins Leave a comment

Madness is better than defeat. Down the river is the light of reason.
(From Orson Welles’s screenplay for an unproduced adaptation of Heart of Darkness 1939)

I recently made two simultaneous discoveries. And they go together quite well. The first, after a recent trip to Iceland, is Víkingur Ólafsson, the Icelandic pianist, whose recently-released Mozart & Contemporaries breathes new life into, well, Mozart and his contemporaries. It goes well with the book that follows, so go ahead and push the play button below before proceeding. Go ahead, we’ll wait.

Is there any feeling a bibliophile loves more than looking for a book for (literally) years, finally finding it, only to find it exceeds your wildest expectations?

My book recommendation engine The Hawaii Project mentioned Madness is Better than Defeat by Ned Beauman to me when it was released back in 2017 because it knew I would like it (it’s good at that kind of thing). I put it on my TBR. A blurb:

A wild, astonishing literary thriller by arguably England’s most accomplished young writer, about Manhattan and Hollywood in the 1930s, Mayan gods, and a CIA operation gone terribly wrong–the Man Booker short-listed Ned Beauman’s magnum opus thus far.

Those of you who know my love of espionage books, and the works of Tim Powers, could guess this might appeal to me. Declare, and Last Call, especially – they are in the very small set of books I’ve ever given 5 stars too, back when I thought ratings and reviews were a useful thing to do. And this book has that same “smell”. It especially whiffs of Declare. But still, I’d been disappointed before, so I didn’t just order it. And strangely, it never made it to any of my local bookstores. (I know, I could look at it online; but it’s not the same). So, year after year, whenever I was in a bookstore, used bookstores especially, I would look for it along with other wayward books. Never found it.

Until yesterday.

Down in Raleigh, NC, visiting with people where I grew up, I wandered into Mr. Mike’s Used Bookstore. (No, not Magic Mike’s, although I might have made that joke to my wife…). There, along with a book about Caesar’s Legions, Caroline Alexander’s book about The Iliad, and a book about the science of music perception (thinking about doing a music startup/project…), there it was. The cover in all its Mayan glory.

Well, I liked the cover quite a bit more than what I’d seen before. The fonts looked good. The book had a nice feel to it. Read the first page. It might as well have picked up where Indiana Jones left off – a warehouse full of mysterious objects and an investigation by a CIA officer. By page two, we’ve encountered rum aged in barrels made from coffin wood, which has magical properties:

This is how I know. During the failed Cuban War of Independence in 1868, a wealthy Spanish family called the Azpeteguias, who owned sugar plantations near the Valle de Vinales, were besieged inside their villa by their own farmers. They died of yellow fever, all sixteen of them, before they could be relieved by the army. It was decided to send the bodies to Havana for burial to ensure they wouldn’t be desecrated by the locals. But the farmers ambushed the caravan in the hills, prying open the coffins and tipping the bodies into the dust. In 1953, when I was still working for the agency in Cuba, I did a significant favor for a friend of mine in Pinar del Rio and afterward he gave me a bottle of rum that had been aged in a barrel made from staves of Azpeteguia coffin wood.

I have about twelve ounces left. It’s what’s called a diagnostic liquor. According to folk medicine, the long aftertaste is the most volatile fraction of the rum escaping out of your mouth as tinted vapor after it’s already washed through your guts. You taste yourself on it. There are some old bourbons with the same property…

I get that rare feeling. Of having taken one small wrong turn, and left the real world to enter a just-slightly-adjacent world that’s just as real, but not quite the same, where the same rules don’t apply.

OK. Sold. It goes into the pile to go home with me. ($4.99 btw).

Now, I’m on the plane and diving in.

Quickly, after learning about magic rum, one of our protagonists is dragged away from a large wager involving a longshoreman wrestling a live octopus in a diving tank, force-fed a nebulizing spray that instantly sobers him up, and taken to see his oh-so-rich father, who informs him he is to go to the Spanish Honduras to disassemble and bring home (!) a newly discovered Mayan ruin. (Which ruins our rum-drinking CIA hero claim have magical properties btw). Meanwhile a young aspiring filmmaker is taken to see a hermetic Howard Hughes like character who owns a film studio, was involved in a gondola crash that nearly killed him, and now lives in a spider’s nest of bell-laded cloths made from the Gondola to prevent anyone from sneaking up on him unawares. (Meanwhile, the Vikingur Olafsson’s Phantom-of-the-Opera-like music in the playlist above is playing in my headphones…). I feel like I’m watching an old black-and-white film with this soundtrack… Anyway our filmmaker is to go make a movie at the same Mayan temple. And a local newspaper editor is berating his young gossip writers for their lack of performance while a small Pomeranian barks at him to calm down (this scene is hysterical but I really cannot do it justice here), eventually deciding to send one of them along with the film crew to the Honduras.

By this time, I am valiantly and fruitlessly trying to stifle hysterical laughter, the tears are running down my face behind my COVID mask, my wife is shushing me and I’m starting to draw alarmed looks from my fellow passengers.

Then there is the young archaelogist who has stumbled into the middle of an orgy involving her archaelogist mentor who escaped from the Mayan jungle with, shall we say, a new outlook on life? And suggests she go to the Honduras in his stead?

And I’m only 40 pages in.

This is why I read.

I’m reading as slowly as possible because I know I’ve found magic, and that I’ll only be able to experience this magic once for the first time, and it might not last. Every other paragraph is a turn of phrase or sentence I want to highlight. The writing is outstanding, this is fantasy writing done by a Booker-nominated writer with a demented imagination. That transporting experience when you realize that for 2 hours you’ve been completely unaware of anything happening around you.

What books click for people is very personal; your mileage may vary (online reviews seem to adore this book or hate it or both, no middle ground here). But Madness is Better than Defeat starts as a virtuoso performance. Worth a read.

Books

My ten books

October 9, 2021 Mark Watkins 1 Comment

Had a fun conversation with a friend about how in the old days you’d invite your friends over and impress them with your book collection. And how, in today’s digital/library world, the books that mean the most to us often aren’t physically present on our shelves, or we might not be having those we want to impress in our homes :). She was asking me what 10 books would be on my list.

There are many ways to slice a “10 books” list – what are the last 10 books I read? Who do I want to impress now? Or other ways…

These books have shaped my life and thinking, from my early high school days until very recently. The books I return to again and again, and a short note about why.

Gates of Fire
Gates of Fire tells the story of the 300 Spartan warriors at the battle of Thermopylae. Spoiler alert: they all die. I’ve lived with this book for 20 years and it’s taught me so much about leadership, how to behave under pressure, and being part of a team I love.

I wrote about it here.

Bonus reading: Tides of War by the same author.

Wind, Sand and Stars

A rousing adventure story and a philosophical exploration. A truly unique and inspiring book. A quote:

“Each man must look to himself to teach him the meaning of life. It is not something ‘discovered’: it is something moulded.”

Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I first read this book in high school. With its explorations of “What is Quality”, tracing the path of western & eastern philosophies, it set me on the lifelong path of a life of the mind.

Neuromancer

William Gibson’s debut novel of cyberspace, computer cowboy jockeys, deadly beautiful women wearing mirror shades, and a reggae spaceship pilot sparked a love affair with computers for me that has continued to this day.

A Perfect Spy

We value what we work for. And man did I work for this. My first three attempts to read it failed. On the fourth, a new world opened to me. Spies and betrayal fascinate me. E.M. Forster famously said, “If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend I hope I should have the guts to betray my country” – but of course it’s nearly impossible to do one without the other.

What would cause a good man to seemingly betray everything and everyone? A Perfect Spy will take you inside the head and life of Magnus Pym, a spy (and thinly-veiled double for John Le Carré himself), so you will understand.

Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius

In the year when my mother died from ALS, and the cacophony of Trump was inescapable, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius centered me and grounded me. For my second reading, I read one page every day for a year, as my morning meditation. Every bleeping line has wisdom in it.

“Then what is to be prized? An audience clapping? No. No more than the clacking of their tongues. Which is all that public praise amounts to—a clacking of tongues. So we throw out other people’s recognition. What’s left for us to prize? I think it’s this: to do (and not do) what we were designed for.“

I wrote more about it here.

The Lord of the Rings

From my early days playing Dungeons & Dragons in high school, to reading Beowulf in Old English and the Norse Sagas in Old Icelandic in college, to reading historical fiction to this day, The Lord of The Rings has always been the inspiration. As C. S. Lewis wrote in his review:

“To them a reviewer need say little, except that here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron; here is a book that will break your heart.”

Burning the Days

The well-known book reviewer Michael Dirda of the Washington Post famously wrote of Salter: “He can, when he wants, break your heart with a sentence.”. In a bookstore, I opened the book to a random page and found:

“I cannot think of it without sadness. I think of the day-long, intimate hours in her apartment with the same record playing over and over, phrases from it like some sort of oath I will know til the day I die.”

Ok. It’s two sentences. My review here.

Declare

One of my all-time favorite re-reads. Somehow manages to combine Spies, Djinn, Kim Philby, Lawrence of Arabia, Noah’s Ark and Mt Ararat, Saharan adventures, Nazis and the Cold War. Supernatural history with a plausible, even supported, historical storyline behind it. For espionage enthusiasts, the author’s note at the end laying out the history is like discovering buried treasure.

Like A Perfect Spy, the early going can be tough. Many I’ve recommended this to struggled with the first 60 pages. And said they were rewarded after they got momentum.

The Riddle Master of Hed

It’s hard to explain the allure of this beautiful trilogy by Patricia McKillip. Perhaps it’s that Prince Morgan of Hed is a riddle-master and a wielder of magic harps, not a sword-slinger – at least not at first. Perhaps it’s the hidden identities of those he thought he could trust. Perhaps it’s the winter Morgan spends shape-shifted into a tree in a mountainous forest to hide from a magician seeking him out.

When I truly want to escape to another world, I come back to Hed.

1984

A truly terrifying book. I read it every few years. Modern media, the government censorship complex, the forces that act on us from the left and the right, all shine through this book. The figures of speech we use without thinking – Big Brother, the Ministry of Truth, doublething, wrongspeak, I could go on. Just read the book. And remember, whichever party you ascribe to, if you ascribe to one, the book is talking about your side. Don’t feel good about yourself 🙂

Shogun

Shogun draws me back every few years. It’s just such an enjoyable historical romp with a cast of unforgettable characters. Blackthorne, the English ship pilot marooned in Japan. Lord Toronaga, the wily Samurai who aims to become Shogun. Mariko-san, Blackthorne’s star-crossed female Samurai lover.

And it’s full of wisdom, especially startup wisdom.

OK. It’s 11 12 books. Sue me.

Books, Literary Curiosities, Vikings

Grettir and the UFO

September 4, 2021 Mark Watkins Leave a comment

Outlaws. Horse Stealing. Rounding up a posse. Vigilante Justice. Feuds. Anti-heroes who walk tall, take no shit, give no fucks, and get into fights at the slightest insult.

The Wild West right?

Nope.

Meet Grettir, the 10th century “hero” of the Icelandic Grettir’s Saga. Outlawed, twice, first for killing the man in a fight over a perhaps-stolen food bag, second accidentally burning down a house with 12 people in it. Along the way, he tears the arm off of a troll invading a hall, and dives to a cave under a waterfall and kills another one (Beowulf, anyone?). His biggest battle is killing Glam, an Icelandic zombie (draugr, in Old Norse) who is haunting a farm. Grettir is larger than life, both in reputation as well as physical size. His life ends when (spoiler alert) he’s living on the Island fortress of Drangey, gets a witchcraft-infected wound, and is then overcome by his enemies and killed.

I’ve been reading Grettir in advance of an upcoming trip to Iceland. I was curious about Grettir as the hero of the saga, as he’s not an entirely sympathetic character (that’s Icelandic understatement). As a child he kills the geese his father make him take care of, partially flayed the horse his father made him take care of, and badly scratched his father’s back with a rake when his father made him scratch his back. Yet, he is somewhat of a national hero in Iceland, it’s said that more place names in Iceland are named after him than any other saga character.

Looking around for analogs, I was thinking about the outlaws of the Wild West, like, say, Billy the Kid. His first arrest at age 16 was for stealing food, an odd parallel to Grettir’s first killing over a food bag. Before the Kid had turned 21, he’d killed eight people. In contrast to Grettir, the Kid traveled in a pack, joining a posse called the Regulators nominally tasked with a executing a kind of “civilian” justice (oh the irony). (By the way, the word regulated in those days meant something more like well-functioning, in good working order or well-managed, rather than “controlled by government regulations”, 2nd Amendment students take note). Caught and convicted for murder by Sheriff Pat Garrett, the Kid escaped jail, and went on the run. Tracked down by Garrett, the Kid was killed near Fort Sumner, NM.

Here’s where it gets weird. I’ve been experimenting with a location-based history app – one that will tell you the history of a particular location and places of interest near you. Randomly, looking for historical data, this page popped up: https://www.historynet.com/the-man-who-invented-billy-the-kid-book-review.htm. It’s an article about (this is gonna get a little meta), the man who wrote the biography of the person who was the ghost-writer for Pat Garrett’s biography of Billy the Kid. That person was Ash Upson. From the article:

Ash wrote that Garrett, “in addition to being long-headed…is likewise long-legged, his full height being somewhat under 10 feet.” In the previous decade Upson claimed to have met young Henry Antrim (the future William H. Bonney, alias Billy the Kid) at the Silver City boardinghouse run by the boy’s mother, Catherine Antrim. That might not be true, but the author confirms Upson “did meet Bonney in Roswell, the small hamlet which Ash had a hand in protecting during the Lincoln County War.”

OK, so Garrett was apparently also Grettir-sized, but that’s not the fun part. Roswell? Roswell NM? Where a UFO crashed in 1947? Yep. 66 years almost to the day after the Kid’s death, a ~~weather balloon~~ UFO will crash in Roswell[1]. The aliens came for Billy the Kid, we just never knew. Henry McCarty, aka Billy the Kid, is buried in Old Fort Sumner Cemetery.

Grettir? Well, after his death his killers cut off his head for proof (to get the reward), and took it back to the Althing ( the Icelandic parliament ) to claim their reward. Incensed at the disrespect of cutting off Grettir’s head, and the use of witchcraft to kill him, the Althing in turn outlawed Hook, Grettir’s killer (Grettir would eventually be avenged by his kinsman Thorstein Galleon, who killed Hook in Constantinople).

Grettir was buried twice, once in Reykjastrang, then when the church was moved, he was buried in his hometown of Bjarg (legendary location here).