Shadow Flutter

Have you ever come across one of those books, usually non-fiction, that is stuffed with periphery information called front matter that seems to serve no other purpose than to make the book bigger and more important than it really is?  Well, if you have, read along and see if this doesn’t sound familiar. First there is the usual stuff about copyright, publisher, previous editions, etc.  Then we come to the table of contents that not only lists the chapter titles but every subsection within each chapter, every one with an explanation of the subject matter covered.  That can take pages in itself. Next comes the introduction, which more often than not is written by some so-called expert on the author and his times, which itself can go on for pages and pages -- one big info dump.  And gosh these experts really want you to know how expert they are, because they cover every nook and cranny in the author's life attributing to each one a significance it can...

As I mentioned in my post The Love of Literature , I’m reading Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon .  When West and her husband arrive in Zagreb, their first stop in Yugoslavia, they are met by three friends of West’s.  They are Constantine, a Jew and a Serb, Valetta, a Dalmatian and a Slav, and Gregorievitch, a Croat and Slav, who West refers to as Pluto because his physical appearance reminds her of the Disney character in the Mickey Mouse films.  All three belong to the Literati of the newly formed Yugoslavia, and each is political and at each other’s throat.  West tells the following story about Gregorievitch, who she refers to as Pluto. It appeared that one day some years before, Pluto had rung up Y. [an editor of a certain newspaper] and reminded him that next week was the centenary of a certain Croat poet, and asked him if he would like an article on him.  Y. said that he would, and Pluto sent an article four columns long, including two quotatio...

So you dread retirement.   You worry that retiring means the end of life, that you have passed from the center aisle to the checkout lane, and that the days of fruitful contribution will be replaced with a feeling of ennui, even dread as you pass hour after hour, day after day in unending boredom and sameness.   (I was going to use the checkout clerk as a really cool metaphor for the angel who guards heaven and cashes in your chips, but I can’t remember his name, so the heck with it.)   And you hear stories.  Stories about a retired gal you used to know who couldn’t stand it anymore, so she got a job at the nearest Walmart where, for minimum wage, she shouts meaningless “welcomes” to customers all day long, until one day she isn’t there and no one notices.  Or an ex-colleague who after retiring trots on down to the local hardware store where he whiles away blissful hour after blissful hour making keys for harried people with too many burdens and never enoug...

Stock Exchange Quotation This is a famous Norman Rockwell Painting that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post on January 18, 1930.  See the young man with the red shirt and apron bending over to the immediate left of the dog?  See his two legs clearly visible in the painting?  Now look at the young man's right hand.  See how it appears to be resting on his knee as he bends over?  But whose knee?  The young man's legs are accounted for.  No way is his hand resting on his knee unless his knee is deformed and grotesque.  Seems Norman screwed up.  Perhaps he meant to portray the young man as grabbing his apron, but that isn't how it looks.  The hand should be on the right leg to support the locked-knee position.  Kid must have had back problems later in life.  Just an observation.

I' m starting a new feature on my Blog.  Beginning this month once a month I will list all the books I purchased and read during that month followed by summaries and other pithy musings and humorous observations.  What a brilliant and intriguing idea you say?  Yes, it is.  I wish I could say it is mine.  But, alas, I never think of anything pithy or intriguing.  This is a blatant ripoff of Nick Hornby’s idea.  Hornby wrote a monthly column for The Believer  magazine in 2003 and beyond in which he listed the books he purchased and read during that month.  The difference is the publishers of The Believer didn’t permit Hornby to diss an author or a book — only happy reviews allowed at The Believer .  Yeah, one of those magazines.  Unlike Hornby, I can let loose, and will, so I know you will want to read this.  So, without further ado, here is November 2015’s literature recap.   Books Purchased November 2015 Violence...

The Diane Rehm Show is an NPR news-commentary show hosted by Diane.  She invites experts -- reporters, analysts, think tank nerds, and professors -- to discuss current events.  It runs from 10 - 12 on weekdays here in the Washington D.C. area with different subjects covered during the first and second hours.  This morning I tuned in halfway through the first hour. There was Diane and her bevy of experts discussing Syrian Refugees, fake Syrian passports, ISIS, and the recent attack in Paris.  Interesting stuff.  The second show was about the Greater Sage-Grouse.  No attempt was made to segue from one to the other, and that’s probably because there is no way to do so, but neither was there any warning, just the usual interlude between shows, and all of this had an interesting effect on me.   I didn’t know what was to be covered during the second show and also didn't know that the first one had ended, and as my mind is wont to do, it wandered durin...

I've been listening to Donald Trump and how he always says "Trust Me" when asked how he will accomplish everything he says he will accomplish. How will you get Mexico to pay for the wall?  Trust me.  I'll get it done. How will you create jobs?  Trust me.  I'll create them. How will you deal with Putin?  Trust me.  He'll listen to me. etc., etc., etc. ad infinitum. Big promises with no insights into how.  I wonder how he gets away with this, but get way with it, he does.  The more incompetent he sounds, and the more vicious he gets, the more popular he becomes.  He defies reason and logic, and it's as if I'm living in La La Land.  I fully expect the next thing to happen is the rules of physics will no longer apply, the logic of math will fail, and the rules of gravity will reverse themselves.  That's when we will all be in trouble. But then I had a brilliant thought: he has a secret up his sleeve, something that will make se...

Tuesday: The Library, Part II Wednesday: Las Vegas, Part II

I do volunteer work at the library. My love of libraries has been a lifetime affair ever since my dad and mom first took me to the local library all those years ago.  If you have read my TBR post, you know that I was a reluctant, slow reader, and that this greatly concerned my dad, a lifelong, voracious reader. Every day, after supper, my dad and my mom would retire to the den where they would read for the next several hours. They each had their own comfortable chair, each bookending  the pot belly stove which was doing double duty as the fireplace. My mom would pull a magazine off the magazine rack and leaf through it backwards. A strange way of reading, but it worked for her. For years I copied her, leafing though Mad Magazine backwards, wondering how one read this way. It was only later, when someone pointed out you can't read that way, that I realized my mom was only looking at the pictures. She loved magazines like House and Garden and Better Homes, because the...

I buried my dad yesterday. He lived till 100 years of age, died in April, and was buried Tuesday, August 25, 2015, at Arlington cemetery, receiving full military honors.  That’s right.  We’ve fought so many wars, that there is now a 4 month backlog at Arlington.  One must wait in line to receive the honor.   My father, a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division, the “Screaming Eagles,” served in the army during WWII, jumping at Normandy (D-Day), France, and Eindhoven-Veghel (Market Garden), Netherlands.  It was at Veghel, shrapnel from a mortar caught him in the head.  He wasn’t expected to live, but did, living another 60-plus years, until April 17 of this year. The ceremony is beautiful.  The honor guard walks the casket out of the chapel down the walk onto the caisson. The guard walks beside the caisson, as four white horses pull it along the path to the gravesite (a 1.7 mile walk).  As the funeral procession proceeds down ...

Today, on CNN, Donna Brazile, with mind fully focused on the transition of power in the Oval Office, referred to President Obama as President O'Biden.  Using but one word, Brazile merged president and vice-president into a single African-English-French-Irish-Superman -- what could be more American? -- AND used up all the hyphens in the typeset pool to boot. Congratulations, Donna Brazile.  Your efforts at synergy (and efficiency) stands as a model for us all.

I t is Sunday, another beautiful day.  It is the kind of day that makes you wish for a large garden in which to wander among late summer blooms while imbibing a kaleidoscope of colors and scents — a human hummingbird syphoning sweet, lovely nectar that is somehow never too sweet and never too lovely, no matter how much one overindulges.  The garden I am thinking of has country benches nestled alongside slightly trodden paths upon which one can sit and relax and release into the air the accumulation of woes and stresses that while imprisoned within scar the psyche.  The garden I’m thinking of is a place to gather one’s thoughts, to read a book, to sketch a landscape, even if one can’t draw.  The garden I’m thinking of is an inviolable, though temporary, sanctuary, a small refuge from which one shelters himself from the hustle and bustle for an hour or two. One can find gardens in greenhouses, but that is not the same thing.  Greenhouses are hermetically seal...