It may be tempting to binge-watch our way thorough these next months. But TV washes over you. Reading draws you in. Books that absorb us, books that calm us down, books that comfort us, books that remind us we are not alone but part of the grand sweep of history, books that surprise and enchant us — this is what we’re looking for..
— Sarah Lyall, Let Books Create Your Summer, NYT, 5/24/20
Sunday, May 24th
I need no convincing on this front. Instead of giving in to watching last night, I was completely absorbed in Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction. The information is dense, but fascinating in that car-wreck, rubbernecking way. Letting it sink in, connecting all the dots to our current situation as well as our past is daunting. I need an historian and an economist to help me see where all of this toxic morass seeps and spreads. The threads, historically, run back to Nixon and Reagan and maybe even the installation of Harry Truman over Henry Wallace as Vice President in the 1944 Democratic Presidential Convention. That is my largely uninformed and undocumented thesis.
I need no convincing on this front. Instead of giving in to watching last night, I was completely absorbed in Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction. The information is dense, but fascinating in that car-wreck, rubbernecking way. Letting it sink in, connecting all the dots to our current situation as well as our past is daunting. I need an historian and an economist to help me see where all of this toxic morass seeps and spreads. The threads, historically, run back to Nixon and Reagan and maybe even the installation of Harry Truman over Henry Wallace as Vice President in the 1944 Democratic Presidential Convention. That is my largely uninformed and undocumented thesis.
Writing that made me sleepy again. I've been getting up around 7:30 am, then taking a late morning/early afternoon nap. I am supposed to head over to Patrick's in about an hour to take Jason Cull's strap wall class, and then off to Kava to work with a student comrade. That seems like a lot of energy and there are a few project that really need attention.
Where have I been these last few days? I had a few medical appointments, so perhaps that threw off my days. There was some gardening in there. I had to go to urgent care on Friday as I had a bug bite in the middle of the arch of my left foot that itched so much I couldn't sleep undisturbed. Having been hospitalized for a black widow spider bite, I am a bit anxious about bug bites. Also, hard to do yoga if you can't comfortably stand.
Across the yard and the bougainvillea, the morning tortoise shell kitty is sitting on the very edge of the shed. Sitting is hardly the verb. She is rolling around, lolling in the sun, and cleaning herself in a montage of precarious cat cleaning positions. Still she remains on the roof. On my trellis, I can see the black lump of Idris watching here.
May 28th (Idris contributed the parenthetical title)
And just like that another week is gone. Phffftttt ... where did it go? Gardening took up a lot of this week. I am at that point of maybe having gotten in deeper than I can sustain. On the other hand, I do sit and stare at it all. The colors have a positive synaptical effect on me. I swear, the flowers interrupt that usual mental flow toward some eddy, superficial or deep, of discontent all the way to despair. My friend Peter has been resurrecting his large vegetable garden after several years of neglect. He says he does the same thing. When he gets stuck, he goes out and fiddles in the garden for a while. It provides reset.
Lots of people are finding gardening a good pasttime for sheltering and curtailing one's activities. The lines at the garden stores and nurseries are quite long. My favorite nursery is about to close down this summer so that the land can be developed into condos or another shabby housing development. I have another favored nursery but it is not as convenient ... or at least my mind tells me so. I am not so sure. Nurseries are so far superior to garden stores like Lowe's. There isn't a lot of variety in those mall shops. I go straight to the back to look for the plants that need some extra tlc to see if I can bring them back to life.
And there has been a lot of reading, or, rather, listening to audiobooks. Sometimes I can be otherwise productive while listening to books, other times I just play solitaire to keep my hands busy. I finished Dark Towers just before the library would vanish it from my Libby account. I have one or two other audiobooks on hold that continue the exploration of Trumps/Kushners and all.
Meanwhile, somehow my number finally came for the new Hilary Mantel, The Mirror and the Light. And let there be rejoicing in the land. But this book is 37 hours of listening to get through in 14 days. I would much rather have the paper copy, but I've no idea when the library will reopen. I guess I could buy it but I don't like to have hardcovers around so much.
Just espied the morning tortoise shell kitty working on her waking up ablutions. I wondered where she was. A hummingbird came by the windows and did an excellent hover for 30 seconds. It was terrific. There are lots of hummingbirds in my jungle. The morning tortoise shell kitty is defying gravity on the edge of the patio roof. She is on her back and her arms are stretched in supta urdvha hastansana. Idris is walking around above my head on the breezeway mewing her broken meow.
Somehow this Elvis Costello song wafted across my mind: All This Useless Beauty. Not that the garden gorgeousness is useless. I am sure there are salutary neurotransmitter benefits that I haven't read about. Sometimes it feels like a lot of time and expense for what? Another place where I might not be husbanding my assets quite intelligently. When I look at the garden, I do think what if I had put all that energy into studying harder for yoga teacher training? Then again, yoga expertise is something that takes time and breathing room.
One of the other books I finished this week was Serenade for Nadia, written by a popular Turkish cultural figure. The book had many faults literarily, but it was very engaging and interesting. Likely it read better in Turkish. Oh hell to the yes!
"... It was while reading an essay on Pascal by Auerbackh, titled "The Triumph of Evil". He quoted Pascal's statement that it was right to pursue what was just, but it was inevitable that the strong would lead. Justice without power is ineffectual and power without justice is tyranny. There would always be those who would undermine and overthrow justice that lacked power. We had to integrate justice and power by making the just powerful and the powerful just.
Justice is difficult to define, but we recognize power at once. We could not empower justice because power has negated justice and asserted itself to be just. Since we have been unable to make what is right powerful, we have made power right."
A swallowtail butterfly as big as a hummingbird is checking out the goods, goods in this case being bougainvillea and the fennel running amok. I was interrupted in trying to wrap things up by the insistence of Idris.
ALL THIS USELESS BEAUTY
Where have I been these last few days? I had a few medical appointments, so perhaps that threw off my days. There was some gardening in there. I had to go to urgent care on Friday as I had a bug bite in the middle of the arch of my left foot that itched so much I couldn't sleep undisturbed. Having been hospitalized for a black widow spider bite, I am a bit anxious about bug bites. Also, hard to do yoga if you can't comfortably stand.
Across the yard and the bougainvillea, the morning tortoise shell kitty is sitting on the very edge of the shed. Sitting is hardly the verb. She is rolling around, lolling in the sun, and cleaning herself in a montage of precarious cat cleaning positions. Still she remains on the roof. On my trellis, I can see the black lump of Idris watching here.
May 28th (Idris contributed the parenthetical title)
And just like that another week is gone. Phffftttt ... where did it go? Gardening took up a lot of this week. I am at that point of maybe having gotten in deeper than I can sustain. On the other hand, I do sit and stare at it all. The colors have a positive synaptical effect on me. I swear, the flowers interrupt that usual mental flow toward some eddy, superficial or deep, of discontent all the way to despair. My friend Peter has been resurrecting his large vegetable garden after several years of neglect. He says he does the same thing. When he gets stuck, he goes out and fiddles in the garden for a while. It provides reset.
Lots of people are finding gardening a good pasttime for sheltering and curtailing one's activities. The lines at the garden stores and nurseries are quite long. My favorite nursery is about to close down this summer so that the land can be developed into condos or another shabby housing development. I have another favored nursery but it is not as convenient ... or at least my mind tells me so. I am not so sure. Nurseries are so far superior to garden stores like Lowe's. There isn't a lot of variety in those mall shops. I go straight to the back to look for the plants that need some extra tlc to see if I can bring them back to life.
And there has been a lot of reading, or, rather, listening to audiobooks. Sometimes I can be otherwise productive while listening to books, other times I just play solitaire to keep my hands busy. I finished Dark Towers just before the library would vanish it from my Libby account. I have one or two other audiobooks on hold that continue the exploration of Trumps/Kushners and all.
Meanwhile, somehow my number finally came for the new Hilary Mantel, The Mirror and the Light. And let there be rejoicing in the land. But this book is 37 hours of listening to get through in 14 days. I would much rather have the paper copy, but I've no idea when the library will reopen. I guess I could buy it but I don't like to have hardcovers around so much.
Just espied the morning tortoise shell kitty working on her waking up ablutions. I wondered where she was. A hummingbird came by the windows and did an excellent hover for 30 seconds. It was terrific. There are lots of hummingbirds in my jungle. The morning tortoise shell kitty is defying gravity on the edge of the patio roof. She is on her back and her arms are stretched in supta urdvha hastansana. Idris is walking around above my head on the breezeway mewing her broken meow.
Somehow this Elvis Costello song wafted across my mind: All This Useless Beauty. Not that the garden gorgeousness is useless. I am sure there are salutary neurotransmitter benefits that I haven't read about. Sometimes it feels like a lot of time and expense for what? Another place where I might not be husbanding my assets quite intelligently. When I look at the garden, I do think what if I had put all that energy into studying harder for yoga teacher training? Then again, yoga expertise is something that takes time and breathing room.
One of the other books I finished this week was Serenade for Nadia, written by a popular Turkish cultural figure. The book had many faults literarily, but it was very engaging and interesting. Likely it read better in Turkish. Oh hell to the yes!
"... It was while reading an essay on Pascal by Auerbackh, titled "The Triumph of Evil". He quoted Pascal's statement that it was right to pursue what was just, but it was inevitable that the strong would lead. Justice without power is ineffectual and power without justice is tyranny. There would always be those who would undermine and overthrow justice that lacked power. We had to integrate justice and power by making the just powerful and the powerful just.
Justice is difficult to define, but we recognize power at once. We could not empower justice because power has negated justice and asserted itself to be just. Since we have been unable to make what is right powerful, we have made power right."
A swallowtail butterfly as big as a hummingbird is checking out the goods, goods in this case being bougainvillea and the fennel running amok. I was interrupted in trying to wrap things up by the insistence of Idris.
ALL THIS USELESS BEAUTY
It's at times such as this she'd be tempted to spit
If she wasn't so ladylike
She imagines how she might have lived
Back when legends and history collide
So she looks to her prince finding since he's so charmingly
Slumped at her sideman tv5kllrlr74eie
And she's waiting for passion or humour to strike
If she wasn't so ladylike
She imagines how she might have lived
Back when legends and history collide
So she looks to her prince finding since he's so charmingly
Slumped at her sideman tv5kllrlr74eie
And she's waiting for passion or humour to strike
What shall we do, what shall we do with all this useless beauty?
All this useless beauty
All this useless beauty
Good Friday arrived, the sky darkened on time
'Til he almost began to negotiate
She held his head like a baby and said "It's okay if you cry."
Now he wants her to dress as if you couldn't guess
He desires to impress his associates
But he's part ugly beast and Hellenic deceased
So she finds that the mixture is hard to deny
'Til he almost began to negotiate
She held his head like a baby and said "It's okay if you cry."
Now he wants her to dress as if you couldn't guess
He desires to impress his associates
But he's part ugly beast and Hellenic deceased
So she finds that the mixture is hard to deny
What shall we do, what shall we do with all this useless beauty?
All this useless beauty
All this useless beauty
She won't practice the looks from the great tragic books
That were later disgraced to face celluloid
It won't even make sense but you can bet
If she isn't a sweetheart or plaything or pet
The film turns her into an unveiled threat
That were later disgraced to face celluloid
It won't even make sense but you can bet
If she isn't a sweetheart or plaything or pet
The film turns her into an unveiled threat
Nonsense prevails, modesty fails
Grace and virtue turn into stupidity
While the calendar fades almost all barricades to a pale compromise
And our leaders have feasts on the backsides of beasts
They still think they're the gods of antiquity
If something you missed didn't even exist
It was just an ideal -- is it such a surprise?
Grace and virtue turn into stupidity
While the calendar fades almost all barricades to a pale compromise
And our leaders have feasts on the backsides of beasts
They still think they're the gods of antiquity
If something you missed didn't even exist
It was just an ideal -- is it such a surprise?
What shall we do, what shall we do with all this useless beauty?
All this useless beauty
What shall we do, what shall we do with all this useless beauty?
All this useless beauty
All this useless beauty
What shall we do, what shall we do with all this useless beauty?
All this useless beauty
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