READIN

Thursday, March 25th, 2004

🦋 Yard work

What fun! this evening Sylvia and I planted some forsythias, she with her trowel and I with my spade. When I came home I asked if she would like to help me do it and she quickly said, "No." Then a few more "no"s while I was putting on jeans and work shoes and walking downstairs, followed by a sudden "I want to help!" as I opened the door. So we went outside (very warm today, I think in the 60's) and dug up some holes, and filled them with plants and soil.

This weekend I will be acquiring my next big power tool; it is a 6" jointer, which I am buying from Matt Prusik (a former president of CJWA). The weekend is busy -- on Saturday morning we are going to the nursery to get bushes and trees, and in the afternoon getting a start on cleaning the garage; on Sunday morning I will drive down to South Amboy where Matt lives and back, and in the afternoon I'll be trying to set it up. The jointer may not be usable immediately as I think the power supply to the garage might be too small and need rewiring.

posted evening of March 25th, 2004: Respond
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🦋 Vocabulary question

Anyone know of a verb to describe the way of speaking where someone can't contain his hilarity and the words come out mixed with laughter? I am thinking one could use a laughing verb -- like "'that taught her a lesson,' he sniggered" or something of the sort -- I am wondering if there is a verb to do it that does not also mean "to laugh".

posted afternoon of March 25th, 2004: Respond

Monday, March 22nd, 2004

I finished Tender is the Night this afternoon. I was amused to see Dick ordering Black & White and water when he is with Nicole and Michael -- this is what Kurt Vonnegut ordered when he made his cameo appearance in Breakfast of Champions. And it is -- for that reason -- what I ordered the first time I was ever drinking in a bar, in Montréal, in January of 1988. I got the same response from the bartender that Dick gets -- I'm sorry, we don't have that Scotch, maybe I could fix you up with a Johnny Walker? To this day I have never drunk Black & White, after years of thinking based on one scene from one book that it was what the cool guys drink. I believe this evening marks the second reference to it that I have ever seen.

posted evening of March 22nd, 2004: Respond
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Sunday, March 21st, 2004

Today the garden started erupting. The crocuses have been up for a week or so -- some of them were crushed a bit by the snowstorm but others are in good shape. We did not really plant enough crocus bulbs for them to make a real impression of bloom. Tulip and daffodil greenery has been visible through the snow for a few days and after the rain yesterday that is the dominant thing in the garden. But many other bits of greenery are visible!

We spent this morning doing yard work -- raked up remaining leaves from the fall -- aerated the lawn and put some new seed on it and some fertilizer -- turned the compost which I have not touched since the fall, there is some stuff in there we will be able to use immediately. The idea was to start cleaning the garage out, which I want to convert to a work space (from a storage space), but that did not happen. (The plan for the garage is to put a long table against both side walls, and to put a door in the yard side. And possibly to insulate and sheet rock the walls.)

posted evening of March 21st, 2004: Respond
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Saturday, March 20th, 2004

Ellen has written a new entry in Lola's Diary; go check it out!

posted evening of March 20th, 2004: Respond

Friday, March 19th, 2004

I'm really liking Tender is the Night. The story of Dick's night in Rome (chapter xxii of part 2) just hit me really hard -- it's like Fitzgerald had identified and dissected all of my pretensions to originality, 40 years before I was born.

posted evening of March 19th, 2004: Respond
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Truth may be stretched thin and not break, but float upon the surface of the lie, like oil on water

Cervantes
Don Quixote, Part II, Chapter X

For some reason, this quote out of context reminds me strongly of neocon arguments in support of the Iraq war.

posted evening of March 19th, 2004: Respond
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Tomorrow we will go to the Museum of Natural History for Sylvia's dinosaur fix. Aunt Miriam is coming along! Before the museum we will eat lunch at Barney Greengrass, the sturgeon king.

posted afternoon of March 19th, 2004: Respond
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Wednesday, March 17th, 2004

🦋 Dream blogging

Last night (in the context of a longer dream which I cannot remember), I went to visit Robert Volokh, a former co-conspirator who had stopped blogging after fighting with Juan ("and other non-Volokhs", was the text of the dream, but I am not sure quite what this meant) over the excessively moderate nature of his posts... Robert had summoned to his abode a cabal of widely-read liberal bloggers -- I'm not sure quite why I was there, maybe in my role as taker of minutes or maybe I was tagging along with somebody else. I can't really remember who all was there but at least one Timberite, and probably Atrios.

The gist of the matter was that Robert had written an Important Post on his rarely-updated personal blog and was requesting that people link to it. He was quite a mystical figure and seemed to be held in deep reverence by the assembled party. There was no actual ring-kissing but people did seem quite honored to be granted this audience.

posted morning of March 17th, 2004: Respond
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Tuesday, March 16th, 2004

I started reading Tender is the Night, by Scott Fitzgerald, yesterday. (Picked it up from a street vendor a couple of weeks ago but have been spending my commuting hours on crossword puzzles in the mean time.) It's fun. All the characters are ciphers to me (thus far) except for Rosemary. A nice mix of mannered comedy with something else -- there is an element of mystery or suspense present. A very gentle tension that really points up the jokes. I am about to go look at IMDB to check if there was a movie made of it but am going to say beforehand that I think Gary Cooper should have been in it...

And here it is! Nope, no Gary. Jason Robards is the lead. Jill St. John plays Rosemary.

posted morning of March 16th, 2004: Respond
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