The Era of Cruelty

Things are getting tougher everywhere in the world. An Israeli minister is reported to have said that the next Mideast war must hit civilians where it hurts, speaking of Lebanon, arguing that there is no defensible line between the Lebanese state and Hezbollah. He is quoted as saying, "Send Lebanon back to the Middle Ages". Heer Jeet tweets, "Let's be clear: this is the advocacy of war crimes."

Cruelty promises to be the trademark of this new era.

And I'm just going to continue to hide behind Solitaire and my books. For as long as I can.

Rain

More fresh rain.

Sorry about that, cats.

At least this dank weather system should be clearing by the end of the weekend.

Home Life

I can't get to my reading.

It's such a borked up day.

Grocery day.

"And a wank?"

And a wank. Yeah, I have to live.

Then a shower. Then I had to set up my burger patties. And now I have to wash dishes.

Hopefully, I'll get it done before Pop & Kay make it back.

He teased me yesterday with the idea that he would stay over there tonight, but they changed their minds. He's getting her groceries, but he'd rather then come back here rather than stay there.

I guess she wants to hit his refrigerator harder. She seems more demanding now about helping herself to his resources, grabbing what she can. I heard him complain when she got some of his stamps this morning. He yelped, "You've been getting my stamps for two weeks now." She defiantly asserted, "I haven't got mine yet." Right.

But it's probably still a good deal. I think she still likes him, and I understand now that he really needs that affection, that affirmation of his manhood.

And she is a real help in guarding the house when we get our groceries

There was a time when Pop and I would leave the house alone. I wish I could remember how long that was. At least months. Was it years? In any case, neither of us cares to take that kind of chance today.

Like I said, the world seems to be getting meaner. All the way around.

Internet Essays

George Saunders is apparently enjoying some real success with his first novel, "Lincoln in the Bardo". He has a nice essay in "The Guardian" newspaper about the process of writing and creating fiction.

It raises an issue I've been dealing with.

Should I print it out and just consider it a part of my own personal edition of essays, perhaps informally titled "Nice Things I've Found From The Internet"?

I've been ruling against that, thinking that I have so many books to read that my informal policy is, if it doesn't make it into a book, then I just won't be rereading it.

It saves on paper. And it is a bit of a hassle to print this stuff out. Sometimes, for instance, I need to copy and paste what I want into a document and then print it. It can be a drain on time & energy. And I would have bulks and bulks of more papers to store somewhere.

And it is true that I do have so many books to read and reread that I am not hurting for reading material.

Still, I continue to have these doubts. There are a lot of great columns and essays that I'd kind of like to keep. But maybe sometimes you just have to say no.

"Why not just do what you used to do? Just do that copy & paste routine for your blog. You don't have to print it out, but it will always be there if you change your mind, or to simply read it on the Internet."

Well, there is that drain. In my older age, I am no longer so excited about copy-pasting everything that tingles my balls.

But, no, there might be something to that. What else do I have but time? And it's not as though copying and pasting entails a lot of heavy lifting.

I might try that. A kind of echo from my old days.

[Source: The Guardian]

Nabokov

Aside from genius, Nabokov apparently enjoyed another natural advantage as regards the association of words.

Nabokov used the word “mauve” 44 times as often as one would expect, which makes perfect sense in hindsight. He had synesthesia or, as he called it, “coloured hearing”. When he thought of a specific letter and sound he would see colours at the same time. Unsurprisingly, he uses colours at four times the rate found in standard English writing.

I will have to keep this in mind as I read through "Lolita", see how often color comes up.

"If you can remember."

True. I must have come across this fact of his synesthesia before. I think it feels a little familiar. But I cannot remember ever coming upon it to save me life.

[Guardian]