Tuesday

[monk222]

David Frum: "I’ll turn 57 this year. Not so old, but apparently long enough to outlive almost every political reality I grew up with." Trump really rocked our world. Reality really isn't some neatly controllable thing. We are reminded that anything can happen. Seas don't stay calm forever. ... ... I watched "The Peanuts Movie" that came out in 2015. I feel a connection to the Peanuts characters from my childhood, but I have never been able to recreate that connection as an adult - until now! This movie really pitched its classic themes well so as to play brilliantly on our nostalgic longings. This is a Peanuts movie that I think I can watch from time to time. It is as though they were consciously trying to connect with we older viewers who loved Peanuts as children, and they succeeded perfectly. My eyes almost got misty. ... ... Michael Minden on "Magic Mountain": "By committing suicide Peeperkorn symbolizes the self-destruction of European patriarchal authority in the First World War." [Cambridge Companion to Thomas Man] Now, you see, I never would have figured that one out on my own. And it is a beautiful play of idea and fiction. ... ... Schopenhauer: "Thus in it a man regards and treats only his own person as a real person, and all others as mere phantoms. Theoretical egoism, of course, can never be refuted by proofs, yet in philosophy it has never been positively used otherwise than as a skeptical sophism, that is, for the sake of appearance. As a serious conviction, on the other hand, it could be found only in a madhouse; as such it would then need not so much a refutation as a cure." [World as Will and Representation] ... ... I was finally moved to take my new razor out of its box. There's a chance Pop might go to Kay's this weekend, and I want the razor charged up. I decided to give a quick run through the directions, and now I am thinking that ignorance might have been for the best: you shouldn't press the razor too hard onto your face, because your skin can get caught in the combs, and you need to be very careful that none of the combs is broken, because that too can cause facial injury. In my innocence I had thought that these things were thoroughly engineered to make it practically impossible to draw even a single drop of blood. Man, I don't know if I want to use the thing now. Maybe I will satisfy myself with scissor-trims and forget about giving myself anything like a close shave ever again. Of course, I will proceed as I naturally would have done without looking at the little Stephen Kingesque manual, in the faith that they are over-stating the risks, but I will probably always be a little nervous now when I set the blades whirring and press them to my face. Daimon says, "Well, it's not like it could do much worse to that mug of yours." Thank you, but blood and pain still aren't my friends. "Who are your friends?" Certainly not you. "But you would miss me if I were ever gone for good" We do grow attached to our bad habits.