Dear diary,
My cellphone has been dying lately. It shuts off when anyone tries to call me. I wonder: should I replace it? Or should I trash it and just go back to using a landline? That idea is tempting. . . .
Let me get the book news out of the way, right here at the top:
BOOK NEWS
A couple of entries ago, I began listing old U.S. authors whose works I read thru during the year that just past – that list was incomplete: I need to add the poet Frederick Goddard Tuckerman; also Jones Very; Sidney Lanier; Stephen Crane (The Red Badge of Courage, plus some short stories and a few poems); Trumbull Stickney; and Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women – this novel impressed me very much; I had assumed it would be dusty and tedious, but it was filled with life: I’d call the book sacred. I also read the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, and I’m almost finished with Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, which I also feared I’d find dull but which has been enchanting . . .
Additionally, over the last few weeks, for no reason, every day at breakfast, my sweetheart and I read aloud John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. We got thru the whole book (both parts) this way, and really enjoyed it. Apparently, the full title is The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That Which is to Come. (What a nice name!)
Ah, & I’m STILL not finished with my reading list – I must mention this one newer book (2022) because it was mind-changing: We the Elites, by Robert Ovetz. It is subtitled Why the US Constitution Serves the Few.
END OF BOOK NEWS
What else has been going on in my life, lately? Not too much. Everything’s boringly normal for me and my sweetheart. We watch movies nightly, and we take daily walks in our neighborhood. I haven’t been writing anything creative – only reading . . . I hope to return to bookmaking eventually, but I’m taking a break.
Yesterday I visited the Mega Mall to buy some shirts and shorts and shoes, because all my summer clothes were torn in tatters. And I noticed that the retail stores pump thru their intercom speakers all the same pop music that they were trying to force-feed us back in my grade-school days. So it’s a nightmare, U.S. culture.
Our next-door neighbor got surgery on his shoulder; so, for a few months, he was unable to perform any strenuous acts; therefore, I undertook the duty of mowing both his and our lawn, until he healed up. So that was exciting.
I also bought a hat with a strap, so that it stays on my head when the wind blows. And I bought another hat without a strap, too. I’ve never worn any type of headgear in the past, because it’s hard to find anything other than ballcaps here in the U.S., and ballcaps don’t look right on me. But I like to block the sun (I hate the sun), and I found a style of hat that’s got a brim all round it (360°), which looks passable, I think . . .
And our movie-watching now revolves around Roberto Rossellini, Éric Rohmer, John Ford, and Howard Hawks – the best of the best: it is heaven.
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