2025 Readings 78

 Recently I listened to the Why Evil Exist Great Course, for, seriously, probably the fourth time. And even when I'm no longer teaching my Nature of Evil class I suspect I'll continue to come back to this Great Course for a long time. Professor Mathewes clearly has a serious academic man crush on Joseph Conrad,  which inspired me to go back and reread Heart of Darkness. Unbelievably, I don't think I've read Heart of Darkness since before the first time I saw Apocalypse Now, which means it's going on something like fifty years (which is, obviously, another shameful admission on my part in a lifetime of shameful admissions). It really is a great now - and I may have to go back and listen to Professor Mathewes's talk on Conrad and Heart of Darkness and The Secret Agent (which I'm listening to right now, and, even more shamefully, it's the first time that I've tackle The Secret Agent (more on that shortly). Here's an all-time "duh" statement, but Heart of Darkness if wonderful. It's powerful but also more than a bit maddingly oblique, and purposely so. So, after re-listening to the lecture on Conrad I suspect I'll dive back into Heart of Darkness again (but don't worry, I won't count it). Truthfully, it's better than I remember it being, although I'm sure I was in no emotional shape to make sense of it as a teenager. "The horror, the horror."

The Pellets

 When Janet and I first got together and I moved into the cabin her in Calais we heated with a massive wood stove (there are several pictures of my constant morning battles with the stove here on the blog). Eventually, I convinced her to buy a pellet stove (I lost out on my goal of moving her all the way to acquiring an actual furnace) as part of my long-term plan to get a new dishwasher and microwave and now refrigerator. This just shows that she's a lot tougher than me, which is not saying much, obviously. On a day to day basis, heating with the pellets is simply a lot easier, or, to think of it another way, less wear and tear on my rapidly degenerating body. The one great exception to this rule is late summer when the mass of 40 pound bags of wood pellets arrive; then, as the excellent Mike Kelly would opine, shit gets real. I think the first year we bought five tons, and then had to buy more on a bag by bag option at the end of the season - and the second season we bought six tons, and still ended up buying more individual bags late in the season - and so this year we just went ahead and bought seven tons. Each pallet is a ton, comprised of fifty 40 pound bags. The first year I carried in most of them, with some much-appreciated help from Janet, Gary and Ali. The second year I vowed that I would get over my own idiotic self and make a more deliberate effort to get more help carrying them in; there was even talk of a group carry in the pellets chili party. However, it came to nothing, mainly because of my own obstinacy, which is a legitimate desire not to bother other people and my own rage against the dying of the light vanity. And so I carried in all six tons, little by little, with my main goal being to average five bags a day. At that pace I can get them into the basement of the cabin in a little over two months. Now, with my legs this is a real challenge, but I did definitely notice that I was getting stronger (although in no less pain) by the end, with the last few days featuring a half-pallet carried in. It's actually OK that it takes so long to get them in, not simply to prolong my fragile life, but also because we don't actually have enough room in the basement to hold all of them. We end up continuing to carry them on after we've started burning them, thus creating and filling space at the same time. As long as they're in by the time the snow starts I'm happy. Anyway, this year I've decided to get serious about bringing in more folks to help, even if it's just to hire young bucks to carry them for me. Of course, I said that last year . . .

Janet is clearly much more excited about the arrival of the wood pellets than I am.

OK, five down, only 345 to go.

They haunt me constantly, staring in mournfully from the back yard, reminding me of my many failures.

Oh, it's always the wood pellets . . .

2025 Readings 77

 I just finished a reread of Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore. I had read it a couple of times before, but this time I listened to, based on my son's suggestion of a really good recording. He was right, the one that pops up on Audible was really well-done. Thankfully, he told me to avoid the recorded Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which he says is terrible. My best memory of Kafka on the Shore was using it in a Rhetoric of the Self class that I was tagged at the last moment to teach at Champlain. I also had the students read the Overture to Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, the combination of which I'm pretty sure broke them. Despite the high quality of the recording, I'd also have to admit that I didn't like the novel as much as I did previously, and I'm not certain why exactly. If you research lists of best Murakami novels, Kafka on the Shore often comes out on top, which, truthfully, I've never agreed with. All of that said, the private library where Kafka retreats to, and which launches his true adventure, always carries a special place in my heart, and it would make the short list of literary locations where I could settle.

Museum of Everyday Life

 Last Friday the usual Breakfast of Excellence was switched from the TASTee Grill to the Village Restaurant in Hardwick, as Sandy and Kevin had plans to visit the Museum of Everyday Life. I'd always heard about the museum, but somehow never made my way to it, which is shameful because it's absolutely wonderful. It is, as the name suggests,  a celebration of the quotidian. There is a regular collection, in the main barn, and then a separate space for a temporary collection, in this case focusing on Stains. It was absolutely amazing. I'll definitely go back soon.

The main entrance, i.e. the upper barn.

In the temporary Stains collection you could mess with Stained Glass, which gave Sandy the opportunity to express his artistic side.

Thanks to Kevin to organizing the trip!

The museum, for many reasons, reminded me of the Museum of Broken Relationships, as both celebrated objects that anyone could contribute.

It was also like the Museum of Broken Relationships in that some of the displays were truly heartbreaking, so as this one.

Beauty and the Beast

 Janet snapped this picture at Ali's show the other night at Hugo's. G3 has always been beautiful, thankfully taking after his mother and not his ogre father.

My response was that the guy on the left looks like a movie star (which his grandmother believed with absolutely certainty), and the guy on the right looks like a reanimated corpse in a zombie movie.

2025 Readings 76

 I've often commented on my relationship with baseball, which I used to have such a childlike love. It's also true that I simply don't care much about it anymore, at least major league baseball. I haven't gone to a big league game in years, and even though I have the baseball package I might watch a few games a year. Recently Janet and I watched a series of Toronto Blue Jays games, but that was entirely her doing. Now, I'm perfectly happy to go to a Vermont Lake Monsters or Vermont Mountaineers game, which, I would argue, shows that I still love the game in its purest form. I still think it's the perfect sport, or at least the perfect sport that doesn't feature a rouge. Real baseball has become a metaphor for everything that's wrong with America, just as I think for the longest time it was a metaphor for everything that was right about America. In this case, it's the gross inequality of American life, which we happily accept as the price that one pays for "freedom." So, a small market team like the Reds can compete, if they're lucky, for a couple times in the space of a decade before they have to trade away all the young talent they picked up during their years of dumping. In that way it's much like the impossibility of anyone poor actually benefitting from the American  dream anymore (and don't get me started on the sport's promoting and celebrating of gambling, even on Reds games, which shows an extraordinary lack of awareness of its own history). Having said all that, again, I like the idea of baseball. With that in mind, I just finished Brian Mulligan's The 1940 Cincinnati Reds: A World Championship and Baseball's Only In-Season Suicide. In their long history the Reds have won five championships, which isn't many in a history that stretches back a century and a half, but it's better than no championships (I'm looking at you, Vikings). Of the five, even Reds fans tend to forget about the 1940 champions. Everyone remembers the 1919 Black Sox championship season (I still think the Reds would have won, that was a very good team) - and of course the 1975 and 1976 Big Red Machine teams (which, as all right-thinking individuals know, was the great team of all-time), and the inexplicable wire to wire, sweep the mighty Oakland A's, 1990 team. However, most folks, including me, don't really know much about the 1940 team. It's a pity, because it's a great story. They had made the series in 1939, but were swept by a great Yankees team, and clawed their way back the next year, coming back from a 3-2 deficit, and being trailing late in game 7, to win their first championship in over twenty years. It's also the only one of their five championships that they actually won in Cincinnati. Plus, the team faced the tragedy of catcher Willard Hershberger committing suicide in the middle of the season. Anyway, it's a fascinating story, and Mulligan does a nice job telling it. I'd definitely recommend it, even if you aren't a Reds fan.

Friday Night

 Yesterday was a pretty amazing day, which featured the usual Friday morning Breakfast of Excellence (except this time in Hardwick), and then a trip to the Museum of Everyday Life (more on that later), and then a trip to the Adamant Friday Night Cookout, and then a trip downtown to see Ali perform at Hugo's. My heart is pretty full. Hugo's, which used to be on State Street, has now moved around the corner to the far end of Main Street, which gives it a very different vibe. Ali was performing up on the third floor, which left some climbing of stairs, but it was well worth the effort. She had just started what they're calling a mini-residency, which means she'll be hosting shows on a number of Fridays, including next week (which means I'll be there once again). The crowd was very appreciative. So, if you're downtown Montpelier next Friday be sure to drop by Hugo's.

I need to start collecting and framing her posters.

Ali finishing her set list before the show. She and Janet get along famously, as I would expect two artists to do (at least two artists who aren't forced to compete with each other; in this case, I think they both appreciate the artistic drive in the other).

I've never seen my son so consistently and deeply happy, and I can't imagine a better gift that any daughter-in-law could give me.

Dr. Uyterhoeven Stops By

 Last night I was able to go to the Friday Night Cookout at the Adamant Co-op and not actually cookout and not actually grill, which made for a much more pleasant evening. It's not that grilling isn't fun, which gives Ken (the true grill master) and I an opportunity to talk baseball, but with my leg condition it's pretty brutal to have to stand for that long a time. Instead, it was Janet's turn to grill (she does a lot more work at the cookouts than I ever do), so I just was able to stop by fur a burger and to soak in a lovely summer evening. Here's a picture I snapped, as I lounged under a tree and waited for Janet to finish.

When I retire at Champlain I'll probably leave my cane hanging in the hallway in Wick, sort of Dr. Uyterhoeven's parting gift.

Woeful

 Thanks, ESPN, I could have figured that out on my own. I liked that I predicted Flailing, but the Bot calculated Woeful instead. It didn't allow me to choose my favorite CFL team, so obviously its the most invalid form of clickbait. 

Of course, when you spend decades supporting the Minnesota Vikings and Cincinnati Reds this is what you have to expect.

2025 Readings 75

 Here's another book that I ended up reading because of the never-ending demands of the Epics book. I was looking for one particular passage in Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince, and, of course, ended up reading the entire book for the first time in around thirty years. As part of the buildup to explaining his famous proposal that it is better to be feared than loved, Machiavelli ended up quoting something that Virgil has Dido say in the Aeneid. So, essentially, I was looking for verification for something that constituted half a paragraph, and this led me to rereading an entire book (and this is why the Epics project has stretched on for years; any writer would nod knowingly). Actually, I'm glad for the reread because The Prince is an extraordinary (and grossly misunderstood) book. The line that really jumped out at me dramatically, although I've paraphrased it so often over the last decade, is: "For this is an infallible rule: a prince who is not himself wise cannot be well advised." It's one of many, many reasons why our current dictator is, has been, and will always be, a terrible ruler. It also helps us understand, in a non-princely fashion, why the rabid followers in his cult can't be made to see their astonishing error. 

Mordecai and Nick

 Here's a great picture of two underappreciated gentlemen: Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown and Nick "Eleven Finger" Myers. Nick is my cousin, and a great guy who I wish lived a lot closer. He, like my brother, is trapped in the ravenous maw that is Indianapolis, and, much like light in a black hole, it's difficult to escape from it. It will take serious dark magic to get either of them to visit when we've moved overseas (although their imminently superior better halves may make them see the error of their ways). One peculiarity (of many) of our relationship is that I send along the names and cemeteries of famous (or not so famous) baseball players who are buried in Indiana, and Nick magically tracks them down very quickly. Here he is at the graveside of Hall of Famer, Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown. Mordecai could throw an almost unhittable pitch, made possible by his hand being destroyed in a farming accident (kids, don't try this at home). I'll celebrate more of Nick's adventures in later posts.

Mordecai's career stats: 239-130. 2.06 ERA. 271 complete games. 55 shutouts. 56.9 WAR. Played for the Cincinnati Reds for one season (an important factor in Nick's adventures). Brown is buried in Terre Haute, Indiana. Oddly, while Nick visited Mordecai's grave he didn't take the opportunity to visit the Eugene V. Debs Museum (he's still a work in progress - Nick, not Eugene).

My Inexplicable 3000th Post

 It wasn't that long ago, it seems to me, that I was lamenting with my friend Cyndi that I had just finished my 1000th blog post but that it was impossible to conceive ever making it to 2000 (sort of a misdirected, "my life is over" sulk). And, yet, here we are at 3000 posts. Part of it relates to my desire to create themed discussions (Proust, Pessoa, faith, 2025 readings, etc.), which inspire posting. Part of it, I guess, is that, despite my protestation s to the contrary, I'm not quite dead yet after all. But most of it is extraordinary self-absorption. Now, how to mark this odd moment? I think for the 2000th post I created a Top Ten places visited post, so that's out of the question (maybe I'll revisit it for my 4000th post). Since I have nothing planned, why don't I just capture this moment in time.

Labels (non-geographic) with the most posts: 1) Proust (740); 2) Faith (381); 3) Personal (269); 4) Reflections (238); 5) Friends (217); 6) Travel (129); 7) Discography (125); 8) Family (93); 9) Readings 2025 (76); 10) Disquiet (74); 11) Champlain (73); 12) Literature (47); 13) Food (42); 14) Marcus Aurelius (40)

Labels (geographic) with most posts: 1) Vermont (132); 2) Jordan (123); 3) United Arab Emirates (117); 4) Portugal (101); 5 tie) India & Zanzibar (97); 7 tie) Iceland & Tanzania (38); 9) Canada (35); 10 tie) Italy & Russia(34); 12) Namibia (30); 13) China (29); 14) Egypt (26); 15) Yemen (23); 16) Spain (20); 17) South Africa (19); 18) Austria (17); 19) Zambia (16); 20 tie) Oman and Croatia (15); 22 tie) Sri Lanka & Czech Republic (14); 24) Hungary (12); 25 tie) Belgium, Kenya & Lebanon (11); 28 tie) Australia & Cincinnati; 30 tie) Morocco & Turkey (8)

This doesn't do justice to this moment, I suppose, but it's an interesting snapshot, nonetheless.      

2025 Readings 74

 For a person who loves the Aeneid, it's sort of amazing that I never managed to read Virgil's Eclogues or Georgics. Happily, I found a lovely Oxford University copy that included both. In this case I suppose I was finally driven to do it by the endless and exhausting demands of the Epics book (a very cruel mistress). There was a great passage in one of the Eclogues that fit in beautifully with my Aeneid chapter; it discussed how much better the world would be under Roman leadership. It served my purpose because I was trying to discuss that what Virgil was celebrating in the Aeneid was not Roman power, but instead the role that Rome would serve in bringing order and light to the world. So, I may have finally read it for selfish reasons, but in the end I loved it for the beauty of Virgil's words. There are many beautiful passages, but let me just include one, right at the end of the Georgics Book I:

   "Surely the time will come when a farmer on these frontiers 

Forcing through earth his curved plough 

Shall find old spears eaten away with flaky rust, 

Or hit upon helmets as he wields the weight of his mattock 

And marvel at the heroic bones he as disinterred. 

O Gods of our fathers . . ."

I think I must have been moved by it so much because it reminded me of what I hope the Epics book accomplishes, waking people to these extraordinary works that are sadly ignored yet existing right beneath the surface.

Oceanario de Lisboa

 On June's trip to Portugal I went out of my way to visit a couple places that I had considered visiting before - and should have visited before. One of them was the Oceanario de Lisboa, Lisbon's wonderful and world-class aquarium. I have no idea why I had never gone there before, and please, if you go to Lisbon, don't follow my foolish example and avoid it. It was especially appreciated on a brutally hot day. If I were actually fit enough to lead a student trip to Portugal I'd certainly include it.

Maybe later I'll actually get into my camera and download some other pictures and include them. Not surprisingly, none of the shots I snapped can begin to do justice to the aquarium. I'm sure this attempt was another of my never-ending - and never-successful - efforts to produce a truly aesthetic shot.

 

2025 Readings 73

 A while back I finished Dino Buzzati's The Singularity, which I remember saying I definitely needed to read again because I wasn't quite certain what happened at the end. Last night I completed Buzzati's The Stronghold, which I'll also certainly again, although this time more surely because I liked it so much. This was another in the New York Review Books Classics series, which features works which simply haven't been given been given - or are no longer being given - the attention they deserve. I'm very happy to have stumbled across this series, as I've liked most of them immensely. The Stronghold (originally released as The Tartar Steppes) tells the story of Giovanni Drogo, an ambitious soldier sent to Fortezza Bastiani, a remote fortification  in the mountains. He initially plans to leave immediately, then agrees to stay for four months for bureaucratic reasons, but then never actually leaves. Drogo keeps waiting for heroism to find him in the form of an expected invasion, which never arrives (at least the heroism). As a man whose career is drawing to a close, with far more of a whimper than a bang, I can appreciate the metaphor. However, it much more than a metaphorical one trick pony, and the images that Buzzati painted of the Fortezza Bastiani will stay with me. Recommended.

2025 Readings 72

 Early in this year of reading I made my way through Proustian Uncertainties, and now I've followed it up with Roger Shattuck's wonderful Proust's Way: A Field Guide to In Search of Lost Time. Essentially, I figure that if I read Proust's In Search of Lost Time (Remembrance of Things Past - eventually I'll train myself to use ISLT) enough times - and read enough books about Proust - I'll eventually understand it/him. Shattuck's work is a classic, and while I don't completely understand some of his more murky literary analysis, I also learned a lot about the subcurrents that run throughout Proust's masterpiece. As I've mentioned previously, last year I purchased all seven volumes of the new translation, so I guess I do have at least one more reading in me. If you've read In Search of Lost Time once, I suppose it just be that you're pretentious, but if you've read it four times (soon to be five) then you clearly love the story. 

Here's a lovely section where Shattuck is helping the reader understand the relation between the novel and the actual life of Proust:

     This fission-fusion process explains why it is so unsatisfactory to keep asking if Marcel or the Narrator represents Proust. There can be no doubt that the Search embodies a version - both revelation and disguise - of Proust's life. The links are too evident to discount, from the setting and action to details like the Narrator having translated Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies. But Proust's disclaimers are equally powerful. He insists that his book be read as a self-contained story and not as autobiography masquerading as fiction. It would be foolish to insist on one of these approaches to the exclusion of the other. Toward the end of the novel one comes upon an odd passage that makes a tiny step toward reconciliation. There is nothing like it elsewhere in the Search.

"In this book, in which every fact is fictional and in which not a single character is based on a living person, in which everything has been invented by me according to the needs of my demonstration, I must state to the credit of my country that only Francoise's millionaire relatives, whop interrupted their retirement in order to bring their needy niece, are real people, existing in the world." (III 846/vi 225)

Here, I believe, Proust is pointing out to us a kind of vestigial navel cord, a detail which proves that his vast work does not coincide with actuality but was born from it. Images of slow gestation and final parturition do greater justice to the novel's origins than concepts of literal imitation or of complete autonomy. (Shattuck, 17-18)

These observations from a true scholar of Proust (as compared to a pseudo-scholar of Proust such as myself) are invaluable. Shattuck's work might not appeal to everyone, but if you're one of that small legion of true Proust-lovers then it is essential.

Male Friendship Decline

 This statistic popped up in my social media (such as it is) feed this morning. It was from a story in Psychology Today, which had to deal with a man trying to get over the loss of his wife and his intentional and growing ability to make and keep friends. Now, what I thought of when I saw the statistic was my male students, the ones who can't look up from the screens and who are increasingly and painfully socially awkward. I'd hate to think of how many of them fall into the category of those who have no close friends (I'm sure it's over 15%; and it will only grow once they leave the artificial bubble of college). I feel bad for them, but I can't help but think about how it makes them easy pickings for the radical right, who are selling a manufactured and false sense of community and masculinity.

Janet's comment in response to these stats (as usual, I was pestering her with stuff I'd read as soon as she grudgingly opened her eyes) was that I'm definitely the exception to this rule because I have so many friends. That's definitely true, and it's something that I put work into. I'm sure my friends wonder why I send them so many texts about articles or videos or random ideas, but a big part of it is the constant "work" of maintaining friendships.

2025 Readings 71

This installment is a product of my recent completion of Forever Calais. Yesterday I finished Mark Bushnell's Hidden History of Vermont. As I begin to more and more consider life after-Vermont, it's not at all surprising that I begin to reflect upon  my time in Vermont. All of the chapters are four pages long, and they provide an amusing introduction to a number of peculiarities related to this decidedly peculiar state. Some of the stories I knew, but many I didn't. For instance, I knew that someone had "finished" The Mystery of Edwin Drood by channeling the spirit of Charles Dickens, I just didn't know, or didn't make the connection because I first heard about it before I moved to Vermont, that it was Thomas P. James from Brattleboro. I'd also forgotten the Vermont connection to the stories of William and Horatio Eddy and their spiritualism. The story of the rich and famous who frequented Neshobe Island was kookier than I realized. Anyway, it didn't change my life for the better, but Bushnell's Hidden History of Vermont was definitely a fun summer book to read.

Friday Nights at the Coop

 This is an odd picture, I guess, but I like it anyway. The last couple weeks I've grilled at the Adamant Coop, as part of our summer Friday night cookouts. We do it to raise money to support the Coop, and keep us open during those lean summer months (or those weeks during mud season when trucks sometimes can't make deliveries - yes, it happens). As I'm driving to the Coop I always grouse about giving up part of my Friday for the cookout, but I always have good time and end up happy that I contributed and spent time with the community.

Our little protector sits on top of the pizza oven, watching out over his flock.

2025 Readings 70

 As you know, I've been including Great Courses in my list of readings this year, which, considering their length and complexity, is a valid addition. Now, I guess the one objection might be if it was a repeat listen, however, I'm including them anyway. A couple days ago I finished - for the fourth time - Professor Charles Matthewes's course on Why Evil Exists. It's a thirty-six lecture series, and it's absolutely wonderful. As is the case with a great novel or film, it seems like I get something new from it every time I revisit it. And, yes, it was the inspiration for my Nature of Evil class. His Great Course is absolutely and enthusiastically recommended. I wish he'd written a corresponding book, although I did purchase his book on Saint Augustine and listened to his Great Course on the great thinker. He's one of those professors that I've written emails to thanking them for their work.

Glorified Cat Couch

 This is as useful as I get anymore: glorified cat couch.

The subtle variations in Mollie's existence: sleep on me in the basement vs sleep on me in the living room vs sleep on me upstairs in my office.