June 2011
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A somewhat idle question, but: yesterday my wife and I were discussing the phenomenon of men who marry again fairly soon after their wives die, and that this seems to happen more often than widows remarrying. The context was of people well up in years, no longer raising families, which is a rather different circumstance.…
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—You’re not a believer, are you? Haines asked. I mean, a believer in the narrow sense of the word. Creation from nothing and miracles and a personal God. —There’s only one sense of the word, it seems to me, Stephen said. —Joyce, Ulysses
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Weekend Music Having been reminded of this song, I looked for it on YouTube. If memory serves, Daniel Nichols gave me his copy of the album (Big Harvest) because he didn’t care for it. I had never heard of the artist and after a couple of hearings decided it was a real overlooked gem. Apparently…
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("Big Hard Sun" is the name of an excellent song from an excellent and under-rated album by Indio, Big Harvest.) I took this picture this evening about 7:20. I was taking out the garbage and there was such a brilliant glow beyond the trees by the bay that I got my camera and walked down there.…
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January, Mid-Afternoon Probably 1972-ish.
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The point has been made very often by now, but this is a particularly good and compact instance, from the unsigned "Notes & Comments" column in the May issue of The New Criterion: Épater la bourgeois: shocking the middle class has been a cherished goal of the avant garde since the birth of the movement in the…
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Listen to Kathryn Tucker Windham. Notice the way she says the "i" in "silence" and "I". That's the way I say it, although my accent is not nearly as rich as hers–mine is more nasal/twangy. This is the "i" that people render as "ah" when they're trying to capture a southern accent in print. I…
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Sunday Night Journal — June 12, 2011 I normally don't get involved in political or religious discussions on Facebook, because I'm "friends" with people who have strong views on all sides, and who needs more rancor in his life? I ventured into one a week or so ago, much against my better judgment, and then…
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I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had been to St. Joseph Abbey in Covington, Louisiana, and that I had taken more photos with my wife’s camera in addition to the two with my phone that I posted. I finally got around to getting them off the camera and selecting some to post…
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Only under conditions which are unlikely to be met. I agree with Simon about the war on drugs. I read the other day that Mexican drug gangs, who are in something close to a full-scale war, killing thousands, now have more or less permanent positions as much as fifty miles inside our border. At least we…
Light On Dark Water 