May 2007
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Last week I read and was much impressed by Jhumpa Lahiri's collection of short fiction called Interpreter of Maladies (1999), especially the first story "A Temporary Matter," which shouldn't leave a dry eye in the house. I've now read Lahiri's only published novel, The Namesake(2003). It's a fine book. I didn't know, although I should…
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I'm fond of a passage in Gulliver's Travels where Jonathan Swift describes Lilliputian script. In a single sentence, Swift manages to attack and nail two of his favorite targets: "ladies" and "England." The Lilliputians "manner of writing is quite peculiar being neither from the left to the right, like the Europeans; nor from the right…
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Ever since I retired a few years ago, friends and relations have been asking what I intend to do with the rest of my life. It's time to start on a new career, and after much deliberation, I've decided to fulfill a lifelong dream. I've always had the soul of a power forward; now I'm…
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We were flying Frontier from DC back to Colorado. Two old guys (old, but younger than I) were swapping stories. Here's one. "Rosie and I were at a hotel in Vegas, in bed. About one in the morning, we hear a hooker knock on the door across the hall. 'Anyone want a little action.' No…
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Last night I dreamed that I was in conversation with two English professors (both male and middle-aged) from a college in New Orleans (query — why New Orleans?). One of them said, "Rex is a very good baseball player. Thanks for recommending him." I said, "Yes, he's good, even though he has two prosthetic shoulders.…
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The Bridge of San Luis Rey, although published in 1927, was still widely read in the 1950s both by the general public and by students in classrooms all over America. It's a fine novel but it's unfortunate that Thornton Wilder's philosophical premise is so naive and lame. In 1714 a rope bridge over a gorge…
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Reading an introductory history of Spain (I'm appallingly ignorant about the Iberian peninsula), I learned of the dark age king with the excellent name of Wifred the Hairy. Wifred stimulated me to recall other monarchs with colorful sobriquets: Vlad the Impaler, Ethelred the Unready, Ivan the Terrible, Charles the Fat, Edward the Confessor, Pippin the…
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In the previous post, I recorded two archetypes of "Loyal Bushies" — the Moronotron and the Henchdoofus. Here's another one. The Spoiled Rich Prick. Typically, the SRP attended boarding school at Phillips something-or-other or at St. Somebodies in New Hampshire. Although he learned nary a thing, and his SATs were under 1000, he was admitted…
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Here are two types of "civil" "servants" prominent in the Bush era. A. The Moronotron. Just under 30 years old, he/she (let's say she) comes from a large family of home-schooled children, five of whom are still active in the LifeForce Harvest Church of Milan, Ohio, pastored by the Reverend Mike. Family trauma (one of her…
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Rules for Old Men Waiting (Random House, 2005) is both a good and bad novel. Some of the time it's rather wonderful, but there are long stretches that are maximally pedestrian. It's distinctly odd that the story-within-a story — a WWI morality about good and evil in the face of combat– is gritty and real…