May Recap

 

Another breathtakingly fast month down here in northeast Texas. May is over before we really had a chance to get acquainted.

 

Other doings in the month were easily overshadowed by the high school graduation of Little One. My oldest daughter, a mere three-and-a-half years old when I started the blog. And who’s supplied more fodder for it than anything else, save the books I read I suppose.

 

We truly asked a lot from her when we moved 1,500 miles across country last July, a month before the start of her senior year in high school. She had to abandon friends she new for years and a comfortable school she’d been attending since sixth grade. Yet she survived, and even thrived. During the past ten months we visited a half-dozen colleges, and we’re overjoyed with her selection, as well as her future career as a teacher. She’s also started working in a trendy little bistro a few miles away and has reached out to another girl to room with her in the fall, who also hails from glorious New Jersey.

 

So family flew in and we had a long weekend of partying in her honor. Her graduation was at the Dallas Cowboy’s practice facility, and afterwards we booked a private room in a nearby eatery. Patch created a slide show of her big sister’s life to play on the big screen monitor above the dining table, from babyhood onto senior year. This was preceded and followed by gatherings at our home. All around, a good time was had by all.

 

May was also bittersweet in a related way: Little One played her final two concerts of her career. The penultimate at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra at the beginning of the month, blogged about earlier here, and the final just two weeks later. No longer shall goosebumps do a conga line up and down my arms as I listen to the symphonic sounds of the band she is in, aided and abetted by her clarinet skills. And to add insult to injury, Patch gave her final performance, too, in her middle school band as she decided she does not want to continue with the saxophone.

 

The wife has been flitting about across the country. She had a weeklong sales meeting in Los Angeles (hmm, I had originally typed “Lost Angeles”) mid-month. Today she and Little One are flying up to New Jersey for the latter’s prom at her old school. Two weeks after that the Mrs. is taking a work trip to Paris, France, a little over a decade since we both visited the City of Light.

 

Early in the month I moved my office upstairs, one floor above where it’s been for the first nine months down here. Smaller, but it has a powerful ceiling fan and more privacy, plus I’m closer to the printer. The job is coming along just fine. Each month it gets a little less stressful as I master my tasks and expand my sphere of influence at the corporation. In the process of moving, however, we decided to put a beloved desk out to the curb, alongside a dresser, a mattress, and a boxspring. I needed Patch’s muscle to help my old carcass get everything out the door.

 

Reading-wise I put away six books this month if you include finishing War and Peace, which I started mid-February. Let’s see … a UFO book, two science fiction paperbacks, a math book, and a true crime tell-all. Oh, and I read Tennessee Williams for the first time – A Streetcar Named Desire. This was almost its own phase in May. First Little One had to read it for an AP English class, then she passed it on to Patch, who devoured it then wholeheartedly pleaded with me to read it. Last Saturday we all watched the 1951 Marlon Brando – Vivian Leigh flick. Man, how my girls hated Stanley!

 

I also walked a whole bunch of times – maybe ten or twelve times, a mile-and-a-half each time – but I’m getting to the sad old age where walking alone does not melt away the belly fat. I gave up booze, I’m doing my cardio … looks like I’ll have to substitute salads for pasta and fruit for ice cream. Ugh. But all my shirts are getting uncomfortably tight, and I do have a certain vanity, if not a certain desire to see grandchildren.

 

On a strange side note, I have started listening to an unusual form of music, a type I’ve never listened to before. Not sure if it’ll stick, but I’ve been listening to it at night and when walking for nearly two weeks now. Care to guess what it is? It’s not classic rock, metal, grunge, jazz, jazz fusion, classical, or opera, all genres of music I’ve spent weeks and months and years immersed in. I don’t want to mention it just yet in the event this falls under the file “Passing Fad.” But if I stick with it and learn about it and really begin enjoying it beyond the curiosity phase, I’ll definitely blog in depth about it.

 

Well, that’s the May Recap. A fast month with A LOT of heavy duty events. Hopefully June will be a tad more relaxed or a tad less busy, or both.

 

May! You’re one of my favorites! Next year, stop on by when you’re not in a hurry and we’ll shoot the breeze.

 

Journey into SF

 

Paperbacks, that is.

 

After spending many, many nights in the thick of thousand-page classic epics, Hopper has decided to lighten his fare with a voyage through some of his collected and gnarled science fiction paperbacks. Sadly, few have made the southwest journey from New Jersey to Texas, but what hasn’t has been replaced by newer gnarled works.

 

So I decided, tentatively, to spend the end of May and the month of June returning to my science fiction roots, with the following reading plan:

 

The Galactic Rejects (1973) by Andrew J. Offutt

The Water of Thought (1981) by Fred Saberhagen

The Colors of Space (1963) by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Voyage to the Cities of the Dead (1984) by Alan Dean Foster

 

and two novellas (novellae?) by one of the truly greats, Robert Silverberg

 

“Sailing to Byzantium” (1985)

“Born with the Dead” (1975)

 

Each work is barely an inch thick at most, anywhere from 75 to 275 pages. I budget about 5 days reading time for each (if that).

 

I’ve already finished one in an epic three-day read amidst a lot of graduation hoopla (to be discussed in tomorrow’s post).

 

And I realize it’s Memorial Day. Those who peek in here every now and then note that I’ve had a heavy fascination with the American Civil War, World War II, and the Napoleonic Wars, going back at least a decade. Once summer is in full swing and the little ones have their schedules down and the dog days fall upon us, I intend to make my way through the following works:

 

With the Old Breed (1981) by Eugene Bondurant Sledge (battle of Peleliu in the Pacific)

The Battle of Kursk (1999) by David M. Glantz and Jonathan M. House

Dirty Little Secrets of World War II (1994) by James F. Dunnigan and Albert A. Nofi

 

And again, these will all feed in to a project I’m working on with all the force and fury of a Mediterranean-bound glacier in northernmost Norway.

 

Anyway, say a prayer today for those who’ve given the ultimate sacrifice. The family here plans on viewing the movie Dunkirk this evening.

 

What Biden Should Have Said

 

If he wanted to be truly effective, the “Great Uniter” he promised to be, if he wanted to actually do something productive last night:

 

The first paragraph was perfect. He was sympathetic and empathetic, and adequately expressed his sorrow at the tragedy of the Texas school shooting. He mentioned prayer in a non-sarcastic, Democrat way, and did not explicitly mention his deceased son as he is wont to do, though he implied that he knew the pain of loss of one’s child, which is perfectly acceptable. The worst critique I could give of the introductory part of his speech was that it was very mumbly and difficult to understand at times, but that’s Biden being Biden.

 

Then, instead of casting aside the mumbles and veering directly into a political attack on his opponents and half the country who support them, he should have said

 

“I am immediately convening a non-partisan panel of twelve individuals, elected and non-elected officials, lawmakers and scientific experts on this terrible subject, to study this plague of school shootings. In six months it will deliver its report and its recommendations to me, which I will then present in a live broadcast and submit to Congress to act upon.”

And the money quote:

 

“Yes, it will investigate the impact of firearms in school shootings. But as we’ve seen in Waukesha, other weapons can be used in mass terrorist attacks. If the evil person who perpetrated today’s crime drove his truck onto a playground, we would not be declaring war on Ford and GM.”

 

And even better, if the old man had any spine to rise above attempted scoring cheap points:

 

“This panel will address the elephant in the room when it comes to school shootings: Mental health. All these perpetrators are mentally ill to some degree. Indeed, parents and grandparents of many have come to law enforcement begging them to do something to prevent their troubled son or grandson from doing something evil. How to identify and prevent these shooters before they commit their terrible atrocities will be the core mission of the panel.”

 

And best:

 

“We have just sent $40 billion in aid to Ukraine. Over the past two years we have sent countless billions to schools across the country to aid in the fight against Covid. Based on the panel’s recommendations I would call for a multi-billion dollar bill to increase security at every one of our schools, from preschool to college, to protect our most innocent.”

Had he said that, his popularity would spike through the roof. But, alas, he couldn’t, and didn’t. Nothing will change.

 

I am a parent of a recent high school grad and a middle school grad. My daughters have been practicing active shooter drills for the past decade. I can remember a few false alarms over the years. I have an active dog in this fight, as do millions of voting parents.

 

So … can someone please whisper this into the President’s ear?

 

Had to ...

 

War and Peace Finale

 

Ah! Two days ago, Wednesday the Eleventh of May, Two Thousand and Twenty-Two, Hopper joined an elite club. An exclusive club. Yes, a somewhat snobby club, but only because entry into that club involves a singular devotion and willpower not found in the common man.

 

Yes, two days ago I finished War and Peace, the Mount Everest of novels.

 

1,392 pages. Fifteen “Books” containing 337 chapters, followed by a First and Second Epilogue and the 28 chapters they hold. A cast of 559 characters, both fictitious and historical. A time span of seven years (fifteen if you count the Epilogues). Five grand Napoleonic battles. Napoleon himself.

 

Took me 86 days as the crow flies. In reality, though, since I paused three times to put away smaller books, I only read Tolstoy for 66 days. That comes to 21 pages a day, but in reality I averaged about 13 pages a day for weeks on end. I think I read 100, 120 pages the last two days. A marathon of verbiage. Read so much I had severe eye strain Wednesday night. The dangers of literature …

 

So I am now a member of Those Who Have Read War and Peace.

 

Which made me think, just how many people alive today have read this masterpiece of literature, originally published serially but in complete form in 1869, 153 year ago?

 

I had no idea, but I wanted to know the exact size of this exclusive club I had just joined.

 

Googling it I did discover that a poll was done, tricksy-like, to determine the books people most commonly brag about reading but don’t necessarily read. Surprisingly, the number one book was 1984 by George Orwell. Don’t we all have to read it in high school, and write essays ad nauseum on it? The third was also a surprise, for me, since I love the book and have read it full through twice: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. By now you’ve guessed the second most popularly lied-about-having-read novel. Voyna I Mir.  (That’s War and Peace phonetically in Russian. I think.)

 

Interesting, but it doesn’t tell me how many did read the book. So I had to use some intelligent guesswork (“guess” being the prominent part of that sentence).

 

I started off with assuming 1,000 people in each state alive have read it. The majority of which being college professors, students, and literary aficionados. Some states more, some less, but that’s the average. 50,000 people in the United States.

 

Sound good? Yes? No?

 

I doubled it for Europe, thinking Europeans would have a greater connection to the historical sweep and drama of Tolstoy’s work, and more interest would be there. 100,000 people in Europe.

 

And for Russia herself, I doubled the European figure, for I assume the interest there is even more likely, the novel actually being about that Motherland. I’m guessing right now there are 200,000 people in Russia who have read War and Peace.

 

Which brings us to 350,000 people. I add another 150,000 for all those collegians and aficionados of literature in South America, Africa, Australia, and the rest of Asia.

 

All told, 500,000 people are in the Club. Half a million. Agree? Disagree? The figure feels right to me.

 

But just how exclusive is the club?

 

Hmm.

 

I see that there are about 7.9 billion people alive now on Planet Earth. Let’s say 6 billion are old enough and not too old to read the novel. 500,000 divided by 6,000,000,000 is

 

0.00008

 

Eight-tenths of one percent of one percent of the reading population of earth.

 

Well, that doesn’t tell me much, at least in an easily comprehended picture or analogy.

 

How about this –

 

Out of every group of 12,000 people, there is one dude (or chick) who’s read War and Peace.

 

That’s a little more satisfying.

 

My current corporate employer has an employee base of 27,500. Which means that me and one other lone individual in the company has read it. And another cubicle denizen (or truck driver, who knows!) is a third of the way through.

 

There were 19,000 fans at the Calgary Flames / Dallas Stars NHL playoff game on Wednesday. One hockey fan there had read it, and another was two-thirds done, and might have a lot of free time in the near future to finish it if the Stars keep playing like they played that night.

 

All right, enough of this. I’m trying to convince the Mrs. to watch the 2016 BBC miniseries with me. She’s into all those English soaps on Netflix and whatnot, so it might happen. Otherwise, I’m putting Tolstoy to bed.

 

Except –

 

The Second Epilogue has nothing to do with the plot of the novel, but instead is a 12 chapter, 42 page dissertation on Tolstoy’s Philosophy of History. A subject of which I haven’t really read since my sado-masochistic reading of Hegel 14 years ago. As opposed to the Napoleonic-era philosopher Hegel, I think I understood about half of what Tolstoy was trying to get at (or got at, not sure). It deserves a re-reading, especially since … it plays a huge role – or could, possibly – in that great project I’ve been hinting at here and working on since October 2020. So a re-reading it is, at some unforeseen time in the future.

 

For now, though, some little fare is in my foreseen future time. Easier on my brain, easier on my eyes.

Literary Connection to Old Celebrity

 

I discovered another connection I have with a celebrity from days of old. Much like that time I stumbled over Lee Harvey Oswald’s library take-out online. I find myself endlessly fascinated with what other people read. Whenever someone’s interviewed on teevee with a bookshelf behind him, or when I see a row of books in the background in a movie scene, I’m always dying to see the names scrawled on the spines of those out-of-focus books.

 

Anyway, I’m reading a goofy little book on UFO phenomena. It hearkens back to the spooky days of my youth. A dose of nostalgia to wipe away the stresses of the day. In this book it’s stated that comedian Jackie Gleason was a huge UFO buff. He had a house built in upstate New York shaped like a flying saucer. Golfing buddy Richard Nixon allegedly showed the girthy comic alien bodies at an air force base late one drunken night. Along with an interest with the paranormal and the occult, he had over 1,400 books in his collection at the time of his death in 1987. The collection was then donated to a local college, and I found a link to it online.

 

Jackie Gleason was most famously known as Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners as well as the sheriff in Smokey and the Bandit with Burt Reynolds. Smokey was a staple of my youth, and the Honeymooners was a staple at college, where my roommates and I, usually drunk but not always so, would watch the show late at night before bed. Occasionally a little wacky weed would be involved and we’d turn off the sound and ad-lib the dialogue. Gleason was one of my grandfather’s favorite comics, too.  He was the Jim Carrey or Will Ferrell of the 1950s, in a somewhat weak but fair analogy.

 

So what did Jackie Gleason read that I, Hopper, also put away? Out of 1,437 books, we have 15 specifically in common:

 

The UFO Experience, by Dr. J. Allen Hynek

Flying Saucers, by Carl Jung

Invisible Residents and Uninvited Visitors, by Ivan Sanderson

Communion, by Whitley Strieber

The Dragons of Eden, by Carl Sagan

The Varieties of Religious Experience, by William James

Flying Saucers Here and Now, by Frank Edwards

The Bermuda Triangle, by Charles Berlitz

The Doors of Perception, by Aldous Huxley

Meetings with Remarkable Men, by Gurdjieff

Autobiography of a Yoga, by Paramahansa Yogananda

Zen in the Art of Archery, by Eugen Herrigal

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche (!)

and

No One Here Gets Out Alive, by Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman, the first biography of Door’s lead singer Jim Morrison (!!!)

 

Additionally, Gleason had a book of Nostradamus prophecies (similar to a giant tome my father-in-law gave me one Christmas), a book on the philosophical treatises of Leibniz (I still have Monadology on the shelves), and a book titled The Evolution of Physics, by Albert Einstein (!).

 

What lessons can be drawn, other than Jackie Gleason and Hopper have literary tastes often quite far from the mainstream road?

 

Well, as one should never judge a book by its cover, one should never judge a reader by his collection. Or maybe better, one never knows another truly until he sees what books are on the other’s shelf.

 

Dallas Symphony Orchestra

 

My oldest daughter, Little One, played the Dallas Symphony Orchestra last Saturday. Well, plated at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, along with her high school band. The band itself it ranked very highly in the state, taking fourth place in either the statewide or regional competitions over the winter (can’t remember which, to be honest, but remember: Texas is a BIG state). The teachers here take band very seriously, much, much more than where we came from in New Jersey. But with eight years of education, practice, and performance with the clarinet under her belt, she performed admirably this past school year.

 

Consider me a very proud parent. In fact, once school is over and she has a little bit of relaxation on hand, I’m planning a duet with her. I transcribed a piece of music from my band days and I’m going to give her the part my lead guitarist played nearly forty years ago. It’s nice and melodic and I will complement her either on an acoustic guitar or my electric with a clean, chorus-driven setting. And if it sounds really good and we can record it, perhaps I will see if I can upload it here. Now that would be quite the thing, no?

UD Bound

 

 

Truth … Justice … Love

 

Little One, now not so little anymore, who was once a mere four years old at the birth of this blog, will be college bound in a hundred days. I am feeling very weird about this. Tremendously happy for her and willing to walk on white hot coals to help her over the next few years. But I dunno how it makes me feel to have a child in now in secondary education. 

Other than very weird, that is.

Good Luck Little One! Hopper loves you!