May Mid-Month

 

What a hectic month it’s been!

 

Summer is here already in northeast Texas. Temps already hovering in the 90s. The days are lengthening, with darkness creeping up around 8:45 every night. My grass is growing with a vengeance after an extremely wet pseudo-spring. So I’ve been mowing every weekend, along with weeding, mulching, and hedge-clipping.

 

But it’s more than the outdoor chores that keep me busy. The wife had a short trip to Austin earlier this week, making me Dog Lord and Mr. Mom. I’ve been navigating a stressed-out Patch with her AP finals the past ten days. Little One comes and goes (and I’m the chauffeur), staying with us earlier in the month to interview and obtain a job at a day-care/summer camp place in town, and a few days ago moving out of her dorm with my help. We’ve been rooting for the Stars in the Stanley Cup playoffs and all the stress that entails. They’re the equivalent of the Eli-era Giants or the ’15-’16 Mets, alternately brilliant and abominable, and you never know which team’ll show up. Work gives me little reprieve, especially with the overload of traffic, traffic lights, and construction getting to it. About the only oasis of sanity in my life this month has been that cold NA beer in the shade before a freshly mown backyard. Oh, and reading.

 

I’m a creature of habit, and my lifelong hobby of immersive reading is no exception. Lately I decided to install a new habit – that of reading through the Gospels after every Easter. I did so a few weeks back, and am in the process of re-reading them a second time. With dedication you could knock out Mark in an evening, or the longer Matthew, Luke, or John in two or three days. Me, leisurely reading about a half-hour a night, found it takes two weeks to read through all four.

  

I also scratched off a bucket list item, The Confessions by St. Augustine. I found myself enjoying his incessant questioning (a trait I find in myself) and his spiritual awakening during the first half of the book, but found his philosophical musings in the latter half – on Spirit, time, form, creation – interesting but not riveting. I have come to the realization that I am not, at this stage of my life, interested in philosophy. Or perhaps other things are now more important to me than the love of wisdom, for I have found it – rather, it has been under my nose the whole time. Regardless, as I get older, my patience for non-productive activities is sharply declining.

 

But back to books. I think I have the rest of the year plotted out. Care to indulge me? OK!

 

I have finally returned to Tolkien. My plan is to read through his works within his story chronology. Starting with The Silmarillion (I’m already 30 pages in), then moving to The Children of Húrin, The Fall of Gondolin, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, then my battered copy of Unfinished Tales. With J.E.A. Tyler’s Complete Tolkien Companion at my side. The time is right, and I am right there. This should yield a fun, nostalgic summer for me. By my rough calculations, this will take me up to Labor Day.

 

September will bring, again, another turn for nostalgia. In the summer of 1989 me and a buddy read through Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It is possibly the funniest four-book trilogy I’ve ever read. I mean, laugh out loud funny. Have not touched it since. I picked up a single-volume omnibus an untold time ago (it might predate my children). It should be a quick read, and I should gulp down the whole thing in a month. This should make September a happy month, as it should be, being the month of my birthday and those of Little One and Patch.

 

For my October/Halloween “horror” reading I am going to (re)turn to Stephen King. Yes, he has morphed into a loathsome and cringy troll with his leftist politics, much like DeNiro. However, just as I can (barely) watch a DeNiro movie with the man’s clueless second-hand embarrassment not affecting the performance (the Mrs. and I watched Heat a few weeks ago), I am hoping to re-read King’s magnum opus It with the same bit of authorial dissociation. It was one of my favorite reads as a teen/twentysomething, when I was in my horror phase. I read it last in 1987, and, like The Lord of the Rings, it holds a lot of nostalgia for me. I remember where I was during various portions of the novel. I have not read any King in over twenty years, so I am testing to see if I can still enjoy his writing, specifically It on a second reading. I think it might be a blogworthy topic.

 

My Thanksgiving reading will return to Dickens. About a dozen years ago I listened to about an hour of The Pickwick Papers during my commutes back and from work. I soon realized that the serialized novel required the printed page to be fully enjoyed, and put it on the Acquisitions List. Well, last weekend I found an aged, absolutely beautiful hardbound volume in my local library, and this thousand-page tome called and cried out to me. This is what I will read in November and the early part of December.

 

Finally, I have a neat SF paperback from the fantastic Robert Silverberg, of whom I recently blogged about. It’s called Roma Eterna, and is an alternate-history pastiche of novellas that falls under the most classic of alternate-history scenarios: what if the Roman Empire never fell? The cover boasts a scenic view of a Roman city-scape, stone and marbled columns and arches and all, with a rocket ship launching off in the distance. I was instantly hooked.

 

Well, that’s what’s up with middle-aged Hopper. Negotiating the stresses of life with his simple enjoyments of the printed page. Along with the grooved record and the electrified guitar, the walked path, the lifted weight, the – oh, enough of this. Enjoy!

 

Pope Leo XIV

  

Well, that was completely unexpected.

 

We have the first American-born Pope, though he holds duel citizenship with Peru, where he spent a large amount of his time. Didn’t know anything about him, though I did hear his name come up (negatively) in a podcast I listened to last week.

 

Last night I listened to half-a-dozen “hot takes” on the new Pope, formerly Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, age 69. He does have a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from Villanova, which is a personal plus for me. Indicative of a logical, rational mind as opposed to a touchy-feely emotional one. However, he does hail from Chicago, which has been under the thumb of the extremely liberal Cardinal Cupich for the last 11 years. He was also appointed to head the Dicastery for Bishops (which recommends priests to the Pope for bishop positions) and has had a close relationship with Francis over the past 18 months. Though I have heard credible reports that they did not see eye-to-eye on every issue and Prevost was not afraid to make his opinion known.

 

Coming out on the balcony in the red papal regalia as well as taking the name of the extremely anti-modernist, anti-socialist Pope Leo XIII were both nice signals to the traditional minded. However, I am not unaware that such signaling might not actually telegraph actual intent, especially in this day and age where it seems most of the Church hierarchy is hell-bent on changing Catholic teaching to, er, non-Catholic teaching, in a phony spirit of “welcoming” and “dialogue.”

 

The greatest secret about your host Hopper is that he is a closet optimist. Thusly, I am hopeful Pope Leo XIV will be a pendulum swing toward normalcy from the mess that Francis made. He could start by removing restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass. He could also quash all this “synodal church” nonsense, though he has been on record in the past as supportive of such disingenuity. At this stage, it’s impossible to guess true agendas. After all, many were fooled by Francis for the first several months of his papacy, including myself. I renounce such gullibility going forward (thanks Lavender Mafia, for poisoning our childlike faith in the Church!)

 

From what I’ve gleaned from traditional to centrist sites (I can’t suffer to hear the take of liberal Catholic podcasters and such, life is way too short and precious for that), Prevost wasn’t the worst pick (that’d be either Tagle or Parolin) nor was he the best (Sarah, Burke, or Pizzaballa). He’s somewhere in the middle, probably a little left-of-center. But the thought is that many cardinals, either suffering from Francis fatigue or realizing that Francis pushed too hard too fast on his re-imaging of Catholic teaching, opted for a man who could stabilize and possibly unite the one billion Catholics throughout the world. My gut tells me it’s the latter, that they need a man who’ll institute change slower but more securely, and that perhaps an American pope might tamper down the protest from traditional American Catholic news media. That he was elected relatively quickly (on the fourth ballot, I believe), demonstrates that he was acceptable to both types of Cardinals. We’ll see.

 

Despite being that closet optimist, my official position is one of strict neutrality. Let the man show us who he is by his actions. Until then, he has my respect and prayers due to the office he holds. May he prove me wrong and be truly worthy of the Leo namesake.

An SF Similarity

 

I was thinking a bit about yesterday’s post regarding the stagnant state of silver screen science fiction in 2025. From what I’ve heard and read, there’s a slow recognition from Hollywood that the excesses of the past decade or so need to be curtailed in order to make a profit. Dial back on the DEI, the wokeness, the girl bosses, the Mary Sues, the political and cultural agenda hidden and not-so-hidden in every movie … perhaps that would put more viewers in theater seats or at least clicking on the streaming services and watching until the end.

But do I think a true change of heart is at hand? A return to the golden years of the 80s and 90s for science fiction action flicks?

No. Not really.

The phenomenon parallels nicely with the 2025 papal conclave set to commence on May 7. In that case, a lot of Catholics – in fact, a “silent majority” I would contend – are kinda frustrated with the direction Francis had guided the Church over the past dozen years. Since 2013 Francis, full of modernist ideas, had attempted to change millennia of Church teaching to varying degrees and varying successes, through the use of papal documents containing potentially heretical ideas, off-the-cuff airplane interviews where ideas contrary to the Faith were uttered, and suppression of traditional catholic orders, priests, and bishops.

So I think Hollywood has about the same chance of righting its course as does the Catholic Church. Dark times ahead, but I’d love to be proved wrong. Time will tell, I suppose.

* * * * * * *

But if the film studios do in fact toss out their enforced and often unpalatable agendas, may I offer a suggestion?

Mine the works of Robert Silverberg. And in doing so, be faithful to his stories and characters.

In 2017 I read a half-dozen Silverberg novels, and perhaps another half-dozen in the years before, going way back to my childhood. His tales age well. The characters all have fascinating backstories and dialogue is natural in revealing innermost thoughts and advancing the plot. There’s always a compelling science fiction-y dilemma, and a pinch of existential horror tossed in. I can honestly say I’ve never read a bad Robert Silverberg story.

Not sure what he’s up to now, at age 90, but he’s said to have retired from writing in 2015. His last published novel was in 2003, and the following year he was voted a Science Fiction Grandmaster by the Science Fiction Writers Association. He first was published in 1955, so there are 60 years of material for screenwriters to peruse – over 500 works. Perhaps they have reached out and he’s rejected every offer. Couldn’t and wouldn’t blame him. But what a treat it would be to a fan of legitimate SF if one of his novels made it to the big screen in a faithful adaptation.

 

Here are seven reviews of Robert Silverberg novels, for those who may be interested:

 

Downward to the Earth (1970)

“… an SF-stylized take on Kipling … a ‘snake milking station’ … a deranged yet undoubtedly charismatic man named Kurtz (enjoyed the reference!)”

 

Kingdoms of the Wall (1992)

“… some interesting speculative dialogue, bits of horror, neat confrontational characterization, even an M. Night Shyamalan twist towards the ending …”

 

Lord Valentine’s Castle (1980)

“… this is going to sound a bit loopy, but – I think I just spent a year on another planet …”

 

The Majipoor Chronicles (1982)

“Majipoor truly comes alive – and it is a wonderful world. Dangerous, yes, amoral, often, but so lifelike and real, more real to me than, say, Australia or China or the African continent.”

The Book of Skulls (1971)

“What would you do, see, study, experience, master, if you would live forever without having to taste death?”

 

Tom O’Bedlam (1985)

“… something very strange begins to happen. It starts with Tom – dreams of distant worlds, lush green worlds, worlds with multiple suns in the skies, then dreams of the inhabitants of these worlds, ‘eye’ creatures, ‘crystalline’ creatures, horned giants and flying ethereal things …”

 

Nightwings (1969)

“… translucent bodies soaring in the twilit skies … fortune-tellers who foretell the present … starstones to decipher the will of the Will … and a man with his back to the wall who sells out mankind …”

 

Bonus recommended books (but not reviewed on the Hopper):

   The Face of the Waters (1991)

   Conquerors from the Darkness (1965)

   At Winter’s End (1988)

   The New Springtime (1990)

   Planet of Death (1967)

   A Time of Changes (1971)

Woe Unto the State of SF

 

I may not have made millions over the course of my life, may not have moved the culture with my writing, may not have influenced a generation of musicians with my music. But one thing I have done is gained an in-depth appreciation and understanding of science fiction, going way, way, all the way back to my single digits. That boy who spent second grade sick in bed devouring black-and-white 1950s sci fi, who eagerly tore into that Asimov five-pack of paperbacks Santa left under the tree (and dozens and dozens of other authors afterwards), who wrote his first science fiction story on a twenty-five pound metal typewriter he could barely lift, now sadly laments the state of science fiction.

 

More concisely, corporate science fiction, as in, but not exclusive to, Disney.

 

If you want to know where Hopper stands, consider the following:

 

Star Wars ended in 1983.

 

Star Trek ended in 1994.

 

The Alien franchise ended in 1992.

 

The Terminator movies ended in 1991.

 

Superhero movies, of which there really were only two, ended in 1980.

 

The Indiana Jones movies wrapped up nicely in 1989.

 

There was only one Matrix movie, released in 1999.

 

Likewise, there was only one Jurassic Park movie, in 1993.

 

Every franchise movie released after these dates is either bad or gross or both. Wokeness, DEI, and greed, ruins all.

 

Hopper hath spoken.

 

Sidenote: Wasn’t the 90s a great time to be a moviegoer?

 

Pope Hopper

 

I have been following the pre-conclave musings on the internet and the various traditional-leaning Catholic sites I regularly visit on the internet. For people minded-like to me in their religious views, there seems to be, at this very early stage in the selection of a Pope, equal measures of hope and dread. As of this point I have no idea what might happen, of who will be steering the Catholic Church in at least the near future, and that’s basically the boat we’re all in right now.

 

Here's a neat website that lists all the forty or so cardinal “candidates” for Pope:

 

https://collegeofcardinalsreport.com/

 

If you click on the link at the top, “Where They Stand” you get a concise breakdown on the positions these cardinals take on ten major issues of the day, such as ordaining female deacons, blessing same-sex couples, focusing on climate change, and promoting a “synodal church,” whatever that means, among others. It’s helpful if this interests you as you’ll probably hear meany of these names in the upcoming weeks.

 

What a great tool, as something like this has never been available in one place, sourced, for both laity and clergy alike.

 

Also, I have heard this conclave may take longer than average. We may not have a Pope until June. The reasons vary, but among the most convincing seems to me to range from the mundane (since Francis lived in the Casa Santa Marte, normally a Vatican guest house, there is no place for cardinals to stay and the shuffle is on to find hotel accommodations for 250 men) to the fact that Francis promoted many “from the peripheries”, i.e. South America, the Philippines, etc., that many cardinals do not know each other. So there will be a period of “getting-to-know-you” before the actual papal maneuverings begin.

 

As I typed the prior post on Monday, the thought of what would Hopper do if he was elected Pope? ran through my head. Hey, theoretically it’s possible I could be elected Pope. I’m a baptized male Catholic. However, for at least the past six or seven centuries the Pope has been a Cardinal, of which I am not. Still, though, what would I do if it was I who steered this barque of Peter?

 

I’ve written about it before. But here would be my plan, in no particular order but as fast as I could (or that Vatican machinery would allow me, provided I survive the poisoning attempts …)

 

- Suppress the Jesuit Order.

- Rescind Amoris Laetitia (Francis’s giving the OK for divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion, citing himself in many footnotes).

- Rescind Fiducia supplicans (Francis’s giving OK to the blessing of same-sex couples).

- Lift the ban on the Traditional Latin Mass.

- Permanently banish Father Rupnik and allow criminal prosecution for his crimes and remove all his creepy artwork from any and all Church buildings.

- Remove Father James Martin from any position of influence.

- Undue the “agreements” with China which allow the Chinese communist government approval of cardinals from that country.

- Promulgate an encyclical, updated for the times, against the heresy of modernism, which touches EVERY aspect of Church, culture, and politics, including coining a better term for the heresy.

- Stop this false sense of humility. Return a sense of grandeur to the Church, and end this unnecessary antagonism to 2,000 years of tradition.

- End this “synodality” nonsense. No one knows what it means. Many suspect it means top-down tinkering with the Church disguised as a grass-roots movement. Many suspect it means further weakening the Church by undercutting centuries of teaching, dating back to prior popes, Fathers of the Church, the Apostles and Christ Himself.

 

There. That’s ten action items I’d address within the first months of my papacy.

 

My motto, inscribed upon my papal coat of arms, would be: “Challenge the world instead of compromising with the world.”  Provocare mundum pro compromissum cum mundo (if Google translate is to be trusted).

 

My hope is the next Pope will have a tenth of my bullishness (and a tenth is about all he probably could show if he wants to, er, survive his pontificate). The Church, and the World, is such a mess …

 

The Search for a Pope Begins

 

So I just woke up to the news that Francis died earlier today. The search for a new Pope begins, if indeed it has not already been going on for some time.

 

I pray that the world receives a strong, faithful man. In these evil and confused times we need a strong, faithful man to lead the Church. Not one who will water down Catholic teaching, will sacrifice Truth in the service of a cheap Mercy, will speak one thing and do its opposite. We need a valiant defender of the Truths set forth in the teachings and example of Jesus Christ, and those revealed by the Holy Spirit to the Church, the mystical body of Christ, these past twenty centuries.

 

Unfortunately, from what I’ve read (and it seems sadly logical to me), the influence of McCarrick is everywhere in the Vatican and the College of Cardinals. Francis did appoint 163 cardinals during his twelve-year reign, out of 252, or just under two-thirds of its current membership. These are the men who will select the next ruler of the Church, and again unfortunately, it seems likely each would be of similar mind to Francis’s and hold similar beliefs. However, their decisions are guided by the Holy Spirit, so our prayers for a holy leader should continue every day until the white smoke is released from the Vatican chimneys.

 

O God, eternal shepherd,

Who governs Your flock with unfailing care,

Grant in Your boundless fatherly love

A pastor for Your Church

Who will please You by his holiness

And to us show watchful care.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,

Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

 

(Personal note: The upcoming papal election will result in the sixth Pope during my lifetime, though I only remember four: John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict, and Francis. I was too young to remember Paul VI. The only thing I remember of the first John Paul, who reigned a mere 33 days, was my father’s comment, “Well, I guess God wasn’t too happy with him.” But six popes … boy and I getting old …)

 

Happy Easter!

 

Holy Thursday into Good Friday

 

Re-reading Multiple Re-reads

  

So after reflecting on the previous post over the weekend, I realized I left out a very major book, one that has played an important and essential role in my life.

 

I studied this book in high school for two years, though I never read it cover to cover. That had to wait until 1992.

 

Then, during the scary first weeks of the Wu Flu in 2020, I re-read it again in its entirety, though not in sequential order of its parts.

 

In between I read various sections of it literally dozens of times.

 

I’ve read books about this book.

 

I’ve listened to people lecture about this book.

 

I’ve bought at least six or seven different copies of this book.

 

Care to guess what this book is?

 

Yep. The Bible.

 

I received my first Bible, technically the New Testament, a pocket-version, when I received my first Holy Communion while still in the single digits. I still have that Bible, though its spine is cracked and the pages yellowed with age. I attended a top Catholic High School in the ’80s, and during freshman year we went through the Old Testament, reading selections, memorizing important verses, bullet points, biographies, lists, and chronologies, and did the same thing with the New Testament sophomore year.

 

Then, hedonism interrupted and dominated my life for seven years, and the only time I picked up a Bible was when me and a friend were doing something with my Tascam 4-track recorder and we wanted that verse about “legion”, probably to insert with distorted vocals backwards over some dopey riffs. When I got sick and tired of being sick and tired, I quit all my vices, read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and had a spiritual awakening.

 

That was with the simplistic TEV (Today’s English Version) Bible. I still have a soft spot for it, especially all those line drawings. But I moved on to different versions in my re-reads: the King James, the Douay-Rheims, a Protestant “Men’s Devotional”, an Anselm study Bible, and the Revised Catholic Edition. Theology aside, my favorite has to be the King James (and I know that that, too, is “protestant”). Simply and absolutely love the poetic majesty, the archaic grandeur, all those “ye”s, “thy”s, “thine”s and “thou”s.

 

Now aside from my two complete readings of the Bible in its entirety in 1992 and 2020 and a complete reading of the New Testament later, I’ve read many, many books of the Bible many, many times. Unfortunately, I haven’t really kept track until recently. But my best estimated guess is that the books of the Bible I’ve read and re-read the most are:

 

   Genesis – 7 times

   Exodus – 4 times

   Proverbs – 3 times

   Psalms – 3 times

   Revelation – 3 times

   The Gospels – at least 3 times each but probably not more than 7 times.

 

Why have I read Genesis the most? Simple. Every couple of years I get the itch to re-read the Bible in its entirety, and more often than not, I make it past this first book and not much further.

 

Now, a clarifying word. I write this not to brag or “humblebrag” (though probably there’s a bit of that here, to be honest). I’d like you to read the Bible, too. Many times. It’s never too early and it’s never too late. Read it, ruminate on it, think upon it, come to it with an open mind, a questioning-in-faith mind, a hopeful mind. It will speak to you. Somehow, in some way, often unexpected and often delayed, it does. I wholeheartedly encourage you to pick it up.

 

But here’s the tricky part. There are so many translations, you have to pick one that resonates with you. Not all of us like those thous and thines. I do. You may not. You may enjoy the TEV version (and my derogatory term “simplistic” should not deter anyone from it; the TEV was the version that led to my reversion). Test drive a couple of versions before you pick one to stick with. You could visit the local library to borrow different translations (I did), buy from inexpensive used book stores (I did), or go online to sample different translations (I did). Biblegateway.com is a great resource.

 

And start small. I would not advise a Genesis-to-Revelation approach unless – and it’s a big unless – unless you are into reading grand visions and scopes of epic proportion. It is a marathon and not a sprint. But I enjoy sweeping epics and being immersed in different literary cultures (hence my love of Tolkien and other fantasy and science fiction trilogies and such). I found that when starting with Genesis, the whole thing gradually and then quickly built up, like an avalanche, rolled forward with more power and might – to the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ. I felt that sense of purpose unfold in the chronologic words of the Bible.

 

But if you want to start small, to “test the waters,” start with the Gospels, then move on to the shorter Pauline letters. As for the order of Gospels, Mark is the shortest, Matthew and Luke and about the same length (but Matthew is aimed toward a Jewish audience whereas Luke is aimed towards the gentiles). John is shorter than both, but heavy with theology. Save Revelation for much later. Then hit the Old Testament. Genesis, Exodus up to the Ten Commandments. Then the Psalms. Then get a sense of history and read Joshua, the Samuels, Kings, and Chronicles. Isaiah should be in there once you get your footing. Let the Spirit lead you on from that.

Please heed my advice. And if you do – happy reading!!

Multiple Re-reads

 

Thinking about how I’m currently traversing my third go-round with Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, I began musing on how many other multiple re-reads I’d done.

 

First off, it’s good to re-read a good book; it’s an excellent idea to re-read an excellent book. The better the book, the more profitable a re-read should be. For the longest time, say, from about 2000 to 2020, I had little interest in re-reading books, save for childhood faves. Instead I cast as far and wide a net as possible, especially the years when I fancied myself an up-and-coming slash potential author. Occasionally I would do deep dives into certain authors’ bibliographies. But since the Wu Flu, I’ve kinda grown disgusted and dissatisfied with a lot of stuff out there. Most of the stuff out there. So much so that if it’s a nonfiction topic I’m exploring and it’s at all possible, I choose something before 1980. Something before 1965’s even better. Less chance the material is infected by certain mind viruses. This feeling applies equally to the fiction that I’ve tentatively considered of late.

 

That’s one reason why re-reads are a great idea. Another is the nostalgia factor – what were you doing, feeling, being when you first encountered the particular book. What was going on peripherally in your life. Yet another is the technical knowledge you’d reinforce if we’re talking nonfiction, and the degree you’d assimilate literary technique if it’s fiction in front of you. Yet another factor, similar, is that books meet you where you are. You change, and the book changes to meet you. Wonderful books I’ve read as a kid failed to leave an impression on me as an adult; some books that were meh to me as a young man floored me in my middle ago; and vice versa. Still another reason is that you always – always – see something new and exciting in later re-reads. Something fresh and different always jumps out at you. Like revisiting a classic film periodically throughout the years.

 

Why would you only see Paris, the Grand Canyon, or the Alaskan glaciers once and only once if you had the means and opportunity? Do we not speak to our friends on a regular basis? Even better for long-lost ones, to re-connect? If we enjoy skiing, biking, playing tennis, chess, you name it, we never just do it once and say, “Well, that was fun. Never again. I’ll just savor the memory.” Just so with re-reading.

 

All right, enough of that. That’s where my headspace is at the moment. I wholeheartedly encourage you to re-read the great books you have read earlier in your life. Trust me, it’s worth it.

 

What have I re-read multiple times?

 

I’m such a reading nerd that I have been tracking all the books I’ve read over the course of my life. Currently, give or take a dozen or so forgotten in the fog of age, I’ve read just shy of 1,300 books over just shy of 50 years.

 

92 of those books I’ve read more than once. That’s only 7 percent.

 

Of those re-reads, care to guess which one book I’ve read the most?

 

Easy. Lord of the Rings. I’ve read the trilogy five times (last time being 2021). But technically, the book I’ve read the most is The Fellowship of the Ring, at six times, since I revisited it in the summer of 1994 but did not proceed to the other books in The Lord of the Rings (band, college, and a girlfriend all conspired to make it difficult to continue).

 

Two books I’ve read four times each:

   The War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells (once as a kid in the 70s, then again in the 90s, in 2015 as an audiobook, and finally for Halloween 2023).

   The Life of Christ, by Bishop Fulton Sheen (once in the late 90s, and then three times [!] in 2015)

 

Nine books I’ve read three times each:

   The Hobbit, by Tolkien

   Moby Dick, by Herman Melville

   Watership Down, by Richard Adams

   and then five science fiction paperbacks –

      Red Planet, by Robert Heinlein

      To Die in Italbar, by Roger Zelazny

      The Grayspace Beast, by Gordon Eklund

      The Colors of Space, by Marion Zimmer Bradley

      The Spinner, by Doris Piserchia

      Red Tide, by D. D. Chapman and Deloris Lehman Tarzan

 

The remaining 80 or so read only twice are too numerous to list, but I will note the ones that I could see another future re-read, pushing them into the vaunted and respected “Threepeat” category:

 

   The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien

   The Children of Hurin, by J.R.R. Tolkien

   The Inferno, by Dante

   Watch the Skies!, by Curtis Peebles

   A Voyage to Arcturus, by David Lindsay

   Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens

   Conquerors from the Darkness, by Robert Silverberg

   Foucault’s Pendulum, by Umberto Eco

   In Dubious Battle, by John Steinbeck

 

Not sure what my next re-read will be, but I have an omnibus edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams behind me as I write this; that seems to be probably the finest candidate at the moment (it would be a second re-read, my first encounter with them being the late 80s).

Vacation 2025

 

Spent last week visiting family and friends in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the first time I’ve been up there in exactly two years. We have the girls fly up once or twice annually to visit their grandparents, cousins, and old school friends, but I haven’t been to the great northeast wilderness (yes, there is plenty of wilderness up there) in a long time and I missed it.

 

It was whirlwind week. We hit an extreme amount of turbulence flying up into New Jersey / New York airspace (of the type when the 747 drops a stomach-churning fifty feet than banks sharply to one side, to be repeated at unexpected intervals) but landed safely in LaGuardia on Monday. We picked up our reserved rental car and made it up to my folks’ by eight that night.

 

Over the next four days we did a lot, thanks to mild weather. Tuesday saw us hitting the thrift shop with the girls (I picked up four golf shirts suitable for work plus a beautiful edition of Moby Dick – Moby Dick! – with a cover price of $21 – for 89 cents[!], the greatest bargain of my book-hunting career). Wednesday my brother and aunt and uncle drove up for a barbecue and we played pickleball all day. On Thursday we visited a college for Patch and then hit the local wing joint for dinner. Friday we drove into New Jersey and visited our old friends (my movie-going buddy from back in the day) while the girls socialized with one of theirs. Saturday we lounged in the morning and left at noon for the drive back to LaGuardia and the flight home. Sunday was a recovery day which included a lot of laundry being done.

 

The only downside was all that driving. 700 miles, I estimate, over the course of five days. Ugh. My buttocks are still petrified.

 

Needless to say, I was quite whelmed at work, having to do nine days of accounting in four days, including closing the month, and responding to 87 emails. Most nights I came home shell-shocked and spent the evenings with Ishmael on the Pequod. Today, Friday, I am quite caught up and working from home, hence this short update. Only one more big report to get done, then I’m off the clock.

 

Anyways, I think I’m going to start reading Augustine’s Confessions followed by his City of God this weekend. I’m about halfway through Moby Dick, my third visit with America’s greatest novel. Truly it encapsulates more than, in the words of Ron Swanson, the story of a man who hates a fish. There’s natural history, existentialism, a deep dive into human consciousness and motivation, intense drama and glorious, flowering mid-nineteenth-century prose, the chronological highwater mark of English literature that only few can delve nowadays. I’m enjoying it immensely, so much so that I might check out another 1850-ish novel by an American, The House of Seven Gables, once I’m finished. But Augustine is calling me now, so perhaps I’ll read that in the evenings and Melville at lunch.

 

Little One is in town today; she has two local summer job interviews this afternoon. My firstborn is growing so fast it’s almost frightening. The Mrs. will drive her back to school Saturday, grab her roommates, and they’ll all go “tulip picking,” or something of the sort. Patch is reffing Saturday morning (as long as the fields are dry; it rained all last night and this morning) and then later heading out to Six Flags with her friends. So I’ll be alone tomorrow afternoon. Probably get some wings or perhaps a Hawaiian pizza if I’m feeling wild and watch a classic flick.

 

Well, I got four emails while writing this, so back to work I go.

 

Happy reading!

 

Haunted 70s

 

Is there an English word for fun and terror? A word that contains elements of both, yet transcends the pair? Something like the German schadenfreude, I guess, though funterror (pronounced with the accent on the last syllable, i.e., fun-ter-ROR!) doesn’t seem to pack the same punch as what it’s meant to convey.

 

I write this because a few days ago I was comparing childhoods with my not-so-little Little Ones, trying to convince them that my childhood had this degree of funterror (fun-ter-ROR!) that I hoped I was able to institute into their lives. Now, I realize this sounds downright, well, insane, but, trust me, for a kid when the fun in funterror slightly outweighs the terror, then it’s completely a thousand times worth it.

 

But I don’t think the degree of funterror I experienced in the late-70s as a tween compares to what our kids experience nowadays. Haven’t really thought deep about it, but I think social media has something to do with it. Removing the fun, that is, and jacking up the terror. Closely followed by the Internet, where with a few clicks in a few minutes any exciting and fascinating unexplained mysterious phenomenon can be swiped away of all fascination.

 

These musings prompted me to write up a list of all the terrifying fun I had from 1977 to 1980. I called it “Haunted 70s”, and here is an edited list:

 

The creepy woods behind my house …

The rumor at school of that chopped up body found in a cardboard box behind the woods in my house …

Snippets from the news: Love Canal, 

Three Mile Island, Jonestown …

The death of John Lennon and first hearing “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” …

The “lonely tree” in the neighbor’s yard, leafless in the fall moonlight, right outside my bedroom window …

UFOs everywhere …

Sasquatch everywhere …

Will Skylab fall on me or my house? …

Building models of monsters … Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, the wolfman …

Movies: The Blob, The Fly, The Omen, The Exorcist, The Legend of Boggy Creek …

Certain Star Trek episodes – the Horta, Landru, 

the flying pizzas …

The 001.94 section of the library where my mother worked …

The Hammer horror films shown on the ABC 4:30 movie after school …

Chariots of the Gods and The Man Who Saw Tomorrow …

The Son of Sam killings in the news …

The Salem’s Lot miniseries watched right before we slept alone in the basement …

The Jesus Tree at Fordham University …

The Night Stalker watched late at night on our little black-and-white TV …

In Search Of with Leonard Nimoy, especially the bigfoot and flying saucer episodes …

The episode of the original Superman where the little bald aliens look in the open window of the boy’s window (a personal nightmare for single-digit me) …

 

There, those’re just the ones I feel comfortable posting semi-anonymously. One day I hope my not-so-little ones will come up with lists of their own. And we can all share together outside at night around a roaring campfire …

π Day!

 

Although I haven’t posted about it on the blog since 2020, π Day is celebrated every March 14 here at the Hopper household with unbridled gusto! Champagne, party hats, a few roman candles, plus dancing until the wee hours of the morning! Since we’ve entered Lent, and it’s a meatless Friday, we’re skipping the filet mignon and charcuterie board.

 

Now, with the assistance of AI, I offer you the Weirdest Fact About π –

 

The sequence 123456 will not be found in the first million digits of π. And π has been calculated out to over 62.8 trillion digits, so we’ll have to wait a bit before the location of that sequence is found.

 

And a bonus fact –

 

 A sequence of six nines (999999) can be found in π at the 762nd position in the digit expansion. This block of nines is known as the Feynman point, after physicist Richard Feynman (whose biography I read earlier this year), joked that he could recite all the digits of π up to this point.

 

Finally, about 17.3 billion digits in, you can spot the sequence 0123456789. (Is this the first appearance of 123456? Let me get a pencil and check …)

 

And really finally, there’s a website out there that will find the location of your birthday in the digit expansion of π. Haven’t checked it out yet, but it’s some fun to save for the weekend.

 

Happy π Day!