Truth

 

Charlie Kirk

 

Re-Reads Redux

 

Over the past two or three years, I find myself more and more revisiting books I encountered in my teens and twenties. Some by choice, others by chance. It’s not unlike reconnecting with an old friend after two or three decades of living separate lives. I’ve done this twice in my life, via Facebook friends from the past, and one time was very nostalgic and fulfilling, while the other was kinda cringy and uncomfortable.

 

Anyway, I enjoy the tension of whether or not I’ll experience the same feelings I had upon the first read through a work. Or, if the book was something assigned to me in school and I didn’t get The Message back then, perhaps I would upon a re-read? Either way, whether a fantastic re-read or a certified dud, I find myself an enthusiastic re-reader.

 

Off the top of my head, I’ve re-read at least 24 books since 2023. Most have been rewarding; few have failed the re-read test. If I had to categorize them, it’d be something like this:

 

Great

 

My Tom Clancy re-adventure: Without Remorse, Patriot Games, The Hunt for Red October, The Cardinal of the Kremlin, Clear and Present Danger, The Sum of All Fears, Debt of Honor, Executive Orders

 

Watership Down (Richard Adams)

 

Moby Dick (Herman Melville)

 

Half of my Dean R. Koontz re-reads: The Bad Place, Dragon Tears

 

Conquerors from the Darkness (Robert Silverberg) – childhood nostalgia!

 

The Grayspace Beast (Gordon Eklund) – childhood nostalgia!

 

Okay … Just Okay

 

The War of the Worlds (H.G. Wells) – had some great parts, though

 

The Once and Future King (T.H. White) – also had some great parts

 

Floating Dragon (Peter Straub)

 

The Old Man and the Sea (Hemingway) – still didn’t “get it”

 

The other half of my Dean R. Koontz re-reads: Cold Fire, Midnight

 

Disappointing

 

Altered States (Paddy Chayefsky)

 

The Wolfen (Whitley Strieber)

 

Jaws (Peter Benchley)

 

Imajica (Clive Barker)

 

I mention all this because a few months back I decided that Stephen King’s It would be 2025’s Halloween read. Since the book is about 1,150 pages long, I figured it would be best to start early, September 1st. Problem is, I’m now just shy of 200 pages in. Yep, still a page-turner. I’ll probably get it done – and review it – in about three weeks or so. Which gives me another pleasant dilemma: Do I give another Stephen King a go, or move on to the next book waiting patiently in the On Deck circle. If I do another King, should it be one I haven’t read since high school (I’m thinking The Shining) or one I’ve never read (Under the Dome, since I had a lot of fun watching the corny series with my girls when they were little)? Or pick up The Three Musketeers, staring balefully down upon me as a write these words?

 

Well, let’s just wait for the spirit to move me. Come October 1st, I might be in the thick of a book I’m currently unaware of at the moment. We’ll see.

 

Happy Fall Reading!

Feeling Guilty ...

 

 

Over the lack of posting this summer.

 

Truth is, my attention lay elsewhere, by choice and necessity. I’ve also been pursuing a lot of non-blogworthy topics and trains of thought. Couple that with a lack of inspiration, drive, and energy, and that should explain the dearth of posts.

 

It’s not that I’ve had no inspiration, drive, or energy this summer. But it’s been expended on … real life. A lot of busyness. A lot. Much familial growing. And we’re already back in school.

 

The wife and I met Little One’s new boyfriend over dinner and drinks in July. My daughter’s happy, he seems great, and we approve. She finished her day care job mid-August and jumped immediately into student teaching, helping with fourth- and fifth-graders in an impoverished city school. For commuting she bought my car (actually, paid off the remaining loan with her funds from the day care job) and I had a great experience at Carmax buying a new used car, which I’ve been driving three weeks now.

 

Patch has started her first retail job, working in a boutique a couple miles away, necessitating drop offs and pick ups at odd hours. She started her senior year in high school two weeks ago already. We had Back to School Night and met her teachers, and are happy with all. I particularly bonded with her new English teacher, who’s reading Watership Down for the first time. When meeting her statistics teacher, I opened with, “Tell me, what percentage of parents show up for Back to School Night?” Patch also got her driver’s permit, and we’re looking to head out to a parking lot this Monday for her first parent-taught lesson.

 

We drove out to Hill Country near Austin for a long lazy weekend, hanging with my wife’s sister and her extended family. They have a sprawling ranch with a pool, barn, and guesthouse, and are fresh from a year working in Barcelona. Many stories and much laughter. I actually got a little sunburnt swimming. Oh, and I saw my first scorpion – hanging out in the middle of the guest house where we were staying, where I was walking around in bare feet! I hurriedly covered it with a drinking glass. Per my brother-in-law, they can’t kill you, but a sting feels like a hot lava injection and is excruciatingly painful for about ten minutes. He promptly squashed the critter. And he warned us not to go behind the guesthouse, as he heard rattlesnakes back there.

 

Last weekend we moved Little One into her first off-campus apartment. She rooms with two other girls – one of whom has a very famous parent I cannot talk about. The other girl’s parents were there, and the father and I spent three hours assembling IKEA bunk beds. The apartment is across the street from her college and has (I’m told) a very Melrose-place vibe. There’s a central pool and courtyard where all the college kids relax and party. There’s also a stray cat that’s made the courtyard its kingdom and prowls up and down, begging at doors.

 

Man, senior year for both girls is going to fly by. Next May we’ll have two graduations, and that follows right on the heels of our 25th wedding anniversary. Don’t ask to borrow any money off me in 2026 – I’ll be tapped out for a long while.

 

My reading has improved. I devoured a fascinating if somewhat dumbed-down-for-the-masses book called Math in 100 Numbers that’s got me inspired again. Those who know me know that every September when school starts, when that crispness floats in the air, I get an urge to read science and math. I also powered through a pretty good Ben Bova sci fi soap opera (Leviathans of Jupiter) and re-read the sci fi horror Altered States, a book I remember reading at the town pool 15 years ago with my toddlers in the kiddie pool. I am excited because September 1 I am going to start re-reading Stephen King’s It, one of my favorites of his, and one which I last read as a teen in 1987.

 

Healthwise, I did re-gain some weight this summer, but I resumed lifting weights and walking. I’d like to be under 200 by my birthday next month. But lifting gives me confidence and an overall sense of well-being, and I’m reconciled to have to do it for the rest of my life. Nothing nearly Schwarzeneggaresque. Just heavy enough that I won’t have a heart attack and my muscles will firm up and my belly shrink. And I still enjoy listening to my history podcasts while walking.

 

Other random summer 2025 events: played Mr. Mom for a couple days while my wife was on a short business trip to Houston; had a wonderful confession experience with a wonderful priest one Saturday; bought five more classical records for the collection; one daughter with a scary inexplicable hive breakout one night; another daughter hosting her bff at our house for a movie night / sleepover; and perhaps the biggest adrenaline rush – helicopters overhead and police cars zipping around the neighborhood one night searching for a possibly dangerous fugitive.

 

Toss in some other non-blogworthy stuff, and it’s quite a busy five weeks. This weekend, however, should be restful, relaxing, and chill. We’re expected to have blah weather. Overcast, spots of rain, temps not too hot but kinda muggy. The wife wants to get some pool time in with Little One, but we’re not sure if that’ll happen. I want to wrap up my current read, watch some movies with and without Patch, keep lifting weights and get a few walks in. I need desperately to mow the lawn but need 24 hours of rain-free weather to accomplish that. Then, September, the Hopper birthday month.

 

Until then, here’s Charlie:

And here’s a review I posted in 2010 about Altered States. It’s a quick read worth a look.

 

Some Thoughts on Ozzy Osbourne

 

1948 - 2025

 

While I was never a real fan of Ozzy per se, I was a huge fan of Black Sabbath, the band that first brought him success in the late 60s and through the 70s. As a teen in the 80s who had absolutely no interest “80s music,” I rebelled by diving full force into such 70s rock bands as Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, The Who, and Sabbath. I never saw Ozzy live, but I did own most of his CDs with Black Sabbath. I also owned his groundbreaking first solo venture, Blizzard of Oz and his 1991 smash CD, No More Tears.

 

I kinda remember the first time I heard him, sometime around age 13: “Iron Man,” on one of the new classic rock radio stations. I have to say I was floored. Never before in my short musical life had I heard something like “Iron Man.” What a unique tune – deceptively simple, or, rather, a simple riff surrounded by more musically complex “choruses,” solo, and ending. It stuck in my mind for a few years. I also heard the lesser impressive but somehow more popular “Paranoid” on the dial.

 

The winter of my senior year one of my friends lent me his cassette tape of Black Sabbath’s greatest hits. Yes, there is such a thing – and I devoured it. I listened to it nonstop for weeks if not months. My family took a car trip out to Wisconsin and I, with a new driver’s license, took a late night shift behind the wheel and popped the cassette in and listened to the entire thing while the family slumbered in minivan.

 

Somehow I obtained a Black Sabbath songbook. How obsessed I was with that book! In the pre-Internet age, where nobody told you anything unless you paid for a tutor or read it in a magazine (Guitar magazine), the songbook unnecessarily complicated all these Sabbath songs I loved from their first four albums. First, it was in piano notation (not guitar tab). Second, I later leaned Iommi detuned his guitar 1.5 steps (low E string down to C# and all other strings tuned standard to that). Third, the piano notation was in C#, making all the riffs more difficult to play than if it was transcribed in E with a note to detune to C#. So I could not physically play all the songs, whereas now I can, albeit tuned 1.5 steps higher than the record.

 

Back to Ozzy.

 

Ozzy’s persona in the 70s was of a drug-addled unpredictable madman. Eventually his bandmates, fed up with all his excessive drug intake and personality swings, fired him in 1979. He assumed a “Prince of Darkness” persona which may have been shocking back then in the early 80s to Tipper Gore and her crew (I wasn’t too shocked as a teen listening to his solo stuff). But that persona quickly became cartoonish and sometimes buffoonish (to me, at least) only salvaged temporarily by his magnum opus, No More Tears.

 

In the summer and fall of 1991, when my band was playing out and partying and doing the recording studio and writing songs, No More Tears came out and was played a lot. A lot. It blew me away, particularly the eponymous tune. I bought the CD, put it into regular rotation, and became a proselytizer for 90s Ozzy. About a decade later I purchased the only other Ozzy CD I ever owned – his equally phenomenal debut, Blizzard of Oz.

 

Ozzy’s main superhero talent was finding superb guitarists to play with. Iommi is fantastic and was a pretty big influence on my guitar playing as a teen. But Ozzy also brought to the forefront Randy Rhodes, Jake E. Lee, and Zakk Wylde. Rhodes is a genius, perhaps the only guitarist to seriously challenge Eddie Van Halen in the early 80s. But I didn’t care for that style of playing. I much more enjoyed Zakk Wylde. If you are into it, go to YouTube and check out some of his solo videos – particularly those of him playing Sabbath songs in a parking lot and those of him doing a guitar solo live on tour. Phenomenal.

 

The wife was into Ozzy’s reality show in the early 00s. I watched a few. It was fascinating, if a little sad. When we learned of his death yesterday, we were – as many were – amazed that he made it to the ripe old age of 76. I texted her reminiscing that we both though he was teetering on the edge of death watching him on cable twenty years ago.

 

I also found it fitting – as just about everyone else in the know – that he died three weeks after the “final” Black Sabbath reunion show, where he performed the entire concert seated upon a black throne. The “Back to the Beginning” show was a benefit concert that took place in Birmingham, England – where Ozzy and the other members of Black Sabbath grew up. Something like $190 million was raised for charity, and part of the take went to Cure Parkinson’s, a disease which Ozzy was suffering from since at least early 2019, and which may have contributed to his death.

 

Well done and good show, old chap.

 

RIP.

 

Summer Moving Along

 

Haven’t had the energy or the will to post anything of interest. Not that it hasn’t been an interesting summer so far. But what is currently occupying my mind and my time are private thoughts, deep thoughts, self-directed thoughts which might not interest you.

 

The most I will say, however, is that I have been expending a great deal of effort trying to figure out how to proceed to a new career. For twenty-three years I have been handling people’s money, in the form of payroll or tax prep. To be honest, similar to the three years I spent in IT at the start of the century, I am kinda sick of listening to people complain. I’m trying to find a niche that hits the ikigai sweet spot: something I’ll enjoy, something fairly in demand, and something that pays. I don’t need nor want to be a multimillionaire, but my salary over the past few years hasn’t risen with the costs of just about everything else, and that scares me a bit. Haven’t had any breakthroughs yet, but I’m still working on it.

 

The girls are spreading their wings, testing the air above and around the nest. Little One is getting valuable experience running a classroom of twenty-three children ages five to nine full-time. Patch is doing lots of odd jobs and is getting ready for the drivers exam to get her permit. They and the Mrs. are currently in Pennsylvania with my folks while they investigate a couple of northeast colleges for Patch and visit old friends. I’m stuck here in Texas, working and babysitting the dog. The $1,000+ we’ll save that would’ve gone to a round-trip ticket for me and a dogsitter is going to the cost of their rental car.

 

This week my routine has been fairly, well, routine. Wake up, let the dog out, feed him, go to work, do my spreadsheets and chat to my small circle of workmates for eight hours, go home, walk the dog, feed him, then feed myself and watch a movie. This week I watched Knocked Up, The Meg, Dream Scenario, and The Mummy. Then I try to read a bit, play fetch with good old Charlie, then go to bed. Rinse and repeat. Much like my bachelor days in the 90s, but with no beer, no cigarettes, no band and no night school.

 

Oh, wait! I have been playing my electric guitar. I usually practice for about an hour every weekend; been doing so since February – by the end of the year I should be up to speed. I’ve been focusing a lot on Led Zeppelin; got down the solos to Whole Lotta Love, Stairway, Misty Mountain Hop, Living Loving Maid – simple stuff, but fun stuff. Might try to learn Gilmore’s solo to Another Brick in the Wall. And I also got down the little solo and heavy bridge break in Beck’s Bolero. Sometimes I play along with an album, such as AC/DC’s Powerage or The Cult’s Sonic Temple. I find it a great distraction from the stresses of life, and now that guitar playing has no stress associated with it (auditioning band members, hauling everything to shows, balancing egos and having to keep pace with bandmates, etc.) I’m having a blast.

 

One area I’m not having a blast with is my literary life. I finished a cheesy beach paperback the first week of the month – I think I’ll save that for a review – but after that, I’m striking out one after the other. I tried my hand at a new fantasy novel (got 45 pages in), a philosophical history of German idealism (got 30 pages in), and indecision over whether to crack open an unread physics book on deck or an unread World War II book on deck. Even Little One attempted to help me out by lending me her copies of The Merchant of Venice, History of the Peloponnesian War, a book on Catholic teaching, and another on the 300-year history of the Medici family of Renaissance Florence. I thumbed through the first few pages of the Medici book last night, and will try to break into that later tonight.

 

I’m scheduled to pick the girls up from DFW late Sunday night, so I have another two days to myself. I think I’ll do some long walks both days and relax with a book at the park one afternoon (it’s supposed to be a high of 95 this weekend). And I also plan on driving over to the used book store to pick up my 50th record. I’m hoping to score a Wagner, but since they’re all good, I’m not picky.

 

Enjoy the weekend!

 

June Recap

 

 

In light of the dearth of postings, you may surmise June has been quite the busy month. And you’d be surmising correctly. A lot’s been going on down here at Chez Hopper south-of-the-border (well, south of the Mason-Dixon line, if said line stretched to the midpoint of the United States). Some blog-worthy stuff, some stuff that’s too personal for the semi-anonymity being thrown around here, and some stuff I don’t even want to commit to the electronic page.

 

One thing’s for sure: we’ve been on the go somewhat constantly. Little One, elementary school teacher-in-training, has been working full time at a pre-school / summer camp, going crazy each day with different themes (movie day, wacky water fun day, bake bread day, etc.) managing a class of around 25 five- to nine-year-olds. To get to her job, though, she needs my car, which leaves me with no wheels. So I have to be dropped off and picked up from my place of business three days a week, and to this soul who loves regularity, that’s often stressfully unpredictable. I normally clock out at 4, and being picked up at as early as 3:15 or as late as 6:30 is not an uncommon occurrence.

 

Patch had a week of Yearbook Camp, but that only meant we dropped her off at the high school and picked her up in the early evening. They bussed all the high school yearbook students (we have something like eleven high schools in our own monster-sized town) to one of the local community colleges where they all learned the creative and marketing aspects of yearbooking, brainstorming, playing games and winning prizes, and socializing.

 

The Mrs. has been fairly solitary, only leaving on one short business trip down to Austin for three days. But she’s been busy and stressed as ever. Me, I’ve taken to working on the exterior of my home. Each weekend I’m mowing, cutting shrubbery, mulching, keeping the encroaching weeds at bay with Roundup, filling cracks in the ground and bunny holes with dirt, etc. I have a huge gardening hat (given to me by Patch on my last birthday) which keeps the anvil of the sun off my face and neck, but the mosquitos have been feasting on me, which can be quite unpleasant. Everything down in Texas is bigger, even the mosquito bites.

 

Speaking of gifts given to me, I had a great Father’s Day two weeks ago. The ladies treated me to a juicy steak, with sides of asparagus and home-made macaroni and cheese. Little One bought me a book Constantine and the Conversion of Europe (which I read the following week) and Patch got me L’Enfance du Christ, a double-album oratorio by the composer Hector Berlioz (my record collection is now up to 49). And to top it all off, we four watched Titan: The OceanGate Submersible Disaster, something I’ve been into off-and-on since following it closely in real-time Father’s Day weekend in 2023.

 

More importantly, my daily background radiation of existential dread has been shouting and gesticulating and doing angry cartwheels louder and louder, until I could no longer shut it out. While Little One and the Mrs. and, to a lesser extent, Patch, are all thriving down here, I have yet to hit my stride. The job is meaningless to me, a dead-end that merely pays the mortgage and some groceries. I have not connected with anything or anyone (not that I’m a connector by nature), but the girls are becoming adults and making strides to move out and start their own lives, and I’m a little frightened by the aspect of not having them around on an everyday basis, as they’ve been for the last 15, 20 years. Even the dog is getting older, having just surpassed the Mrs. in the dog/human year ratio and rapidly catching up to, and soon to pass, me.

 

So I decided to devote some time to finding meaning. Sounds suspiciously hippy, and I’m naturally suspicious of anything hippy. But as a first step I got some books and promised myself to do the exercises in ’em, which ultimately revealed nothing new to me. Though, to be fair, I haven’t finished everything I got. I suffer from a lot of psychological hangups, some innate and some from environmental causes, and even if I were to move past them, there’s always the financial vise of debt and obligation, as well as familial and social expectations, and all these and more conspire to keep me locked in unfulfilling routine. Not sure how to break out, but I have been giving it my strongest effort since moving down here to Texas four years ago. 

 

What does the immediate future hold?

 

Well, I took today off from work to take care of a few things, and I have a three-day remote week ahead. Then another three-day weekend as we celebrate the Fourth. The wife and girls are flying up to Pennsylvania for 10 days two weeks into July, as part of a vacation / college scouting trip for my youngest. The Mrs. will be doing a lot of driving, the farthest being a trip to a college in Buffalo that Patch is interested in. They’ve never seen Niagara Falls, so at least something positive will come of that if the school fails to check all the boxes. Me, I’m staying home with Charlie. The $750 round-trip airline ticket for me plus the $600 dogsitting charge will offset the cost of a rental car. I’ll be working and walking the dog, but at least I can watch a few science fiction flicks and feast on some Hawaiian pizza while dueling with that cartwheeling existential angst.

 

That’s the tip of the iceberg here. June, on the whole you were okay. Had better months, but had worse too. Now get outta here, and let’s get on with summer.

 

June is Devoted to the Sacred Heart of Christ

 

The Litany of the Sacred Heart

Lord, have mercy on us.

Christ, have mercy on us.

Lord, have mercy on us.

Christ, hear us.

Christ, graciously hear us.

God the Father of Heaven,

Have mercy on us.

God the Son, Redeemer of the world,

Have mercy on us.

God the Holy Spirit,

Have mercy on us.

Holy Trinity, one God,

Have mercy on us.

 

Heart of Jesus, Son of the Eternal Father,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Formed by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mother,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Substantially united to the Word of God,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Of Infinite Majesty,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Holy Temple of God,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Tabernacle of the Most High,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, House of God and Gate of Heaven,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Burning Furnace of charity,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Vessel of Justice and love,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Full of goodness and love,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Abyss of all virtues,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Most worthy of all praises,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, King and center of all hearts,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, In Whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, In Whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Divinity,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, in Whom the Father is well pleased,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Of Whose fullness we have all received,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Desire of the everlasting hills,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Patient and abounding in mercy,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Rich unto all who call upon Thee,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Fountain of life and holiness,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Atonement for our sins,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Filled with reproaches,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Bruised for our offenses,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Made obedient unto death,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Pierced with a lance,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Source of all consolation,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Our Life and Resurrection,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Our Peace and Reconciliation,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Victim for our sins,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Salvation of those who hope in Thee,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Hope of those who die in Thee,

Have mercy on us.

Heart of Jesus, Delight of all the Saints,

Have mercy on us.

 

Lamb of God Who takest away the sins of the world,

Spare us, O Lord.

Lamb of God Who takest away the sins of the world,

Graciously hear us, O Lord.

Lamb of God Who takest away the sins of the world,

Have mercy on us.

Jesus, meek and humble of heart,

Make our hearts like unto Thine.

 

Let us pray.

 

Almighty and eternal God, look upon the Heart of Thine most-beloved Son, and upon the praises and satisfaction He offers Thee in the name of sinners; and appeased by worthy homage, pardon those who implore Thy mercy, in Thy Great Goodness in the name of the same Jesus Christ Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen.

Short Philosophical Musing

 

I used to think, influenced by the world, that Nietzsche was the polar opposite of Christianity. Now, I don’t think so.

Consider these quotes:

  

“Do you think that I count the days? There is only one day left, always starting over: it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.”

“You are – your life, and nothing else.”

“Everything has been figured out, except how to live.”

“Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.”

“Life has no meaning a priori … it is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.”

“Better to die on one’s feet than to live on one’s knees.”

 

These are the words of a man whose book I have behind me. I spent $20 of my slave wages on it seven years ago but have yet to crack it. This man’s thought was presented to me in several college courses, and I have had to write essays on said words for a grade. The man is a philosopher called Jean-Paul Sartre, and he is one of the founders of a school of thought known as existentialism, a philosophy that both attracts and repels me in equal measures.

The last quote, about living on one’s knees, struck me. I went to confession this morning. I spoke to a kindly old priest anonymously through a veiled window and listed my sins, in kind and in frequency (and often in embarrassment) and was absolved by a man acting in persona Christi. Then I went out in front of the tabernacle and did my penance and spoke internally from my heart to the Lord of the Universe, on my knees.

How utterly pitiable this man Sartre never encountered something like this. True, he lived through World War II in occupied France, a thing I cannot conceive, yet so did millions of others who survived, if only by the fact they fell to their knees before God. A man named Karol Wojtyla, who lived through World War II in occupied Poland, provides a perfect example of this.

But life is a mysterious thing, and so many aspects of it are not privy to us. Sartre allegedly had a death-bed conversion. And I may read Being and Nothingness, the book stacked in the pile behind me, at some undetermined point in the future.

 

Tsondoku

 

 

We’ve had some unions out west return from a two-week strike (and a couple of sympathy strikes) and I spent the morning taking care of that from my humble accounting end. I’m waiting to hear back from a couple of people and am otherwise caught up, if not slightly ahead of the curve, going into the final third of May. So I thought to myself, sitting here alone in my home office, listening to the lawnmowing going on in the park across the street, “This would be an opportune time to compose a short blog post.”

 

Only problem is, not much is going on.

 

Yeah, there’s politics (Trump), there’s religion (Leo), there’s personal familial stuff common to all families that I don’t go into here on this semi-anonymous site. We’ve had a crappy weekend, including tornadoes last night and predicted ’nadoes this evening, but so far there’s been no damage to house or property, save for a few extra leaves blown on my yard. I did go outside at ten p.m. amidst the wailing of the howling storm sirens, hoping to glimpse a swirling mass of blackness post-lightning strike, but did not save for some highly evil-looking clouds resembling a demonic claw reaching down to the ground in the southwestern distance. Brilliant streaks of lightning hurled from Zeus himself, smashing the ground with what must have sounded like an atomic bomb explosion to Oppenheimer and his bros, convinced me that it would be best to huddle inside on the ground floor with the family.

 

Then I turned my head and saw my On-Deck pile. These are books I’ve bought that I just haven’t found the time, energy, or circumstance to read. Like teachers appearing when you are ready for them, I find the same is often true with books.

 

Also, I’ve suffered all my adult life from “tsondoku,” if indeed that can be considered a form of suffering. “Tsondoku” is the Japanese word for collecting and accumulating books meant to be read at some uncertain point in the future. It is not neglect, but a weird kind of joy, knowing that there is always a book at hand, ready to unlock some corner of the universe for you, to thrill you, inspire you, inform you, change you, or merely distract you.

 

Here are some of the choice tomes sitting in my half-dozen closely situated On-Deck piles:

 

The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge (2002) by Michael Punke. The book which the beautiful and harrowing Leonardo di Caprio moved was based. Originally purchased January 2020.

 

The Thin Red Line (1962) by James Jones. Bought in March 2021 while I was still in the midst of my World War II tinkering.

 

Being and Nothingness (1956) by Jean-Paul Sartre. One day I’ll get to it, if only to beat the depression out of myself when I find myself blanketed in it. Bought back in October 2018.

 

The Winds of War (1971) by Herman Wouk. Bought August 2015 at a thrift store in Hilton Head for a buck or two. Pre-dates my World War II interest; I just always liked Wouk since I read him in English class in Middle School.

 

The Way of Kings (2010) by Brandon Sanderson. Bought in July of 2020. Trying to break into some non-nauseating modern fantasy in search of a compelling universe to fall into. Interesting but not addicting; I’ve tried it twice over the past five years but only got as far as page 70 on both attempts.

 

The Prophecies of Nostradamus (1973) by Erika Cheatham. Schlocky and non-scholarly interpretations of the prophecies of Michel de Nostradame. Bought in tandem with a better work in May 2023. I’ll get to it eventually. I enjoyed stuff like this as a kid and its always nostalgic fun to revisit now and then.

 

Plus about ten books on Catholicism, three on Buddhism, two Robert Ludlum spy hardcovers, a handful of science fiction paperbacks, four tomes on World War II (plus a fifth I want to re-read – but that’s an encyclopedia in itself), two books on the Roman Empire, and four more on philosophy. And those are the ones I can see. That’s about 35 books. Still have a couple boxes packed away in storage, so the total tsondoku Hopper has could range upwards of 60-70 books. I’ll have to consider these for 2026; this year’s all “booked” right up to New Year’s Eve.

 

Happy Reading!

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)