Thanksgiving Recap

My whole family had an extremely relaxing holiday weekend at my parent’s house out in the woods of northeastern Pennsylvania. How relaxing? Well, let’s just say I woke up bright and early this morning, went down to the basement office, and balanced ten days of banking activity and paid off a half dozen bills, all while whistling Christmas carols.

Read lots and lots: 240 pages of Physics of the Impossible, by Michio Kaku; 85 pages of A Clash of Kings; 150 pages of Oswald’s Tale. I also skimmed through a book on diet and nutrition, and was able to experiment with what I put into my body over the next three days. Basic kernel of knowledge gained: Sugar is my enemy. Saps energy and leads directly to a restless night’s sleep. Also, upon recommendation, I switched around the time of day I take my supplements and as a result found mucho more mojo during my waking hours.

Thanksgiving dinner was delicious, as it always is. My wife came up with a killer sweet potato recipe. Pumpkin pie, which I can live on, followed. After the kiddies went down we indulged in a Thanksgiving Night family tradition: Watching Clark and Cousin Eddie in Christmas Vacation. Ah. Now, the Christmas season is here!

As I blogged about a few days’ back, we went shopping on Friday and I snagged a quartet of cool SF books. The girls found tons and tons of discounted clothes and Christmas presents. I took my Little One out for a lemonade and a slice of pizza to a restaurant that had a fascinating fish tank. Saturday my wife and mother went back out. The wife actually bought a pair of used cowboy boots, which kinda grossed me out. Not only the fact that they were used, but the fact that I never in a million years would expect to see her wearing a pair. Oh well. To each her own.

Watched some football games, some miscellaneous shows. I awoke early on Friday and went for a nature walk. Very solitary and lonely, but I compensated with a feeling of surging energy. The next day I awoke even earlier, and, being too windy, tiptoed down to the refinished basement and watched a couple of weird movies (one was a strange, overly-arty Electra Glide in Blue) waiting for the others to wake up. We all had tacos Saturday night. Later, the wife and I watched Sinatra in a 1980 concert.

One morning we went to the golf club my parents belong to for buffet breakfast, and guess who showed up? Santa! Got a lot of cute pictures with the little ones. Patch wasn’t buying the whole thing, but my older one, the original Little One, was brave enough to sit on his lap and tell him a couple of toys she wanted. Later, she made a stained-glass gingerbread man tree ornament before we left for home.

Sunday afternoon, while surfing on their PC, I came across the sad fact of the death of Robert Holdstock. Who was he? He was a British science fiction and fantasy writer, active since the mid-70s. When my wife and I were on our honeymoon in Napa Valley in April of 2001, in our room at our deluxe resort, on a shelf, sat one of Holdstock’s most famous book, the award-winning Mythago Wood. It was hardcover, with fantastical illustrations between its covers. I was taken with it, but in all the excitement could not really read it. So I put it on my list, and I found it at a used book store in September of 2007. Its behind me right now, dutifully standing on line, ready to be read. Mr. Holdstock died, tragically, of all things, of an e coli infection. Think I’ll move that paperback up in the reading rotation.

Anyway, what great holiday R&R! I’m now looking forward to Christmas week, when the family motors down to South Carolina to spend some time with my wife’s parents.

Hell on Earth

Was the Soviet Union.

From Oswald's Tale (1995), by Norman Mailer, page 333:


"... he began by speaking of his parents:

Very important people, he would say. He waved a finger in warning. Let nothing in the air be ready to disagree! Very important people, he repeated, but all the same, obedient! When they received their big Soviet encyclopedia and an order followed years later to cut out certain pages because they were now historically incorrect, his father obeyed. Yuri's parents were not average people, but still, they were afraid. For example, his father kept a private diary, yet even his own pages were not truthful ..."


Not the most egregious example, I am aware, but still, could you even imagine living in such a society? Where your innermost thoughts were managed in such a manner? Where a knock at the door could bring intense, visceral fear: did I keep my official encyclopedia updated properly? Do I have in my possession any books that the government deems unacceptable? Did I say anything to anybody - even a family member - that I am not allowed to say? Does my own private journal hold anything incriminating to me?

I normally shun dystopian novels but I have read my fair share over the years. This just struck a deep chord within me, because, quite likely, had I the cosmic misfortune to have been born into such a society no doubt it would only be a matter of time before I was labeled an Enemy of the People. All because of my curiosity and my choice of reading material. What a horrible, hellish time and place to live.

Sure, there were and are other hells on Earth (when has there ever not been?), but we must be ever vigilant. Do I think that such a thing as hell on earth could happen here, in the United States of America? Probably not, but I can not say unequivocally and with certainty that it will not. I do believe there are elements in our society that are working towards such an evil goal. And because of that we must never let our guard down.

Deserted Village

...

These were thy charms sweet village: sports like these

With sweet succession, taught even toil to please:

These round thy bowers their chearful influence shed,

These were thy charms - But all these charms are fled.




Above lines struck me as exceptionally sad; I don't know why exactly.

From The Deserted Village (1770) by Oliver Goldsmith

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While searching for an appropriate representation of The Deserted Village I came across this jpeg. I had to share it with you. It strikes not so much a sad, mournful tone with me, as a nightmarish one. Perhaps if we saw it under a blue sky, aware of the barren fields surrounding it and pale mountains in the distance; that might be more in keeping with my feelings about Goldsmith's poem (which I've printed out but do not have the energy and focus to go through at the moment). Still, I find the black-and-white picture quite unsettling and almost hypnotic. More a set of toothless skulls lined up under the baleful eye of something terrible, something cyclopedean that sees you. More than a few horrifying short story ideas can erupt from the psyche after long and thoughtful study of this image ...

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