Month: August 2020
le guin/carré
Caught myself reading again, in the middle of a pandemic.
Decided to revisit some writers I had not experienced for a long time. Re-read some stuff that left an impression way back when, to see if it still sticks or even reveals something new.
First, Ursula K. Le Guin. Started off with re-reading The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), then The Dispossessed (1974). Before I knew it, I was into Four Ways to Forgiveness (1995). Those led me to The Wild Girls (2011) — containing along with the main short story, some poetry, essays and an interview — and No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters (2017). The latter, a compilation mostly of pieces from the blog she started in her 80s, was published in the year before her death, and was perhaps my favorite for its humor and insightful reflection. In any case, these titles exhausted all that was available for download to Kindle from the local library. And I recommend any of the above (and Ivi also recommends other works, like the Earthsea series and collection she had read years ago herself). I should mention that liking science-fiction and fantasy are not prerequisites for a Le Guin reader; her insights into social and political behavior and humanity go far beyond what you might expect from those genres (note that her father was an anthropologist).
Second, John le Carré. The first title I had previously read was The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1963) a year after it was published while I was languishing in a motel on weekends during an out-of-town assignment at Vandenberg Air Force Base. There were also the film and TV adaptations: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Constant Gardener, The Little Drummer Girl, A Most Wanted Man, The Tailor of Panama, and The Night Manager all come immediately to mind, most of which I had also read in book form. I wanted to re-read The Spy … , but in a bit of luck, le Carré’s Agent Running in the Field (2019), his latest, was suddenly available on my Kindle queue, so I am deeply into that one at the moment. And enjoying it immensely, as it reminds me of le Carré’s as-good-as-ever, maybe-even-better writing style and his rather droll humor. And — let’s hear it for someone who is rapidly approaching ninety years of age.
Not easy, this reading business. Especially when daily doom-scrolling through my online newsletters (NYT, New Yorker, Atlantic, Economist, Guardian, et. al.) and twitter blurbs sent my way consume so much time. (I have nothing on Kim who seems to read at least two or three or four books a week, but wisely avoids much of the online noise.) But now that I have new, cataract-free eyes, there is no better time to repel the mental effects of our plague. Try it and see.
Some Messages in August
Sculpted
The Great Interstate Donut Run of the 2020 Pandemic
It started with a Saturday night message, inquiring as to my availability the next day and my intended exact location, with little other input.
Sunday morning at precisely 9:11, I received a call from my old friend and colleague, jamesa, telling me that he was “picking up the donuts” and would be near my door in seconds.
After about an hour and a half of discussion and a little driving/riding and some quick and dirty documenting, he was gone, almost no sooner than he had arrived. Returned to his home in northeast Oregon where his wife was waiting, as he had told her that he was going to pick up some donuts, and probably promising to be back “before long”. Turned out that it was her birthday and he knew that her favorite donuts could be procured at Popular Donuts in Walla Walla as a surprise treat.
Upon his return to the Oregon outback on his wonderful BMW R1100RS, jamesa reported that the 180-mile run, via Tollgate, was pleasant (and relatively cool on the higher-elevation Oregon side) and yielded 47.8 mpg at decent (but not the hard-charging of his younger years — as he says, “The older I get, the faster I was.”) speeds.
![](http://whilebusy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/20200816-D75_9564-Edit.jpg)
And a little more doc:
A Political Saturday (Even Though It Shouldn’t Be)
HayShakers and More
Part of our order from HayShaker Farm, a terrific discovery by Kim and Ivi:
And a bit more of our day:
Meteor Shower Outtakes
Color:
Monochrome:
Get A Mask On
What If the Big Bang Was Actually a Big Bounce?
A Wired piece tells us of the emergence of a new theory …