The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
A Day at the Museum
Scott and Becky brought the kids out to Glenview to go to Kohl’s Children’s Museum, and I met them. I took Alex there when he was Ainslie’s age – two years old. He did not run around like this:
This is about what the day looked like. She ran from place to place so fast that it was hard to catch up, let alone get a clear picture.
After a couple of hours at the museum, we headed over to Noodles for lunch. Alex saw the signs for Potbelly Sandwiches across the street, and said:
“It says Ice Cream! And Cookies!” Ainslie perked up her little head.
“Dude,” I said to Becky. “That’s what you get for teaching the kid to read.”
Boom!: Voices of the Sixties, by Tom Brokaw
After leaving his full time NBC gig, Tom Brokaw moved on from The Greatest Generation
You want to hear something insane? I have had Baby Boomer rants in the faces of both of my parents in the last couple of years. (Self-righteous, self-absorbed, squandered potential, blah blah blah). And my parents, generally, agreed with me. They didn’t disagree, anyway. I hate when that happens.
Anyway, the book. It is written in the form of character profiles – the stories of the players big and small. Heavy on the Vietnam. I appreciated that he included some interviews and observations with a crowd a bit older – Joan Didion was particularly memorable for me. And Colin Powell. And Jim Lovell, who heard about the Tet Offensive and hoped the war wouldn’t cut into the budget for the space program. Awesome.
Brokaw didn’t change my mind about the Boomers. I like that he didn’t seem to be trying to do so.
Overheard at Taco Bell
Four teenaged girls – two Hiltonclones and two Kardashianclones. Three order the 88 cent something-or-other and the fourth orders a small drink. Not one of them uses the word “Please” (I am pretty sure a rant is coming on that at a later date).
KClone1: You should totally go out with him.
HClone1: He’s so boorring! He has no personality!
My eyes roll into the back of my head.
HClone2: But he’ll take care of you.
HClone1: I don’t want someone to take care of me! I want someone who’s CRAYZEE!
This is Why I Love John Scalzi
Even though I don’t read sci-fi:
“Jesus, 2011. It’s still only February, and you’ve already tired me out, news-wise. You are The Year Mostly Likely to Need Ritalin. Please make the next ten months entirely uneventful to make up for the first two spastic months. Thank you in advance.”
At the end of a post on why he isn’t writing about Libya.
Dear Charlie Sheen
Please shut up now. Please.
You know I am on your side. You know I was happy as long as you showed up on the set, ready to work, like a professional. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Until you get arrested. And sent to rehab (or jail like Kiefer), in which case you can’t show up on the set, ready to work, like a professional.
I agree that Chuck Lorre is a bit much. He created a television show with a main character based on Bad Charlie and then hired you to star in it. You were very good natured about it. We were all in on the joke. But really. No one was surprised to hear that Bad Charlie was making a comeback. Lorre rolled the dice and got, what 8 years of a cash cow show? Dude should be grateful.
But, Charlie. You know your baggage is putting people out of work. You know this because you offered to share the cost of keeping them paid. Shutting down for the season may have been an executive being petulant because you shot your mouth off about him. But it may have been that someone who shoots his mouth off about the boss is either a fool or insane or on drugs. We don’t think you are a fool. The remaining options make you a bad business risk. In the end, it is all about the business.
Your bud Kiefer got himself into trouble, too. But he said he was sorry and did his time. And shut up about it. Please follow his example and shut up now.
You really do sound crazy. (And that link was from last week.)
The Child in Time, by Ian McEwan
This McEwan novel, from 1987, tells the story of a successful children’s author whose own three-year-old was kidnapped from his cart in a grocery store. He hadn’t walked away. His back was turned to face the register. So, grief and loss and coping. Over the next three years, his wife leaves and moves to the country. His closest friend regresses to childhood in what we later understand to be a manifestation of bi-polar disorder. His parents are in declining health.
This book is less about plot, or even about character, than it is a study of the theme that is Time. Complete with a physicist’s theorizing on the subject.
The ending is extremely predictable, but satisfying. I liked it better than Amsterdam, but not nearly as much as Saturday.
Blanket Four
Same yarn, different colors: Cranberry, pink, white. Yes, yes. I made a blanket that involved pink. It was because the original color scheme wasn’t working and the pink was the only color in that line that really went with the other colors. And now it seems I have a “pattern” – with the 15 blocks and two rows of edging. The Anne Pattern. Except that I am not using it the next time around, because I picked a different type of yarn. Anyway, here it is:
My mother is thinking I don’t need to make them so big, but I am still thinking of the older kids that tend to be overlooked. Older kids like pink, right? Sometimes?
Suite Francaise, by Irene Nemirovsky
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=leartojugg-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=1400096278&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrBook 11
I heard raves about Suite Francaise from other volunteers at the library. I picked it up before the December sale in 2009, and it has been sitting in my bookcase since then.
The history of the book is as interesting as the text. Nemirovsky was a Ukrainian Jew living in Paris when the Germans arrived in 1940. She was already a published writer and had known some success before being arrested and sent to a camp in 1942, where she died. This book contains two of five novellas she had planned – they were lost for years.
A Storm in June is about the mass exodus from Paris in advance of the German Army. The disregard of the characters for other people was disturbing. And perhaps a bit too real. Particularly interesting was the shock, dismay and utter helplessness of the wealthier people when their money couldn’t buy the things they needed. Hotel rooms, gasoline, even food.
Dolce chronicles an occupied village. German soldiers are living in the homes of the French families and it is a study of the conquerors and the conquered starting to see each other as real people, as opposed to a faceless enemy. You know something’s gotta give.
The sense of perspective here is really impressive, particularly since the author was living it as she was writing it. There was no hint of the concentration camps – merely the concept of “prisoner of war”. The world really lost something when it lost Nemirovsky. Damn Nazis.
Career Day
Weekend Assignment #359: Career Day 2
It’s often said that most people will change careers several times over the course of their working lives. If money, age and educational resources were all conducive to your trying another line of work, would you do so? If so, what new career would you choose?
Extra Credit: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
It is Only a Two Day Trip
Things I Forgot to Bring to Washington This Week:
- My passport
- My flight itinerary
- My Blackberry charger (I am just going to leave the one I keep borrowing in the conference room)
- My glasses
- A nail file
- A notebook (who needs to write anything at work, anyway)
The Next Dark Age 