reading
Read, I may hate television, but I like to read, sometimes peculiar books, some I bought myself, some given to me by loved ones and friends. Jan & Feb 2017 during my sabbatical of intense shock and horror (oh, it floats instantly to the surface: in blogging recently about a typeface, I neglected to say a top best thing about Trebuchet is & its ampersand, which, if I correctly remember having read some years ago, was once the twenty-sixth letter of our twenty-seven letter alphabet, thus singing in conclusion "W X Y & Z". No, seriously), never mind why the sabbatical, (https://www.grammarly.com/blog/nevermind-or-never-mind/), it's none of your gardenia business,
I read several books about holy fools, including Laurus, a Russian yurodivy, and about WW1, and have since read such a variety of books that I can't keep up. Where Rivers Change Direction, by Mark Spragg, who was raised on a dude ranch in Wyoming, was an interesting genre of independent autobiographical essays, and Life Itself: A Memoir by Roger Ebert had stories that triggered from the depths personal moments in my own life. Also books by David Sedaris, with life essays that cause me such extreme pain of can't breathe because of sudden bursts of uncontrollable laughing. Warning: one must either ignore or enjoy Sedaris' filthy mouth (ὁ ἀναγινώσκων νοείτω).
Recently for some reason I don't remember, whatever, it doesn't matter, I got into something by chef David Lebovitz, who lived and worked for years in San Francisco, one of my favorite cities SFran, Seattle & Sydney, and then some time after the death of his partner packed up and moved to Paris, that he had experienced and loved and eaten his way through during his year's post-college RailPass expedition throughout Europe, and more later in attending cooking schools in Paris, and became a Parisian. Oh, I know, it started 3 Dec 2019 with a web search about gin and martini recipes, and I came across David Lebovitz's blog https://www.davidlebovitz.com/the-shaken-martini-cocktail-recipe/ remembering a Haight bar where Bruno mixed a memorable martini with Boords gin and Dolin vermouth, and Lebovitz's writing style is so enjoyable that I ordered two books he wrote about his move to Paris. Both have arrived and I'm reading one in my BayView chair in the bedroom and the other in my BeckView chair in my study office den.
For myself, unlike Lebovitz, on graduating college, instead of escaping for a year or so of Europe, and it was the days of the Iron Curtain, I avoided theological seminary, chose a Navy uniform for myself instead of risking draft into the infantry, got married and started making babies. No, my generation of Americans took ourselves and life so seriously that it didn't even occur to us to invest in a rail pass &c as his did. At 84, I'm no longer interested in any travel whatsoever until and unless AmTrak reopens the Sunset Limited and I can drive to Chipley and board the evening train for Los Angeles, thence north to San Francisco again, and Seattle again. Once I'm in Seattle again, don't call me, I'll call you.
RSF&PTL
W