Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Evanston: water sealed; flatlander; a ruined life


        I haven’t written recently because I haven’t done anything, or even thought anything, interesting.  I still haven’t; but if I don’t post soon people will start to wonder if I am ill.
        I finished rereading THE YEAR OF THE DEATH OF RICARDO REIS by Portugal’s Jose Saramago.  I knew of Saramago before he won the Nobel Prize and have read all of his works that have been translated into English.  RICARDO REIS is an excellent novel but requires some knowledge of Portuguese literature.  I don’t have much, but I do know enough of Luis Camoes, THE LUSIADS, and Fernando Pessoa, so that the book makes sense.
        I started rereading DAVID COPPERFIELD.
        For $2.99 I bought THE COLLECTED WORKS OF CHARLES DICKENS who wrote more than I ever knew.
        Some Kindle books show page numbers, but most just show what are known as locations.  The average book has about 6,000 locations.  Dickens Collected Works has 293,707.
        I’ve watched some soccer and baseball on television.
        The Cubs are entertaining to watch this year.  The original BACK TO THE FUTURE movie has them winning the World Series in 2015.  
        Today is a pleasant day.  Mostly sunny and in the 70sF/low 20sC. 
        I did the annual water sealing of our balcony deck.  That is what we suburbanites do.  Small deck.  It didn’t take long.  I wish it were as easy to water seal GANNET.

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        I don’t think of myself as being a Midwesterner, but I am.
        Carol and I moved to Evanston nine years ago.  Although I’m not here all the time, add that to the first twenty-one years of my life in neighboring Missouri and I have lived thirty years in the Midwest, far longer than anywhere else.
        The sailor is undeniably a flatlander.
        ‘Ithaca, Illinois’ indeed.

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        Books have power.
        Not long ago I met a fellow sailor and writer whose words and voyages have impressed me.  He is a generation younger than I and paid me a fine compliment by saying, with a smile, that he read STORM PASSAGE as a young man and it ruined his life.
        I’m proud to have contributed to his ruin.
        David McCullough’s THE WRIGHT BROTHERS is causing Carol and me to vacation on North Carolina’s Outer Banks late next month.  Neither of us has been there before and I’d like to see Kitty Hawk.  And the ocean.
        I should even be able to learn if my improved shoulder will permit me to swim again.