That Halloween has become an adult holiday is a triumph of marketing and inanity. Even the marina has been invaded by this absurdity.
Another absurdity is a bottle of whiskey that just sold for $1.9 million. That is not a misprint. We all know that a few people have far, far too much money, but this is not only absurd it is obscene. I realize that the purchase might be seen as an investment. That too is absurd. Whiskey is not meant to sit in a bottle and increase in price—not value—as rich fools strive to outbid one another. Whiskey is meant to be drunk.
I thank Zane for the link.
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/whisky-auction-record-trnd/index.html
As I have noted I read some poetry and listen to some Bach everyday. I read other things and listen to other music, but these are fundamental pleasures of my life.
Recently I have mostly been reading the Kindle version of an anthology, IMMORTAL POEMS, edited by Christopher Burns.
In it yesterday I chanced upon an old friend that I believe I quoted in one of the many storms at sea during the STORM PASSAGE voyage. The author is anonymous. It was written about 1500.
Western wind, when will thou blow,
The small rain down can rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again.
And here is a poem by Emily Dickinson written in 1862 that is particularly apt in our age of social media mobs.
Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye
Much sense, the starkest madness.
‘Tis the majority
In this, as all, prevail.
Assent and you are sane,
Demur, you’re straightaway dangerous
And handled with a chain.
In the introduction Christopher Burns suggests that poets have a greater emotional response to life than most and goes on to say, “An increased capacity for emotional response may allow people greater enjoyment of love, beauty and the world around them, but it also makes them vulnerable to greater disappointment, depression and despair. Of the 121 poets in this collection, four died of alcoholism and eight took their own lives—a rate of suicide one hundred times greater than the norm.”
Although the hose is reachable from GANNET’s deck, useful in fending off sea lions, and I do not have to row every drop of water out to GANNET as has been usual In the past, I still find myself habitually conserving. After breakfast in the morning, I first pour a little water in the tumbler from which I have drunk juice. I rinse and then pour that water into the coffee cup. I rinse and then pour that water over the tablespoon with which I ate my uncooked oatmeal. I do that over the plastic measuring cup from which I ate that oatmeal so it partially rinses that too.
As I knew long before the myth of multi-tasking arose, I am a serial machine, not a parallel one. I do one thing, concentrate on it, finish, and then do another. There is slippage in this process, but that is all right and even beneficial. Recently I have been in writing mode. In the past several weeks I have written and sold articles to CRUISING WORLD, YACHTING WORLD, LATITUDE 38 and completed a long email interview for SMALL CRAFT ADVISOR. I have no idea when any of these will appear and now that I have nothing more to write for a while I am uncertain what to do with myself until Carol flies to San Diego week after next for a business conference that she will extend into a mini-vacation. I might follow Walt Whitman’s good advice and ‘loaf and invite my soul.’ Or I might walk around to the Royal Rooster and eat a taco. Maybe both.
