I have been  messing around with my books. I’m trying to whittle down the number of books sitting by my chair in the living room to the ones I am reading. The problem is if I file books away in my collection, I forget that I want to read them. I decided to convert the guest bedroom into a sort of office area for myself.

When I moved my Greek texts in, I discovered that I own the first eight “books” of the Odyssey in Greek.

Published in 1897, it’s a beautiful old musty book I bought from the library in Holland.

I love old books like this one.

I know this is a bit out of focus, but I wanted to show the Greek text. But more valuable than this, is the running commentary in the back of the book.

When I visited the James Joyce Bookshop in Dublin, I saw many beautiful books. My reaction was to not even consider purchasing one of them since I have so many books about Joyce that I hadn’t even opened. This morning I took a look at the Pound/Joyce letters I own.

In Dublin, I saw a beautiful, very expensive, edition of Joyce’s letters. I immediately thought of this book. It’s another library discard, this time from University of Detroit.

In the introduction I read that Pound was thinking of Joyce when he wrote his “Pisan Cantos.” I have attempted to read Pounds Cantos before. But I find some lovely poetry embedded in very obscure references many of which are in Chinese characters, as well as Greek, Italian, French, and others. But I pulled out my Pound and plowed away at Canto LXXIV, the first of the Cantos he wrote while sitting in a US Army Detention Center in Pisa, Italy awaiting his trial for treason due to his activities supporting Mussolini in WWII.

I read ten pages or so which is how I sometimes approach poetry or prose, simply plunging in and not looking up every word or reference. Then I stopped. I wanted to get a better idea of the references Pound was using so I began poking around online. I found out that the edition of Pound’s Cantos which I have owned for years is corrupt and doesn’t reflect Pounds written ideas very well. I did find a bit dated edition (2003) that has annotations and ordered it on Amazon.

It was only about 20 bucks and has a lot of annotations even though it’s probably not as good an edition as will be eventually done.

In the 74th Canto, Pound uses the word, poluphloiboios. What the heck? This word I decided to look up. My phone told me  it was “Homer’s onomotopoetic invention for the sound made by the babbling sea.” Just now I checked the OED.

This is the only noun form of the word. There are several other adjectival expressions. Pound spells it poluphloiboios. I like the OED’s version better. It reminds me of the word, polytropus, used in the very beginning of the Odyssey to refer to Odysseus. Emily Wilson very cleverly translated this word as “complicated” as in “Odysseus was a complicated man.”

I have more things to say about books and words but I notice my word count is over 500 and I try to keep this to something like that unless I get carried away.

Eileen and I have decided to hang around Holland for a while. We have found ourselves unusually fatigued after our June-July travels. Today we went to the Farmers Market. We purchased blueberries, tomatoes, and honey. Our refrigerator is already fully since we have done a couple of delivery orders from Meijer since getting home. I wish I had delayed purchasing more fresh food to buy locally but there’s always the next time.

I ordered more of those beeswax sheets to use instead of plastic wrap.

We ran across some of these  in England and purchased a few. It seems like a good way to go. You wipe them clean and then end discarding them after a few months of use.

I also ordered a set of kitchen scales for myself.

I want to be more careful about my eating  now that I’m home. Of course, yesterday we went out to eat for lunch at The Biscuit and ordered pizza in the evening. Ahem.

I’m enjoying have leisure time at home to read, study, and play piano. Life is good.

A couple nights ago I dreamed I was giving an organ concert. It was not in a church, but the organ was in a loft of sorts. The only way I knew how to get to it was to climb. As I got up in the balcony, I noticed another organist leaving. Apparently he had just finished his part of the recital. It didn’t occur to me in the dream that there was a better way to get access to the instrument.

The drawbars were not near the organ. I had to climb up higher to see them. When I did I decided that I would be able to play the piece I had ready with the stops available. I climbed back down to the organ and discovered there were no pedals. I looked on the floor and back on the right were about twelve pedal notes. I thought to myself that I wasn’t going to be able to play my Bach trio on this instrument which was apparently what was scheduled for me to perform.

At this point, the door to the balcony swung open and an organ tech guy came in carrying the pedals in parts. He knelt down and began installing them. He remarked that I would have had a hard time playing the organ without them.

When I woke I began to think about the fact that I have taught myself so much of what I can do.  It is a little like climbing a wall to get somewhere. I think that I learned the most about organ playing and musicianship from Ray Ferguson at Wayne. But I have worked hard the last twenty or so years at improving and have succeeded in many ways.

And of course I’m teaching myself to read Homer in the original Greek.

I had an appointment with my therapist this morning and told him about the dream. I also had lots to report since I haven’t seen him since June 1. It was a good session. I told him that I see talking to him as part of my mental hygiene. He is taking some time off but we will resume biweekly meetings in four weeks.

It was a long travel day yesterday. We left Sarah’s house around 9 AM local time (that would be 4 AM Michigan time). We arrived home last night around 11:30 PM local time.

I didn’t get to bed until much later but rose at my usual 5:30 AM or so this morning.

I was very pleased when i got on my scales that I hadn’t gained any weight on vacation (still a hefty 222 lbs). At first during vacation I was trying to eat as much non processed food as possible but by the end of the U.K. visit I was gobbling up cake and fries with  my meals. My blood pressure was also low this morning but since my body was probably reeling from the shift in time zones it might not be that good an indication of how my blood pressure is doing.

It is good to be home.

I think the time away has provided me some perspective.  My attitude has definitely shifted. I feel much less worried about how I am perceived by local yokels. (I’m thinking of other musicians besides my friends Rhonda and Jordan.) For some reason, it’s clearer to me that my life in my books and music is my real life.

Having said that, I loved seeing my family. Some of the highlights of my vacation involve my two lovely grand daughters. First, I was charmed when Alex took me by the hand in the Dublin house and led me to the piano to play music for her.

Then, while in England, Lucy seemed to quite like my beard and enjoyed touching it and my hairy arm.

It was also especially fun to have time with Matthew (Hi Matthew). Having said above that I live in my books and music, I still miss intelligent talk with people who are not Eileen or my shrink or boss. I enjoyed chats with him and of course enjoyed seeing everyone. (Hi Everyone!)

So today I am a bit tired as you might expect. Eileen went to the masseuse this afternoon. Her back did okay on the trip but she is still not quite back to normal.

I have been playing Scarlatti and Chopin on the piano today. I have told Eileen that the one thing I would like to change is that I would like to upgrade my piano at home. I don’t really have access to a good instrument right now. I think it’s very possible that I can trade my present instrument for one that is more like the quality of an upright Steinway and not have to spent an arm and a leg for it.

Anyway that’s my dream after vacation.

Tomorrow Eileen and I get on a plane and fly back to the States. I think it has been a good time away. I feel a little bad that I wasn’t able to spend longer with the Chinese branch of the fam but maybe that will have to wait until next trip. It involves getting me a visa to go to China. But at least we saw them in Dublin.

We are heading i

nto Buckingham with Sarah and Lucy today. Sarah’s car needs an annual inspection/update and she is going to take care of that while we are in town. We were going to hire a taxi to take us from Calvert Green to Heathrow but Sarah has decided she would prefer to take us so that’s the plan for tomorrow.

I have enjoyed having time with Sarah, Matthew, and Lucy. I’m very glad we reserved and used the B and B so that we weren’t in their hair for the entire time even though they have been the most gracious of hosts. Yesterday Matthew’s sister Louisa, her son Lloyd and Matthew’s Mum dropped by for a visit. It was excellent to see them again.

We are leaving for town shortly so here’s some links I haven’t been putting up.

Homer Odyssey: Oldest extract discovered on clay tablet 

I noticed this headline and read and bookmarked this in hopes I can learn more about this. I guess Homer is kind of a theme for my summer.

Why Some Journalists Have A Hard Time Saying The Word, ‘Racist’

An NPR report I found and plan to read.

The Racist Politics of the English Language | Boston Review

NYTimes: The Joy of Hatred

The world’s top 50 thinkers 2019 | Prospect Magazine

I love lists. Now I can access this from my blog on the trip tomorrow.

Our Predicament Is No Joke: On Terry Eagleton’s “Humour”

Thinking about humor.

The Absolute Originality of Georges Perec | The New Yorker

Yesterday Sarah drove Eileen and me about twenty minutes away to Aylesbury Vale Station to catch a train in to London.

It’s a fun way to travel. We took the train to the Tube and then used the Bus system to get around in London… all of this on one day ticket for the day.  The Bus system in London and Dublin is impressively easy to use. Of course I had help in both cases.

Sarah cleverly had us get off before we reached the Tate so that we (I) could go to a bookstore.

The interesting thing about this shop is that most of the books are arranged by country.  This meant that in order to look at collections of British poets one had to go to the upstairs balcony  which was entirely dedicated books connected to Britain.

While I was up there I succumbed and picked out a collection of Philip Larkin’s poetry. This is the first collection of his poetry I have purchased. I have been interested in him for a while and was glad to get it.

Then I was thinking about Homer and wondering what books they stocked by and or about him. In order to find them I had to go to the Greece section. There I found another book to buy: War Music by Christiopher Logue.

I own and have read a couple of slim volumes of Logue’s re-imagining of Homer. I didn’t realize he was dead and that his project was unfinished but gathered together in this one book. I look forward to comparing it to what I have at home.

I have been trying not to add to much weight to my luggage through book purchases. These two books were lovely paperback editions and won’t add too much to my return home bags.

After the book shop, we grabbed some pastries (and coffee for me) and got back on the bus and arrived at the Tate not too long after its 10:00 AM opening time. We did have time to take some time outs together which were pleasant.

There’s always more to see at Tate than I can take in. But there were some highlights.

I spotted this famous painting by Francis Bacon from another gallery. I do like his work. I didn’t remember the title of it (Three studies for Figures at the Base of A Crucifixion).

Of course, there’s always time for a selfie with Bacon’s masterpiece.

This work was created around 1944 and has been interpreted to have a further implication for the terrible things we did to ourselves as humans  in concentration camps. They make me think of the terrible things happening in America and other countries right now. Happy thoughts, eh?

We also made it to the William Blake Wing.

This is a famous painting by Blake called “The Ghost of a Flea.” Interestingly the gallery with Blake’s stuff in it was dimly lit. The paintings were easier to see clearly through the phone camera.

Wikipedia says that the imagery of a flea came to Blake during a seance. Later in his obituary it was stated that, “The flea communicated to Mr. Blake what passed, as related to himself, at the Creation. ‘It was first intended,’ said he (the flea) ‘to make me as big as a bullock; but then when it was considered from my construction, so armed—and so powerful withal, that in proportion to my bulk, (mischievous as I now am) that I should have been a too mighty destroyer; it was determined to make me—no bigger than I am.”^[

I have looked at some of Blake’s original prints in which he puts his poems.

I was very surprised to see the actual size of the one above.

I was tickled to see some of Blake’s illustration for Dante since I’m almost finished reading The Inferno.

This close-up helps show Dante apparently striking against ir preparing to strike someone being tortured (Bocca Degli Abati) with his foot (?)

From the Tate, we stopped off near Victoria theater and had a lovely meal at a restaurant.

Then we walked to the entrance of the Victoria Palace. We were queued to pick up tickets that Eileen bought online. It took no time at all.

We were only able to get two seats together. Eileen and I used those. Sarah sat in the third seat a balcony below us.

This was our view.

Sarah went down before the stage to wave at us. I tried to use the camera phone zoom. Ahem. It’s a bit out of focus, eh?

This was Sarah’s view.

The musical was amazing and clever. I think of it as a Hip Hop opera. There was very little non-musical moments. I’m very interested to see the libretto and score even though the singers enunciated very clearly for the most part and the amplification was ear shattering.

I liked it, but thought the first act was incredible. The second act didn’t seem as strong to me.

It was interesting to see a plot that was so loosely based on the historical life of Alexander Hamilton.

I had a thought about the fact that although all the performances seemed to be live including a pit orchestra, everything was mixed and amplified through a mix. This seemed odd but I wonder if this is the way musicals are mostly done now. I could see on the walls of the Victoria theater record of a performance of Cabaret in 1968. I had to wonder how different it was then compared to now. I can’t imagine them micing anything. I would assume that the entire production would have been much softer

Tonight is our last night in our B & B in England. Even though Sarah lives near by we decided to spend most of our nights there on this trip. We could only get it through tonight, so on Saturday through Monday we return to Sarah and Matthew’s abode. We, of course, have spent a lot of time here and visiting with them. I think it’s been a good visit.

I’m even starting to feel like I’ve had a vacation. On Thursday, Sarah had mercy on me and took us to some bookstores.

Yesterday, Sarah, Eileen, and Lucy all went to a a Dragon Fly Maze.

I got to stay home at the B & B. I had a great day. I read. I practiced Scarlatti and Virginal music on Matthew’s synth which he has loaned me.

Today Matthew and Sarah are having some time alone. Unfortunately, it’s rainy. Eileen and I are with Lucy at their home. She helped me make bread during a break from playing.

After she helped me along with kneading a bit, she dumped the dough in the pans. I took a picture so she could compare later.

In about a half hour the bread was risen sufficiently.

Lucy gave it a look before it went into the oven.

Bread is done now.

These were obviously posed pics, however, all I said was lower the bread so I can see your face.

I do love my grandkids!

Tomorrow, Sarah, Eileen, and I have a London adventure planned. We have tickets for Hamilton

Last Friday, on Eileen’s actual birthday, we all went out to eat.

The Inn where we ate was named after a Roman street: Akeman Street. Then we came home and had some of Sarah’s cake that she made for Eileen’s birthday. It was amazing.

Yesterday, Sarah picked us up at our B & B and took us to Stratford.

First stop was the Butterfly Farm.

It was a bit warm in the rooms where they were housed, but there were an amazing number of butterflies.

Afterwards, we took some timeout on a bench.

Next,  we went looking for Trinity Church to see Shakespeare’s grave.

Directly in front of us were the graves of William and Anne Shakespeare. To our left was the font where William Shakespeare was baptized.

Last night, I finished reading Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life. 

The main character, Ursula, keeps dying and being reborn on the same day in history and living a different version of her life. I was initially intrigued because the first chapter in the book describes her killing Hitler before he does any damage. But the many (and I mean many) lives that Ursula lives end up feeling a bit circular, repetitive, and ultimately directionless to me.

I was gratified to see that at least one review mentioned “those interactive “hypertext” novels whose computer-savvy readers can determine the direction of the story.” I thought of the old “choose your own adventure” books as I read it.

I think Atkinson has fallen in love with her characters. There are apparently more books where she writes about some of the characters introduced in this novel. Ursula, herself, is unusual, but I didn’t find her or the rest of the cast that compelling. Certainly not enough to pick up another book with them in it.

I guess Life After Life  ends up being  a decent summer escape read.

Today is Eileen’s 67th birthday. I believe her when she says she is having a good day sitting on Sarah’s couch in England waiting to go out to eat to celebrate.

At our B&B, we continue to have to walk across the drive to the barn facility to get good wifi reception. This is kind of a pain and we probably won’t return to these facilities in the future, but at least we can get access when we want it. Two days ago the door to the barn was locked when I went to do my Greek. I sat  on a stoop and did it Then yesterday I noticed there was a key in the door, but it was so nice I didn’t bother going inside. Today, when Eileen and I went in, there was an alarm sounding.  I thought maybe we had tripped something coming in, but the control panel said something about a smoke alarm somewhere in the building. We couldn’t smell anything. It was so annoying that I figured out how to shut it off. I then reported it to the owners when they walked by.

Right now I’m sitting in Sarah’s backyard using their Wifi. It’s a beautiful, windy day here.

I am interesting in semiotics and have been reading Sebeok’s book on it today. Here’s the OED definition that obtains.

Notice that the fourth quote is attributed to T.Sebeok, et al.   This is the guy who wrote the book I am reading. I think that is very cool.

While I was checking out terminology in his book, I ran across another quote from Sebeok.

Notice this time Sebeok’s quote is first. I think this means this is the first documented use of the term. How cool is that? By the way, Sebeok doesn’t limit his understanding of semiotics to humans or even animals.

“…[P]lants communicate complex messages, including tree-to-tree pheromonal warnings about caterpillar predators…. and cell-to-cell memory within cotton seedlings providing increased resisitance to mite predation.” Sebeok, I Think I am Verb, p. 20

I picked up a collection of Seamus Heaney when I was in Ireland. I have liked him for a while but have mostly read his translations (am I repeating myself?). When I get more serious about a poet I begin looking more closely at how the poems are constructed. Heaney’s work is exemplary in this way so far. I also ran across a very interesting web site with much background on specific poems.

Connecting with Seamus Heaney – Connecting with Seamus Heaney

This web site seems to be the work of the son of a Heaney expert making his father’s insights available to everyone on the web. There are videos of him reading his father’s comments which are quite charming. I find the background on specific poems invaluable.

I am sitting alone in Sarah’s house right now. Matthew is off helping his mom. Eileen, Sarah, and Lucy have been picking strawberries and stopped at the market on the way home. I have been attempting to make bread using weird Brit oven and materials.

The ovens have fans in them that changes the temperature…. and of course everything is centigrade.

Before they left, Lucy let me read her books. She kept interrupting me to give me big hugs. It was very pleasant and flattering.

Fortunately, she allowed me to stay behind while they went off to pick strawberries.

Since our wifi connections aren’t working out so well, my 3G sometimes doesn’t allow me to download the pics I have been receiving from Ireland.

The picture above is of Sandycove, the site for the beginning of Joyce’s Ulysses. We skipped it since public transportation was so expensive. The little girl in the pic is my grand daughter Alex. They went without us, since Diane’s friend, Bob, arrived after we left and drove them around. I would have liked to have seen this, but I’m not too disappointed. It’s more important to me to see my fam than sight see.

It looks like the bread worked.

We have moved to a B&B not far from Matthew, Sarah, and Lucy. We stayed at this same place in 2016 when we visited. The internet was spotty then and is no better now. Sarah contacted the owners and they opened up their new wedding barn which is near and gave us the password to the new, faster connection there. It’s kind of a pain, but at least I was able to do my Greek.

I seem to have left my blood pressure meds in the States. We discovered this on last weekend when I ran out of what I had in my little holder. First we went to the pharmacist at the big grocery store where we were shopping (Tesco).  The pharmacist gave me 5 days worth. He told me to wait until Monday then call 111 and ask for help. When we did this they said we would have to go to a pharmacist or a doctor to get more. We happen to be in Bicester on Monday shopping so we went to a pharmacist there. She told us that the Tesco dude shouldn’t have given us any meds and that we needed to go to a doctor.

So that’s what we did this morning. Sarah had to call for a same day appointment at 8 AM with her doctor. They scheduled us in at 9 and by 10 AM I had enough meds to last me until I come home. There was no charge for any of this except for the five days worth the Tesco guy gave me and that was only a couple of pounds.

I am finding that all of this running around wears me out, but it’s great spending time with the family.

I am learning how dependent I am on the ability to be able to stream the internet at any moment. I can do okay without it. Yesterday I pulled down a dictionary from the web since I often ask the web for the definition of words I don’t know.

I also pulled down Shakespeare’s complete works, Virginia Woolfe’s complete works, and the multi-volume Harvard Classics from Kindle. All for a combined price of about five dollars. This is helpful when I can’t get to the internet.

I’m about halfway through Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life. I found it bogging down last night. The book grabbed my interest at the beginning with its shifts of possible lives of the main character. Then it settled down into a bit of a hum drum account of her life for several chapters. I will return to it at some point in hopes that it gets better.

In the meantime, I have been reading Say Nothing:  A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Island. Normally I don’t go for true crime/war things but this was recommended online somewhere and is helping me become more conversant with the stuff in Ireland’s recent history.

Today marks about a month since my last Sunday at work. I had church dreams last night for the first time since taking off. Not exactly anxiety but a reminder that I need to keep decompressing.

Apparently, I’m not doing much blogging on vacation. When I think of it, it feels like a task, so I skip it.

We left Alex, Jeremy, Elizabeth, and Diane behind in Dublin on Friday.

 Jeremy amuses the grand daughters.

It was nice to have some time with Jeremy, Elizabeth, and Alex.

I didn’t get much of a chance to do James Joyce stuff in Dublin. Elizabeth took this shot for me after we left.

I did finish reading Dubliners by him.

And the ferry from Dublin to Wales was named Ulysses.

Rooms on board were named for stuff from Ulysses.

A large wooden mural confronts passengers when they arrive on the main floor in the ferry.

It’s a fair likeness.

I have to wonder how many passengers notice the correlation to, much any less have interest in Joyce. It was surreal, to say the least, after not doing very little Joycean stuff in Dublin to be deposited in a huge ferry dedicated to him.

We arrived very early and got breakfast before the place started filling up. As it was, it ended up very crowded.

Today is our second day staying with Sarah, Matthew, and Lucy in their home in Calvert Green. They are taking good care of us. I would like to get out of their hair. Our B & B will be ready this afternoon at 3, so we will be able to give them some alone time then.

Yesterday all of us got on a bus and went to downtown Dublin. That would be Elizabeth, Jeremy, and Alex; Jeremy’s Mom, Diane; Matthew, Sarah, and Lucy; and Eileen and I. It was crazy of course.

We arrived at the Cornucopia, a Vegan/Vegetarian establishment, twenty minutes before they served their Main Entrees and Specials. This visit took quite a while. After most of us had eaten, Eileen and I sneaked off and purchased a bread knife. I have been making bread with limited success due to unfamiliar ingredients and stove. But none of it works very well without a good bread knife.

We managed to randomly split into two groups when Matthew spotted a cool record/book store and ducked into it.

The Elizabeth group kept moving. I rushed ahead and told Eileen we were stopping at a book store. Eileen went ahead to the Elizabeth group. Earlier I had handed Elizabeth my phone so we were able to keep in touch.  It was a cool store.

I didn’t buy anything at this store, but was able later to visit the Ullysses Rare Book Shop.

This was a wonderful store. As one might expect, the books were rare and expensive. I saw editions of Joyce I had never seen in person before. I wanted to buy something so I found a 55 Euro copy of photographs of Joyce with an Introduction by Anthony Burgess/

This was one of the least expensive Joyce books I could find that I wanted.

The photos were amazing. This was one of the last pieces Burgess wrote, completed three months before his death in 1993. The book was published the following year.

Later I had everyone in the group sign it, including Lucy (the long  lines) and Alex.

I also picked up another copy of Beckett’s  Krapp’s Last Tape. I chatted the owner up about the fact that Sarah and I saw John Hurt perform this in the West End of London.

I had fun in Dublin. More later since it’s almost martini time on July 4, 2019 in Dublin, Ireland.

The brother of the owner of the house we are staying in met us and Diane Daum (Jeremy’s Mom) at the airport. His name was Brian and was very gracious. I’m afraid I babbled at him for the entire drive to the house after he made a couple polite inquiries.

It was a good lesson for me to work harder at keeping quiet.

After admiring the lavish home Diane had arranged for us to stay in via a house swap, Diane, Eileen, and I walked to the grocery store to get some supplies. I forgot that we were going to have carry everything home and filled up our grocery cart with way too much stuff. We pared it down, to three heavy bags.

We probably would have done better to go out to eat at a nearby restaurant and get supplies after we had an evening’s rest.

I did manage to get fixings for my evening martini so all was well. I was pretty tired as you can see.

This was the end of our first day in Dublin (Saturday). The next day, Jeremy, Elizabeth, and Alex arrived from a long flight from Beijing. They put us to shame by figuring out the bus system and taking a bus from the airport to the neighborhood where we are staying. They arrived in remarkably good spirits for having done such a long trip.

It was fun to see everyone. At one point, Alex insisted on playing with me. After some imagining, she took me by the hand and led me to the piano.  I had had the foresight to bring some music for kids. I told her that I had actually brought the Sesame Street book for her Mom, Dad, and Aunt Sarah. But we went through several songs. Alex insisted on sitting next to me on the small bench. It was flattering.

This morning (Monday) I was in the back yard exercising listening to a podcast when a voice shouted, “Turn that radio down!” Yikes. I shut it off and shouted back, “Sorry!” The back yard apparently feels more isolated than it is.

NYTimes: The Trump Fallacy

Rick and Morty
Fleabag
Community (TV series)

One of the fun things about seeing family is the suggestions of stuff to check out. These all come from Elizabeth and Jeremy.

Enslaved People Lived Here. These Museums Want You to Know

I like how things are adjusting to more accurately reflect history.

Vladimir Putin says liberalism has ‘outlived its purpose’