Wrapping up a short Thanksgiving visit in Chelsea. I enjoyed myself. It is so pleasant to be with people I care about and get a chance to chat with them.

There wasn’t too much political talk at our Thanksgiving. Tony, my nephew Ben’s husband, did bring up politics. We are mostly crazy liberals. So, of course, we are struggling with the terrible state of our nation. I brought along an extra copy of On The Road to Unfreedom by Snyder in case I thought someone might like to have a copy. I gave it to Tony and he seemed interested.

He also mentioned he was currently interested in the history of Byzantium. This is an area Mark has long been interested in and has considerable expertise and knowledge. Mark ended up loaning Tony a book by a professor friend of his, Harry Magoulioas. I love this shit.

“The Curfew,” by Roddy Doyle | The New Yorker

This is fun. Roddy Doyle has a story in the upcoming issue of The New Yorker. The main character bears a suspicious resembles to Doyle himself and mentions reading On The Road to Unfreedom.

Mark is as addicted to books as I am. Yesterday a beautiful book arrived in the mail, To Laugh That We May Not Weep: The Art & Times of Art Young. I had not heard of this political cartoonist. Art Spiegelmann wrote the introduction to this beautifully made book.

How to Talk to Trump-Loving Relatives at Thanksgiving – The Atlantic

There is truth and there is Trump. Truth won’t stop being truth. Trump won’t stop being Trump.

Opinion | Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Cancellation of Colin Kaepernick

An interesting reframing of the notion of cancel culture.

What was the Compromise of 1877, which ended Reconstruction, but the cancellation of the black South? What were the detention camps during World War II but the racist muting of Japanese-Americans and their basic rights?

It turns out the afternoon can be prime time for me to sit and read. That’s the case today. So, here’s a short little blog.

Malcolm Nance is a former United States Navy senior chief petty officer specializing in naval cryptology. From his point of view as former military expert on ISIS and other stuff, he has some very convincing things to say about how we are in big trouble right now. I highly recommend listening to this video.

He has several books out.

There’s also this:

Malcolm Nance on the Danger of Conspiracy Theories | The New Yorker

WooHoo! Time to go read!

I have been finishing up books. Besides Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown, I finished The Road to Unfreedom by Timothy Snyder. This latter book I found extremely helpful in the face of the madness of the everyday news in America right now. Snyder was friends with the late, great Tony Judt and I find myself returning to his Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century.

This is a book I have laying around and have read in. After having read On the Road to Unfreedom I felt it was worth looking at again. Judt and Snyder were colleagues and even collaborated. They are rare  voices of sanity.

I’m almost done with this book. I had this idea of sending books to my grandkids, kids, and my brother and sister-in-law. This is the book I sent to my grandson, Nicholas. All the books I have sent to people, I have inscribed. I know that means they can’t return them, but I know how much my inscribed books mean to me, So I thought especially in the case of my grand-kids, it would be nice to do that. I haven’t sent anything to Lucy inscribed yet, but I will when she gets a bit older. (Hi Sarah!)

I watched another couple of videos on YouTube.  I searched for Marlon James on YouTube. The first thing I found was an interview he did with Rushdie. I watched that. It was okay. They are two peas in a pod though Rushdie is older. They both have an excellent perspective on America and England and use English with a lovely lilt that reflects their origin.

I found a better video of James and began watching it this morning. I struggled a bit getting started with his Black Leopard, Red Wolf. I was very interested and motivated, but the syntax threw me off a bit. He has a thick Jamaican accent and is intentionally writing an English that uses rhythms and myths of Africa. On my second attempt I read aloud. That helped.d Then I heard him say that he, himself, reads his work aloud. It does help.

I’m back to feeling a bit isolated. I think I turn to YouTube for literary companionship. I know this is a bit pathetic but it does help. I am looking forward to seeing family at Thanksgiving. We will go to Chelsea to be a part of that branch of the family’s Thanksgiving. That will probably help me a bit. But I think not rubbing shoulders with people who like what I like in books, music, and poetry is just a given of my current life. No matter. I find it very rewarding to read and think and play music and continue to be grateful for that.

Impeachment hearings: America’s epistemic crisis has arrived – Vox

NYTimes: The People We Fear Are Just Like Us

Alan Lomax’s Massive Music Archive Is Online: Features 17,000 historic blues and folk recordings

I’m isolated, sure. But the interweb has fantastic things like this link and the next one. The actual archive link is here. Lomax has had a huge influence on me.

Over 100,000 Vinyl LPs Are Being Digitized By the Internet Archive

Malcolm Nance on Trump, Ukraine, and Russia

I have been reorganizing my books since getting some new shelves and making an office for myself in the guest bedroom on the main floor. I decided it would be helpful to have a shelf where I keep recently finished books. The picture above is that shelf.

I’m beginning to see a pattern in how I read fiction. The last three major works I have finished (Song of Solomon, Pale Fire, and Shalimar the Clown) have left me wanting to talk to other people who have read them. I filled this need with YouTube. This worked but of course it’s not as fun as being with live people.

When I was in China, Jeremy and I were talking about Alan Moore. When I brought up Jerusalem, after listening to Jeremy’s comments on it, I asked him if he had read it. He replied, “You gave it to me!” I remembered that but was surprised anyway. Unreasonably so, because one of the many things I admire about Jeremy is that he, like me, is a passionate reader.

I was watching a 2005 presentation by Rushdie on Shalimar this morning. One of his comments registered with me. He said that he was comfortable with people who felt he was a vulgarian. In fact, he owned this title. He pointed out the etymology of vulgar was vulgas the common people. This is helpful to me. I know that my tastes are wide. Rushdie pointed out that he enjoyed both Homer Simpson and Homer the author of the Odyssey and the Iliad. This seems very logical to me. The “both-and” thing is something that is an integral part of my life long tastes in music and books.

A VPN is a Virtual Private Network. It fools the internet connection you are using into thinking you are someplace else. Say if you are in China which blocks a lot of internet, you try to convince it you are in Los Angeles. I used one in China.

Saturday I had to update my Windows. This involves restarting the computer. Apparently VPNs automatically turn themselves on when you restart.

I did not know that.

I couldn’t figure out why all of a sudden my laptop could not communicate with my modem and my internet connection. My and Eileen’s other device worked fine.

After much fussing about with complicated fixes accessed on my phone, I called my brother. He asked about the VPN. Sure enough, that was the problem. Sheesh.

Eileen and I are both recovering from our trip. Saturday morning, I accidentally got up at 3 AM thinking it was 5 AM. I didn’t discover this until it was about 9 AM. I think this set back my recovery from jet lag considerably.

Church went well yesterday. Eileen stayed home. I coughed all night Saturday and ruined her sleep. That and jet lag induced her to skip church. The choir was very understanding of my jet lag and subsequent impaired functioning.

I felt like my improvisations were very effective but that could have been the jet lag as well.

I have a student coming round soon. Time to get offline and do some reading before he arrives.

Eileen and I are safely back in Holland. The trip yesterday was long. The person driving us from the airport to our car parked in a motel parking lot guessed correctly that we had been going for 24 hours. Even though both of our flights to China to and fro were the same airline, the experience was very different returning. The seats were less comfortable and there was less space. The food was lousy.

That’s not unusual. Airline food can be lousy. But on the trip over it was okay. Or maybe I was less critical. I have had some tasty airline meals and they are definitely unusual ones.

I was very glad to spend time with my family members who live in Beijing. I am surprised that being with them and my family in the UK was so viscerally important to me this time.  The wonderful ability to connect with people around the world online does not include touching them and being with them in the same room. I especially appreciated the opportunity to do that this year.

I enjoyed reading long passages of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass to Alex. For a five year old she seemed to follow the  wonderful stories closely and like them.

She also likes to make pictures, of course. The picture above is a portrait of herself, her mom, and her dad that she made specifically for us to take home with us.

I do love the way kids make pictures.

These are all pictures by Alex that I took photos of.

So we’re back. Life is good if a little jet lagged.

Today we went to “Music” street and searched for a piano. It turns out to be much cheaper to buy a piano than to rent one. So we bought a new Yamaha full keyboard electric piano for about $350.  Elizabeth hired a van to drive us and it back to her apartment. I was relieved when the driver agreed to carry it up the six floors for an extra fee.

The late afternoons are the worse time for jet lag.

I have been reading to Alex. Yesterday I read to her from Harold Bloom’s Stories for Intelligent Children of All Ages. Some Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, and Aesop. It holds her attention well. Today I offered to read picture books to her instead. She seemed surprised that I would do that as well as read from books with no pictures.

Unfortunately we spent some time in her bedroom on the floor and my back is now aching.

But of course it was worth it.

This morning I purchased an audio book version of Snyder’s The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America. I plan to read it anyway, but it holds my attention well as I exercise.

I find it interesting that Snyder points out that Thucydides wrote the History of the Pelloponnesian War while it was still happening. This contradicts the idea that history is something that is written about the distant past. Likewise, Snyder is bringing historical insights into the dystopian present.

The Humanoid Stain | Barbara Ehrenreich

We had a much less eventful trip to China than we did to Dublin earlier this year. We are safe and sound in China. It is so good to see Elizabeth, Jeremy, and Alex in person after mostly seeing them online for the last year or so.

I am jet lagged. Eileen wasn’t sleeping great the last two nights before we left. She managed to get a good night’s sleep last night. I skipped exercising on Monday morning before we left. This was good because I wouldn’t have had time since I spent the morning attending to last minute packing details.

But this morning I got up and did some exercising despite the fatigue.

With the help of Elizabeth and Jeremy, I have good access to the internet with all my devices. I was prepared to do without, but that’s not the deal.

Before leaving I managed to finish two novels, Who Put This Song On? by Morgan Parker and Flieschman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodessor-Akner.

The Parker book which seems to be directed at teens initially interested me because the teenage character mentions a lot of music she and her friends are listening to. I made lists of music and then made playlists of it on Spotify. Many of the groups and songs she mentioned I recognized. This made more sense to me when I discovered that Parker loosely based the book on her own life. She is about thirty years old, so when she was seventeen many of the groups kids were listening to seem to be groups I know like Weezer, and Radiohead. But there were many groups and songs I didn’t recognize, so it was fun to check them out on Spotify.

Both books were informative to me about how people are using tech. In the Flieschman book, one of the main characters in the divorce (Flieschman) explodes onto the single scene via hook up apps that let participants know who is within a reasonable distance and is ready to have sex.

This is outside of my experience of course so it’s interesting to read about.

I found myself having a bit of a prudish reaction to the Parker book because the main character, Morgan, who is quite likable in the midst of her ongoing clinical depression and troubles, is also quite flippant about high school sex. Specifically, blowjobs.

Eileen and I were talking about this. Both of us were not hip to blow jobs in high school However, it occurs to me that my grand daughters would probably know what blow jobs are. I think it’s a bit different now and this novel informed me about this sort of thing. However, I would be very hesitant to pass this teen novel to my grand daughters.

This is a bit new for me. I prefer openness about sex and recall Lenny Bruce’s comment that typifying gay people as cocksuckers was a misnomer since in his opinion it would describe any woman he would want “know.”

Bruce was (is) a huge influence on me. After my father saw the ficitonalized bio pic starring Dustin Hoffmann he remarked that I made a little more sense to him after that.

I miss my Dad.

It was fun to give Jeremy and Elizabeth a bunch of books. They read a lot of ebooks since they are easier to obtain than real copies, especially stuff from the states I would imagine.  So I like to think that real books are good gifts for them.

Well, the old guy (me) is tired so I’m going to stop here and work on staying awake all day today (this is the recommended operating procedure for dealing with the drastic time difference).