I Think There Was A Saturday

I know I woke at 4 am yesterday, full of good intentions. Those last about an hour. Then I woke about 8 with some more good intentions around 8. I did some work on the blog and I got trash out and then took a siesta. Around 3:30 I got on the bus, went to CVS for my prescription, stopped at the laundry on the way back, and made it back here before 6 PM. Success, right? Well, except for me finally falling out before 8 PM. The heat got to me, again. This time I slept through the night to 4 AM, so you could get this post this morning. 

From a few days ago, Roddy Doyle: ‘People used to say I was undermining family life … ludicrous stuff’ 

Doyle is one of the writers I meant to write while in prison; COVID shut down the interlibrary loan program, and I still have not. I want to say I ahve read short story, or an essay, but I have seen some of the movies made from his novels. Which led me to this video this morning:

I have finally gotten to reading Gore Vidal's The Golden Age. I am not liking it, I am trying to finish out his historical novels, and so I persist in a grumbling way. I decided to see what others thought of it. I found Zachary Leader's review, No Accident from The London Review of Books (2001). I think everyone agrees it was not a good ending to Vidal's career as a novelist - I do not find the prose has his usual wit and there is a lack of his usual ability to provoke. However, I think I am finally getting a clue about his intent in his historical novels (American division): our leaders have been hypocritical, anti-democratic seekers of power. Which, I guess, leaves Aaron Burr as typical, not atypical, of our leaders.

Thanks to Vidal, I had another idea of Burr: that he might have provided a break from the Southern slave power that was represented by Jefferson/Madison/Monroe and an alternative to the Adams/Hamilton Federalist North.

Here is what I knew about Delmore Schwartz before last night: Lou Reed knew him and was a fan. Reading The trouble with Delmore by William Logan tells me about the vagaries of literary fame.

I want to do a separate post on Why people stay after local economies collapse − a story of home among the ghosts of shuttered steel mills.

Edna O'Brien meets Graham Norton, a good way to start the morning:

Seeing how other parts of the world thinks: LRB Blog.

An hour gone this morning, no idea if I am going to church, but got a load of work from last night needing my attention.

I am sure I am forgetting something of interest.....

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