September 2014

SEPTEMBER 2014 

First day of school for Emma and first day here for us.  10:14pm and I am ready to drop, drop, drop. 

Same this evening, Thursday, Sept 4.  That was Monday Sept 1.  Dinner here two evenings in a row, take-out from their new favorite Sicilian place although the pizzas seem to come from different places. 

Cochin font.  A street near here Cochin.  Same?  Nope.  Font produced in 1912-13

Friday almost 7 pm.  Sept 5.  Day worked out Perfectly, now over to 70 to sit while Emma takes a bath. 

MONDAY Sept 8  Dave called early, Emma with fever, took her to the medic, wanted us to stroll Eliot but we weren’t dressed yet.  Just finished breakfast and waiting to see if he messages, otherwise off for a walk in the early cool in hopes of beating the heat which will be close to 80 for a short while today.  Feels less humid thank goodness. 

So much to catch up on.  The first week now history, five to go.  Will seem way too short and probably too way too long.  Ten-thirty now almost and that is the time for Emma’s usual recess---we can hear the kids out running around and screaming right now.  Should make an audio.  Video made.

Weds Sept 10  11:25 am Balloon in the air at the science place off to the right horizon, I sit facing the wall. 

Sense of trying to catch our breath, take our bearings.  Baby sitting is not for the weak or weak of heart.  We’ve done stretches each day so far, I think.  Yesterday was pretty good, but even sitting and watching tv takes energy because you know the child is asleep and vulnerable.  Anne-Cha showed up and she and Cécile went to the Sicilian place while Dave walked Eliot around the block for hours.  He showed us how to get Masters of Sex on the computer so we got caught up.  It is so good or at least it seems so good.  Now we are trying to get out to walk up to the bridge and this time make it. 

night   We made it to the bridge and the statue of Liberty maquette.  Fine lunch at square Charles-Michel.  Baklava at Noura and skimmed Lebanese history on the iphone.  Remember doing that a year or so ago or was it last May.  Walked home, tuckered by the end.  Kids were Here waiting for us.  I had given C the key yesterday.  She used it and got a good nap.  Had sushi on the balcony. 

long email from Phil the other day I want to paste in---
Hello Cousins and Friends,

Last weekend I took my annual trek up to Cumberland to check on family graves, eat some hotdogs at Curtis's infamous diner, and look around to see what has changed.   This time I ran into a few big surprises.

1.  About 6 miles before one gets to Cumberland is the Rocky Gap Hotel, Golf Center, and Spa.  Built, as I recall, in the early 1980s, the hotel is nice and the golf course was designed by Jack Nicklaus.  There is also a small lake with a beach.   Unfortunately, it was never successful until last year, a gambling casino was added.   Now, the parking lot is totally - and I mean totally - full as is the new additional parking lot. The hotel is booked solid every week on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and the Ramada Inn (formerly Holiday Inn) in downtown Cumberland gets about 30% of their business as overflow from Rocky Gap.  I went in the casino.   The place is jammed full of slot machines (but all are operated by buttons rather than an arm that one cranks.)  There are also tables for black jack, poker, craps, and roulette. I arrived just after noon on Saturday and there were already at least 200 people at the slots and tables, which were going gangbusters.   What kind of people?  Well, I don't think there were any PhDs.  They looked more like working-class hillbillies from Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania (Altoona) and even Connecticut.  A lot of them were seriously overweight, had to occasionally step outside for a cigarette, and sporting tattoos and shirts that said they rooted for the Pittsburgh Steelers or the Baltimore Ravens or the Dallas Cowboys.  But if they were low-income, they drove pretty decent cars and pickups.  There were no jalopies in any of the parking lots.  And, wow, were they intent on whatever game they were playing.  Bing, bing, bing, bing.   By the way, I did see about four people playing golf, and some kids were playing on the hotel's beach.

BTW:  Baltimore just opened a downtown casino, and another casino will open just outside DC shortly.  Sign of the times, I think.

2.  Allegany County is now the poorest in Maryland.   All the major factories closed by the mid '80s, and the only new employers in the county are: a McDonald's Restaurant in LaVale and three new prisons (two state and one federal.)  But the downtown buildings, even if empty, are being well maintained.  The whole town looks tidy and manicured.  Buildings that can't be maintained have been torn down.  And I didn't see any litter anywhere in the country.  I'm aware of litter because Washington DC has litter everywhere.

3.  Memorial Hospital has been almost completely demolished.  The "new" Sacred Heart Hospital (built on top of Haystack Mountain in the 1970s) will be demolished next year, and a new Allegany High School will be built in that location on top of the mountain.  (i was told that the current Allegany High School building is the oldest public school building still in use in Maryland.)   A new "Western Maryland Hospital" has been built on the eastern edge of the city.

4.  On Saturday afternoon, the local high schools in Cumberland were playing soccer rather than football.  When I lived in Cumberland I don't think most people could even spell soccer.  "Socker?"

5.  A tree right next to our grandparents' grave at the top of Rose Hill Cemetery has been removed.  I think the tree's roots were threatening our family's caskets, but everything is probably okay now. (No, I did not dig down six feet to be sure.)   The tree was nearest to Aunt Olivia and farthest from Aunt Siba and Bob Yancy.  But I think no one was disturbed.  The hole left by the tree has been partially filled but the earth has not been smoothed and re-seeded with grass.  Yet a square yard of somewhat rough ground harms no one.  The stone and markers are fine, as are the nearby markers for Aunt Martha and Uncle Arthur.  My parents and brother are in another cemetery but they are doing fine, too.

6.  Now for THE BIGGEST SURPRISE:  After Aunt Olivia died, the family house at 522 Washington Street (which can be viewed on Google earth) went on the market.  In the 1980s a big brick, three-story Victorian-era house in a primo Cumberland location could only fetch $50,000.  As I recall, the original bidder reneged on the deal, and Cousin Bill Carlson finally had to agree to sell the place for $35,000 to a man who owned a liquor store.  That owner didn't do much to the house, but the next owner, a chiropractor, put some money into it and even brought in advisers/architects from out of town who came up with the new exterior paint job that shows off the structure's features.  But the chiropractor and his wife are now divorcing and, therefore, selling the house.  It's now on the market for....$549,000!!!!!   Furthermore, another three-story Victorian house just down the block (where Aunt Olivia used to buy eggs from an old woman who lived there in the 1950s) is going for about $450,000.  How this is happening in the poorest county in Maryland is somewhat of a mystery to me. Maybe the new Rocky Gap Casino has something to do with these prices.  However, I suspect that the price in both cases is rather negotiable.  Still...$549,000!!!!

Hope all are well.

Cheers,

Phil

PS.  By the way, my novel based on Cumberland "A Sense of Loss" still sells modestly, and I will publish another novel later this year. "Long After the War" is about a successful businessman in Washington who, in 2005, sets out to find out how his best friend from high school was killed in Vietnam in 1968.   Next year I will publish what may be my last novel: "Damaged Lives."
I should add that I'm only too well aware that I'm producing works in a medium - writing and reading - that is very rapidly disappearing.  

----------
Thursday 11 Sept 8:18 am
Determined to vary the mix of the morning  schedule.  Willow still sleeping. 

my reply to phil was

Hi
Enjoyed all this news about Cumberland.  Gambling big item of discussion in NH and I heard someone say that most Americans now live within 45 minutes of some sort of gambling venue.

The housing price leap even in C is good news I guess for everyone in the top 10 or 20 percent--Washington Street.  Thank goodness it will all trickle down eventually.

We are lucking out here with a wonderful stretch of sunny weather.  I sure love bouncing around a city rather than exploring a beach and beachside town over and over as we did in Spain in the spring.

Hanging out with family is tiring.  Baby sitting two kids is tiring.  Trying to get a baby to quiet down and not cry even though he's had a huge nursing session is tiring.  Usually involves pushing him in a
carriage for a long, long time until he finally conks out.

Otherwise we're having a splendid time!  Dave showed us how to see tv shows and movies semi-legally on our computer.  TV in the apt is not yet hooked up properly.  I think I forget how to read a book by now even though I brought some with me.

B

-------

We watched Outlander after the kids went home.  What a crock.  But Romantic bodice-ripper variety that is well-produced in Scotland.  Beautiful woman stars.  All the correct feminist themes the author grew up with.  Sympathetic history of the clans and their noble lives, the women so happy bonded into groups to dye the wool and fix the dye by kneading the cloth on the communal board with their own piss and after having a tipple of home brew. 

So where, then, are we?  Wonderful weather days.  Testing our walking mettle against the streets and avenues we’re getting to know.
In the Spanish novel, Paris, which I continue to inch forward in, the narrator has just seen his father by mistake and is watching him have a wine in a bar. 

Nights are cooler, mornings cooler.  Still getting up to about 72-74 in the days.  Nice breeze keeps the mugginess factor lower.  Trying to update the Kindle and revive it.  Meanwhile, water keeps rising slowly in the well and the hole in the bucket is getting plugged a bit more each day.  A toasty and snug winter ahead. 

Nicholas likes Jean Giono.  Did we both know this years ago?  Almost 8pm now.  Thursday evening.  Sunny now, sunset outside.  We started for the quai around noon but made it only as far as a bench just off Suffren.  I boldly went forward all the way to the Batobus location to scout.  Then back.  Distances felt enormous.  Tourists gaggled all around.  We headed for the Piquet for a fine lunch there.  Came home and napped.  While we were, Cecile came in with the key but then went to her place when she saw we were napping.  Small dinner and now some reading.  Feels good to spend some time alone at home.  Watched some shows every evening.  Youtube and Couchtuner. 

Now I think my novel could adapt Giralt Torrent’s plot and shape.  Ha, as always. 

Saturday morning 11:15   13th of Sept 

Strangely tranquil most of yesterday and last night.  Nice.  Gorgeous weather continues.  Everything clicking along sweetly.  Baby sitting duties this afternoon with Cécile while Dave goes off to a rock gig that came up last-minute. 

Now see the narrator caught in two intertwining webs of potential conspiracy and confusion, the couriers and the former patients, while also mourning the disappearance of his wife.  Mourning, indifference and vague paranoia. 

Andy Wimbush’s fine essay on Beckett :
“In the next section, I will argue that the tension between a meliorist humanism and a resignationist quietism is one that Beckett found creatively productive.”
“‘For the intelligent Amiel there is only one landscape’. This is a reference to the Swiss poet and philosopher Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881), who is best known for his extensive diary writing, published as Journal intime. The ‘landscape’, then, is the terrain of the mind and the self, perhaps what Amiel referred to as ‘la conscience de la conscience’ (1976, 2:441) [consciousness of consciousness].

“We cannot, therefore, unambiguously assume that Beckett is being critical of MacGreevy when he describes his poetry as inward or even solipsistic. It was, after all, the ‘Celtic drill of extraversion’ that Beckett really despised in poetry (1984, 73).

love that line the Celtic drill of extraversion---that damned Irish dancing troupe we saw---not Lord of the Dance but can’t recall the name now--saw a poster for it here in Paris a few days ago --- 

I sure never know Schopenhauer was a source for all of this

“although in Murphy’s case, not Catholicism but a mixture of Pythagoreanism, Democritean atomism, astrology, and Schopenhauerian quietism–and the need for communion and friendship with others. The narrator of Murphy notes the ‘unintelligible gulf’ between the patients at the Magdalen Mental Mercyseat and Murphy, who, despite being a ‘seedy solipsist’ is ultimately distressed by his exclusion from their ‘brotherhood’ (Beckett, 2009a, 149, 53, 111).

“Consequently he found himself delving into self, instead of seeking communion with the deity. The result was an ‘abject self-referring quietism’, ‘isolationism’ and a ‘crescendo of disparagement of others & myself’ (257–8). This, he adds, was what led him to seek out psychotherapy in 1933. It would seem that one of Beckett’s withering comments about Rilke applies just as much to himself: in his writing there is ‘the overstatement of the solitude which
Another Look at Beckett’s ‘Humanistic Quietism’ 213
he cannot make his element’ (1984, 66). Most importantly, there is a sense in the letter that Beckett feels his own incurable lack of religious belief to be an obstacle or a hindrance in his search for solace.

“What Beckett seems to be advocating here is self-knowledge that is as free from narcissism as it is from self-loathing. He wants the poet to be sufficiently aware of his or her own worth and priorities, while still being able to see where both these things might be enhanced (‘doubled’). And then, once the enhancement (‘enrichment’) of the poet’s worth and priorities has taken place, the poet should still retain his or her initial quasi-quietistic composure of ‘light, calm and finality’, and not be overthrown by self-aggrandisement. Why? Because this lightness and calm is what ‘composed’ the enrichment of the poet’s value and concerns in the first place. Again, this seems to indicate both self-awareness and humility. My reading of this final paragraph would fit with what Beckett says elsewhere in the review about the union of humility and hope, and the mid-point between the abject publican and the proud Pharisee. It also demonstrates the productive tension of the article’s oxymoronic title: humanism provides the melioristic attitude while quietism provides the humility. Taken together they lead to healthy self-knowledge. In effect, what Beckett is advocating is precisely the opposite of the ‘abject self-referring quietism’ that he would admit to having ‘twisted’ from The Imitation of Christ in 1935. Whereas this solipsistic quietism gave rise to both arrogance and self-loathing, a humanistic quietism might bring about a genuine humility coupled with a clear sense of ‘one’s value’ and worth.

great paragraph there

“between and inclusive of” might come in hand in the book

“But neat as this reading might be, it is difficult to reconcile this with the fact that Beckett says that this ‘good’ prayer can be found ‘between and inclusive of’ the two extremes of the whinging publican and the proud pharisee, rather than simply between them.”

email from Bob Feeny helped spur me into reading this piece which arrived free of charge from the beckett Journal---in Edinburgh, come to think of it --- 

2:43 pm here so early am when he sent it ? 

Hey Garlitz,

Hope everything is going well!  I've seen a few Facebook photos, and tried to message you on there but could not.  Not sure why.  In any case, we should talk when you back.  I'm thinking I'm going to apply to a couple divinity schools (Harvard, Chicago, Union Theological in NY, Yale?).   If nothing works out there, I'll stay at Dartmouth.  They have  great religion faculty, and the program is pretty flexible.  I think I want to be a campus minister.  Seems like it would combine my love of working with people with my desire to engage the big questions.

Enjoy the family!

Talk to you soon,
Bob

---------

Sunday morning  14th

Now I’m worried that I read that Andy Wimbush piece six months ago and only now realized it.  ??

Kigers not coming to NH.  Her brother Clyde is dying or close to it.  Email this morning.  Oh well, we got a great trip back to Paris for the trouble.  Maybe it will be the excuse in another year for something similar. 

Willow has a scratchy throat, trying to Zicam it in the bud.  Foggy morning air gives that effect, scratchy city air.  And sleeping that close to that open window.  Can’t do that any more.  Plus the babies.  Nice evening with them last night.  Ann-Cha also here.  Emma danced all around a lot, lots of energy and Eliot loved watching here, laughing with delight over and over. 

End of our second week.  Four to go if my math is almost accurate. 

Nap time here.  Willow.  Good walk by myself up to the Georges Brassens parc.  Big park.  Just glanced in.  Hour up and back.  Slight upgrade all the way.  Hotter and more humid today. 

Pierre supposed to come later to hook up tv.  See if we miss it or not. 

Email about Ed Schwartz’s new book, now up on Amazon with CreateSpace---Jews that I Knew.  Hadn’t realized that he is six years older than us.  He was, then, weighted much more by the war memories of those all around him in the Borscht Belt.  Catskills.  Livingston Manor. 

Willow does feel she’s got the basic shape in place for her Frank Brown paper on V-I.  That’s great news.  That ol Coleridgean-Burkean illness-creativity loop.  Really quiet day to shake off the incipient cold/allergy and then creativity flows and she has her paper almost in final shape.  A long day of writing for her.  I got in three nice walks, one long, hour and two shorts.  Quiet day for reading lots---moving along in Paris.  Definitely like the Mariasean style of Torrents---not fair to him to make that adjective, unless he consciously sees himself as continuing in the furrow JM first plowed.  Wonder if? 

Night.  More tv on the computer.  Pierre never showed.  Maybe tomorrow.  Not one word from the Family.  Everyone needed a super quiet day. 

15TH SEPT Monday
Gouté time.  Lunch with Dave and Eliot.  They found out E has a wee asthma, they gave him some ventolin.  He seems a bit calmer and happier if a little wheezy.  R-P came in last night to cover for evening so the kids went to see “Jersey Boys” at the Chaplin.  Dave enjoyed it.  Christopher Walken as the mob boss.  Clint Eastwood made that other music docudrama years ago, name now escapes me, which was very successful. 


Another glorious day.  What a stretch of golden weather.  Willow’s cold seems abating.  We went for a short walk up to the Miro garden that I had found on my first walk this morning.  Beautiful roses still in bloom.  Bought some stuff at the Naturalia.  Just like a natural foods store at home, with lots of local touches.  That bakery called Prichard is still there even though to my eye the sign over the door seems to say something else.  Dave told us all about the delicate differences in boulangeries and their snobberies.  Plus legal restrictions and subsidies surrounding the price of the genuine bagatelle vs variations each boulangerie works out to be able to charge higher prices.  Sushi for lunch with D and E.  Emma was all excited for Eliot by the fact that he made his first visit to the crêche this morning. 


Tues 16th Sept

After lunch.  Internet was down this morning so I called the agency.  Matthieu answered and said he would be right over.  I went out for a walk, bought a salad for lunch and some pastries.  Hankering for onion on the salad and pastries.  Humidity of the morning blew off, thank goodness.  Just as I got to the door Matthieu showed up on his motorcycle with the new cable router.  Ten minutes later we’re all hooked up for TV and cable.  Pastries disappointing.  We’re on call to take Eliot for an hour or two at 3 while Emma and Cécile nap. 

Phil sent long piece about an essay by A O Scott in the Times. 


my replies

Like all that you say about the Scott piece.  But his use of Fiedler caught me by surprise and makes me suspicious, probably too much so.  Given his pop culture bailiwick, citing Fiedler feels  really dated.  I suspect he has in mind to pitch the piece squarely at us---our demographic still glances at a sunday times magazine "thought" piece, but he knows no one under forty does.

Sex as with Updike and his Jewish compeers is what they thought sold and sure it is all about the money.  Especially for the middle-age idiots who run all the old main line media.  The internet has them crazy with fear because the new channels for distribution, production, everything multiply every six months.  Here for instance I log in to my pricey home internet & cable provider and they tell me I'm not on US soil so I can't see stuff.  So Dave shows me how easy it is to access Everything on a site like Couchtuner and voila tons of stuff there for free.

But back to Fiedler's take.  Was that the only book Scott read in college?

Internet screw-ups here earlier today.  Agency guy showed
up pretty quickly to fix it and finally hook us up to the tv we
had paid for, two weeks late.

Anyway, back to Fiedler.  I have a terrible confession.  I never read the whole book.  Already famous for those two points about Huck Finn and sex but I had not realized that his overall argument was about the immaturity of American culture.  Somehow I wonder if DeToqueville even predicted this?

The novels of someone like Louis Auchincloss come to mind.  A writer I tried to read when I was in college precisely because I had the vague image that he was an adult writer, unlike Salinger, who by the way we could blame for all of it--the whole 1950s forward obsession with staying forever young.  Might even be why he went all hermit on us and himself, could not face growing up into a phoney.

I could say too that reading foreign writers in translation appealed more and more in a search for something beyond our boyish-girlish culture.

Agree with you especially on the point of Beyoncé.  How on earth Scott brought her in was beyond me and I felt there indeed was a false move on his part, straining somehow to get a nod of applause from Michele Obama or something.

It was a fine sundaymorning farrago of a piece and he had the predictable grace to include himself in the gentle condemnation by telling us to get off his lawn at the end.

Of course he leaves out huge areas of material.  Why not argue that Noir keeps us in touch with the adult---Raymond Chandler et al forward?  And yet even there, noir has become harrypotterized like everything else.

Va has us watching "Outlander" and if sets my teeth on edge just to watch it.  Apparently it competes with Game of Thrones, which I saw one or two episodes of and said not for me.  It is all YA and fantasy--which means anything can lead to anything else, time travel etc---and just to replace any longings for adult behavior or even adult sex--these new products throw in the most horrendous sadistic violence you've seen in a while.  British officer scourging a Scots renegade nearly to death with all the blood possible and suffering dramatized.  Strange brews of puerility and violence to sort of stand-in for, cover over, the absence of any substance.

Here is an exchange between an actress who lives in NYC and myself about the Scott article.

P

PS  Wonderful weather here, too.  Started yesterday and due to last all week.

Subject: Re: MYTimes
From: nancyrleroy@me.com
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 13:52:13 -0400
To: jpjones33@hotmail.com

Didn't mean to send that. Wanted to say only that misogyny comment only meant as An aside, as it was in the article. Has little to do with thrust of the article. So hope the rest of your comments not about misogyny, present or not.  Misogyny here to stay more than racism since eventually we 'll all be the same color. Although I bet lighter skin still considered better. More later.

Sent from my iPhone
202-302-1886


On Sep 15, 2014, at 1:41 PM, "J. P. Jones" <jpjones33@hotmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

I"m really glad you suggested that I read this piece.  In fact, I read it yesterday, thought about it, and had to read it again today.

My reaction is a bit different from yours, I think. The implication of what you wrote (below) is that if misogyny had been gotten rid of, then the current American culture would be adult and not childlike.   I don't agree and I don't think Scott would, either.   After all, he points out that just as freedom from any restraint has allowed male viewpoints in film and TV to become more and more puerile and childish, so, towards the end of the article, he notes that the same thing is occurring in female-oriented comedy, films, TV programs.   Everyone, at least on TV and in movies and perhaps even in novels, is becoming like a spoiled little kid.  Boys don't like girls and grownups.  Girls don't like boys and grownups.  And, finally, Scott points out that the misogyny of today's childish boys is nowhere near as mean and brutal as the misogyny of the men of the past.
 
However, I have to admit to a weakness in my understanding here.  I don't have cable TV and so I not only haven't seen a lot of the programs Scott mentions, I haven't even heard of them before.   I have, however, heard of Mad Men, and I watched one episode of "Breaking Bad."   I also saw quite a few episodes of "The Sopranos" several years ago.  But that's about it.   Likewise, with some of the films he mentions:   I've never seen them.  So I'm at a disadvantage here.

On the other hand, the programs or, more likely, ads for upcoming programs or previews for upcoming films turn me off so completely that I'm sure I agree with anyone who is critical of today's "culture" of childishness, violence,  chic-flics, vampires, reality TV, rap, pop music, etc. etc.  (How Scott can see Beyonce  as a central figure in anything but mindless pop music is beyond me.  However, it's probably true that pop music is about as deep a cultural experience as any millenial has had.  I really think TV has turned huge swaths of people into pretty fucking shallow dolts who think that 50 Cent or Taylor Swift of Beyonce are some kind of gods to adore.)

So what is adult lit.  I was pleasantly surprised to see Scott mention Leslie Fiedler.  In the past 10 or 15 years I have mentioned Fiedler and his once-famous book about the American novel to people here in Washington only to be met with blank stares.   The few who recognized the name turned out to have not read the book. "Ecce Washington" - as someone in the Renaissance might have said.

Anyway, Scott rightly describes Fiedler's view: "Fiedler saw American literature as sophomoric. He lamented the absence of books that tackled marriage and courtship — for him the great grown-up themes of the novel in its mature, canonical form. Instead, notwithstanding a few outliers like Henry James and Edith Wharton, we have a literature of boys’ adventures and female sentimentality. Or, to put it another way, all American fiction is young-adult fiction."

I both agree and disagree with Fiedler.  I agree that much of American lit is young-adult fiction, but do not completely agree with him about what is adult fiction.  Male-female courtship and marriage is adult, but it is not the only adult subject.   I feel that Fiedler is too focused on sex because it is a fixation in Jewish literature - viz. Roth, Freud,   I think Jews fixate on that subject because, throughout history, they have been barred in real life from the larger issues of society - politics, societal achievement, wars, etc.  Jews have been kept powerless and the powerless turn to sex.   It's simply no accident that the psychiatrist who put sex in the middle of everything was a Jewish Viennese doctor treating mainly Jewish women.

So Fiedler, who is a sharp cookie and close reader, sees sex and marriage as the only adult subjects but he's only partly right because, in my opinion, he can't escape a Jewish preoccupation with sex. (Moreover, Scott glides over the really controversial subject of  Fiedler's analysis of American lit:  Huck and Jim had a homosexual or at least "homoerotic" relationship.  That's what really made Fiedler's book famous or, rather, infamous.

Finally, I think Scott fails to adequately identify what is probably the major factor of this drive to childishness in pop entertainment: money.  Hollywood, publishers, TV execs have all realized how much money can be made off adolescents and "the lowest common denominator."  So it's been a race to the bottom for quite a while.  In entertainment, culture, politics, and what-have-you.   And speaking of politics:  I agree with Scott that the US has been anti-authority from the beginning.  But unlike the past, today there are powerful forces catering to the lowest common denominator in politics, and that is different from the anti-authoritarianism of the past.   As SCott notes, in the past, people gave some recognition to the demands of civilization.   No longer.  Today, it's all me...me...me..,endlessly and monotonously me and my little world that sometimes I even write a blog about.

Phil
---------

Fiedler's whole homoerotic thing on Huck Finn laid the groundwork for of course a wave of gay interpretations of everything in western lit and especially the book by an activist lit crit named Eve Sedgewick who published a book called The Epistemology of the Closet.  This has become a sort of bible in grad studies and if Scott were not the over-the-hill idiot he is, this is the book he should have cited for his big arguments.

But Sedgewick herself has been surpassed for a long time and is now very dated.  Academic fashions as fast and brutal as all other fashions.

--------

Now, back to the book in progress.

17th Weds  Clear change in the weather this morning.  The dehumidifier mode of the heat pump helped us get through the night.  Saw Cécile on the street this morning on my walk, talking on her cell phone.  Went to Mono and around.  Berries. 

18th Thurs  Lunch with Donald today.  He met us outside around 12:30 and we saw Dave on the sidewalk and went to the General Beuret.  He explained the Wallace fountains around the city.  Bequest of Lord Wallace, exactly who I now forget.  Looking up an article on Tangier in the Times magazine---Donald knows everyone mentioned but for three people. 
Told me how to pitch a letter to Chicago Divinity to get Feeny in.  Academic excellence first even if ministerial vocation is at issue. 

19 September Friday  
Willow napping, still struggling to get over the Cough.  We walked to Lambert, lunched on sandwiches traditionnels, thon and crevette, and walked home. 
Last night she scared me by getting dizzy-sick after too much time on the computer and her paper.  We both worried that a seizure might show up but it did not.  Fingers still crossed. 

20 Sat walked up to doctor’s office on rue Violet.  Dr Gruny

21 Sept Sunday 

Leonard Cohen is 80 today.  Unfortunately he announced somewhere he would start smoking again to celebrate and live for the moment rather than try to postpone pleasure in favor of some future good. 
Jason Karlawish in NYT “Mr. Cohen’s plan presents a provocative question: When should we set aside a life lived for the future and, instead, embrace the pleasures of the present?”

Yesterday and last night given to tending to Willow’s bronchitis.  We saw Dr Gruny at her office on rue Violet.  She gave us three meds.  Va started them in the afternoon but promptly threw up, felt worse. 

Last night we must have gotten up at least eight times.  But I will say she seems better, a bit.  She wrote an elegant French note for the pharmacist and I walked over with it this morning.  Same women who worked there all day yesterday until 9pm.  The beautiful one with long brown hair talked to me.  She said to cut down the frequency of the antibiotic, from 3 to 2 times a day.  Also said the Dolipan was necessary.  Va took a nap and I walked up Garibaldi and Pasteur the back around.  Photo of the rear courtyard of the Eglise St Jean Baptiste de la Salle.  Also the Knights of Malta place, sent a photo to Donald.  He revealed the other day that his name he was told is not typically Portuguese and used to have a “de” in it.  His father wondered if they should restore that.  Also told he was descended from Sephardic Portuguese Jews, given that family name.  Talking with him put me into a spin thinking I had to read some, at least one, book by the French Academy star who took David Tracey’s place at the Div School, Jean-Luc Marion.  Catholic philosopher and theologian who studied under both Derrida and Henri DuLubac and other Catholic luminaries. 

Later on I thought, hey, these guys, stars of a tiny little system of alpha-excellence within tiny fields like philos and theology, they are like CEOs of Goldman or Chase---high-achieving paragons of the corporate life they entered in prep school and before.  Cultural epigones who essentialize the way things are in the correct modes rather than true creators and ground-breakers.  Why would I want to read a report by a member of the Ford president’s council?  Why would I want to read a book by a professor of Catholic divinity at Chicago? 

Other thoughts abound, if only I could carry pen and paper and record them.  Walking around here has so many layers----especially Fall and especially now that the weather has finally left Summer and settled into more normal coolish temperatures and misty skies.  Got caught in the rain earlier and wetted down a bit.  Last three minutes of the walk.  Silvery sunlight in the west right now, 5:33 pm. 

Monday Sept 22   Willow now snoozing loudly at 6:32 am.  We got up at 4:45 to have some toast, see if that would help her feel better.  Glad she’s snoring away.  Just remembered to tell doctors about her shunt---wonder if it is still working and if that is a factor in her bronchitis and intestinal troubles.  We’re planning to call the doctor at 8 to try to get an appointment today.  Man this stuff is sure woven into our travel experiences over the years.  Thank goodness nothing showed up on the Japan trip---or did it at the very end and I had forgotten.  Maybe forgetting is what I do best these days. 

Larry Inchausti gave me the reminder thing on theologian Marion that I needed--- “I have struggled and find him going a very long way around the barn to make leaps of faith respectable--my take away is that phenomenology "proves" grace is lingering within the horizon of experience itself--a philosopher in search of the grounds of poetic revelation--reassuring and tiring at the same time.  Glad he went to all the trouble!”

Exactly applies to David Tracey’s work too.  All of them.  Why on earth do I need to repeat all of this for myself over and over?  Like a chronic illness in itself. 

Managed to speak, Va did, to the receptionist but she asked us to call back in half an hour.  Somehow I doubt we’ll see a doctor today.  Rest without medicine might be the best thing anyway.  Who knows.  A bright day beckons.  High of 65 and no rain on the horizon for the Week. 

11:49  Bought some miso and veggie sushi at Sushi Q.  Va has had these illnesses before, these total meltdown, in-bed for a few days, illnesses.  I can remember a town in Argentina in relation to one, or was it some other South American country?  Pontevedra of course was the worst of the worst so many years ago.  David must have been? six.  It was winter, cold, very rainy.  Antibiotic after antibiotic did not work.  We bought them ourselves and did not see the doctor, I don’t think.  Thinking we had no money for that and/or not knowing quite how to do so.  But maybe we did see a doctor.  There have been other times.  She is sleeping well now.  Maybe that is the best cure.  Nice day out.  Saw a traffic jam on Grenelle/Garibaldi.  Resolved itself, really, after one old guy in a tiny car backed around the corner slightly, he was waiting for his wife to come out of a shop.  Reading Ndiaye, story about Zaka and Marlène Vador and not getting it.  You wanted a quiet day at home and here it is.  Already worrying about getting a taxi for tomorrow to get to the doctor’s office by the appointment time, 10:45. Donald might be off for the Baltic. 

almost 7 pm  Saw the kids briefly.  They are all in fine form, eons away from how they were a week ago.  Emma very funny and chatty.  She had left or misplaced her doo-doo, so at school she told the teacher that it was probably off on a walk by itself.  Later they found it in the oven (her toy oven) where she had put all her dolls, including under them all the doo-doo).  Her mom said My that is a strange recipe you are preparing.  Eliot was asleep at last after not having slept this morning in the crêche.  Only two boys in it so far, more showing up this week.  Gouté of chevre and honey on bread while Dave played me the opening of Mike Pesca’s podcast about the Russian geckos who returned dead from their space shot experiment. 

Weds Sept 24  Almost time for gouté.  4:30
Yesterday the whole long morning given over to getting to Dr Nathalie Masson’s place where we waited for an hour and a half until she saw us.  She gave Va new meds; we educated her to the presence of alcohol in the cough syrup Gruny had given us.  She said the presence of alcohol was Not listed on the website list of ingredients, it shows up only in the printed paper version in the box. 

Today we took a short walk and Willow’s energy just wasn’t bouncing much.  I got two long walks, one this morning and one just a while ago.  I found the SCNF office and the number machine said the wait time is estimated at 37 minutes.  I put the ticket back for someone else to use.

Last evening around this time a desperate call from Cécile.  She brought Emma here and went to pick up Eliot or take care of him---we were never clear on what the crisis had been.  Emma hung out with us.  We found Talking Tom to use for a while and then some gateau and water, she didn’t want milk. 

This morning I took the sheets to the lavo.  Chatted with young college student from LA who is at the Am Univ here.  Freshman.  Mother Morroccan, Father Spanish.  He has a small apartment right on the street behind the kids’ building.  Could have a hard time adjusting I think.  Pretty far from LA.  I’m in Ndiaye’s final story but not engaged and barely getting any of it and not at all interested.  I’ll slide through just to “finish” it.  Feels almost like an assignment for a class. 
Phil suggested an antibiotic---
Sorry to hear of Va's brochitis kicking up.   Both Peg and I have found that the anti-biotic Azithromycin, which is much more powerful than other antibiotics, works wonders with various infections.  Usually one takes one pill each day for five days and no matter what you have is gone completely.  In the US, it's sometimes called "Z Tabs" or "Z-Max."

Interlibrary loan.   For years, community libraries in Maryland relied on the Enoch Pratt library in Baltimore for interlibrary loans.   However, today I think the Pratt has gone the way of the community libraries.  It has jettisoned everything and replaced it all with computers.   The librarian at the Montgomery County library suggested that I try the U of Maryland library at College Park which "might" have some form of the 1981 NYRB.   That, unfortunately, is more hassle than I care to undertake.  Non-students can use the U of Md library only during certain hours, and I don't think they loan their materials out.

Weather here delightful.   Low 70s and sunny.  Wish I felt the same. Well, at least I feel low 70s.

Finished Marie Ndiaye’s book of stories.  eehhhh  maybe it gave the translator good material to work on.  Younger people should be impressed with her.  She couldn’t get me attentive enough to care or will the work to be as good as it claims to be, tries to claim to be.  Cold and cruel material or stance?  But I did such a poor job I should not even posture about it.  Onward to the noir novel---Jean-Patrick Manchette’s The Mad and the Bad. 

Thursday evening  Time to make Dinner.  Sept 25  I do not have a NYRB subscription it turns out.  Oh well.  Day with Donald.  Walked to Sq Lambert so he could see it, we considered eating at Bugatti but he thought the formule price, 17 eur, was too high, for pizza.  So we ended up at Le Sable du Vent, the Moroccan place.  We all had meat haché, pomme frites and some salad from Va’s plate.  Extremely good sorbets--triple berry.  I got a short walk early and a short walk just now.  No word from 70 Cbnne.
Donald gave us the idea of riding bus 80 so we might do that tomorrow.  Willow seems better, no afternoon nap and two walks, now working on one of the books Donald is lending us--on the nature of the French. 

9 pm  no hot water.  don’t know what that involves. 

Saturday  Sept 27  almost 1pm  We got home around 1 am.  The hot water returned that same evening about an hour later.  Yesterday a bang-up day.  We rode Bus 80 up to the 18th, lunched at the Nord-Sud where we had met Madame Senninger two years ago.  On the way back an accident required everyone to get off the bus, walk a block over to Avenue Rapp and board another, got off in front of the Ibis.  That evening we took a taxi out to the 20th to see Calamity Jeanne play at Au Metro des Lilas.  Really fun evening.  Two flautists dueled, Sidi, from the big salsa group led the crowd, size of the audience ebbed and flowed, Cécile showed up too after having a good nap.  On the way home in the AutoLib though she clearly had a cold so I suppose she will rest up and nurse that today.  Annie has the kids until tomorrow when we all convene for Dave’s birthday and his gig out in Créteil.  Should be delightful afternoon if all goes as planned. 

We spent about two hours in Lambert.  So beautiful, lots of people and a little eco-festival of Jardins.  On the way home we ran into Eliot and Dave and found out that Créteil is a private party gig, so all plans for the day have crumbled.  Now we might have take-out here from the Reunion resto and I ran to Picard to get a cake, nothing suitable, so a chocolate fondant tarte and Ben&Jerry’s cookie dough ice cream.  Interesting that they carry that flavor only.  Plus some Hagan Daz combos. 



Monday Sept 29  Willow fell off her chair last night.  Glasses broken, cut in her eyebrow, seems that’s all, we hope.  At the heighth of the pandemonium here as we all ate the leftovers from night before.  Dave got here tired from his private gig in Créteil, which had been good and fun.  Inner circle of town workers.  Cécile had had a good day with the kids in a picnic sort of visit to Sq Lambert.  But she hadn’t eaten all day.  Blood sugar was low.  Was for us too.  We went to Museum Malliol to see the big Borgia exhibit, now advertised all over the place.  We taxied back to La Place and had gouté, came home for a short nap and then dinner.  After they all got here we munched on the Picard lasagne I had pinged.  Emma was wound and running.  Eliot starting to get fussy but all having a good time and then bam! Mom was on the floor.  Shocked and scared us all.  Blood on her green sweathers and apron.  But we got the wound stopped quickly and got her up and her sweaters rinsed and then washed. Then we slept well and no sign, fingers crossed, of the hacking cough or bronchitis.  Today is day 7 for the course of Cipro. 

Today is cloudy and rainy.  I went for a short walk, took Dave his ear buds, he said C is taking the day off. 

Maillol famous for nudes, classic serenity, whole 20th C with little interaction with others.  ?  Wealthy and famous.  Gorgeous house, beautiful wood paneling, natural ash? oak? lightly waxed or even not finished at all?  Born and died in Banyuls-sur-mer, where we went to the Thalasso spa with D&C two years ago. 

Skies lightening up now.