Musings

Thomas Perry, “Silence” (2007). Saw it recommended somewhere. It’s another of the interminable detective/mystery titles that I inhale regularly. Time frame is “present.”

First wrong step: main good guy is an ex-cop private detective who apparently isn’t aware that high(er)-end rental vehicles are likely to have GPS units that would allow someone to track his (car’s) whereabouts. The guy’s otherwise quite sharp, so this is annoying.

Second wrong step: main bad guy offs a cop in his cop car on a road near rental car outlets at a mid-sized California airport, without any concern that such events and his own (rental) car’s license* plate may well be visible to surveillance cameras.

Annoying missteps.

And (sigh) this is less than half-way through….

Ten pages later. Oops on me. Second step developed into a plot line as cops checked out that vehicle when its drivers were getting a bite in a highway diner, and, but that’s enough for now!

Still.

* Brit./Can.: licence

Today’s vocabulary:

freemartin

female offspring of placental mammal who was a twin with a male in utero and the male’s hormones affected the female such that she is sterile; most commonly noticed and applied to cattle and sheep.

Posted at 10:22 PM | 1 Comment »

These are freshly washed….

It began when Lou Bigelow and Toby Maytree first met. He was back home in Provincetown after the war. Maytree first saw her on a bicycle. A red scarf, white shirt, skin clean as an eggshell, wide eyes and mouth, shorts.*

Sweet image. Except for the clean eggshell idea. I suspect anyone who’s collected chicken eggs doesn’t think of eggshells as clean. Remember where they come from….

Thinking of two close friends today: gallstone surgery for one; first dose of chemo for Kevyn.

* Annie Dillard, “The Maytrees” (2007).

Posted at 4:10 PM | Comments Off on Eggshell(s)

I requested Sheridan Hays’ “The Secret of Lost Things” from the library based on a review (I think this one from the NYT), and I just started it yesterday—finally, it’s due at the end of the week. [I haven’t gotten to the mystery part of the plot yet.]

And it’s a gem. Lyrical writing. Interesting characters, albeit oddball, every one. But maybe that’s just mirroring reality?

The main character, Rosemary, takes to walking the streets of NY in the evenings after work. We don’t know the date, but perhaps in the 1970s or 80s.

One hot July evening, I ran down an empty street as the peppery smell of city rain rose up from where the rain fell, spotting the pavement. The sharp scent set me sneezing. Seconds later huge heavy drops began to pelt my head and back. I took shelter beneath an awning and watched the storm through an amnion of water. Ten minutes later the rain ceased, as abruptly as it had started. The temperature dropped a few degrees, and I felt the materiality of weather, impervious to the great constructed landscape. Manhattan was at once sealed, and as I watched filthy rainwater disappear into subway grates and down street drains, as permeable as anything in nature. [p. 62-63]

Although it may not sound like it, the story does click along. I think I’m recommending it.

Posted at 4:43 PM | Comments Off on Rain amnion

Anthropologists have actually studied color names. Here’s what a couple of researchers concluded:

The application of statistical tests to the color naming data of the WCS has established three points: (i) there are clear cross-linguistic statistical tendencies for named color categories to cluster at certain privileged points in perceptual color space; (ii) these privileged points are similar for the unwritten languages of nonindustrialized communities and the written languages of industrialized societies; and (iii) these privileged points tend to lie near, although not always at, those colors named red, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, orange, pink, black, white, and gray in English.

So, what color is this? I say dark fuschia. Or purply pink.And what is it? No-fat Greek yogurt stirred into wild blueberries (slightly microwaved frozen ones), both from TJs.

PS Kevyn was back on the air today.

Posted at 3:30 PM | 1 Comment »

Or maybe I should say (write): rainfall arrives on little cat feet*….

We got enough rain early this evening to soak in about half an inch where the soil wasn’t hard-packed. It was the first rain here at the house in I don’t know how long. The Guru’s dad had a sprinkle at his house in Buckhead on Friday, but none fell here.

I’m still saving sink water for the plants….

* Thank you, Carl Sandburg.

Posted at 7:24 PM | Comments Off on Rainfall arrives

Played hooky today and headed for northeast piedmont GA, where the rains came last night (is that why the hummers were so busy?), but had gone by the time we arrived. ATL got nary a drop.

Today’s vocabulary:

levigate

to reduce something to a fine powder or paste

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on El colibrí

Pet peeve: uncounted vs. uncountable. Yes, it’s permissible to use “uncountable” hyperbolically, but uncountable is overused when the referent is actually quite countable, and merely would take some time to do so—that’s actually a good time for “uncounted.” Consider opposing uncounted with infinite….

Posted at 10:22 PM | 1 Comment »

Despite the significant drops in crow populations (and other species), we did see several and hear more when we were descending Brasstown Bald a few weeks ago.

No crow pictures; I’m substituting a dove.

My current read, incurring fines from the library ’cause it runs over 900 pages and is only a two-week book (due last Monday), is Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games, which is set in Mombai, and covers an amazingly brief time-span, somehow without being overly self-absorbed. Anyway, Chandra notes (pg 640), in the voice of his Indian version of Tony Soprano:

I’ve worked with politicians, and gangsters, and holy men, and let me tell you, none of these can compete with a writer for mountainous inflations of ego and mouse-like insecurities of soul.

Nailed it!

Posted at 1:54 PM | 2 Comments »

No doubt about it, garlic is a wonderful plant.

My favorite book about garlic (not that I can say I’ve read any others!) is Stanley Crawford’s Mayordomo: Chronicle of an Acequia in Northern New Mexico.

However, a wee bit of googling indicates he’s actually (as of 1998, so I’m out of it) written a separate title on garlic—I haven’t read it, but if I did…?

BTW, acequias are irrigation ditches, and in Crawford’s part of the world they are maintained and managed according to an ancient system, collectively, by those who use the water from it. The mayordomo is the person who makes the decisions about who get how much water, when the participating farms (meaning fields and acreages) will supply day-laborers (this is corvée labor, known as tequio duties in Mexico), and other business of the acequia. This acequia mayordomo is not a permanent position, but rotates through the participating landowners. Thus, Crawford writes about his own experiences as a (green, inexperienced) mayordomo….

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Garlic sky

El velero means sailing ship. New vocabulary! And so useful!

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on El velero