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December 25th, 2023: Ho, ho, ho
It continually impresses me how a single presence can so thoroughly interrupt the entire flow of everything going on around it. Even without meaning to, it enters a space and it is as if it is suddenly airless; nothing moves smoothly. The worst of it is, there is sense of active malice. Merely the meanness…
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December 24th, 2023: De-beatification
Survived another Secret Santa having given a fitting gift to another and having received something nice in return. Funnily enough, my mother-in-law pulled my name for gift giving — she did me a solid buying a collection of essays and the Complete Works of Alvaro de Campos, all from New Directions Publishing. The food, company,…
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December 23rd, 2023: B&N
The Daily Note’s daily schedule lasted a total of two days. The end of an era. For what it’s worth, yesterday was spent packing and driving from Saint Paul to Sussex. You didn’t miss much. We’re in town for a little over a week for the holidays and spent our first day in paradise at…
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December 20th, 2023: Embarking
Inspired to try and get back into this exercise by the example of that late scion of Portuguese literature, José Saramago. Late in life — the site started in September 2008, he died June 2010 — he decided to start his own blog. He posted to it daily, without pretense (inasmuch as that’s possible for…
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Scratching the Surface – “Why? Explaining The Holocaust” by Peter Hayes
During a discussion on his then-new book The Zone of Interest, author Martin Amis stated the idea that if you consider yourself a “serious thinker” or are someone who thinks at all, one of the very few things you should ever be thinking about is the Shoah. Few statements are so simple, powerful, and valid.…
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The Limits – “Stoner” by John Williams
There are two times in life when reading John Williams’ Stoner is most appropriate: In your early 20s when you begin to sense the possible narrowness of the road ahead, and around retirement age when the ordeals of a lifetime can be examined with a critical eye borne of experience. In between, you’ve both the…
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Humpty Dumpty – “Submission” by Michel Houellebecq
The intended effect of satire is, normally, to draw an audience’s attention towards the absurdity of reality. Take the inherent strangeness of life, turn it up a few more notches, and let the viewer make the logical connection between the end product and the source material. By exposing the absurd, a creator opens the opportunity…
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