Sometimes you don't need a sign.

 

Ummm....

 

What the fuck, Universe? I'm already dancing as fast as I can.
 

DDR: Hard Times by Charles Dickens

 

Public Domain

Another one I've read before...maybe more than once, but I'm not sure of that. 

Ten minutes later...

Yep. I first read this book in Dr. Kemme's Victorian Literature class at Bellarmine College way back in the early 1980s. And then I read it again when I taught it to one of my high school classes. So this will be my third time at it.

Looking forward to it, too.

XV + 444 = 459...guess it's a single then, ennit? And just about a two week traipse for moi.

P.S. Sir Dingle Foot. That's a real dude's name, believe it or not. And judging from his Introduction to Hard Times, he's an asshole. He spent most of his 9 pages here insulting Dickens and tearing down his writing. Hmmm...I don't seem to remember any great novels by Dingle Foot. At any rate, yes, I did get a start on Hard Times before Opening Day. So only 444 pages to go now. And strangely enough...not all of those pages are Hard Times. Whilst reading the Table of Contents (yes, I do) I saw that the novel actually ends on page 330, and then there are three other pieces included in this Volume: "Hunted Down" pages 333 - 360, "Holiday Romance" pages 363 - 406, and "George Silverman's Explanation" pages 409 - 444. So I guess it's not All Novels from this point on after all. That's disappointing.

Day 1 (DDRD 2,037) May 30, 2023

Read to page 30. Here's Dickens' description of a (bad) teacher: "...as he eagerly sparkled at them from the cellarage…..he seemed a kind of cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts, and prepared to blow them clean out of the regions of childhood at one discharge." (3)

Day 2 (DDRD 2,038) May 31, 2023

Read to page 85. Babysitting, so. But compelling, too.

Day 3 (DDRD 2,039) June 1, 2023

Read to page 120.  20- year old girl marrying a 50+ year old man. Hmpf. Here we go again. And yes, it does remind me of 21 year old girl marrying my 46 year old self, and yes, it does hurt.

Day 4 (DDRD 2,040) June 2, 2023

Read to page 154. Holy cow...I'm almost halfway through this book already.

Day 5 (DDRD 2,041) June 3, 2023

Read to page 192. 

Day 6 (DDRD 2,042) June 4, 2023

Read to page 242. (Church, early.)

Day 7 (DDRD 2,043) June 5, 2023

Read to page 273.

Day 8 (DDRD 2,044) June 6, 2023

Read to page 300. Which means tomorrow is it for Hard Times...though there will still be 114 pages to go in this Volume. Here's hoping that the short pieces which comprise those pages aren't as shitty as most of Dickens' short works.

Day 9 (DDRD 2,045) June 7, 2023

Read to page 332...aka The End of Hard Times. A good novel, I think...though the first which didn't compel me to write down a number of lines. This would probably be the best Entry Level Dickens as it is compact, has a number of great characters, and a pretty straightforward story. Also a good critique of the education system and Capitalism in general. On to the short pieces. (Sigh.)

Day 10 (DDRD 2,046) June 8, 2023

Read to page 360, all of "Hunted Down." Which wasn't a terrible story, actually. Although it didn't seem very Dickens-y. Two stories to go!

P.S. I was thinking about how much I'd like to finish off those two stories in two days...and how that might not happen, since the first of them was 43 pages long and the second 35. So since I had a little waiting time, I put a dent in "Holiday Romance" and read to page 370. It wasn't fun. This story is written in the first person from the point of view of an 8 year old boy. It's not funny. It's not cute. It's just tedious and stupid. I'm going to try to read another 6 to 11 pages. That way I'll be at two more 30 page days. 

I think I can.

P.P.S. Nope.

Day 11 (DDRD 2,047) June 9, 2023

Read to page 406, which finished off the truly wretched "Holiday Romance." The four stories--Part II was narrated by A 7 year old girl, Part III by A 9 year old boy, and Part IV by A 6 year old girl. For fuck's sake--were completely unconnected to each other, and none of them were the least bit interesting. Sigh. One story to go...and I might try to read it today just to get this over with.

P.S. Had a long wait and got to page 423. 21 pages to go. I can do that...right? Gritting teeth, tightening sphincter, clothespin on nose...okay. Let's go.

After a comic book. Or two.

P.P.S. Just one. And then I plowed through to the end of "George Silverman's Explanation" (page 444). It wasn't as bad as "Holiday Romance," but I wouldn't go so far as to say it was worth the time it took to read. Why oh why did you decide to insert this "surprise" in the Volume reserved for Hard Times, Heron Books? It was not a nice surprise.  Just NOVELS from here on out, ok?

Sheesh.

DDR Day 1 to 1,000: 13,449 pages read, 13.45 Average Pages Per Day

A History of Philosophy Volumes I - XI

History of Civilization in England Volumes I - III

Miscellaneous and Posthumous Works of Henry Thomas Buckle Volumes I - III

Civilization and Capitalism, 16th - 18th Century Volumes I - III

The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip IIl Volumes I - III

This Happened In My Presence: Moriscos, Old Christians, and the Spanish Inquisition in the Town of Deza, 1569-1611

The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates

Peat and Peat Cutting

+

DDR Day 1001 to Day 2000:
(1) Leviathan 63 days, 729 pages
(2) Stalingrad 27 days, 982 pages
(3) Life and Fate 26 days, 880 pages
(4) The Second World War 34 + 32 + 40 + 43 + 31 + 32 days = 212 days, 4,379 pages
(5) Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming 10 days, 572 pages
(6) The Great Bridge 25 days, 636 pages
(7) The Path Between the Seas 29 days, 698 pages
(8) Blake: Prophet Against Empire, 23 days, 523 pages
(9) Jerusalem 61 days, 1,266 pages
(10) Voice of the Fire 9 days, 320 pages
(11) The Fountainhead 15 days, 720 pages

(12) The Pacific Trilogy: Pacific Crucible 23 days, 640 pages
(13) The Pacific Trilogy: The Conquering Tide 28 days, 656 pages
(14) The Pacific Trilogy: Twilight of the Gods 31 days, 944 pages

(15) Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence 13 days, 304 pages
(16) Toward Jazz 18 days, 224 pages
(17) The Worlds of Jazz 13 days, 279 pages
(18) To Be or Not...to Bop 14 days, 571 pages
(19) Kind of Blue 4 days, 224 pages
(20) Kind of Blue: Miles Davis and his Masterpiece: 5 days, 256 pages
(21) Miles: The Autobiography 16 days, 445 pages
(21) A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album: 8 days, 287 pages
(22) Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest 8 days, 304 pages
(23) Living With Music: Ralph Ellison's Jazz Writings 11 days 325 pages

(24) The Pickwick Papers 28 days, 983 pages
(25) Oliver Twist 16 days, 542 pages
(26) Nicholas Nickleby 27 days, 1,045 pages
(27) The Old Curiosity Shop 22 days, 753 pages
(28) Barnaby Rudge 24 days, 866 pages

(29) Master Humprhey's Clock 4 days, 145 pages
(30) Martin Chuzzlewit 32 days, 1,045 pages
(31) American Notes 10 days, 324 pages
(32) Pictures From Italy 7 days, 211 pages
(33) Christmas Stories Volume I 10 days, 456 pages
(34) Christmas Stories Volume II 15 days, 472 pages

(35) Christmas Books 17 days, 525 pages

(36) The Annotated Christmas Carol  7 days, 380 pages

(37) Dombey and Son 30 days, 1,089 pages

(38) Sketches by Boz 22 days, 834 pages

2nd 1K Total: 26,834 pages (to SBBII) = 28.76 Average Pages Per Day

Grand Total: 40,273 pages, 20.83 Average Pages Per Day

(39) David Copperfield 21 days, 1,092 pages

(40) The Uncommercial Traveller 12 days, 440 pages

(41) A Child's History of England 10 days, 491 pages

(42) Reprinted Pieces 14 days, 368 pages

(43) Miscellaneous Papers Volume I 18 days, 542 pages

        + 25 pages Bleak Hose and 9 pages Miscellaneous Papers II = 2,000 days' worth.

2nd 1K Total: 29,801pages = 29.8 Average Pages Per Day

Grand Total: 43,250 pages, 21.625 Average Pages Per Day

(44) Miscellaneous Papers Volume II 28 days (don't count, while reading BH), 494 pages
(45) Bleak House 37 days, 1,098 pages

494 - 9 = 485 + 1098 - 25 = 1073 = 1,558 pages towards 3K...in 37 days, for a daily rate of 42+ pages (!).

(46) Hard Times 11 days, 459 pages

The King's Daughter & Alessandro Scarlatti

I fell in love with the work of Alessandro Scarlatti a few months back, and have been listening to him every day since then. Also read a book about him (the most excellent Alessandro Scarlatti: An Introduction to His Operas by Donald Jay Grout...available on Internet Archive). And I plan on spending a lot of time with him in the future as I work my way through the 30 CD Box Set I bought...and the other four sets of his complete works which are available through Spotify. (Whew!)

But I'd never heard of this fellow before I stumbled upon him, and from what I read in Mr. Grout's book, Scarlatti has pretty much been forgotten.

So I was astounded when I was reading The King's Daughter (by Vonda N. McIntyre) to my daughter yesterday and...

Not only Alessandro, but his son Domenico as well! Alas, Alessandro is portrayed as kind of mean and creepy here, but still...what a shock to meet up with him on the pages of this book.

Coincidence...or something else?

P.S. I may have to rewatch the movie of The King's Daughter now, since I didn't know Alessandro Scarlatti when I watched it with my daughter, thus would not have recognized the name. The things we do for love.

Spotify, Iggy Pop, and The Return of Alessandro Scarlatti

Well, you know. Sooner or later they make you an offer you just can't refuse. Which is usually how you get roped into paying for something that you no longer use...either because you forgot that you signed up for it or because it's just too much trouble to click a few buttons or because Hope Springs Eternal.  

So with that in mind...thinking "I am much too savvy to fall for that. Or that. Or even that. And when spotify offered me three months of FREE PREMIUM STREAMING, I went for it.

Even though I kind of hate the whole concept of  spotify. Cause, you know...they pay artists virtually nothing, yet they eliminate the purchase of music for a hell of a lot of people. The young people I know don't even buy music anymore. And why would they, when they can have everything they want either for free or for a tiny monthly charge?

But if I like a piece of music, I'm going to buy it, so...I signed up.

One of the first things I listened to was The Acid Lands (Live) which is credited to Opening Performance Orchestra, Bill Laswell, Iggy Pop, and William S. Burroughs. I happened upon it when I was searching for Iggy.

I've been an Iggy Pop fan ever since David Bowie produced The Idiot in 1977 (and it's still one of my favorite albums). And I stuck with Iggy through quite a bit of thick and thin, all the way through 2016's Après before I finally said, "Okay, I've heard it all now. Time to close this door." But I remained aware of his subsequent releases (3 of them), and I thought I'd done a pretty good job of it. Until I signed up for THREE FREE MONTHS of spotify and saw this The Acid Lands. 

So I gave it a spin. So to speak. The first track, "The Acid Lands" clocked in at 24:45. Iggy does a narration, something about Egyptian burial rites. At 6:14 of the "song," Iggy exits and William S. Burroughs steps up to the mike. I tried to hang in there, but by 14 minutes I'd had all I could take and shut it down. But I kept thinking, "What if Iggy comes back?" So I girded up my loins and did a quick scan through the rest of the track. And lo and behold...at 21:40 Iggy returns. So for Iggy completists, I suppose there are about 9 minutes that you'll want to listen to. And there's a slight chance that in jumping forward in increments that I missed some Iggy between 14 and 21:40, but I don't have it in me to go back and check. That's going to have to be your job.

Iggy does not appear on the other two tracks on this album, "The Acid Lands (ambient mix-translation)" (17:07) & "Naming the Seven Souls" (04:34). Still, if you feel that you must own this music, you can either go to Amazon or (my preference) /bandcamp. 

I don't ever want to hear that song again, though.

So to wash that song right out of my har, I also had a listen to Iggy (with someone named Dr. Lonnie Smith) singing a jazzy version of "Sunshine Superman"--one of the many great songs written by Donovan way back when. I love the original of this song. And I love Iggy Pop. But it is a pretty bad combination. The song requires the innocence of Donovan's voice...and Iggy can't touch that.

So I keyed up some Alessandro Scarlatti. Specifically, Alessandro Scarlatti Collection Volume 2, which you cannot buy on lp or cd ANYwhere. (The same goes for Volumes 3, 4, and 5. What's up with that?)

At any rate, listening to the music of Scarlatti helped to soothe my savagely distressed breast. I'll have to come back to this quite a few times, however, as Collection Volume 2 includes 113 songs, and the running time is listed as "about 11 hours." And this from a man who also wrote over 100 operas. Yowza. 

Trump & Dickens

Earlier today, a jury found Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation of E. Jean Carroll, and ordered Trump to pay her $5 million.

They've been cackling about it all day on CNN and MSNBC. And, to be honest, I've been cackling a bit myself. It's just good to see a motherfucker like Trump get a little bit of the comeuppance he deserves.

When the news anchors aren't cackling, they've been asking, "Will this make any difference to Trump's supporters?"

I think that Charles Dickens has the answer to that question. Here it is...from "The Young Man From the Country":

"The following dialogue I have held a hundred times: 'Is it not a very disgraceful circumstance that such a man as So-and-so should be acquiring a large property by the most infamous and odious means, and notwithstanding all the crimes of which he has been guilty, should be tolerated and abetted by your citizens? He is a  public nuisance, is he not?' 'Yes, sir.' 'A convicted liar?' 'Yes, sir.' 'He has been kicked, and cuffed, and caned?' 'Yes, sir.' 'And he is utterly dishonourable, debased, and profligate?' 'Yes, sir.' 'In the name of wonder, then, what is his merit?' 'Well, sir, he is a smart man.'"

In fact, rumor has it that he is a very stable genius.

So here's a weird thing.

This morning I was doing my daily reading of Dickens, and I encountered a word I was unfamiliar with. So I wrote this:

Day 14 (DDRD 2,013) May 6, 2023

Miscellaneous Papers Volume II

Read to page 192. Thought I'd caught a typo (of which there have

been a few...but very few) when I read the word "stertorously."  I was sure that the word meant was "stentoriously." But one of the gifts

of old age and general increptitude is a lack of faith in one's self,

so I Googled. And lo and behold, stertorously means

"With heavy breathing, as if snoring; in a stertorous manner." (https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/stertorously?fbclid=IwAR103pvg7DvjXtucDsAPRg3q0-71SYSSmV8Sa1slj-9WHbG7XjIb1ZUGpHk)

And just a few minutes ago I was reading Forgotten Tales of Love and Murder (by Edgar Rice Burroughs) to my son, and this came up immediately:

WTF?

And just to make it even weirder...I have gotten way ahead of my reading goal in the Dickens book. If I'd stuck to my goal...which I usually do...I'd have been on page 116 today, and would not have read the word stertorously for another ten days. Also, I am several days behind in my reading of the Edgar Rice Burroughs book because Joe hasn't wanted to read for the past several days. There's no way that I should have read this word in these two books on the same day.

So I can only conclude that THE UNIVERSE wanted me to happen upon this word.

Okay, got it, UNIVERSE. Now...what do I do with it?

The Simon Sisters

No matter how old I get, whoever donates records to Goodwill seems to be older. It's always Engelbert Humperdinck, Herb Alpert, Jim Nabors, Roger Williams, Mantovani...that kind of stuff. Stuff my parents listened to. But hope springs eternal, so if I see a batch of old vinyl, I stoop down and go through it.

Sometimes there are interesting surprises.

Today, I saw something called 

I just had time for my brain to think, "That looks like Carly Simon" before my eyeball looked above the album title and saw Lucy & Carly. Well dip me in mud and sprinkle me with kitty litter. 

So of course I bought it. ($1.99, by the way.) And when I got home I had a look at Carly Simon's discography on Wikipedia, the first entry of which is Carly Simon, released in 1971. * Hmmm. Because the album I bought originally came out in 1969. So I poked around a bit more, and found out that The Simon Sisters discography was on a separate list, and included 3 items:

1964: Meet the Simon Sisters
1966: Cuddlebug
1969: The Simon Sisters Sing the Lobster Quadrille and Other Songs for Children

Which is kind of interesting, because astute observers will note that my album is not included in this list. That's because all of these albums were reissued under different titles:


1973: Lucy & Carly – The Simon Sisters Sing for Children [re-issue of "Lobster Quadrille"]
2006: Winkin', Blinkin' and Nod: The Kapp Recordings [re-issue of their first two albums]
2008: Carly & Lucy Simon Sing Songs for Children [re-issue of "Lobster Quadrille"]

(All of this information comes to you courtesy of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simon_Sisters.)

So that's a bit confusing, isn't it?

At any rate...in 1964, Carly was a mere 21 years old, and big sister Lucy was 24. Lucy went on to have a very successful career of her own, including winning two Grammy awards. And if that's not enough, get this: Carly and Lucy's dad was Richard Simon, co-founder of Simon & Schuster.

Okay, Jeopardy!...I'm ready.

* And including the great song, "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be," written by Carly and Jacob Brackman, who was also her songwriting partner on "Haven't Got Time for the Pain" and some other songs which did not earn millions of dollars.

***** More Books I Think I'm Going to Read Soon

April Fools 

and 

Darker Muses by Dezso Kosztolanyi

Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free by Charles Pierce

The Amenities of Book Collecting and Kindred Affections

by Edward A. Newton

Currently on page 69 of 471

Edward de Vere and the Shakespeare Printers by Robert Sean Brazil

Breakfast in the Ruins: Science Fiction in the Last Millennium by Barry Malzberg

The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology by Fritz Stern

Counter-Revolution: Liberal Europe in Retreat by Jan Zielonka

Factory of Tears by Valzhyna Mort

Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Master of Pulp Storytelling edited by Charles A. Madison

John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood: The True Story of What Went Wrong with Disney's John Carter and Why Edgar Rice Burroughs' Original Superhero Isn't Dead Yet

by Michael D. Sellers

Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska by Warren Zanes 

Read it. Finished 5/28/23

Fantastic Voyage II: Destination Brain Baby Isaac Asimov

Read it. Finished 6/13/23

View From a Height by Isaac Asimov

Read to page 158 of 255.

The Pilgrimage of Etheria

https://www.ccel.org/m/mcclure/etheria/etheria.htm

Justice League of America: The Silver Age  Volume 1

Page 77

The Priory Of The Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

58 of 945

The Mind of the South by W. J. Cash

The Damnation of Pythos: Thinning the Veil by David Annandale (available through Internet Archive)

Night Raider by Mike Barry

Read it.

The Frozen Sea: A Study of Franz Kafka by Charles Neider

Fiddlers and Whores: The Candid Memoirs of A Surgeon in Nelson's Fleet by James Lowry

Fiddlers in Fiction by Murray J. Levith

The Ice Trilogy by Vladimir Sorokin

Why We Need Art.

I'm working my way through Miscellaneous Papers Volume II by Charles Dickens--one of the 36 Volumes in The Complete Dickens as published by Heron Books *  And I'm sorry to say that it IS work. Very few of the pieces in either this book or its companion volume (I) are anything more than tedious. Which I hasten to point out is not the case with the vast majority of the Volumes in this collection. Dickens is an amazing novelist, and other than Martin Chuzzlewit, which was weak but not horrifically bad, I'd recommend any of his other novels with great enthusiasm, and I'd place several of them as among the best novels I've ever read. (Details available HERE.) 

But every little once in awhile there's a bit in Miscellaneous Papers which grabs me. Here's one I read today in a Dickens essay on Art:

I think it suggests a way of looking at Art which hadn't occurred to me before: that the reason we (or at least some of us) are drawn towards Art is because it makes US feel important. It reminds me of the (Bishop) George Berkeley adage, "esse is percipi,": to be is to be perceived. According to Dickens (at least here), our existence is validated by the work of Art...because the work of Art was produced with a viewer in mind. Thus when we fill that role, we are essentially perceived by the Artist even as we perceive his/her/their work.

It's a unique idea. Worth pondering, at least.

* Currently going for $188.51+$73.90 shipping on eBay, but I'll sell you my set for $200, shipping included. You just have to wait a couple of months while I finish off reading my last volumes.

God, ☮

I read this (in the Good News For Modern Man Version of the New Testament) to Joe the other night:

"God is not a God of disorder but of peace." (1 Corinthians 14:33). 

And that was hard for me to grasp. For one thing, because I'd just finished reading the Old Testament to Jacqueline last week, and there was scant evidence there to support such a notion...and abundant evidence to support the contrary assertion. For another thing, the world in which we are embedded--like flies in Amber--seems to be full up of disorder and significantly deficit in Peace.

On the other hand...it made me wonder how White Christian "nationalists" would deal with this kind of thing. Presumably, the Bible is their Guide to Life. And this verse is not open to interpretation at all: If you're for God, then you're for Peace. That excludes acts such as storming the Capitol, beating policeman, shooting Black men, and browbeating LGBTQ folks. 

So what do they do with that?