Why, Delilah?

DDR: Asimov's Annotated Gilbert & Sullivan by Isaac Asimov

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the one hand, I was very anxious to continue reading works about Christianity--and specifically about the Gospel of John, as that 3 volume thing I alluded to in a previous post really was pulling at me. But this morning when I sat down to do some Daily Reading work I felt myself pulled to read A Far Country by Daniel Mason instead, and after an hour or so of that I didn't have it in me to face the Gospel of John. So I poked around idly and thought, "What about Isaac Asimov's book on Gilbert and Sullivan?" (I'm still feeling the regret over not buying this when I saw a copy at Half-Price Books. It was expensive, but less than half of the cheapest price I've seen for it online.) But when I saw the length of it--over 1000 pages!--I thought, "Nope, not that one." But I started to read anyway, and you know what? I think it's that one. We'll find out soon.

It's xiv + 1,056 = 🥁🥁🥁🥁 1,070 pages. But hey, I just finished 1,600 pages on The Death of the Messiah, so...☮🎂!

Day 1 (DDRD 3,184) July 22, 2026

Read to page 21. Actually a bit of fun. Isaac was a pig towards women, and I regret that, but he sure could write. And he's at his best when he's writing about himself...which he essentially is doing here when he's not dropping knowledge.

Day 2 (DDRD 3,185) July 23, 2026

Read to page 60. Shortly after I started today's reading, I realized that I felt very relaxed. Sorry Mr. Brown, but  Death of the Messiah was pretty hard work, and I have to admit that I didn't look forward to it...even though I got a lot out of it and "enjoyed" it.

Finished the first operetta--Thespwork,Definitely not a major work but it had its moments. The music for this operetta has been lost, so it cannot be performed today--at least not as intended. Apparently Sullivan re-used at least some of the tunes in later works, however.

"Love's flame is the vilest of arsons..Bubba.42) Fuckin' A, Bubba.

Day 3 (DDRD 3,186) July 24, 2026

Read to page 100. Well...maybe this won't take all that long, then. I spent most of my reading time today finishing A Far Country, but it was still no problem at all to put away 40 pages of this. 😶

Finished Trial by Jury, which was short, but not very sweet. In fact, it was kind of stupid. Yet Asimov tells us that this was the real beginning of the Gilbert and Sullivan collaboration, and their first big success. Go figure. Started The Sorcerer, which unfortunately does not star Roy Scheider nor feature music by Tangerine Dream.

Day 4 (DDRD 3,187) July 25, 2026

Read to page 142, which finishes The Sorcerer. Which was better than Trial by Jury, but was still far from good. It would probably be better if I listened to the music while I read, but I haven't been doing that. I'll try it with the next one. (Which is H.M.S. Pinafore.)

Day 5 (DDRD 3,188) July 26, 2026

Read to page 

H.M.S. Pinafore 

Word Up

Daniel Mason gave this cool word to me:

estivation/ˌestəˈvāSHən/Estivation (or aestivation) is a state of animal dormancy characterized by drastically lowered metabolism and inactivity. Often called "summer sleep," it is triggered by high temperatures and drought. It allows animals to conserve energy and avoid desiccation until environmental conditions improve.

Definition comes from HERE.

A Far Country by Daniel Mason

 

A Far Country & Burl Ives 

Finished my second Daniel Mason book last night and will be starting my third 👆 (his second) in two minutes. I almost wanted to wait and let The Piano Tuner (his first, my second) linger in my mind for a while*, but I'm too anxious to read more from this fine writer. So let's go.

* Man, what a superb book. My aged brain doesn't hold on to too many details from what I read these days, but there are scenes from this book that I'm sure will remain with me for a decade (assuming I have that much time left to me, which is a big if at this point).

P.S. It's funny (but not ha ha funny) how if you dip deep into a writers' oeuvre, you see the same pieces pop up. In A Far Country (so far...I'm only on page 26, which isn't very far) it's music (fiddle this time), a kiss on the back of a girl's neck, and shims to repair cracks in musical instruments. Here's betting there's more to come. Oh...I forgot rivers flooding.

Ok. (5) burning fields as a farming procedure. (6) lady carrying parasol. 

Attention E. L. Doctorow Fans

E. L. Doctorow's second novel, Big as Life, is hard to find, expensive to buy, and pretty much forgotten. 

But you can read it for free on Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/bigaslife0000eldo

No, no...thank YOU.

The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason

 

I was going to wait until I finished reading this novel to comment on it. Maybe even wait until I had finished reading all of Daniel Mason's books, as I intend to do. But at page 110 of The Piano Tuner, my enthusiasm overwhelmed me, and I thought that I had to give a shout.

This is such a great fucking novel!

And it was published in 2002, when he was a mere 26 years old. I don't know how such a young fella could know so much about Burma and rare pianos.

It's just amazing.

There was an episode wherein a deadly tiger is being hunted, and it was so intense and distressing that I didn't really read it, I watched the movie.

And this is just his first novel. I am looking forward to some sweet reading for the next couple of months.

You come too?

Asimov = 🐖

I've been enjoying Murder at the ABA (by Isaac Asimov*) for a week or so now. There have been some minor misogynistic missteps, but that's pretty much par for the course for Isaac. (Not saying that makes it ok, btw.) And then he did this:

What the fuck, man. Granted this is a character speaking, but given Asimov(*)'s reputation,  it's not a very big leap to see him in sync with this. 

Fucking hell, man...how could such an intelligent man be so stupid?

* 🐖 

P.S. Yet this is how Asimov's (writing in third person) sees himself:

For fuck's sake.
 

That Explains It

"...for him she was uncommon, and we all want to be uncommon, and the moment she realized the error of her understanding was the moment that she left."

"For the Union Dead"
A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth
by Daniel Mason

Stoned Thought

I'm not going to try to lose weight anymore, I'm going to focus on growing five inches.

Stoned and dozing, almost asleep, when these words came into my head:

If I could go back in time to the moment of my birth and crawl forward, pausing at every moment of unwarranted anger, any moment when I had hurt someone, intentionally or not, scrape those moments up like horse excrement and wash the pavement clean with torrents of baptismal water, that would be a most excellent way to spend another life.