My friend, Peter, canceled our meeting for today. A couple of his handbell players came down with Covid. Too bad. I was looking forward to chatting with him.

I dreamed about Larry Curran last night. I have not seen him in person since he left Peter and me in anger. We three had been sitting in my kitchen and I offended Larry so deeply that he got in his car and left and never spoke to me again. You may wonder what in the world I did that so upset him. From my point of view, he had been behaving in a weird passive aggressive manner and I called him on it. Even if I was wrong about this, renouncing our friendship for ever because of that seems excessive. Peter’s possible visit probably stirred up my thinking enough to see Larry in a dream. I do still miss him a little bit.

My sister-in-law’s brother has died of Covid and respiratory related disease. This is the same sister- and brother-in-law who previously chose not to get vaccinated against Covid because of a misconception of how fetal stem cells played into the research. I can only hope that the dead brother was not exposed through them. Eileen says this is not probable.

My rash continues to rage. I told Eileen that I think it’s aged me considerably. I am scheduled to see the dermatologist two weeks from tomorrow. I was hoping superstitiously that by getting that appointment the stupid rash would abate somewhat but that is not the case.

But my eyes are working very well. I can read without glasses and use them for TV and driving. Only one more week to worry about lifting restrictions then I can get back to exercising and stretching. My weight has been slowly going up, but the BP is staying low so that’s good.

I listened to most of a recent interview of Fiona Hill this morning on YouTube. You may remember her from her testimony in the Trump impeachment proceedings. She was impressive then and continues to be so. I haven’t listened to the whole interview. Hill sees the existential crisis we are in now in America. She thinks it will only be addressed by more activism on the ground and more courage in national leadership.

Good luck with that last one.

Hill has insight regarding how polarized we are now in the U.S. She pointed out how the basic identification with either the Republican or the Democratic party has permeated our society. I hope she is not right about this but it seems she is. As she points out there is so much more to people’s personality and point of view beyond a simply Red State or Blue State orientation.

Far From a Panopticon, Social Credit Focuses on Legal Violations – Jamestown

Another article by Jeremy Daum. It’s three weeks old but still pertinent. If you have questions this would be a good read. For me, it helps that he defines the social credit system in the first sentence: “China’s social credit system: directories of data inputs and punitive outputs from the General Office of the State Council.” That’s clear enough.

I try to keep a Shakespeare play going for my daily reading regimen. Recently I finished a re-read of Julius Caesar and went on to Antony and Cleopatra which I don’t think I have read before. This occurs in the first few lines:

CLEOPATRA If it be love indeed, tell me how much,

ANTONY There’s beggary in the love that can be reckoned.

CLEOPATRA I’ll set a bourn now far to be beloved.

ANTONY Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.

“New heaven, new earth!” Antony’s Biblical quotation reminded me of my interest in Shakespeare’s use of Bible. I pulled out my Shaheen Biblical References in Shakespeare’s Plays.

Sitting next to it on my Shakespeare shelf was Steven Marx’s Shakespeare and the Bible.

I had forgotten about this neat little book. I had read some pages into but decided I would start from the beginning which is what I did as Eileen and I sat next Lake Michigan yesterday for date day.

While Shaheen has a chapter for every Shakespeare play, Marx uses five of them. He chooses them carefully and cleverly. He then pairs a book of the Geneva Bible with each one. The first play is The Tempest which he pairs with Genesis.

Apparently The Tempest comes first in the First Folio collection done of Shakespeare shortly after his death.

Marx finds some startling and beautiful parallels between the play and Genesis. What fun!

His last choice is also The Tempest which is thought by many scholars to be Shakespeare’s last play. He pairs this with the Apocalypse. In other words, the last book of the Bible, Revelations. The two chapter titles are 2. Posterity and Prosperity: Genesis in The Tempest and 6. A Masque of Revelation: The Tempest as Apocalypse. The first chapter is 1. Introduction: “Kiss the book”.

It’s a short little book and I look forward to not only reading it but other books and poems he has mentioned such as The Pleasures of Reading by my favorite Hebrew Bible translator, Robert Alter; Words with Power, a book I had not heard of by Northrup Frye who wrote The Great Code which is a very cool book; and Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres which is based on King Lear.

The poem he has mentioned is “Peter Quince at the Clavier” by Wallace Stevens.” I recognize this poem and have read it but I’m not sure I understood that Quince was a character out of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I will have to revisit the poem in light of that. I seem to remember thinking that Quince was some fancy harpsichordist I didn’t recognize.

My rash was raging yesterday. I forgot to take moisturizing cream with me to the beach and the sun seemed to irritate the rash. I used my misery as an excuse to have a real martini last night followed by the usual wine and whisky.