I don’t have to much on my mind today but I want to keep to my resolve to do some regular writing here as daily as possible.

Today would have been my Mother’s 95th birthday.

I think about her and my Dad often.

They are often in my dreams. Literally. Plus they seem to stare back at me from the mirror.

I continue my daily reading and piano playing. I’ve added reading Chaucer aloud recently. This is fun and it’s surprising what reading aloud does for my comprehension of the Old English.

Today I spent some time with C. P. E. Bach, reading in his biography by Ottenberg, reading his letters, and playing through a few of his Prussian Sonatas.

I also did some clearing of my study in preparation to turn it over to Elizabeth, Jeremy, and Alex for their Thanksgiving visit. I worked on it today so that I would be sure to have tomorrow free for Eileen’s and my weekly foray to the shore. Eileen has also done some clearing of the music room upstairs as well which has a bit more room if they opt for that. At least there’s room for a harpsichord up there now.

Wednesday I am due at the dermatologist. My rash continues to abate, but it is nowhere near completely gone. I am interested to see what the doctor decides on Wednesday. The med I have been using is not recommend for use beyond 14 days. Tuesday will be my 14th day of application I think.

I did end up subscribing to the Atlantic magazine, but digital only. It would have cost me only ten more dollars but I don’t really want more magazines to dispose of after use.

Eileen and I have been watching old Alfred Hitchcock movies. So far we have watched North by Northwest, Marnie, and Vertigo. I find the old movies so much more satisfying than most things made for screens these days. I especially appreciate Bernard Hermann scores for all of these. Movie and TV music usually makes me a little crazy and at the least distracts and/or annoys me.

I have a new hero, Adam Serwer. I’ve had his book, The Cruelty is the Point: The Past, Present, and Future of Trump’s America sitting on my to-read shelf for a while. I started it yesterday. It’s a collection of essays he has written beginning with “Is this the Second Redemption?” published in The Atlantic on November 10, 2016. Serwer brings together an astute understanding of the past and the present in this article. Each article is preceded by an introductory essay that has been written for this 2021 collection and updates anything needed.

But not much is needed so far. I admit I ordered this book because I liked the title. The cruelty is indeed the point of white racism. But I had no idea that this guy existed. I am enjoying it so much that I am thinking of subscribing to the Atlantic where he is still writing.

I have read the first four of thirteen chapters. Already I am marking up passages and connecting ideas. For example, Serwer does an elegant and telling comparison of “The specific dissonance of Trumpism—advocacy for discriminatory, even cruel, policies combined with vehement denials that such policies are racially motivated” as a “most recent manifestation of a contradiction as old as the United States, a society founded by slaveholders on the principle that all men are created equal.” Wow.

Pages later he ties in James Baldwin who, he writes, “wrote about this peculiar American delusion in 1964, arguing that the founders of the United States had a ‘fatal flaw’: that ‘they could recognize a man when they saw one.’ Because ‘they had already decided that they came here to establish a free country, the only way to justify the role this chattel was playing in one’s life was to say that he was not a man. That lie is the basis of our present trouble. It is an extremely complex lie.”

Good stuff. Serwer’s back notes indicate he is quoting from Baldwin’s essay, “the White Problem” in the collection The Cross of Redemption.

Like so many of Serwer’s references, this 2010 publication will go on my to-read list.

I can only link yesterday’s video. The link should begin at about where my piece starts. They did a good job on it. Here’s a link to the program.

The Pioneering Sci-Fi Writer Octavia Butler

This is an article from the Smithsonian Magazine. A lot of is rehash of lionizing the excellent Butler. But there this picture of her typewrite.

Charles Conwell Killed in the Ring

I can’t remember who recommended this, but they said that thought they weren’t that interested in boxing the writing was elegant. It happens to be in the Atlantic.