Sunday Sundries, 244

1. AOTW: Cruising along on Stow Rd. with a tailgater, deeply unhappy that I was going only 5 mph over the posted limit, I watched him roar by us--double yellow line, of course--and then had the satisfaction of being right behind him at the next stoplight.

2. I finished one book this week, Travels with My Aunt, a 1969 book by Graham Greene, that we've owned for nearly a half-century. I finally read it because Brock Clarke in his new book (Who Are You, Calvin Bledsoe?) cites Travels as one of the principal inspirations for his own book.

And I'm glad I did--read it, that is. I've read a lot of Greene over the years, and one of my early memories from our marriage is typing a paper for Joyce on Greene that she'd written for a modern British novel course at Kent State. (I think it was about The Power and the Glory?) I hadn't read anything by him at the time--but then I did.

Anyway, Travels is narrated by Henry Pulling, a retired bank manager who finds himself drawn into the wild and peripatetic life of his aunt Augusta, a woman he didn't even know existed. They end up traveling all over the place (she's a smuggler!), and we get involved with the CIA and other various law-enforcement officials.

Gradually, Henry learns the story of his parents' lives--and his own--and let's just say that there have been some ... complications, one of which is his own nativity.

I can see why Brock Clarke saw such contemporary possibilities in the novel, and he certainly mined them for all they were worth!

Wild and funny and touching and continually surprising. Both books.

3. We've about finished streaming the most recent season of Line of Duty, a very tense British series about AC-12, an anti-corruption police unit in London. In this season--spent pursuing the connections between organized crime and corrupt cops--the leader of AC-12 himself (Chief Superintendent Hastings) is under suspicion.

So incredibly tense at times that I have to shut the damn thing down--or call 911. But things have settled a little in the final episode. We're inside the station; interviews are going on; the truth is emerging.

4. A busy "social" week for us (and, thus, unusual): We had meals this week with one of Joyce's long-ago WRA students, with one of my long-ago Aurora students, with one of my not-that-long ago WRA colleagues. (I got tired just typing all of this!)

5. Last night I finished streaming--yet again (how many times? let me not count the ways)--all seasons of The Rockford Files (1974-80)--over a hundred episodes. I watched them "live" Back in the Day; I watched them on VHS; I streamed them; I've watched them on DVD. Over and over and over again. An addiction, I know

I can't help it, Your Honor ...

6. Last Word: a word I liked this week from one of my various online word-of-the-day providers ...

     - from wordsmith.org

nocebo (no-SEE-bo)

noun: A substance producing harmful effects in someone because it is believed to be harmful, but which in reality is harmless.

ETYMOLOGY: From Latin nocebo (I will harm), from nocere (to harm). Modeled after its antonym placebo (I will please). Earliest documented use: 1961.

USAGE: “As Geoff Watts shows, the nocebo’s impact can be very harmful. Maybe it’s because fear is more powerful than hope.” Gillian Reynolds; Radio: Review Pick of the Week; The Daily Telegraph (London, UK); Feb 14, 2015.