1. HBOTW [Human Beings of the Week]: Two former students from Harmon Middle School, Chuck Wilson and Dina Fordyce Luciana (whom I taught during the 1985-86 school year--they're now older than I was when I taught them!), stopped by Open Door Coffee on Saturday morning for about an hour, and we had a wonderful time talking about them-thar days + now. So wonderful to see them.
2. Although I've been ill for about 2 1/2 weeks, I did manage to finish a couple of books during that time.
- The first is an 1880 novel by Wilkie Collins (whose complete novels I'm slowly reading--about a half-dozen to go!), Jezebel's Daughter, a complicated story mostly about a woman who is not what she appears to be. (And her daughter--see title!--is not at all like her and is engaged to be married.) The mother's name is Madame Fontaine and she has access to a rare and deadly poison ... let's guess if she ever uses it? An interesting subplot involves a man called Jack Straw, who had been residing in Bedlam before a kind woman takes him into her home--the home where Madame Fontaine is now a servant. Straw seems to know on some visceral level that something is wrong.
By the end (no spoiler alert) some good things have happened, some bad--and ... does everyone get what he/she deserves? Has earned? Well, it's like this ... Wilkie Collins (1824-89) ... read the book!
- The second novel I finished (I actually finished it just before Illness arrived) is the first novel by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Water Dancer, 2019, a departure (in genre) for Coates who has over the past few years become a very celebrated writer of nonfiction (he won a 2015 National Book Award for Between the World and Me).
Coates deals bluntly with the brutality of slavery (some of this is very difficult to read) but also celebrates the courage and determination of people (some white) who were opposed to slavery--and did something about it.
For a first novel it's quite impressive--hell, many novelists never write a book this good. Here's hoping that more--many more--are in the works!
3. During my illness I couldn't do much but sleep and cough and blow my nose--man, it was an unpleasant couple of weeks. But Joyce was there. And we did some streaming of shows we like--Waking the Dead and Doc Martin. Oh, and we also finished a couple of episodes of a German mystery/police series, Commissario Brunetti. The original stories were by an American, Donna Leon, and the film adaptations were fun to watch--though odd: stories set in Venice, characters speaking German, English subtitles.
Joyce's former student (and our long-time friend) Tammy Eldredge gave us the DVDs of episodes 3 and 4. Now we are hooked and must needs acquire the other ones!
4. A shout-out this week to Reza Rais, a student whom I taught at WRA back (I think) in 1979-80, a loyal follower of this site, who, realizing I've been sick, posted on FB a version of Sunday Sundries last week. To say I was touched is an understatement. Thanks so much, Reza.
5. Last Word--a word I liked this week from one of my various online word-of-the-day providers ...
- from Oxford English Dictionary
prodnose, v.
intransitive. To pry; to be inquisitive.
Origin: From a proper name. Etymon: proper name
Prodnose: the name of Prodnose, a pedantic and interfering character (representative
of the general public as a whole) in the humorous ‘Beachcomber’ columns of J.B.
Morton (1893-1975),
rare.
1954 D.
Thomas Quite Early One Morning
178 A failed psychoanalyst in this life who is even now prodnosing
in the air above me, casebook in claw.
1969 Daily Tel. 31 Oct. (Colour Suppl.) 20/1 It is perhaps
high time that the industrial psychologists who are encouraged to prodnose
into most things got to work on the Press.
Derivatives
prodnosing n.
1958 Spectator 3 Oct. 430/1 At this time [sc. the 1940s] the
social virtue of prodnosing..was still at a fairly harmless stage of
development.
No comments:
Post a Comment