1. HBsOTW [Human Beings of the Week]: The service crew at Don Joseph Toyota in Kent, who came over here this week, picked up our 2010 Corolla (its battery had died), jump-started it, drove the car to Kent for the routine servicing (and, sigh, a new battery), returned it--all in the same day. The only complication was my fault (making me, I guess, the AOTW): They'd called to let us know we'd need a new battery (and wanted our approval), but when the call came in, I didn't recognize the number, didn't answer, blocked it. So a guy drove over here (about 10 mi each way) to let us know and ask the question. Then drove back. We've bought all our cars from them since the mid-1970s, so maybe we've earned a screw-up?
2. I finished three books this week: one via Kindle, one via my nightstand, one I read during the days this week. We'll take them in order.
- The first, The Torment of Others, 2004, is the fourth in the eleven-book series about Tony Hill and Carol Jordan by Val McDermid (whose work my friend Chris got me consuming). Tony Hill is a psychological profiler for the police; DCI Carol Jordan often employs Tony--and there is some electricity between them of, you know, that kind. The stories take place in the fictional town of Bradfield somewhere in the north.
This one has several stories going on: the murder of local prostitutes, the murder of some children in the countryside, the emotional/psychological recovery of Carol Jordan, who, in the previous novel, was kidnapped and raped. The Bradfield police decide to put an officer (Paula) undercover as a prostitute, but things quickly go wrong, and Carol has to endure the horror of her own memories along with the effort to rescue Paula before it's too late.
By the end, my heart was going more than pitter-patter It was PITTER-PATTER.
I've already started the next one--Beneath the Bleeding (2007).
Oh, and there's a great TV series based on the novels; it's called Wire in the Blood, available on Amazon and Acorn TV.
- The second I finished this week was Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East, 2020, by Kim Ghattas.
The book really helped me understand some things--though, as I said, I couldn't really follow all of it--because of my own ignorance, I fear.
- The third was Angelica, 2007, by Arthur Phillips, whose complete novels I've been reading the past couple of months. (I've got only one left--The Song Is You, 2009--which I started last week.)
In some ways, the novel is a Victorian ghost story set in England. Angelica, 4, is the daughter of Joseph (a scientist who specializes in dissection and vivisection) and his young wife, Constance, whom he met in a stationery shop, where she worked.
Marriage and motherhood and an all-day-absent husband have introduced considerable stress into Constance's life--and, along with Angelica, she begins to think a ghost is in the house--a threat to her child--and to her. Eventually (without Joseph's knowledge) she employs a kind of ghostbuster.
But things aren't so simple.
Phillips divides the tale into several major sections, each focusing on a different principal character. First comes Constance, then Anne Montague (the ghostbuster), then Joseph, then (finally) Angelica herself (told years later).
The big question becomes: What is true? Is there a ghost? Is Joseph abusing his child? Is the ghostbuster trustworthy? Is Constance mad?
I had a lot of fun reading this one; as usual, Phillips kept me guessing until virtually the final page. And the Unexpected, once again, was a major character.
3. This week--in the interval in the evening between my finishing my reading and the arrival of Joyce in the bedroom--I streamed that old 1965 film The Spy Who Came in from the Cold with the amazing Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, and Oskar Werner. It was fifty-five years ago when it came out (I was a college junior in 1965), and I sort of remember the ending (once it happened!).
Based on the eponymous 1963 novel by John le Carré, the story is about Burton, a veteran British Cold War spy, who goes undercover as a fallen agent in East Germany. Meanwhile, back in England, he fell in love with Bloom, who does not depart the story. The goal is to bring down a dangerous East German agent--but things don't go exactly as planned.
Directed by Martin Ritt, the film is tense (duh), and Burton is riveting and absolutely convincing in his role.
Link to a film trailer.
4. Joyce and I finished streaming the most recent season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and neither one of us thought it was one of the stronger seasons. Sure, there were moments (how could there not be!), but it just seemed too over-the-top to retain that patina of plausibility that the best episodes have. Oh well. Enjoyed some of the cameos. And Susie Essman remains a favorite, playing the frank (and, okay, crude) wife of Larry's friend Jeff Garlin.
5. I was a good boy on the Airdyne bike this week--6 days in a row! And, of course, it seems that it is always time to get back on That Damn Thing!
6. Finally got lucky acquiring flour: got a 25-lb. bag of whole wheat delivered this week. I was beginning to worry.
7. Final Word--a word I liked this week from one of my online word-of-the-day providers ...
- from dictionary.com--a good word for these hand-washing days ...
saponaceous
(sap-uh-ney-shuhs
adjective:
resembling soap; soapy.
ORIGIN:
Saponaceous, “soapy,” comes straight from the New Latin adjective sāpōnāceus.
(New Latin, also called Modern Latin, is Latin that developed after, say, 1500;
it is used especially and typically in the physical sciences, such as zoology,
botany, and anatomy.) Sāpōnāceus is formed from the Latin sāpō
noun (inflective stem sāpōn-) and the adjectival suffix –āceus,
meaning “made of, resembling.” Sāpō means “a preparation for drying or
coloring one’s hair,” and it is one of the relatively few words in Latin
borrowed from Germanic (as compared to the many, many words in Germanic
borrowed from Latin). Saponaceous also has the uncommon sense “slippery,
unctuous,” which appeared in the 19th century: “This… judgment was… so oily, so
saponaceous, that no one could grasp it.” Saponaceous entered
English in the early 18th century.
USES:
The
fruit of this plant is about the size of a large gooseberry, the outer covering
or shell of which contains a saponaceous principle in sufficient
abundance to produce a lather with water and is used as a substitute for soap.
"REPORT
OF THE CHIEF OF THE DIVISION OF GARDENS AND GROUNDS," REPORT OF THE
SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE, 1890
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