1. HBOTW [Human Beings of the Week]: Our next-door neighbors, yesterday, had delivered to our house some lovely white lilies (and some other flora I'm too dumb to identify--Joyce could do it in a heartbeat). They are wonderful people--use their snowblower on our walk for us, helped us pay for a new fence when it was collapsing ...
2. I finished two books this week--the first of which took me a while to read in small chunks each night in bed.
- The first was The Stories of Alice Adams. Adams (1926-99) was a gifted writer of stories and novels, and I have to admit I had not read much of her till now: some stories in magazines and anthologies--and one earlier collection of them (Beautiful Girl, 1979). Adams is enjoying something of a resurrection now, I think (and hope): She is the subject of a recent biography (Alice Adams: Portrait of a Writer, 2019, by Carol Slenicka), and I'm hoping her works return, for she is something to read.
And now, I'm afraid, I'm hooked and am going to have to read her novels--as soon as I finish with Ian McEwan and Arthur Phillips. Which won't be too long.
Oh, can't forget this: In her story "1940: Fall," she introduces us to a character from Enid, Oklahoma--my hometown (409).
Link to Adams' obituary in the New York Times.
- The second was Enter the Aardvark, 2020, by Jessica Anthony (her second book). I learned about it from a FB post by Brock Clarke, so, trusting his judgment, I ordered it, read it--and now trust his judgment even more, if that's possible.
This is a wild one--in structure, in the use of parallel stories, in the events that occur, in the regular employment of the second person (a truly arrogant character), in the intricate plotting (which makes the blurb on the jacket by Kate Atkinson, a genius at such things, even more impressive: "It's been a long time since I enjoyed a novel so much").
There are two time periods: the recent past and 1875 (throughout, the story cuts back and forth between them). In 1875 we follow the story of the English scientist who killed and returned the aardvark in Africa and the English taxidermist who first prepared the aardvark, the aardvark that reappears more than a century later in the pad of a Washington politician, a Congressman who adores Ronald Reagan, who adores things, who has presidential ambitions of his own. And who tells us his story in the second person.
Well, it's not too long before we start seeing all sorts of connections between 1875 and the time of our Reagan-fan. Don't want to give away too much, but there are issues of sexuality, of, well, ghosts, of friendship, of betrayal. Oh, and the Nazis figure in the story. As do some Africans who lay claim to the aardvark, which, as I've said, was killed in their country.
One of the great things about the opening: a swift telling of creation. Read that--and you, like me, will be hooked.
3. We were happy to discover on Britbox this week that Season 8 of Death in Paradise, a formulaic mystery series that we really like, is now available.
4. We've also been streaming the Netflix documentary Mark Twain Prize, which tells the story of the Prize conferred in 2019 on comedian Dave Chappelle. The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is given every year--and there's a celebration at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. It commenced in 1998 and has honored a lot of famous names in comedy--quite a few of them former cast members of Saturday Night Live.
It's really fun to watch as it cuts back and forth between now and then (Chappelle started doing stand-up as a teen!)--and onstage tributes from the likes of Tiffany Haddish, Neal Brennan (who worked on the Comedy Central Chappelle Show), Sarah Silverman, Jon Stewart, and many others (we're only about 1/3 of the way through). One of the most moving parts? The opening, when the band from his former high school, the Duke Ellington HS for the Arts (Washington, DC), performs. Oh, were those kids good! Marching through the aisles, dancing on the stage in honor of surely one of their greatest graduates.
Link to some video.
5. Joyce and I are still doing okay--trying to exercise a little every day, eat well, rest, do our work. Talk, talk, talk. We missed our grandson Carson's 11th birthday on April 3, but we Face Timed to watch him open up the presents we'd given him--and to hear Steve, our son--Carson's dad, read aloud (with great skill and humor, if I do say so!) the birthday story that Joyce and I had written.
If you enlarge the pic, you can see Joyce and me on the iPhone screen!
6. Final Word--a word I liked this week from one of my online word-of-the-day providers:
- from The Oxford English Dictionary--a word that seems very useful as a metaphor!
daddock, n. Rotten or decayed wood; a piece of rotten wood; a rotten
tree or log. Also formerly more fully †daddock wood.’
Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈdadək/,
U.S. /ˈdædək/
Forms: 16 dadocke, 16– daddock, 18– daddok,
17– dadack, 18– daddack, 18– dadduck, 18– daddak,
18– daddick, 18– dadick, 18– daddik,
19– dadock, 18– dedock, 19– deddock, 19– daddik.
Origin: Apparently formed within English, by derivation. Etymons: an
element of unknown origin, -ock suffix. Perhaps compare English regional
(Devon) dathered withered (19th century).
English regional (southern and
midlands) and U.S. regional (chiefly New England).
a1624 Bp. M. Smith Serm.(1632)
106 How long would it be before you could..make mortar of sand, or make a piece
of dadocke-wood to flame?
1674 T. Blount Glossographia(ed.
4) Daddock, when the heart or body of a Tree is throughly rotten, it is called
Daddock, quasi, dead Oak.
1680 B. Nanfan Ess. Divine
& Moral 196 This Spark to that
glorious Diamond, this Daddock-wood, this Glow-worm to that Morning-Star.
1731 R. Gwinnett et al. Pylades & Corinna I. 96 Very much like Touch-wood, or what our
Country-Fellows call Daddock, which is an old, rotten, light, hollow, spungy,
soft-sort of Wood.
1787 F. Grose Provinc. Gloss. Daddock, rotten wood, touch-wood. Glouc.
1845 S. Judd Margaret ii. i. 215 The great red daddocks lay in the
green pastures where they had lain year after year, crumbling away.
1850 J. S. Jenkins U.S.
Exploring Exped.: Voy. of Exploring Squadron i. ii. 50 The unsightly daddocks, which so
often mar the beauty of northern scenery, are rarely encountered [in Brazil].
1889 M. Reid Naturalist in
Siluria 44 On having the nest itself
drawn out, it proved no nest at all, only some loose ‘daddocks’, as pieces of
decayed wood are called by the country people.
1986 J. Gardner Stillness
& Shadows 180 Oak boards, one
imagined, were as soft as daddock.
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