1. AOTW (1): COVID-19
AOTW (2): Yesterday afternoon we went to the Acme (grocery) to pick up the things we'd ordered for the week (an attendant brings them out to the car, puts things in the trunk). We were in one of the parking spots designated for pick-up. Directly in front of us--and facing us from another pick-up spot--was a guy, the AOTW, in a large ... pick-up. When the young man brought out to his truck the things the (mask-less) AOTW had ordered, the AOTW got out of his truck, went to the cart, and unloaded the bags. He was right next to the young man for most of it (the young man, I should note, was also mask-less). So much for social distancing.
BTW: We waited about 15 minutes in the parking lot and saw that very few of the many people who were going in and out were wearing masks--or keeping a safe distance.
Go figure.
2. I finished two books this week ...
- The first was Ian McEwan's 1998 novel, Amsterdam, a grim story about two principal characters, one a journalist, the other a composer of serious music. The novel opens at the funeral of a woman with whom they'd both been involved (and who, when she died, was married to yet another).
McEwan cuts back and forth between the two men's stories. And then ... trouble. While on a hike in the Lake Country, Clive (desperately trying to think of a melody to end his piece), sees something ... untoward. And decides not to intervene--doesn't want to lose his focus.
Meanwhile, Vernon's big story gets out a little early, and there are ... consequences.
The two men--friends for a long time--suffer a fracture in their relationship as each gets involved in the problem of the other.
The end is a shocker.
A powerful novel of love, of fractured friendship, of ambition, of arrogance, of courage and cowardice.
(Re: the cover and title: the climactic moment occurs in Amsterdam, where the musical piece is supposed to premiere; although the action of the novel is in the present, the old duel pictured on the cover is an, uh, appropriate metaphor.
And now I have but one un-read McEwan to go--The Children Act (2014). It's on my pile for this week!
- The second was the latest by Shakespearean authority James Shapiro, Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us about Our Past and Future, 2020.
I've learned so much from all of them.
This current one looks at the great historical divisions in our country--and how Shakespeare factored into some of the confrontations between the sides. The Bard, says Shapiro in his Introduction, "speaks to the fears that divide us as a nation" (xii).
He begins in 1833 and reveals the disgust that John Quincy Adams felt for Othello--even in his letters he wrote disparaging things about Desdemona (who married Othello, if you don't remember).
He skips ahead to 1845 and the eve of the Mexican War and issues of gender identity and race. And in that year, guess who was primed to play the role of Desdemona in a U. S. Army production on the border? U. S. Grant! Who was in his early 20s at the time--and beardless.
He didn't actually perform--they hired an actress before the production. Apparently, Grant, as a young man, looked, well, not unlike a woman--and had a soft voice.
Shapiro goes on with chapters about class warfare (1849), assassination (1865), immigration (1916), marriage (1948--here, he reveals that The Taming of the Shrew was not produced in America until 1887), adultery and same-sex love (1998).
His Conclusion is about today, about our current culture wars. And he talks about the 2017 NYC production of Julius Caesar that caused outrage among Trump supporters: The director had made Caesar patently like Trump. (He also notes something I didn't know--that there'd been a Minnesota production of the play during Obama's presidency, a production that made a Caesar-Obama connection; no one said anything.)
Shapiro ends by expressing a worry about "how easily democratic norms could crumble" (220).
3. We were happy to see that the Ricky Gervais Netflix series After Life has started its second season. We are slowly streaming episode one.
4. Getting frustrated about acquiring more flour to bake with. I've got enough to last for a few weeks longer, but there is price-gouging on Amazon for the kind I like ($30 for a 5-lb bag!)--and the actual producers of the flour are "out of stock." Sigh.
5. Our son (Steve) and his family down in Green, Ohio (a half-hour or so away), are doing fine. Spoke on the phone with them last night; he declined to Face Time when he learned we were in bed! Oh, do we miss having them in the house--being in their house--meeting for a movie--a meal ...
6. The battery in our Corolla died this week. We rarely drive that car (2010!), but I had been starting it once/week, letting it run about 20 min. But this week it said, "No way." (Sounded as if I'd dropped a spoon down the whirring kitchen disposer!) It's due for servicing at the dealership anyway (and they are now offering a pickup-and-return policy, so I'll give them a call tomorrow--with a battery warning!
7. Speaking of rarely driving: This will be the second month in a row that we have not had to go to the gas station. When we do drive (a couple of times a week), we use the Prius, which in warm weather gets about 60 mpg.
I know: We should alternate which car we use. BUT: We have a single-car garage, a narrow driveway, and alternating would mean lots of "rotation issues."
8. Last Word--a word I liked this week from one of my online word-of-the-day providers ...
- from The Oxford English Dictionary--I selected this word because it used to be on the vocabulary list for my English III students at Western Reserve Academy--and it was the occasion, on quiz day, for me to utter a pun. I would read the word aloud (for them to spell), then say this, "She sat her nine children down and encouraged them to share." Groans always ensued.
Also--I left out all the OED examples--there were tons of them!
saturnine, adj. and n.
In regard to a person's temperament, mood, or manner:
gloomy, melancholy, dejected, downcast, grim; not easily enlivened, enthused,
or cheered; (in early use) ill-tempered, angry.’]
Origin: A borrowing from Latin. Etymon: Latin Saturninus.
Etymology: <
post-classical Latin Saturninus of a character influenced by
Saturn, melancholy, treacherous (12th cent. in a British source; also in
continental sources), of or relating to lead (a1490 in a British source), of,
relating to, or caused by lead poisoning (1712 in colica saturnina)
< classical Latin Sāturnus Saturn
n. + -īnus -ine suffix1.
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