Babylons & More

59 years ago today. Moments later joy became sorrow. Photo from Google Images:

Better late than never, but better never late,” nuns would tell us. I wonder what they would think of this headline from nypost.com: “CBS ‘confirms’ Hunter Biden laptop is real 769 days after Post broke story.” And in a similar vein, this NYP headline: “Twins from world’s oldest frozen embryos born at 30 years old.” There’s a punchline somewhere, but I couldn’t find it.

Sign of the times headline from newsmax.com: “Vending Machines ‘Helping to Keep People Alive’ With Narcan.” It’s a spray injected into the nose of those who OD.

Headline from an article by Douglas MacKinnon on a Quid Pro Joe proposal: “Should We Block the Sun? Scientists Say the Time Has Come to Study It — The National Academies said the United States must study technologies that would artificially cool the planet by reflecting away some sunlight, citing the lack of progress fighting global warming.”

I’ve completed the second draft of my latest work of fiction, Coincidence, probably a novella. It grew ten handwritten pages to 59. The next step is to type it out in Word Pad. My main interest at present is word count.

The absence of wind on this picture-perfect day was most welcome, allowing the floating book shop an easy time. My thanks to all who bought, donated and swapped, the outgoing far outweighing the incoming for a change. The highlight of the session was the appearance of Ira, who last Friday spoke of suicide, thoughts brought on not only by financial misfortune but by the desertion of his wife, who I sensed used him as a meal ticket. I didn’t seen him yesterday and I was thinking of suggesting someone knock on the door of his apartment. Today he pooh-poohed what he’d said and seemed his old self, waxing nostalgic about his old neighborhood and downtown Brooklyn, especially during the holidays. I was relieved… Here’s what sold: four books in Russian, The Gripping Hand by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; A Night at the Majestic by Richard Davenport-Hines; Hotel Babylon by Imogen Edwards-Jones; Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden; Boucherie: Joie de Vivre by Jessica Colley Clarke and Ian Gittler; Soviet Women: Walking the Tightrope by Francine Du Plessix Gray; and this gem:

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