Consider

Knutsford Great Race, Britain. Photo from voanews.com:

Life imitates art, headline from nypost.com: “Little rascals: Kids being used to rob NYC businesses like modern day ‘Oliver Twist’.” Cue the music: “Consider yourself at home/Consider yourself one of the family.” (Lionel Bart) Photo from Google Images, Mark Lester, Oliver! (1968). “Please, sir, I want some more.”

100% on the creepiness meter, from NYP: “The one that got away: The true story of how an active serial killer appeared on ‘The Dating Game’.” The woman went on one date with him. I guess the nut thought it would be too obvious if he attacked her. A movie version of the book premiered in Toronto on Friday. Photo from amazon.com:

Politics, from NYP: “Biden greets Saudi Crown Prince MBS he once ripped as ‘pariah’ with warm handshake at G20 summit.” They are a different breed.

I hadn’t read a book by a black author in a long time. A copy of Bailey’s Cafe by Gloria Naylor, published in 1993, came my way. Set in the first half of the 20th century, it is a grim depiction of the human condition, almost exclusively of black American lives. The focal point is a small restaurant, owned by a WWII vet and his taciturn wife, situated in a tough area of Chicago. Each chapter focuses on a patron. The accounts are grim. I doubted I would get through it, but I soldiered on, as the narrative remained interesting. It is by no means an easy read, as it is told in the vernacular of the owners or the character in question. There is an aspect I didn’t grasp — the backyard of the cafe referred to as if it’s something out of The Twilight Zone. Other than that, the tales are grounded. Here are excerpts: “While most of what happens in life is below the surface, other people do come up for air and translate their feelings for the general population now and then.” And: “I’m gonna tell you why people get high: cause when you’re that far up there, everything becomes clear.” And this about life, the novel’s closing line: “When you have to face it with more questions than answers, it can be a crying shame.” 389 readers at Amazon have rated Bailey’s Cafe, forging to a consensus of 4.1 on a scale of five. I’ll go with 3.25. It may be the only book that disparages Jackie Robinson, claiming there were many other players more skilled, more deserving than he. Maybe so, but I believe Branch Rickey chose him because he thought Robinson was the right man to endure the hell that would be directed at the first black in MLB. The stress may have taken years off his life. He is one of the great men of the 20th century… Born in NYC in 1950, a graduate of Brooklyn College, Naylor hit the jackpot with her first novel, The Women of Brewster Place, published in 1982, garnering a National Book Award for a first novel. It was adapted to television, a two-part miniseries that received an Emmy nomination. In all, she wrote eight books. She passed away at 66 in 2016. Photo from GI:

The floating book shop was rained out.

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