Flag Day

RIP literary lion Cormac McCarthy, 89. Born in Providence, raised in Knoxville, he was one of six children. First published in student magazines, he dropped out of college. While working part-time at an auto parts store, his first novel, The Orchard Keeper, was published. He was compared to Faulkner. Despite his success, he lived humbly, pursuing his art. In 1976 he completed a screenplay, The Gardener’s Son, for the PBS series Visions. It was nominated for two Emmys. In 1986 Blood Meridian was published and his stature soared, some dubbing it The Great American Novel. In 1992 All the Pretty Horses, McCarthy’s first best seller, won the National Book Award. He struck gold again in 2005 with No Country for Old Men, conceived originally as a screenplay, comprised mostly of dialogue. It was adapted by the Coen brothers in 2007 and won four Oscars and more than 75 awards globally. His tenth novel, The Road, took the world by storm and won a Pulitzer. It is the only one of his works I’ve read. I didn’t like it. While the post-apocalyptic story is interesting, I hated the unpolished, third person prose, which I assume is from the point of view of the son, who never had any schooling. I don’t understand why it wasn’t a first-person account. Maybe that explains why I’ve gotten nowhere in my own literary efforts. There is so much more to McCarthy’s life covered in his Wiki profile, which lists twelve novels, three volumes of short fiction, two plays, five screenplays and an essay. Seven of his works have been adapted to either the big or small screen. Married three times, he was a father of two. Well done, Sir. Photo from GI:

Headline from nypost.com: “Image is everything: Cavinder twins have raked in $2M in NIL deals off their looks — while better athletes come up empty, critics charge.” Boo-hoo. Sex sells — who knew? NIL stands for Name, Image, Likeness, and allows college athletes to rake in big bucks. Photo from nypost.com:

Find a headline more amusing than this in today’s news, from NYP: “Famous sperm donor, father of 65 children, wants to end ‘hobby’ and find love.” He got religion, praise be.

A case for Ripley’s Believe It or Not, headline from foxnews.com: “Harvard Medical School morgue manager charged for selling stolen human remains.” The following pic is not of the manager but someone involved in the trafficking. Photo from GI:

From FN: “29 Dems vote with GOP to protect gas stoves from Biden’s Department of Energy.” Must be those who frequently eat at restaurants.

The floating book shop was curtailed by rain. All the trade was in Russian. My thanks to the woman who bought two Isaac Asimov hardcovers, and to the two elderly women who did swaps. Since I had time and energy, I went to T-Mobile to see if it was still offering the internet deal, $50 a month, advertised on Facebook. I signed up. The woman was very accommodating, making it easy despite the fact that I have no smart devices. All I had to do was plug in the device. So far it’s working at least as well as Optimum, which charges me $117. The only scary part was having to surrender my SSN and debit card numbers.

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