Mars, the Moon, the World

America gone mad: four mass shootings in L.A. in one week, six in the state of California, more than 20 dead. What to do? I have no idea. It is our national curse.

From Bangladesh to Malaysia, headline from nypost.com: “Boy playing hide-and-seek found in another country six days later.” 15, he’s okay. He was locked in a shipping container.

Happy Hour in southern Iraq, headline from NYP: “Raising the bar: 5,000-year-old ‘tavern’ discovered on archeological dig.” Belly up.

The bear necessities discovered on Mars, photo from Google Images:

From NYP: “Whale meat vending machine business continues boom in Japan.” Photo from GI:

RIP guitarist/songwriter Tom Verlaine, 73, co-founder of influential rock band Television, whose heyday was in the ‘70’s. It reformed in ’92. I don’t know anything about its music, despite its stellar reputation. Born Thomas Miller in Jersey, Verlaine adopted his stage name in honor of the French poet, whose work I’m also completely unfamiliar with. According to his Wiki profile, Verlaine was influenced more by great jazz saxophonists than guitar players. The band released six albums, three studio, three live. They sold much better in Europe than the States. The debut album, Marquee Moon, is #83 on VH1’s 2000 list of the 100 Greatest Albums of Rock and Roll and #128 on Rolling Stone’s 2003 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Verlaine released ten solo discs. Photo from GI:

Another mild January 2023 day, and the rain held off, allowing the floating book shop to operate. My thanks to the young man with the heavy Russian accent, who broke the goose egg as I was packing up, buying three works of science fiction: Moving Mars by Greg Bear, The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler, and one from Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series.

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