Wednesday Whimsy
Sony World Photography awards winner in the “Creative” category, a 5x enlargement of crystals of amino acids, shot with the help of polarizing filters. Photo by Rob Blanken, posted at the guardian.com:
I’m a graduate of Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo-zoo-zoo. I’m embarrassed to say I did not know Frank Lloyd Wright had designed a home there, although it’s in an area with which I was/am completely unfamiliar. It’s listed at $790,000. Photo from Google Images:
I feel faint. Headline from newsmax.com: “14 Dems Join GOP Resolution to Condemn Biden on Border.” Cynical as I am about politicians, I suspect they are reacting to polls in their districts rather than moving to right a wrong.
Born in Sheffield, England, A.S. (Antonia Susan) Byatt, highly educated, had a successful literary career that included criticism, fiction and poetry. She taught for eleven years before writing fulltime. She released ten novels, six short story collections, three novellas and nine works of literary criticism. I just finished her first novel, The Shadow of the Sun, published in 1964, still selling modestly at Amazon. It’s the story of an unpleasant young woman at a loss as to what to do with herself. Her father, a WWII vet, is a critically acclaimed novelist, which makes her aspirations in that regard intimidating. The man is eccentric not in the usual way artists are portrayed — drinking, doing drugs, womanizing— but in his habit of disappearing and communing with nature, falling into a funk. I don’t believe the author is assigning blame to the father, aloof though he is, for the foolishness of the daughter, as his son, younger than his sister, is upbeat and pleasant. The narrative improves in the final quarter or so when confrontations take place, although they lead only to an open ending. Densely written, the novel is a tough slog, the 298 pages of the large paperback reading like a lot more. Point of view shifts constantly, at times within a paragraph. In many instances I failed to grasp what the author was communicating, probably because she has a much higher IQ than I. Perhaps her understanding of the psyche runs deeper than mine, a grudging admission, as I believe it is one of my strengths. Here are excerpts I’ve cherry-picked: “…One is trapped in one’s own silliness…” “…One did not after all believe any more that God had put one in one’s present station as part of his patterns for the best of all possible worlds…” “We are all very much alone.” This is a novel I respect more than like, as it focuses on the human condition and existential angst. 19 users at Amazon have rated The Shadow…, forging to a consensus of four on a scale of five. I’ll go with three. Married twice, a mom of four, Byatt passed away at 87 in 2023. Her books have been translated into 30 languages. She has received many accolades, including the Booker Prize for Fiction for Possession: A Romance. Photo from GI:
Headline from foxnews.com out of Maryland: “City’s ‘racial equity’ official says she wants US to burn to the ground.” How refreshing for a leftist to admit it. I like knowing who the enemy is.
Variety was the order of the day at today’s session of the Anti-Inflation Book Shop. My thanks to all the buyers. Here’s what sold: a pair of ladies’ shoes size seven-and-a-half, two Rod Stewart CDs; a CD of Cirque du Soleil music; two DVDs; two novels by Robin Cook: Night Shift and Manner of Death; A Column of Fire by Ken Follett; 1812: The War That Forged a Nation by Walter R. Borneman; The End of Commitment: Intellectuals, Revolutionaries, and Political Morality in the Twentieth Century by Paul Hollander; The Classic Italian Cook Book: The Art of Italian Cooking and the Italian Art of Eating and More Classic Italian Cooking, both by Marcella Hazan.
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