No, not the Thomas Pynchon novel. Nor the movie. I needed a vise for my workbench and with images of my grandfather’s vise in mind I found one I liked and ordered it. Before attaching it to the bench, I glanced at the directions, which turned out to be a word salad that resulted from a feeble attempt to translate Mandarin into English. Needless to say, I followed them to the letter.
Our first snow was little more than a dusting, but I used it as excuse to light the fireplace for the first time this season. My wood stove is out of commission and I’m awaiting the install of a new Jøtol stove. The fireplace is great for ambiance but crap for heating the cabin … though Althea wasn’t complaining.
And the colder weather brought my squatters back with a vengeance. I woke up around 3:30 a.m. to the sound of something gnawing. I keep a flashlight by the bed, but it revealed nothing. The gnawing continued for the next hour until I got out of bed to go to the bathroom, where I found a southern flying squirrel (Glaucomys volans) on the window, apparently trying to figure out how to escape while his buddies partied like rock stars up in the ceiling. I used a hand towel to nab him and put him in a plastic container. The next morning, Althea and I drove him a few miles away to Strouds Run, where I released him and hoped he wouldn’t find his way back.
I’m a big fan of Alan Moore’s Jerusalem, so when the r/ReadersofJerusalem subreddit started a group read of the book, I decided to join in even though I’m already immersed in Ulysses. Below is the first post I made to the subreddit after having re-read the first chapter …
A few things I’m noting … very random, some specific to the way I’m approaching Jerusalem this time around.
For some reason, this reminds me of a line from the Hal Ashby’s 1971 film Harold and Maude, where Maude tells Harold, “The earth is my body; my head is in the stars.” Harold. like Mick, needs to connect with the spiritual, to find the link between earth and sky.
I’m also re-reading Ulysses along with Emily Wilson’s translation of the Odyssey and I can’t help seeing a few vague parallels here.
Moore is an incredible writer. I’ve read/listened to this book several times, and his ability to create detailed, believable characters has kept them alive in my head long after I finished my most recent read. To wit, here’s his description of May Warren:
May Warren, formerly May Vernall, was a stout and freckled dreadnaught of a woman, rolling keg-shaped down the tiled lanes of the covered Fish Market most Saturdays, leaving a cleared path in her wake and gathering momentum with each heavy pace like an accumulating snowball of cheery malevolence, the speckled jowls in which her chin lay sunken shuddering at every step, the darting currants of the eyes pressed deep into the heaped blood-pudding of her face glittering with anticipation of whatever awful treat she’d visited the market to procure.