Wednesday Morning

Yes, let’s pop open a coke and open up the last of the white powdered donuts and make some notes.

A bit wintry this morning. I switched on the heater. I knew it was going to rain, but I did not expect this. But good. It feels like protection against the coming heatwave.

It was so windy, our wind chimes were conducting a full-scale symphony. Since I was sleeping in the big room, with the door open, I had to pull them down. I’m braced for a little drama with Pop, but I don’t think it should be a big deal.

At one point in the night, returning to bed from one of my bathroom runs, I discovered that Coco was lying in bed with me, lying against the wall. I really liked that.

1792 Alexander Hamilton

Of course, in the matter of intercourse, Hamilton had the first great sex scandal in Washington politics. Unfortunately for him, he did not merely fall into a simple extramarital affair with Maria Reynolds. Her husband, James Reynolds, was an inveterate con man. How actively helpful Maria was (i.e., in the con, not the sex), I cannot tell, whether she was simply a weak-willed damsel under the sway of an aggressive husband or not. When Hamilton finally came to realize what he stepped into, he moves to break it off. I want to get down a little note she wrote in apparent desperation.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Dear Sir

I once take up the pen to solicit for the favor of seeing again oh Col hamilton what have I done that you should thus Neglect me.

-- Maria Reynolds, June 2, 1792

[Source: Ron Chernow, “Alexander Hamilton” (2004 hardcover, p. 412)]

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Hannibal

I have gotten back into “Hannibal”, but then I learned that Amazon may not make season two available until October, and I was afraid I already missed the beginning of the new season on TV. However, Ms. Toast posted about the show starting this Friday. I’d rather stream it on the laptop, but I can always use a good show to follow, and “True Detective” is coming to an end in two weeks.

Orwell

We have an interesting book review of a new book on Orwell. We'll grab a couple of points. First, we have the emphasis on Orwell's waywardness, as the man who always seemed to be cast on the outside looking in:

He went to Eton but he was not of the ruling class. He served as a colonial policeman in Burma but he was alienated from the Raj. He became an intellectual who disliked intellectuals, and a socialist who distrusted almost all forms of socialism. He belonged nowhere.

Apparently, the thesis of the book is that there is a core to Orwell, a solid, bedrock identity. It shouldn't be surprising that this is his 'Englishness'. It is this that he was grounded in, and he looked out at the world through English eyes, and wrote about what he saw in the English language:

The country, he discovered – the true country – embodied values worth defending. Values of a practical, gentle, empirical people; people who eschewed any universal ideology, whe­ther it was Marxism, fascism or Catholicism. People who didn’t kill each other because they disagreed over politics.

I suppose we English-speaking fans must share this, this Anglo worldview with its warm undergirding of humanism, especially those of us who are skeptical of the big ISMs and social movements, seeking reason and direction in a wild and out-of-control world.

[Source: David Aaronvitch, reviewing George Orwell: English Rebel by Robert Colls at New Statesman]

Reading Life

I used my Kindle to read a long-form article, and that worked lovely, not to have to stay cramped up behind the computer to read all of that. This will definitely be a part of the new routine.

Grocery List

Augh, the grocery list! I didn’t forget it. I got out this morning, but I managed to neglect it for much of the day, but I am catching up now, before dinner, as I wait for Pop to come in from his rounds.

Kitchen

The smoke/fire alarm goes off. At first, I feared that a battery was running low was demanding to be changed. But Pop is having a late snack, maybe that leftover pizza, and he perhaps heated it up a little too well. That kitchen alarm has been known to be very sensitive.