The flagstaff at Carl Schurz Park, captured in an impromptu reflection pool.

¶ Matins: How about those bloggers, dropping off like flies? (“In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop“) No reader of Michael A Banks’s Blogging Heroes, the Takli Makan of this year’s morning read, will be surprised by the news that technews bloggers live like unhappy hamsters.

¶ Tierce: Zose Mosleys vill neffer learn! Grand prix racing czar Max Mosley‘s grandmother, Lady Redesdale, was inured to reading about her daughters’ antics (especially his mother’s) in the newspaper, but this story would probably have given her a nasty turn.

¶ Sext: Surely the most interesting story in the works right now — far outclassing our presidential election — is the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. If you ask me, Liu Qi was out of his mind when it lobbied for the honor of hosting the games.

¶ Vespers: It’s over when the little man squeaks. Sheldon Silver nixes Congestion Pricing.

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James Merrill or Wallace Stevens? I recall some loose talk about adding the latter’s Harmonium to the list, but Merrill’s Collected Poems has yet to be shelved. Reading the first two poems of First Poems, however, I find myself distracted by low-grade problems relating to the new computer. I shall have another go in the morning.

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The poster for Stop-Loss portrays these principal characters as outlaws. They’re anything but, and the power of Kimberly Pierce’s film springs from deep roots in the patriot country of Central Texas. Read about Stop-Loss at Portico.

¶ Matins: Good News! 81% of Americans think that We Have a Problem, Houston. Bad News: 100% of my new computer is dead.

¶ Vespers: As I thought, it was the power supply — and I didn’t break it. (Not that I’m going to put the waste-paper basket next to the CPU a second time.) Now maybe I should try to get into Momofuku Ko.

¶ Compline: A nice photo to look at, late on a Friday night — another one of JR’s super black-and-white shots of New York, taken on his visit here last fall (je crois). Kathleen used to work across the street, at 599 Lex.
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¶ Matins: How much weight will I have to lose to slip into these fetching Milanese outfits?

¶ Tierce: How I wish I’d been blogging ten years ago! Then I’d be able to post a link to my prediction that Sanford Weill’s Citigroup agglomerations, unveiled with much trumpeting at the time, would turn out to be supercalifragilistic. It was obvious that the merger titan had no interest in the hard slog of expialidocious.  

¶ Nones: Goodbye, solo computer, Hello, KVM!

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¶ Decameron VII, vi reminds me of a painfully smutty joke that, among numerous others, signaled the end to what Freud called “latency.” The punchline was, “GODDAM IT, DING DONG!!!” But the wife in this story has two men on the side. (more…)

The grim redoubt of Château Gizmo.

¶ Matins: Reading The Sun Also Rises, I feel that I’m looking over Colm Tóibín’s shoulder. Compare Chapter X of the Hemingway with the Compostela pilgrimage chapter of Mr Tóibín’s very interesting “travel” book, The Sign of the Cross. Not that the latter chapter involves Pamplona.

¶ Sext: So, it turns out that willpower is a muscle, after all. You’ve got to work you’re way up to the heavy lifting. Another way of looking it would be that willpower is a habit.

¶ Vespers: A look at this week’s Book Review, at Portico.

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¶ Could it be that the reason why Decameron VII, v is not one of the famous ones, even though it is unusually clever and amusing (and that’s saying a lot, considering the company it keeps) is that neither the jealous husband nor his clever wife bears a name? The boy next door is called Filippo, but he is more of an appliance than a character — a tool that the wife uses to get back at the husband. I can’t help thinking that, if it had the handle of distinctive nomenclature, this tale would have inspired several operas. Or at least a play by Goldoni.  (more…)

¶ Matins: James Wolcott isn’t feeling well. First he describes the symptoms. Then he evokes them, with descriptions of the bad movies that he has been watching from his sickbed.

¶ Tierce: The luxury branding crisis continues at the Ivies: “Elite Colleges Reporting Record Lows in Admission.” Catchy title, what? What they meant to say was “Record Highs in Rejection.”

¶ Nones: Grand & Brilliant Entertainment, starring (who else?) Nathan Lane: November, at Portico.

¶ Vespers: Off to Carnegie Hall this evening for Orpheus, with Felicity Lott.

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