¶ Matins: Regarding prisons in America: close ’em, but keep paying the guards and other workers as if the prison were operational. Count on attrition;  break the cycle of industrial corrections! (Oh, you’ve already started?)

¶ Lauds: Jaime Oliver has won a prize for inventing his Silent Drum — which is indeed silent itself but which triggers, if that’s the word, computer-generated sounds.

¶ Prime: Thought for the day: Why Twitter? I still haven’t a clue, but The Elegant Esthete thumbnails five attractors that, for many people, make Twitter irresistible. Only two of the five speak to me, so maybe that’s my answer.

¶ Tierce: Here’s hoping that a rather self-righteous AIGFG exec’s letter of resignation is duly scrutinized. Jake DeSantis claims that he had nothing to do with credit-default swaps. Is that possible?

¶ Sext: Kim Severson and Julia Moskin, colleagues at the Times’s Dining desk, find themselves thrown into competition*, to produce the better $50 dinner for six (wine not included). Ms Moskin’s entrée really appeals to me.

¶ Nones: The government of Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek has fallen — not because of the economy, but because two members of the Chamber of Deputies defected from his coalition “for ideological or personal reasons.”

¶ Vespers: Vestal McIntyre’s novel, Lake Overturn, is about to appear. Pre-order it now!

¶ Compline: David Pescovitz writes about authenticity at Good: DIY funerals are better, and it helps if you make the coffin yourself (it’s easy!).

Oremus…

§ Matins. Perhaps we can even come up with a spot of regulation to dampen the enthusiasm for getting “tough on crime” when pockets are flush again.

§ Lauds. It tempting to think that David Lynch and David Cronenberg would both have made use of the Silent Drum in their early work.

What I can’t quite tell is if the image that the computer reads is two- or three-dimensional.

§ Prime. I’ll admit that I love to see evidence — any evidence at all — that I am liked. My appetite for such affirmation is nothing less than craven. However! I know that I cannot make myself more popular. It can happen (my becoming more popular), but only as a byproduct of my continuing to grow along my own path. there is nothing that, at my age, I can set out to do in order to have more friends.

And it really does seem to be an age thing. Young people always argue with me about this, as though I were the one who didn’t know both sides of the issue (young, old). Just as teenagers instinctively believe that they’re discovering sex for the first time in human history, so the young people whom I know, lovely as they all are, seem convinced that being young has somehow changed since I was young. Which of course proves that it hasn’t.

The same goes for “I’m bored, let’s make some noise.” I don’t have the energy! For being bored, I mean. The older I get, the more convinced I am that boredom is a factor of too much rather than, as it certainly feels, of not enough. If that sounds paradoxical, just remember that the people in old silent films seem to walk too fast because the film is moving through the sprockets too slowly.

If I’m worried about everything’s being okay, I head for the Times and, for local news, Joe.My.God. (Joe lives nearby, practically on top of all my doctors’ offices in fact.) And for news about what’s new, I’ve got more RSS feeds than I can follow. Why, I just deleted two two feeds this evening.

I read somewhere that Twitter is for name dropping. “I just saw Woody Allen!” (Who’s Woody Allen?) But I was brought up to regard name-dropping as pathetic. Every time I see somebody famous and don’t mention it here, I’m awarded a gold star by my conscience, and I beam like a kid. I do understand that the rules have changed big time on this point, but I haven’t.

§ Tierce. On its face, the letter presents Mr DeSantis as blameless, but we’ve all become familiar with the self-serving accounting practices and talk of personal responsibility that issue forth so blandly from corporate America. Mr DeSantis’s commodity trades may have depended on the cushion of “reserves” piled up by the CDSs. 

At the same time, if Mr DeSantis is as untouched by pitch as he claims to be, that will demonstrate how confusing and unworkable one-stop financial enterprises truly are.

§ Sext. Miam! Pasta with Roast Chicken, Currants and Pine Nuts is a dish that comes from the Jewish community of the Veneto. I’ve been looking for a chicken and spaghetti dish for some time — something simpler, that is, than Chicken Tetrazzini.

*Judge Frank Bruni, the paper’s restaurant critic, pronounces, inevitably, a tie.

§ Nones. Rob Cameron’s slightly breathless but largely lucid report shows how little things produce big effects. Among other consequences, the change in Czech government may put another nail in the coffin of our missile-defense project. (Very good news that is, at least.)

§ Vespers. Vestal read from the novel last winter, and it was so droll and spot-on that I couldn’t believe that I’d have to wait more than a year to read the rest!

§ Compline. This is not an idea that ever occurred to me when I was — under fifty, let’s say; but I did have a very bad case of authenticitis when I was young. As a spazz, I was never enthusiastic about making things myself; but I did insist upon reading Pope by candlelight. But maybe there’s no authentick way of reading Pope.

In the end, I settled for some pretty good skills as a DIY cook.

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
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