Thursday

June 7 my birthday 63 We’re settling in to watch the third disc of the BBC production of Bleak House. 150 minutes Complicated plot. Virginia is in thrall to it. I am a little less so, but here we go. Earlier today we went walking on the lakefront in Meredith. Weather still gorgeous but cool. Clouding over gradually all day. We drove fifty miles west to Hanover. Lunch at the Co-Op where we ran into Don and Carol Wharton. He served as president of the university for the past thirteen years, retired last summer. They live up in a tiny town forty minutes from us, Landaff. Don says they’ve found out they are equidistant between Concord and Burlington. Littleton has only one supermarket now, so they go to Hanover for groceries—or even Plymouth for the Wal-Mart. Carol is from Canada, that famous town named Chicoutime (Quebec). After our sandwich, we went to Hitchcock where Virginia had a rehab session. A cinnamon scone and latte before driving back. No interesting mail except for Netflix. I’ve got three or four books going—still in Cortazar’s Hopscotch. Now we have left Paris and are back in Buenos Aires. I guess I will say that the book sat on my shelf unread for so many years so I could read it only after I had been able to see both cities for myself. Now the book resonates even more. It is a wonderful book. Even before I’ve finished I think I might read it once more after I finish. That could be the enthusiasm of the moment and part of the illusion always at this time of the summer of unlimited time. I just finished a small book by William Burroughs called The Yage Letters. Theroux mentioned it at the start of Blinding Light. Burroughs went to the Amazon in 1953 intent on trying a native hallucinogenic herbal drink. Ayahuasca, now pretty well-known. Ginsberg went to Peru about ten years later for the same purpose. I’m mid-way into Terry Eagleton’s new little book called The Meaning of Life. Eagleton has written good books on literary theory over the past twenty years, he now knows PostModernism is over, including the Marxism he used to be devoted to, so this treatise, learned and witty and searching, has a fine sense of “where-are-we-now-sort-of?” to it. The news in these realms seems to be that philosophers and literary critics have turned from deconstruction etc to paying more attention to what is going on in cognitive science—what research on the brain seems to be telling us about language, thought and culture. I’m almost finished another wonderful little book, Conversations with Bram Van Velde and Samuel Beckett by Charles Juliet. Van Velde was a poor painter in Paris, 1895-1981. (K Burke was 1897-1993) I’ve also started Maugham’s The Painted Veil and have returned to Melville to finish the last half of Clarel. Took a long walk yesterday “in the wilderness” while having a pair of tires put on the car. Walked from Wal-Mart down the hill to Highway 25 and east as far as Dunkin Donuts and back. Thighs a little sore today. Yesterday also talked with Dad, told him about Dave’s coming marriage. Actually when I told him we had news from Paris, he guessed it at once: “Is he getting married?” Had some emails from former students earlier this week. Nate and Vaness Alander are expecting their first child; Russell Carr is going for a master’s in social work at UNH. Carter Peck will start on a master’s in teaching at Amherst in the fall. Jon Kessler got his last week, hopes to teach in Boston. He helped start an 826 social program in Jamaica Plain this spring. This is part of a network of after school writing programs in poor neighborhoods started by Dave Eggers and his McSweeney’s crew. We were in Boston last Sunday to see the ballroom dancing stage show from Australia called Burn the Floor. Great dancing, terrific showbiz kitsch. Our seats were just close enough and on the aisle so we caught the action when the dancers were shimmying in the aisles. Jessica is coming over for a visit this weekend. Barb and Ed emailed that they are finally in their new house over in Portland, Gorham, so we’re going over there end of this month to see them and to introduce them to Greg and Gerri. Time for Donald to telephone this weekend before he goes to Europe for the summer. The iris, azaleas, impatiens and petunias blazing all around the neighbohood. Pinks, violets, blues. The lupen are out up north, a trip up there Sunday to see them. Franconia, Sugar Hill, and around. Matisse would have loved lupen, Monet too.  But then they did have oceans of lavender.