Monday morning, on the deck. AS working again -- but this glitch troubles me, I need the extra I ordered. I am going to be doing a ton of writing on this once I retire.
I have an unfinished dark thriller, ART CRITICS MUST DIE!, I want to look at and maybe finish. It was fun to write, needless to say, artist serial killer who focuses on critics.
More yard work today! I might catch up this week.
Time for coffee.
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Late afternoon. Recovering after some yard work. Hard to imagine I was once a jock -- and one who liked track and field most of all, especially during the week, the practices, running quarter mile "suicide" half-sprints, last man standing kind of thing. I was really into it -- then ha ha.
Well, the AS turned on, apparently for good, on the third try. I do think the days are numbered for this wonderful work horse. But a backup is on the way, and I expect to have an AS for the rest of my natural born days.
Ready for tomorrow. 2 scripts to read Wed, plus whatever is turned in tomorrow ... then final scripts on Thurs. I cancelled the final, my one gesture to being a short timer. Gave them extra end of term work instead.
I think it will take a week or two for my mind to get used to the fact that I don't have my class and students to fret about. They take a lot of mental energy, one of the major reasons I need to retire. I need my mind to myself in my old age. But I know the freedom of retirement, the mental freedom of it, will feel like a great luxury once I am used to it. Man, that will be so sweet. I indeed have given a lot to teaching. Got a lot in return as well. But time for a new rhythm.
I finished the HBO mini-series Mildred Pierce. Excellent! Kate Winslet is much softer, more fragile, in the role than Joan Crawford was in the film. I prefer KW's interpretation, she's more likable.
I am disappointed in the John Adams HBO mini-series, though. First rate production values but I don't like the casting. Giometti and Luney come off as too modern somehow, too post-Freudian in the looks of introspection, I just don't believe the characters. A disappointment but also revealing that just because you are a great actor does not mean you are right for a particular role. I don't believe for a minute that I am watching "the Adams" family.
My first disappointment in the tsunami of HBO shows now available free on Amazon Prime. Enlightened and Mildred Pierce and the Lee doc all are first rate, just great stuff.
NY Rev of Books has a review of a new book about Walden, how Thoreau's meticulous records when compared to records today document the terrible effects of global warming. Only a scientifically illiterate culture like our own would let this runaway train continue down the tracks without obstacles or any real attempt to change its speed and direction.
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So what is the screen glitch about? I noticed just now that the on/off key is more depressed than the rest -- not sure if this is new or the way it's always been. Might be something.
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50 years ago, deciding to become "a serious writer," I knew I could not expect fame or fortune but I did expect respect because this was widely considered to be an honorable way to spend a life. Those who disagreed were thought to be, in those artistically elitist times, "boobwazie" and philistines and hacks. Serious writers were a bit like priests. I bought into it.
Now the pendulum has swung about as far as it can swing and the world is controlled by those very same boobwazies and philistines whom we dismissed a half century ago. Maybe the pendulum will swing again, if there's an environment left in which it can move, but I won't be around to see it.
So everything has changed. The old age of respect I anticipated never materialized. I'm just another marginal, ignored writer, but more fortunate than many in that I do get a few supporters hither and yon. I'm not invisible. Just in the shadows. The situation could be much worse.
But the point is, the honorable profession of the past looks today like the selfish gestures of a fool -- or so the consumer culture implies. "The literary novel" has become a pejorative term.
Pretty fascinating, actually. Many lessons there. Maybe I'll learn a few in my last days.
Mariners-Yankees about to begin, with Hernandez pitching ... Later!
