26 Feb 09

Weather
Morning: icy wet snow, Afternoon: sunny and 48F

Current Yard Animals
Gnatcatchers, squirrels

Of Note
I'm not convinced it's more than mere coincidence, but I often choose to read a book because of numerous random references in a short period of time. The rule is usually three, as in three people (or two people and a writer, maybe) will casually mention a book/author in a 24-hour period and I'll suddenly feel compelled to check it out right away.

It happens surprisingly often, sometimes in curious ways. Early this week, my wife and my son's Pre-K teacher mentioned the concept of magical thinking within 10 hours of each other, so I knew I had to read The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, which we've had in the house for a while. I started reading that morning, convinced that if I hadn't, someone else would have mentioned magical thinking by the end of the day.

There's a major element of selective hearing, of course. If three people mentioned Larry the Cable Guy I wouldn't dash off to buy Get-R-Done, but it's amazing how often the books I do choose because of this phenomenon end up feeling eerily well-found.

Famous Person's Death
Virgil: died of fever on a trip to Greece; before dying, he instructed his literary executors to burn the unfinished Aeneid, but Caesar Augustus overruled the wish and published the work after Virgil's death

Word
Wassail: a salutation or drink for health or goodwill

Book
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Music
U2's No Line on the Horizon

Today's U.S. State Capital Is
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

23 Feb 09

Weather
Dark, cold

Current Yard Animals
Birdprints in a quarter-inch of snow

Of Note
Man, the YMCA loves that Bon Jovi. A lot of classic-rock songs sound better when you're pumping rubber-coated iron, like who wouldn't take heart hearing that "halfway there" line when you're on rep 4 of 8 and feeling the burn, but I'll tell you what: Piano Man always sucks everywhere, and who'd have thought Unskinny Bop is the one Poison song they have in regular rotation? What they ought to playing is more Crüe.

Famous Person's Death
Charlemagne: King of the Franks (768-814) and founder of the first empire in western Europe after the fall of Rome; he died of pleurisy; according to Einhard, his first biographer, Charlemagne "died January twenty-eighth, the seventh day from the time that he took to his bed, at nine o'clock in the morning, after partaking of the Holy Communion, in the seventy-second year of his age and the forty-seventh of his reign."

Word
Fiddleback: resembling the back or outline of a violin; also (of a veneer figure) having close, fine, dark stripes

Book
A Little History of the World by E.H. Gombrich

Music
Recital: Lorraine Hunt Lieberson at Ravinia

Today's U.S. State Capital Is
Augusta, Maine