Without Lifting A Finger

It was an event. Address in New Era (which I never saw). We lunched in Shelby (which I wanted to rename Shelbilito because of its Hispanic flavor). We had kids with us so what can I say. They had great butter pecan ice cream (something I should've skipped) and delicious curds.                                     

                                            

Started reading it because I found it in Flaubert's letters (in this case a letter to Louise Colet):      At this moment I am as though in the grip of a ghastly terror, and if I am writing you it is perhaps to avoid being alone with myself, the way one lights one's lamp at night when one is afraid. I don't know whether you are going to understand me, but it is very strange. Have you read a book by Balzac called Louis Lambert ? I finished it five minutes ago: I am thunderstruck by it. It is the story of a man who goes mad from thinking about intangible things. I cannot shake it off: it has grappled itself on to me in a thousand places. This Lambert is, in all but a few particulars, my poor Alfred.

Few things make me dig in deeper to the Trough of Cynicism more than jury duty (and they  get me like clockwork every two years). Anyway, I'm free at last. At least for another two years. * I'll close this brief chapter (which could've been much longer w/o a fortuitous snag in the machine) with just two thoughts on democracy: Nietzsche: The great leveler; mob rule. [Of course, this is Nietzsche abridged, and probably oversimplified. See, for example, H.W. Siemens' "Nietzsche's Critique of Democracy (1870 - 1886)." ] Vladimir Saldi: Show too many Americans "quicksand" and they'll say "bedrock."

Nice walk. Picked up a few pics.           

                                        





A very hot day. So hot we didn't feel like staying long. Parked at the Briarwood Mall; took a bus in and got off at the law school stop; kept primarily to the fair along State Street, but also did kind of a loop (rectangle) around the central campus and through the arch of the engineering school (a few memories kicked up). ***