Without Lifting A Finger

Not much on politics or economics (other than the small circle of Home). Still, with so many friends and relatives "hammering" and "clamoring" about the mess we're in, I took up Wolfgang Streeck to see if he could make any sense of it all. Anyway, I'm plodding along -- in between my preferred "literary" stuff -- and there's lots of "clipping," though I'll only post a small sample (two today, more as I go ...). * The end of capitalism can then be imagined as a death from a thousand cuts, or from a multiplicity of infirmities each of which will be all the more untreatable as all will demand treatment at the same time. * Since 2008, we have lived in a fourth stage of the post-1970s crisis sequence, and the by now familiar dialectic of problems treated with solutions that turn into problems themselves is again making itself felt. The three apocalyptic horsemen of contemporary capitalism –stagnation, debt, inequality –ar...

"Clip" from very end of "Benito Cereno": During the passage, Don Benito did not visit him. Nor then, nor at any time after, would he look at him. Before the tribunal he refused. When pressed by the judges he fainted. On the testimony of the sailors alone rested the legal identity of Babo. Some months after, dragged to the gibbet at the tail of a mule, the black met his voiceless end. The body was burned to ashes; but for many days, the head, that hive of subtlety, fixed on a pole in the Plaza, met, unabashed, the gaze of the whites; and across the Plaza looked towards St. Bartholomew's church, in whose vaults slept then, as now, the recovered bones of Aranda: and across the Rimac bridge looked towards the monastery, on Mount Agonia without; where, three months after being dismissed by the court, Benito Cereno, borne on the bier, did, indeed, follow his leader.

Back in Long Beach. Woke roughly my usual time (I have a built in alarm clock but I won't name it) and did roughly my usual things: coffee shop, walking, working out, groceries. Now perhaps experiencing a touch of jetlag. *                   

                          

                                        

Read most of Hemingway's stories, especially those connected to Michigan but also some old faves, e.g., "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." Now am rereading some Melville. Started with "Billy Budd" and am now picking through The Piazza Tales. *** From "Billy Budd": The Pharisee is the Guy Fawkes prowling in the hid chambers underlying the Claggarts. And they can really form no conception of an unreciprocated malice. * Bluntly put, a chaplain is the minister of the Prince of Peace serving in the host of the God of War — Mars. As such, he is as incongruous as a musket would be on the altar at Christmas. Why then is he there? Because he indirectly subserves the purpose attested by the cannon; because too he lends the sanction of the religion of the meek to that which practically is the abrogation of everything but brute Force. *** From "The Piazza": Pausing at the threshold, or rather where threshold once had been, I saw, through the ...

Found this image while googling around yesterday. Only evidence I have that my "Acts of an Apostle" was ever published. :) Seems the little mag is now defunct. * 

Finished Keats somewhere in the UP and started Hemingway's short stories in Boyne City, not far from Horton Bay. * To  Richard Woodhouse Wentworth Place, Friday Morn [December 18, 1818].      My dear Woodhouse — I am greatly obliged to you. I must needs feel flattered by making an impression on a set of ladies. I should be content to do so by meretricious romance verse, if they alone, and not men, were to judge. I should like very much to know those ladies — though look here, Woodhouse — I have a new leaf to turn over: I must work; I must read; I must write. I am unable to afford time for new acquaintances. I am scarcely able to do my duty to those I have. Leave the matter to chance. But do not forget to give my remembrances to your cousin. Yours most sincerely John Keats. * If what I have said should not be plain enough, as I fear it may not be, I will put you in the place where I began in this series of thoughts — I mean I began by seeing how man...

                                                            

                                                

                  

            

Just something else to do in the Windy City. Nice cool day and we had a great seat (little past 1st base).