A few new books.
No alarm; a beautiful hike at a state park; Chapter 4 of Absalom, Absalom; music practice; a bizarre chat with a customer service representative; two episodes of Only Murders in the Building; delicious luncheon; Bananagrams; and now? More of The Moonstone.
Recent acquisitions.
Although I had hoped to finish sooner, I only just listened to Lecture 17 of Cervantes’ Don Quixote, an Open Yale Courses program, this morning. (The course comprises twenty-four lectures delivered by Professor Roberto González Echevarría. Absolutely excellent.)
Somehow I finished Nights of Plague in time for a wonderful book discussion last night. I began reading as soon as I finished The Republic earlier this month but was happily sidetracked by an invitation to a reading group tackling Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd; then family came into town for several days. Finishing Orhan Pamuk’s tome really was a feat, then, given how little time I had.
Naturally, although I followed the #FaulknerinAugust discussion, I needed to set aside the book for most of the month, but I am back to a chapter a day in Absalom, Absalom.
I’m also reading Adrienne Brodeur’s Little Monsters.
After only three rehearsals, we have a break from band this coming week, so for the next few music practices, I’m focused primarily on my current étude, the Mozart duet, and the middle of the second movement of the Stamitz concerto. (I spent much less time on this over the last two months than originally planned.)
And though my Latin studies stalled in the second week of the month, after a vocabulary review, I’ve cracked open the next unit.
At the conservation district this morning.
The heat warning ended, more books arrived, and really? Nothing is right with the world, is it? But Friday still becomes Saturday and Saturday, Sunday, so here I am, reading Nights of Plague for a book discussion, practicing Florence Price’s “Juba Dance” for band rehearsal on Monday, and wondering whether I should walk first this afternoon or do the yard work first. And with a thud of all-at-onceness, such banal dithering has made me as uncomfortable as my first encounter with Ilya Kaminsky’s poem.
(forgive us)
But new books are cool.
Check your neighbors. Stay hydrated. Find a cool place. Don’t worry about that training session until Friday, okay? Take care.
At the Field Museum.
Part of my Latin tutorial includes a survey of Roman history via SPQR by the always-excellent Mary Beard. Is it any wonder that I now regularly see Roman influence where I may have previously missed or overlooked it? A plaque describing a case of portrait masks in the Field Museum’s Egyptian exhibit indicates that once the Romans conquered the Egyptians (30 BCE), they adopted a number of Egyptian customs, including portrait masks — which were actually a Greek contribution to Egyptian traditions. The one pictured here is from the Ptolemaic-Roman Period.
Walked at one of our favorite conservation districts this morning.
The local library’s summer reading program includes an adult category. One must log six hundred minutes over eight weeks to finish; I had completed it by the end of the first week and dispensed with the online log after entering more than 2,300 minutes. Ordinarily, my August calendar includes a “Pick up library prize” note, but the lackluster selection last year coupled with the rapidity with which I finished effectively put the program right out of my head — until I received the library’s weekly newsletter, which advised readers that the prize room was closing at the end of the month. I had been meaning to read Crying in H Mart for a while, in part because of this review, so I am glad I caught the reminder before my fall semester schedule got underway.
The above are my images of detail from the following works:
■ Janitor by Duane Hanson, 1973
■ Wet Saturday by Martin Lewis, 1929
■ Le Penseur de Notre Dame by John Taylor Arms, 1923
■ The Fiddler by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, 1859
■ Untitled Anxious Audience by Rashid Johnson, 2017
■ Portrait of Frederick Layton by George Henry Yewell, circa 1888
■ Portrait of Dr. Karl Schwartz by Lovis Corinth 1916
■ The Card Players by Eduard vin Grützner, 1883
■ Triple Profile Portrait (The Mignons of Henry III) by School of Fontainebleau, 1570s
Nerdishly 