Back in the Saddle…Again!
Hello Boys and Girls! I’m back. Well, I never really went away; I just took a little hiatus. Peter, 6-months is a hiatus. A couple of years is going away! Dope… Isn’t it nice that the critics stay at your side after all this time. Anyway, after doing a little tweaking to the site (saving some favorite blogs from the old site and doing a little redesign) and shooting off a quick, personal remembrance to the great Philip Roth, I’ve gotten the itch to again wade into the blogosphere, as it were. Trust me, the thousands of letters I received from all of my devoted readers were part of the equation, and I can’t thank you enough for your kind words and support. Oh, for the love of Shakespeare. There are only 5 or 6 of us who read and encourage this crap, Peter. And we only do it because if you’re typing, you are less likely to bother us! Ah, my devoted public…
Since I haven’t done this in a while, I’m going to cheat a little today and take the easy way out. There’s so much going on in the world that one doesn’t know where to begin sometimes. So let’s just highlight for now, with a promise to myself and to you (if you continue reading this drivel) that I will dive into a couple of these topics more deeply in the very near future. And let’s be honest, right now there’s so much to make fun of and/or be outraged at, that maybe a quick summary is best! So, here we go…
A little more sadness for those of us who love and encourage great literature: the great novelist V.S. Naipaul passed away a few weeks ago. Naipaul, whose great works include A House for Mr. Biswas, and A Bend in the River, was a Hall-of-Famer. A winner of the Booker Prize (1971) and the Nobel Prize in Literature (2001), Naipaul was a gifted writer who gave meaning and poignancy to the colonialism of his birthplace in Africa as well as the land of his upbringing, Trinidad and Tobago. As with Philip Roth, he will be deeply missed and always remembered.
Another author of note and a favorite of yours truly, Donald Hall, passed away in June. Hall was a gifted poet and novelist, as well as essayist and literary critic. Hall wrote many books across several genres, including memoir, children’s literature, biography, etc. Another Hall-of-Famer, Hall won the prestigious Robert Frost medal in 1991. His simple, straight-forward writing was beautiful and could transport the reader to places he or she had never been before. He will be missed.
As Hurricane Florence hurtled toward the mid-Atlantic region this summer, our boy Pat Robertson, noted televangelist and moron, commanded the hurricane to stay away and not cause any damage to the region, specifically his beloved campus for the Christian Broadcasting Network in Virginia. "In the name of Jesus — Hurricane Florence, we speak to you and we command the storm to cease its forward motion and go harmlessly into the Atlantic. Go up north away from land and veer off, in the name of Jesus. We declare a shield of protection all over Tidewater and we declare a shield of protection over those innocent people in the path of this hurricane. In Jesus' holy name, be out to sea!" he called. In light of the devastation and death that the hurricane has caused and is still causing in its wake, it would seem that Jesus didn’t get the message.
I won’t get into the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh just yet, but I will say this…we’ve gone through the looking glass, Alice; and George Orwell was right. It’s 1984.
We need some good news, right?! Oh, no…please no, Peter. You knew it was coming! Ok, get it over with. Drumroll, please…Tiger’s back, baby!!!! After what seemed like an eternity; after back surgeries and knee surgeries; after a self-inflicted scandal that caused half the population to get on their collective moral high horse and give the word infantile a whole new meaning; Mr. Woods won The Tour Championship this past weekend. If you’re not a golfer, it’s the season ending tournament with the top players on the PGA Tour from the past year. He went wire-to-wire. Look, I get it. It’s only a golf tournament. And he brought a lot of this on himself. But if Americans love anything, it’s a comeback story. And if anything can be learned from this older Tiger Woods, it’s that on a personal level he’s a newer Tiger Woods. Sometimes, with age and humbling, comes wisdom and peace.
And with that, dear readers, I leave you with the words of Anton Chekhov:
"And it seemed as though in a little while the solution would be found, and then a new and glorious life would begin; and it was clear to both of them that they still had a long, long road before them, and that the most complicated and difficult part of it was only just beginning."
Since I haven’t done this in a while, I’m going to cheat a little today and take the easy way out. There’s so much going on in the world that one doesn’t know where to begin sometimes. So let’s just highlight for now, with a promise to myself and to you (if you continue reading this drivel) that I will dive into a couple of these topics more deeply in the very near future. And let’s be honest, right now there’s so much to make fun of and/or be outraged at, that maybe a quick summary is best! So, here we go…
A little more sadness for those of us who love and encourage great literature: the great novelist V.S. Naipaul passed away a few weeks ago. Naipaul, whose great works include A House for Mr. Biswas, and A Bend in the River, was a Hall-of-Famer. A winner of the Booker Prize (1971) and the Nobel Prize in Literature (2001), Naipaul was a gifted writer who gave meaning and poignancy to the colonialism of his birthplace in Africa as well as the land of his upbringing, Trinidad and Tobago. As with Philip Roth, he will be deeply missed and always remembered.
Another author of note and a favorite of yours truly, Donald Hall, passed away in June. Hall was a gifted poet and novelist, as well as essayist and literary critic. Hall wrote many books across several genres, including memoir, children’s literature, biography, etc. Another Hall-of-Famer, Hall won the prestigious Robert Frost medal in 1991. His simple, straight-forward writing was beautiful and could transport the reader to places he or she had never been before. He will be missed.
As Hurricane Florence hurtled toward the mid-Atlantic region this summer, our boy Pat Robertson, noted televangelist and moron, commanded the hurricane to stay away and not cause any damage to the region, specifically his beloved campus for the Christian Broadcasting Network in Virginia. "In the name of Jesus — Hurricane Florence, we speak to you and we command the storm to cease its forward motion and go harmlessly into the Atlantic. Go up north away from land and veer off, in the name of Jesus. We declare a shield of protection all over Tidewater and we declare a shield of protection over those innocent people in the path of this hurricane. In Jesus' holy name, be out to sea!" he called. In light of the devastation and death that the hurricane has caused and is still causing in its wake, it would seem that Jesus didn’t get the message.
I won’t get into the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh just yet, but I will say this…we’ve gone through the looking glass, Alice; and George Orwell was right. It’s 1984.
We need some good news, right?! Oh, no…please no, Peter. You knew it was coming! Ok, get it over with. Drumroll, please…Tiger’s back, baby!!!! After what seemed like an eternity; after back surgeries and knee surgeries; after a self-inflicted scandal that caused half the population to get on their collective moral high horse and give the word infantile a whole new meaning; Mr. Woods won The Tour Championship this past weekend. If you’re not a golfer, it’s the season ending tournament with the top players on the PGA Tour from the past year. He went wire-to-wire. Look, I get it. It’s only a golf tournament. And he brought a lot of this on himself. But if Americans love anything, it’s a comeback story. And if anything can be learned from this older Tiger Woods, it’s that on a personal level he’s a newer Tiger Woods. Sometimes, with age and humbling, comes wisdom and peace.
And with that, dear readers, I leave you with the words of Anton Chekhov:
"And it seemed as though in a little while the solution would be found, and then a new and glorious life would begin; and it was clear to both of them that they still had a long, long road before them, and that the most complicated and difficult part of it was only just beginning."
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