Not Shandean per se

Tuesday 7/28/26

Did major head work in the dentist chair today on a new story I came up with yesterday as Dr. Raffi did his work. I have something big here. Been working through it in my mind ever since. It's set in Paris in the nineteenth century.

Someone advised me yesterday to become a Buddhist. I like this person. They may be a Buddhist. I'm unsure. If they are, I respect that. A Zulu warrior cannot be a Buddhist, though.

Dentist visit (the one rescheduled from last week after that train accident) concerned the filling in of two chips. Filled they are, but the backs of one of the teeth and the front of the other feel rusticated. They are annoying me and I can't leave them alone with my tongue. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be like this. Dr. Raffi is a craftsman, so I'm not faulting him. He did one of them for free, too, because he's a nice man. He explains everything as he works, in part because he wants you to know, and also because he's so into it. Passion is a wonderful thing. So few people have it. Fewer than ever. Come tomorrow, it'll be even less. Every day this world gets worse in all its aspects.

Tristram Shandy's Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim. Very funny. "You shall lay your finger upon the place." He meant the map, lady! How many people in the world do you think read Tristram Shandy each year? And here I am, someone who wants to write a book about it at some point. A freewheeling disquisition. Sometimes first person, often rangy. Not Shandean, per se, but full of that "let's gambol along the green" spirit that one does find in Shandy, and, for that matter, Tom Jones. I'm practically a foundling myself.

I was in between some things earlier this evening and regathering for what I need to do next and listening to episodes from the 1940s of The Great Gildersleeve, one of my favorite vintage radio programs and works of art of any kind at this point in my life. In the space of just a few episodes, the characters talk about Bach, Shakespeare, Louisa May Alcott, Edgar Allan Poe. A poem is recited. Scenes from novels are referenced and discussed. Jazz lyrics are quoted. The show was for “the masses.” The average American. We were so much more cultured and educated.

Larry Young and Little Walter. Similar in that they took instruments regarding which people thought could only do so much—organ and harmonica respectively—and fashioned radical, modernist art via their virtuosity on them. Contrapuntally, Young could suggest Bach, while Walter’s music was like avant-garde populism.

Can't believe the Red Sox are five games over .500. Such an unforeseeable turnaround. Nothing in Red Sox history to compare it to.

Would you take the over or under on Jaylen Brown averaging 18 points next year? Hmmm. Tough one. Don't feel like he's in a great spot for him personally. You're moved or you move yourself (via free agency), your numbers fall off, a big contract you want doesn't happen, you're not the same again but rather this different guy, and you kind of play the rest of your career out, likely drifting. I'm not saying that's going to happen to him, but that is one of the natural ways of these things.

"It's time to listen to Planxty," she said with a certainty that belied her years.

I'll be lighting some people up soon.