 Sunday, March 20, 2005
He was too glad to see my wife. That was my first thought. My second that he looked the part of uninteresting social climber, a typical corporate aspirant. Probably read management books and acquired sleep at night by counting the commas in his paycheck. He had opaque oval blue eyes and wore a gay green party hat on his head. He had a cat-like alertness that seemed to implicitly say: "I am more alive than you!". This passed through my mind while being introduced to him, before I could dismiss them as uncharitable thoughts. "This is Eric...this is the one I was telling you about who read "Dawn to Decadence". I looked at him with renewed interest, curiosity even. So this was the dedicated reader my wife spoke of. Who'd read the magisterial Jacques Barzun, the wise man of history who'd written an 800-page book describing the fall of the West from 1500 to the present. "You two are exactly alike," my wife said. • • • • •
Comments:
8 hunnerd pages. Sigh. I just ordered a 450-page book on Holy Week (James Monti, published by OSV). When I was 20 I bought pages by the thousands thinking I or my far-future kids would read them someday.
Goose-bump vignette, by the way.
450 pages just on Holy Week? Wowsa.
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I just bought that "Birth of the Modern" book you recommended (only $1 with shipping) and it is much longer than I anticipated. I'll probably finish it a couple decades after you do. :-) |
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Desperately Seeking Retirement      |
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