Random Thoughts of Staggering Ignorance

Because something must be written, I will write something....

• I am happy the Chicago Cubs have a (slim) chance to make this year's World Series. I watched them lose last night. I have watched them lose since I was a kid. As is true for pain and pleasure, the line between acceptance and hope is thin.

• My grandmother is 94, and she has been cheering for the Cubs for a long time. She remains hopeful. She was born on Easter Sunday, but her birthday has not fallen on Easter since.

• I am glad the Mets will not play more baseball this year. Refer to The Year in Sports for 1969 for further discussion.

• The book I am half-way finished with is titled Spook Country by William Gibson. Gibson works hard to come across as, I don't know--technology hip? But the plot is, for me, difficult to follow. Not difficult like Faulkner--so perhaps it's just dull.
  

• Next on the list is Moby-Dick, a book I read a long time ago and that recently begged to be removed from its shelf in City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco.
  

• During a visit to the east coast in 2005, my wife and I caught a ferry from New Bedford, Massachusetts, to Martha's Vineyard. As we were waiting for the boat, I spoke with a man working the docks, and he gave me a brief history of the area and Melville's travels in the region.
  

• Beneath Moby-Dick on my nightstand is Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, which I've never read. Dickens may have been paid by the word, but he always seemed to use just the right words.
  

• I visited the Charles Dickens Museum in London in March. I got to see Dickens' snuff box, walking stick, and cribbage board. On one wall was a picture of Sydney, one of Dickens' sons, with this caption: "Sydney joined the Navy as a cadet, got into debt, and died young."