Thises & Thatsas Domestika Trivia

     . . . . Been babying the injured sciatic nerve caused by the trip-and-fall that happened 4 Saturdays ago. 

I still have excruciating pain upon getting up if I've sat in the >ergonomic!< desk chair too long and / or not positioned myself exactly right. I still sit far fewer hours than spend stretched on the bed with overbed table -- which is still impossible to perform writing typing upon.  At least the x-rays showed there was no damage to bones, did not break hip or anything. Still haven't heard anything about the MRI I had a week ago.  At least I can still walk the 20 blocks in both directions to the medical complex, and keep working out.  It's sitting to type or do anything for very long I can't do.

Last night my new stupid fone froze up, couldn’t even power it down to reboot, in the middle of a sentence Vaquero was speaking. Such a piece of shyte phone and such a shyte service T-Mobile. We have to get this fixed!

The Horror!  AAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.

My God My God My God WNYC just shoved the Shoggoth First Lady's voice into my ears about how much Shoggothinchief* 'Loves this country and people'. Shutting off the radio rushing to to bathroom to vomit up the horror that is her souless pitch perfect nazi who speaks english inspires. Please replace those wonderful creatures, the elephants, as the entirely inappropriate symbol of the rethugs,  with the entirely accurate and appropriate Lovecraftian creature of horror and hatred of immigrants, Catholics, Jews, African Americans and women. Thrown up. Better.  

Laura is a Cat 4 hurricane now. Going to slam into LA and TX today.  4 million have been told to evacuate.  To where? Our New Orleans Reconnect on-the-ground Captain was laying in supplies last week already.

WBGO is alternating the old timey Blues with New Orleans old timey music, leaning heavily upon the catalogs of Louis Armstrong and Mack Rebbenack (Dr. John).  Huh.  They're going to do a Howlin' Wolf set.

I now get up to find my Howlin' Wolf t-shirt acquired at the Blues Museum in Clarkesdale, Mississippi back in 2012, and which I've never worn.

The St. Cyr novels have never had a blank cover before.

Today's perfect weather was perfect for the library run -- both titles I'd requested when Grab 'n Go started here earlier this month arrived to pick-up at my neighborhood Grab 'n Go branch.  One of them is the latest Sebastian St. Cyr Regency mystery -- I enjoy certain aspects of this series very much, though it has sagged at times.  Other problems: in the first books the protag, Vicount Devlin, is hinted to have some special sort of powers, including being able to see in the dark, but that never went anywhere.  The previous two brought it back to form; hope that continues with this latest installment, #16, What the Devil Knows.The author is a New Orleanian, which somehow provides an extra bit of flava to the content, though I'd be baffled as to say how.  It's not as though New Orleans or North America is ever even mentioned in her novels, which are within the era of the French Wars, generally, and which does provide plot points in more than one of the titles. This latest is set in 1814, the "French War" is finally over, and Europe is being divvied up at the Congress of Vienna ....  They think, the wars are over, anyway (1815 is Waterloo).

El V and B drove to 5th pod member S's huge rambling house, in which he lives along, with screened in annex, big yard and swimming pool up in Saratoga. We'd been planning this little vacation get-away for months already.  Due to the fall though, I sadly had to relinquish going myself this year, for I couldn't sit on drive, get up and walk again -- and that drive isn't even really long. But one will avoid that excruciating pain if one can! They are bringing local fresh produce such as sweet corn on the cob (which they been gorging on, grilled, already), blueberries and so on. They will hook up with P on the way back down here to exchange of this for the local Connecticut pork he picked up for us earlier this summer. So, we continue to eat, and eat well.

I am trying to figure out how we can do some kind of Thanksgiving this year, for we'll still be isolating as much as possible.  The schools are reopening in few days, from pre-school, through the universities.  We know what happens then will be what has happened everywhere in this country and other ones when students are brought back in physical space with each other -- and they can't stay away from each other either, nor do they want to.

Andrew Lang: Our Companion for Fairy and Adventure

     . . . .  Andrew Lang, editor of the multi-volume Fairy Tale series, labeled in colors, is the subject of a piece by Michael Dirda in the WaPo (pay wall). 

Why have I never thought of Lang, the person, and his life before, when I grew up with the fairy tale volumes, reading them over and over, in order!  Great Grand Mom had them all from her days as a teacher. She brought all the books they used in her classes at Teachers College on how and what to teach in English and history classes; she bought a lot of books for her country school kids as a library for that one-room school house that had none). 

Lang had a close friendship with H. Rider Haggard. He read King Solomon's Mines in manuscript and got it published. Haggard dedicated She: A History of Adventure, to Lang.

Lang wrote a good natured parody of She, titled He. Additional jump starts to writing careers for which he was responsible were those of Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Louis Stevenson.  He championed Mark Twain in Britain, and so very much more.

He seems a great guy with whom to have hung out and whom to have as a friend.

His lecture on advice to would-be , "How To Fail At Literature", can be found full text online and is worth reading today:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2566/2566-h/2566-h.htm

So can be read his "Old Friends: Essays in Epistolary Parody" -- in which Catherine Moreland of Northhanger Abbey meets Jane Eyre:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1991

or 

http://www.fullbooks.com/Old-Friends--Essays-in-Epistolary-Parody1.html

These are joyeous reads.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Yesterday was Day 1 of Month 6 of isolation, as far as isolation can be maintained.

Panipat (2019) -- Maratha Empire

     . . . . Last evening the school in which the course is situated had its usual faculty Wine Wednesday, but via Zoom. That was cheerful. 

Then it was dinner time. After clean-up I watched for a while an historical action film set in the 18th C Maratha Empire Hindustan, Panipat -- Great Betrayal (2019). Recall at the same time (1751) the East India Company is warring to take out the Mughal Empire on the other side of the subcontinent. That the Marathas took out the Nizam helped the Brits do that.  Around 1805, the EIC begins its war upon the Maratha and other Hindu kingdoms. We see some spectacular recreations of the famous Red Fort, among other striking visuals.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/movie-reviews/panipat/movie-review/72375755.cms

Ashutosh Gowariker’s magnum opus ‘Panipat’ is based on historical facts, taking some creative liberties along the way. Shadashivrao Bhau (Arjun Kapoor), is an able commander in his cousin Nanasaheb Peshwa’s (Mohnish Bahl) army. After a victorious battle against the Nizam of Udgir, Shadashivrao Bhau is chosen by the Maratha Peshwa to lead their army to Delhi. Ahmad Shah Abdali (Sanjay Dutt), the king of Afghanistan, has set his inroads into India after forming an alliance with Najib-Ud-Daula (Mantra) with the intention to defeat the Marathas and curb their expanding power....

.... ‘Panipat’ packs in a layered narrative that delves into the complex politics of the period, the intricate workings of war strategies versus might, negotiation dynamics and the importance of forming alliances. And it also weaves in the love story between Shadashivrao Bhau and Parvati Bai. In fact, the chemistry between Kriti Sanon and Arjun Kapoor as their love story develops, is one of the high points of the film. But with a run-time of close to three hours and the many characters and plot points the film touches upon it becomes a lengthy and at times, tedious watch...[but worth it, particularly for the spectacular final battle sequence]

There are spectacular dance numbers, and singing interludes, which these I don't care for generally and don't here either, though they too are spectacular. What I love are the dancing, the brilliant colors, that eye-popping palette, all that gold and truck loads of pearls, rubies and emeralds. So I watched that for a bit, before retiring, reading aloud, and not sleeping most of the night, filled with the stress of getting up at 6 AM for a supermarket shopping trip, without real gloves and mask.  But I do have my own Italian granny era wheeled shopping cart that has been leaning against a wall here unused for umpity years!