The cards and photos have long been lovingly put into a nice box and stored away. The calls asking “so how you doing” have slowed to a trickle too. Most of Elaine’s clothes have been brought over to Goodwill and I have started to move some of my stuff into her old dresser drawers. The medical insurance has all been figured out and I haven’t seen a doctor’s bill or EOB in many weeks. It’s been six months since I’ve become a widower and as time moves onward, the rhythm of a new life is starting to emerge.
Tag Archives: featured
8 at Eight at 28
Got out for a cool run this morning with my running group. Funny how during the week I try to get every minute of sleep I can in the morning, but on Saturday I'm up and at 'em for the long run in any temperature (28F this morning) and any weather.
Will be doing the Moustache Run in Mpls over the Thanksgiving weekend - did it last year and really enjoyed it.
First Monday Book Day: Reading in Translation
Last week, as we rolled south toward Kansas, Mrs. Hayes and I occupied our minds with podcasts. The pillowy ride of the new (to us) full-size Buick sedan and the monotony of eastern Iowa might have lulled us to sleep were it not for The Incomparable, The /Filmcast, Roderick on the Line, and Radiolab. "Translation," last week's Radiolab episode, got me thinking about the books I've read in translation, particularly the book I'm reading right now – J.MG. Le Clézio's Désert, translated in my edition by C. Dickson.
This is my first modern French novel. I dutifully read, as I'm sure many of you did, Voltaire and Victor Hugo and Guy de Maupassant in high school. I might be forgetting a few. Since I don't speak French, I never read any of them in anything other than English, just like I'm reading Le Clézio. Mostly, reading this book is flying blind. I'm ignorant of any conventions in French literature, and completely reliant on C. Dickson to convey Le Clézio's entire persona as an author – characterization, phrasing, pacing, voice, everything except the plot. If Désert were a film by Godard or Melville I might have more to go on; I wouldn't need a translator to help with anything other than dialogue. But C. Dickson's my only lifeline to the ship Le Clézio is sailing across the Sahara. I'm over halfway through it, and while I can't say if I "get" it yet, I can say with conviction I'm in awe of the writing. Or is it the translation?
I read and translated a little Russian literature in Russian as an undergrad: Pushkin and Akhmatova and Gogol come to mind. I don't speak or read Russian well enough to read a book anything but haltingly, but at one time I got along enough to form a few opinions, mainly about poets. Blok and Akhmatova blew me away. I know enough about Russian literature and culture to have a decent idea of what an author or poet is doing or the society his work is engaging. With the French, I have no idea. (I will be even more lost when I finally get to Ha Jin's War Trash, hopefully by the end of the year.)
It's funny. Some of my favorite authors are those I can only read in translation. Murakami, for example. There are books of his I like better than others, but despite my near-complete ignorance of non-automotive Japan and my total Japanese illiteracy, he is definitely near the top of my list of favorite writers. How much of that do I owe to Murakami, and how much of it to his English translators, Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel? I suppose I could answer that by saying I never recommend anyone read Constance Garnett's translations of Dostoevsky or Tolstoy or anybody else. (Please. Read the newer and superior Prevar & Volokhonsky translations.) A good translator gets out of the way and imparts as much of the original author's vision and voice as possible, and a bad one can completely destroy the original while leaving the reader completely unaware of the demolition. The problem is knowing which translator has been at work.
What are you reading?
Don’t Tread on Me
A slow, sluggish run this morning with my Fleet Feet training group. We did 8 miles, and it was cold outside, but I fell way behind.
At the end, I was looking at my running shoes (Brooks Ghost) and realized my tread on the outer right side of both shoes had worn down considerably. I got the last pair back in Sept - surprised they had worn down so much but I have been piling on the miles.
I bought a new pair (same model), and trying them on I could tell the immediate difference. Looking forward to the next run (and the extra hour of morning sun we'll get with daylight savings Fall Back).
Here's an interesting article on what it will take for a human to break the 2-hour marathon record (Spoiler - it's not EPO).
http://rw.runnersworld.com/sub-2/
Mohonk Mountain
Nice 8 mile scramble through the trails around the Mohonk Mountain Preserve trails this morning - lots of cliff climbers out there today.
Plenty of color still in the Hudson Valley, but enough of the leaves are down so you can see the geological structures of this area. - awesome. Some spa-time at Mohonk, and Osso-bucco/Nebbiolo for dinner - not bad.
Just finished (from the Mohonk library) the book The Long Run by Matt Long - incredible account on how a NYC fireman/Ironman got nailed by a bus, destroying most of his interior - and after being stitched back together, had the verve to run the NYC Marathon, as well as finishing IronMan at Lake Placid. Wow.
Third Something Movie Day
I'd planned a longish post but work ended up going long last night and I'll have to just post as I think of things today.
I had a triple-feature a couple of weeks ago in an attempt to see a ton of movies this month. I'm pretty sure they ended up being the only three...sigh.
Keeping Track — The Hill
I wrote the following 6 years ago today. I thought about it yesterday as I rode up that same hill with no problems. It's been 6 years since I originally lost 40 pounds and have basically kept that weight off. In fact, over the last couple months I have recommitted my self and have lost additional weight so that I am nearly 50 pound less than my early 2008 nadir.
Near Fort Snelling there is a very steep hill that connects a bike trail to the Mendota Bridge. The hill has a good 30+ degree slant and is long. For us flatlanders in the Midwest, it’s a pretty nasty hill for bike riders, the steepest I know of along the river. Early this summer I tried to ride up the hill but had to get off about mid-way and walk. I vowed that by the end of the summer I would be able to ride my bike all the way up that hill.
If life was a Hollywood movie, what would be seen next is a montage (with a kick-ass rock song on the sound track) of me exercising, training on other hills, working that hill and getting closer and closer to the top before I had to get off. But life isn’t a Hollywood movie with rockin’ montages. I did remember my vow and when I was riding my bike this summer I would attack any hill I came across a little harder. I hadn’t, however, been back to the Fort Snelling trail.
This being Minnesota, the bike riding season is fast coming to an end and my vow was weighing on me. Thankfully Saturday was a beautiful day and I had some time. I was going to see if I could make it up that hill. It might be my last time I had this season.
Coming up to the hill I was pretty confident, I noticed that other hills that had given me trouble earlier in the year were easily ascended but as “The Hill” drew nearer, my mind was clouded with doubts. First among them is that the hill trail is perpendicular to the river trail, meaning I wouldn’t have a running start. But more worrisome was what if I failed? What would that do to my confidence? Would that mean the hundreds of miles I put on my bike this summer would be for naught? I approached the hill with trepidation and had further worries when I came to the hill and, due to the nice weather, found it full of other walkers and bikers – I would have to weave my way around them.
Life throws hills at us all the time. Relationships, work, finances, old houses and cars, etc., seem to constantly present some sort of obstacle that we need to overcome. Just dealing with those day-to-day obstacles can be physically and mentally tough, sometimes overwhelmingly so. But I think it’s also important challenge ourselves with hills of our own making. It doesn’t matter what it is, it can be improvements in your personal relationships, it can be that you’re finally going to learn how to play guitar, it can be stop smoking or lose weight. The important thing is to set a realistic goal and accomplish it. Just by doing that you can gain more confidence to address all those other problems that life throws at you.
So yes I made it up the hill. In fact about a third of the way up I knew I was going to make it. It was a lung buster and wasn’t easy but I made true my June vow. Even more satisfying than making it up the hill was the fact that I passed two guys probably 20 years younger than me walking their bikes. Will making it up that hill change my life? Probably not, but who knows maybe it will a little bit, and if I can make little changes for the better, maybe they will add up to bigger changes over time. Know what my next goal is? To stay in shape over the winter so that on the first nice weekend in April when I bring my bike out for the first time, I attack that hill and once again make it up without stopping.
How about you, any hills you’re trying to conquer?
Islands in the Streaming
When I started my job in the spring I began using streaming music services much more frequently. I used Songza for free until it was bought by Google. After that I started a Beats Music subscription, which I've been really pleased with apart from some gaps in the library (The Beatles being the most glaring, hopefully something that changes since parent company Apple has Beatles rights). I've found myself more engaged with the music I'm listening to over the last several months than I had been in a long time. My much-deeper appreciation of Neil Young and John Fahey is probably the most significant result, but I've also discovered some new albums to love: Randy Weston's Tanjah and Gene Clark's White Light, especially.
I've started making my own playlists on Beats, something I never did with Songza because, really, I never needed to - the options were that extensive - and because users couldn't listen to their own playlists. Most Beats playlists seem to be around an hour or album-length, which I don't plan on sticking to since there's no real format constraint. (The idea of making a "mixtape" for someone else still has its romantic appeal, though.)
At the same time, I'm aware that I don't own any of the new music I'm enjoying. This troubles me in a way that not owning the content I view on Netflix doesn't. I am happy and relieved to not have a living room overrun by a flim collection I will need to update to a new format in ten years, or duplicate onto electronic storage - even when this means that Battlestar Galactica isn't available for me to watch anymore. BSG will come back, I'm sure. And when it comes back, maybe that's a great occasion to watch it again and see how I feel about it with the passage of time.
But the fact that I don't own Harvest or The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death or White Light on CD, or vinyl, or even digitally - yet - troubles me a bit. I think that's because my childhood was one strongly attuned to music, and because my own physical collection of music is a twenty-five year investment and tangible record of my personality and growth. Others would feel the same way about a film collection, I have no doubt, and that's a reflection of their own preferenecs and personality. Still others might not care about either. Their houses are likely less cluttered, or cluttered instead with woodworking tools, or bolts of fabric, or painting supplies, or binders of film negatives, or car parts...
What is your relationship with streaming services - musical, video, or otherwise? How do you feel about renting content instead of owning it? What other factors do you consider when evaluating streaming content or devices for streaming it?
First Monday Book Day: Series
This month I finished Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy (pictured above if I figured out the header thing correctly). He released all 3 books this year, and it was kind of nice to be able to finish one and know that the next was coming out in a month or two (eat your heart out GRRM fans!).
The series itself was interesting and at times really good. A portion of the coastline has been cordoned off and designated as "Area X" after an incident. Several expeditions have been sent in, but none have been successful in determining exactly what is going on.
Annihilation follows the twelfth expedition into Area X,
Authority follows what happens at The Southern Reach, the organization sending in the expeditions, in the aftermath of book 1.
Acceptance sends some characters back into Area X and investigates the incident that started the whole thing.
The setting in all of these books is awesomely weird. In Area X, in the Southern Reach, the feeling of isolation, paranoia, and alienation comes through in a very real way. The plot tended to lose itself occasionally. In book 1, you spend the entire book inside the head of the narrator, and she doesn't know what's going on any more than you do. As I said above, that's great for an atmosphere of paranoia and isolation, but not so great for figuring out what is going on. Books 2 and 3 deliver a bit more in the plot department, making book 1 almost the foreword to the rest of the trilogy.
I enjoyed the series. It didn't blow me away, but I liked the weirdness enough that I was glad to have read it.
On the subject of series, I was looking through my "recently read" list and I have started a bunch of different series that I just haven't got around to finishing. Maybe next year that will be a good reading goal. How about the Citizens of the WGOM? What series have you finished recently? What series have you started recently? What series has you patiently awaiting the next volume?
Put all that, or any other book stuff below.
WGOM Fingerprint Words: AMR Edition
After AMR's critique, I felt compelled to try again and limit each word to appearing only once. I updated the code to handle basic contractions and better deal with embedded HTML. What follows are the most used five words for each person that are also not the among anyone else's most used five words. For most people, the five words rank among their top 15-25 words.