Oops, sorry, that sounded positively Nixonian. Damn. No doubt the result of having recently watched the movie
Frost/Nixon. Which I've got to say I found to be a downright reprehensible piece of revisionist sympathy-mongering for one of U.S. history's true monsters. The movie manipulates the audience -- as I assume the play it's based on did too but no doubt the movie director Ron Howard ratcheted up the simplistic we're-all-human-all-too-human quotient considerably -- manipulates the audience into, by the end, feeling deep sympathy for Nixon. Your heart is supposed to go out to him. Jesus H. Christ! Your heart go out to this butcher, this racist dog, this anticommunist witch hunter, this thief, this war criminal? Not mine. No way. It's a little scary, though, to think about all the folks who didn't live through the Nixon years who might well be swayed by Opie's opus.
Anyway, I'd really just popped in here to report that:
- my final tally of books read during my four weeks of vacation was 15, and
- my first two days back at work have been crazy busy, and sandwiched between hours of lots more busyness, so that even if I weren't sticking to my new resolve to blog less and use more non-wage-work hours to write I wouldn't have time or opportunity to blog. But I am sticking to my resolve! Which is a happy surprise given past performance. And I'm determined to keep sticking to it. So. I'll be back when I feel compelled to say something literary or political or both, or point to something literary or political or both. In the meantime I'll be here in the world, doing something -- ye gods, actually doing something -- literary or political or both. Cheers.
