LBJs

*We're back from vacation, our minds are fragmented, and we're gearing up for the oncoming fall. The wind is blowing out of the north, carrying with it a distracting number of brown and yellow leaves; whether drought or autumn is to blame I don't know. The temperature, alas, is still in the 90s, which sort of takes the edge off the illusion of fall. You just can't make 92 degrees feel "crisp."

*We returned home with a peculiar batch of CDs. I found used copies of Robert Palmer's Addictions. Vol. I (featuring guilty pleasures like "Simply Irresistible" and "Some Like It Hot" as well as pulsing favorites like "Looking for Clues" and "Bad Case of Loving You") and Spearhead's Chocolate Supa Highway, which I bought unheard because Michael Franti is friggin' brilliant. But in addition, my parents gave us their copy of The Essential Billy Joel, which they said "didn't have any good songs on it." I looked at the cover--"Allentown," "Captain Jack," "You May Be Right," "Goodnight Saigon," "Only the Good Die Young," and even the overplayed "Piano Man" are all pretty strong pop songs in my estimation. Okay, granted, "Uptown Girl" remains as irritating today as when it came out, and I've never much cared for "My Life," but I still don't quite follow my folks' logic. The CD had all of the above, plus "Just the Way You Are," "Honesty," "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me" and "We Didn't Start the Fire" on it. What Joel songs did they want that they didn't get? "Pressure"? "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant"? "Zanzibar"? Or maybe they simply didn't know any of Billy's songs prior to buying this disc... In any case, thanks, Mom & Dad.

*We went used book shopping at Books Ahoy! in Beaufort, where I found Kelly an old hardback edition of Lytton Strachey's biography of Queen Victoria. Short of turning up an original letter by Virginia Woolf, I doubt I could have found a piece of Bloomsburiana that would make her happier.

*I also finally finished Douglas R. Hofstadter's Pulitzer-winning Gödel, Escher, Bach on our trip. I'd tried it several times before, but sustaining my momentum over its 742 pages had proven difficult. It's a remarkably creative and clever book, sort of a My Dinner with André meets A Tale of a Tub meets "The Garden of Forking Paths," a whirlwind of references and re-examined ideas, metaphors and symbols and isomorphisms and wordgames. Its topics are abstract enough to give one pause, but Hofstadter always finds a new way to get his idea across, usually by putting it in different terms and having Achilles, the Tortoise or the Crab act it out. The book has been on my TBR (To-Be-Read) list for six straight years, and I'm glad to have finally checked it off, but I'm also glad to have had the experience of wandering through Hofstadter's labyrinth.

*It's time to start dieting. *sigh* It'll be easier when there's a salad bar at lunch.

*Tomorrow is a big day. It's the draft for our fantasy football league. I will not reveal my strategies, save to note that Isaac Bruce will not be a part of this year's plans for my team, the Fighting Coelacanths. He broke my heart too many times last season.

But there's a more important reason why tomorrow is significant: on August 26, 1962, my parents were married in Beaufort, S.C. Happy anniversary, Mom & Dad! I hope the next forty years turn out even better.
2:30 PM

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