Read On, Write On, and for God’s Sake - Keep Thinking!
Big V and his wonderful Hollywood Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Low Country Summer has arrived with its thunderstorms and high humidity. It’s good time to get some exercise in the earlier morning hours before the heat of the day saps your energy and your good intentions. Drink lots or water. Keep your brain hydrated.
As always, as an ongoing tribute to my happy disorganization and my brain firing off in multiple directions all at once, it seems like I always have plenty going on. My Tar Heels play baseball in the Super Regionals this weekend. I’m going to see Jason Isbell play Sunday. I’m going to a kid’s birthday party Saturday. I went up to North Carolina last weekend to visit with family and friends. I mourned the deaths of good friends and celebrated the marvelous accomplishments of other good friends. I’m working on my next book, going down to Atlanta in a few weeks to watch the Braves play and my friend the hardest working Horse Whisperer will be stopping by in a few days for a well-earned break and an equine consult. I am finishing up my 2023 income tax work sheets. I’m carefully piecing together a small business and real estate partnership that looks promising. I’m visiting with my children and good friends down here at home. Had a nice morning meeting recently with an prep school classmate from years back. And I’m reading, always reading.
So let’s start with some quick-shot book reports. I’ve been busy.
‘STARS IN THEIR COURSES, THE GETTYSBURG CAMPAIGN’ by Shelby Foote.
Have read before. Such rich and intense writing. As good as it gets. May I say, delicious history writ large. Intense and elegant.
I have been to Gettysburg’s giant battlefield many times. Crawled over it, walked over it, studied it, pondered it. It’s an awesome place and this is awesome history.
‘THE KILLER ANGELS’ by Michael Shaara
A different look at Gettysburg with a fictional bent. Riveting. Tightly done.
‘THE DEMON OF UNREST’ by Erik Larson
The few months between Lincoln’s election and the bombardment of Fort Sumter. Even though we have long known what ‘happened’, we really don’t. Larson is so very adept at taking unusual times such as this and digging about with crisp writing that reveal facts that are the true, specific hinges to the many doors and multiple halls that lead us hither and yon to the crucible of a terribl
Terrible war. Good Stuff.
‘SHILOH’ by Shelby Foote
(Can y’all tell I’ve been on a Civil War jag…Yes, I have…The stuff is irresistible to me.)
Foote’s fictional account of one of the early-on biggest battles of the war told through the eyes of some Union and Confederate soldiers. Deeply personal yet builds to the bigger history as a thunderstorm billows and then breaks. Foote’s writing is exemplary.
And now for some excellent crime…
‘ED McBAIN’, a compilation of six of McBain’s hard-boiled novels. Wonderful stuff.
‘THE ESSENTIAL HARLEM DETECTIVES’ by Chester Himes.
Get to know Himes. A helluva writer…Harlem centered with the people and the culture and language of the ‘30s and ‘40’s. Very different from the usual genre. Great, expressive language and plot structures.
‘THE KING OF DIAMONDS’ by Rena Pederson
There was a big-time, smart and imaginative jewel thief who scored off the very rich of Dallas as Big-D grew into a Big Deal. A fascinating, true mystery. Hard to unravel and with diligence and digging Pederson, puts the trail together. Really enjoyed this.
P.S. Mentioned in here along the was the famous New York City private jeweler to the rich and the stars, the lovely Mr. Julius Cohen. When the word regularly got out that Mr. Cohen-who was nicknamed Sparkle Plenty- was on his way with cases of baubles, a frisson would go down the collective backs of the emergent Dallas Power Gentry.
And wandering about in this thin air of beautiful jewels, somehow I, a novice from North Carolina, ended up buying a couple of engagement rings from Mr. Cohen. Guess back then, it was a case of more money than sense…So it goes…
And lastly, just one great piece of fiction
THE MOVIEGOER’ by Walker Percy
The story of Binx Bolling, a well-to-do, dissolute, bored member of the New Orleans’ upper crust. Just remarkable.
I’ve read this one four times now and there is always something new and subtle to be found. Penetratingly thoughtful, sometimes painfully so. An American Classic. This should be on everyone’s summer reading list.
Now, some random this and that…
Love the new, all red!! Royal Portrait of King Charles. Very different. I think it’s quite something! Go find a picture of it. Will make you wonder…
The obituaries, big and small, in the New York Times are the best. They alone make its daily purchase a must.
Headline from a recent Charleston Post and Courier:
‘MISSING MONKEY WAS DEAD WHE HE WAS CAUGHT, OFFICIAL SAYS’
Huh?
How do you catch something that’s dead? I have trouble with this language.
Saw this one on Instagram the other day:
Reporter approaches ‘man on the street’…
Sticking a microphone in the fellows face, the news ace says,
“You have to make a choice. Who is it gonna be? Trump or Biden. You have to decide. I’m holding a gun to you head!”
The fellow, pauses, obviously thinking and then say, “Pull the trigger.”
‘NPR Suspends An Editor Who Claimed NPR had allowed Liberal Bias to Affect Its Coverage’
This is news? Duh.
District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser took a taxpayer-funded trip to the Masters in Augusta, Georgia, claiming this was an ‘economic development trip’ to work on ‘revitalizing the Gallery Place and Chinatown neighborhoods’ which interestingly are in D.C.
Uh, Madame Mayor, don’t piss on my back and then tell me it’s raining.
Suggestion-Read the comic strip GET FUZZY by Darby Conley every day. Once you get the hang of it’s oddball humor, you will help your happy every day.
And Wheel of Fortune’s Pat Sajack is laying it down today for the last time after forty years of Wheel. And who says Americans aren’t highbrow…?
That’s enough. Y’all take care.
Sending my best,
Vernon