I like to think so

Stuck in the hideous current of the 4th Great Awakening, I saw Garry Wills at the Great hall at Cooper Union this evening. He was talking about his latest book. (Is it your thirty-fifth? the introducer asked, and Wills shrugged his shoulders.) I’ve read and admired his stuff for years now, and heard him the other day on NPR, where, admittedly, he didn’t sound so scintillating. But in the flesh he’s a good speaker, reminding me in voice and face of nothing less than Orson Welles, albeit rather slimmer. He told how Andrew Carnegie, a bright-eyed Calvinist killjoy from way back (we do like his libraries, though), insisted to Mark Twain that this was a Christian country, and Twain admitted as much, adding that hell was also a Christian country.

When I got home, I was immediately beset by a skeeter who bit me twice on the right and once on the left foot. Ah, the wages of unbelief. Literally, it seemed as if I’d barely gotten my socks off before the little assassin got me. And she’s still in here. In the middle of god-damned October.

Two-fer: for months now, I haven’t been waiting for the Cooperator to call me back, but yesterday she did, miracle of miracles, but alas with Co-op business. Oy! Meanwhile, the Exquisitely Beautiful P – responded to an all points bulletin about my upcoming AMC hike with an apology for not calling me back on my invitation to have a drink, explaining that she should be considered unreliable. What is one to do with such dark materials?

About that AMC hike: Saturday, 10 am at the Calder sculpture at Park Row across from the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. We’re rambling the west coast of Brooklyn and eating some key lime pie. Six-ish miles, good fast pace.

Unless it rains. Like a certain witch, we melt in the rain.