Larry’s Comments (group member since Nov 23, 2020)

Larry’s comments from the Nonfiction Reading - Only the Best group.

The first few chapters do reveal how odd some British families, namely Graves' own family, could be. I think that some American families were just as odd, but maybe the lack of a literary culture for those families meant that no one recorded the complexity the way Graves did for his own family.

John, "inventing money" evoked some real laughter from me ... and to think that this was perhaps written before Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies! In any case, it's a pretty good poem ... regardless of who or what wrote it. Ultimately, machines may be able to create ... but will they be able to appreciate?

One of Frost's poems that I know very well ... when I read it for the first time, I might have been 15 years old and the threat of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union remained real ... so the threat in the poem probably affected me more than the wit, which is indeed there.

Hang in there, John. Hoping for the best for your cat.

John, I found it and started it. That first sentence of the Prologue is perhaps the most amazing beginning to a book that I have read in decades. John, could we read a chapter a day? At 32 chapters, that is a month of slow reading.

John, I think I know where my copy is in the basement. I’ll start it right away if I find it.

As for the origin of Covid-19, here is one of the latest articles. It's from Science (the AAAS weekly), and it starts with this headline:

"Do three new studies add up to proof of COVID-19’s origin in a Wuhan animal market? --Preprints unlikely to end debate over how SARS-CoV-2 began the pandemic, but some scientists say lab-leak hypothesis has taken a “blow”"

SOURCE: https://www.science.org/content/artic...

The Norton SafeSearch that yielded this article resulted in some recent similar ones from the Lancet, Nature, etc. ... but also one from The Intercept that argued for the Lab Leak Theory:

https://theintercept.com/2022/05/06/d...

So, where are we now? I'm just not sure. I will say that there are too many bat shit crazy stories out there about Covid-19 origin, but this last story from the Intercept is not really one of them.

Carol wrote: "Larry wrote: "It's much more than just about food but I can totally recommend Vaclav Smil's How the World Really Works: A Scientist’s Guide to Our Past, Present and Future. It shows..."

Carol, Smil hasn't got into the importance of the rare earth metals in this chapter yet, but right before he mentioned these four materials )cement, steel, plastics, and ammonia), he says this ... about silicon:

"Silicon (Si) made into thin wafers (the basic substrate of microchips) is the signature material of the electronic age, but billions of people could live prosperously without it; it is not an existential constraint on modern civilization. Producing large, high-purity (99.999999999 percent pure) silicon crystals that are cut into wafers is a complex, multi-step, and highly energy-intensive process: it costs two orders of magnitude more primary energy than making aluminum from bauxite, and three orders of magnitude more than smelting iron and making steel.[2] But the raw material is super-abundant (Si is the second-most common element in the Earth’s crust—nearly 28 percent, compared to 49 percent for oxygen) and the annual output of electronic-grade silicon is very small compared to other indispensable materials, recently on the order of 10,000 tons of wafers.[

Smil, Vaclav. How the World Really Works (p. 77). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. "

It's much more than just about food but I can totally recommend Vaclav Smil's How the World Really Works: A Scientist’s Guide to Our Past, Present and Future. It shows how hard it is to change production systems of food among other things, perhaps mainly because of energy requirements to produce food. Like so much of Smil's work, it focuses on energy. It also discusses how much of our modern world depends on certain materials, namely "they form what I have called the four pillars of modern civilization: cement, steel, plastics, and ammonia.

"Physically and chemically, these four materials are distinguished by an enormous diversity of properties and functions. But despite these differences in attributes and specific uses, they share more than their indispensability for the functioning of modern societies. They are needed in larger (and still increasing) quantities than are other essential inputs. In 2019, the world consumed about 4.5 billion tons of cement, 1.8 billion tons of steel, 370 million tons of plastics, and 150 million tons of ammonia, and they are not readily replaceable by other materials—certainly not in the near future or on a global scale."

Smil, Vaclav. How the World Really Works (pp. 77-78). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. "

Carol & John,

About 20 years ago we visited Chadds Ford and went to the Brandywine River Museum of Art and the N.C. Wyeth House & Studio. It was worthwhile indeed. I have always like the Wyeth's works, but especially the early work of N.C. Wyeth.

One strange thing about the trip was when we went to dinner at a local restaurant. It was good but when the waitress was showing us the menu she was recommending venison and showing us photos of the deer being served that night with their names under the photos! I was proud of my wife when she said, "We don't eat animals whose names we know."

John wrote: "I will add that I never had much success with the “Best of” series. The yearly Best of Poetry, in my opinion, has been mostly awful. And when Harold Bloom and Robert Pinsky edited the Best of the B...So, when I have gone through the yearly Best of Essays books, they were not to my liking, either."

That's generally true for me, too, John ... and not just for general essays. but for the annual best sports writing, science and nature writing, food writing, etc. But there are exceptions. I think that some editors in some years (the editors of these series change from year to year) pick out stories more to my liking.

And Louis is a big hit! https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/queen...

Carol wrote: "Trooping the Colour was a beautiful spectacle and it was very interesting to see the precision and skill of the marching soldiers. It is obviously not a skill needed in battle these days (I presume..."

Carol, we probably watched about 40 minutes of the whole thing. I enjoyed the Trooping the Colour ... and the airplanes flying over in two shapes arranged as "70." The old and the new. You are so right to mention Von Steuben. Without European aid, massive in the form of the French fleet and individuals like von Steuben, I think that the Revolution would have failed. Going back to the celebration, I just enjoyed the joy on the faces of the crowd celebrating the queen. We need some joy in this world right now.

Carol wrote: "It is the start of 4 days of Jubilee celebrations here for 70 years of the Queen being on the throne. I am a republican, not a monarchist, but like everyone else I believe the Queen has been a wonderful person to represent Britain as the Head of State. ..."

I would also be a republican if I were a British subject, but speaking from afar, I believe that the Queen's service going all the way back to what she did in World War II has been inspirational for how a Head of State should behave and serve.

John, it's easy to say I can relate to your comments, but they really do hit home. Increasingly I ask myself "Is this the best use of my time right now?" And asking and answering that question really affects my reading a lot.

My periodical reading has been greatly affected by moving toward subscription services (Apple News+, Zinio Unlimited, Libby (free through the public library) ... and that has greatly reduced my browsing. Since so much is available, I have to be intentional or else the information just threatens to drown me.

My book reading has been affected also. For some, but not all, longer books, I may just read the most important chapters. Of course, that doesn't work for fiction.

Carol wrote: "You both read a lot more than I do. However, I have become used to hopping around on the net and find it quite satisfying to encounter such a range of articles and ideas. I am very grateful to all ..."

Carol, I think that many of us have undergone that same evolution of use of computers and devices ... and the same evolution of how we relate to them and our feelings about how younger ones can be affected by their use of them ... for better and worse.

John, she truly has become one of my favorite modern poets.

John wrote: "Larry, I agree with all of this. I seem to recall that Harper’s was at its best under Lewis Lapham. At least this is my memory and likely the timeframe when I was reading it. I don’t recall having a subscription to it at the time, but I was always buying it when I saw it..."

John, I had totally forgotten about Lewis Lapham as editor ... that's an amazing lapse in my memory. Yep, he was was a great editor. His own quarterly is good ... I just don't want to pay for it.

Carol wrote: "Since the advent of Covid I have stopped buying any newspapers or journals and just read things on the net. We are all so dependent on technology."

Carol, we gave up buying newspapers about ten years ago. What I really like is that our main newspaper, the Washington Post, is available as a print edition for digital subscriber ... so that you see an exact facsimile of each page. What I miss is the smell of the newspaper and the rustle of the pages as you turn them. I'm serious. You get used to that physical paper. I delivered newpapers for about four years ... the Evening Star, which was the evening paper in the Washington, DC area until it went out of business due to the dominance of the Washington Post.

I read the Financial Times every day with the app that FT has ... as another digital subscription.

I still glance at several other newspapers which are available on the Apple News+ app, including these: the Guardian, the Wall Street Journal, the Globe & Mail, the Raleigh News & Observer, and the South Morning China Post. Many days, I'll read no stories from one or more of these.

I know that the New York Times and the Financial Times are financially healthy if not really prosperous. I'm not sure which other newspapers are. Probably the Washington Post, because Jeff Bezos owns it, but even in that case Bezos told the Post employees several years ago that the paper would have to be financially successful on its own after several years. I actually think that it make a lot of sense if Bezos gave it away as part of an Amazon Prime membership, but Bezos does what Bezos wants to do, and truly giving things away isn't part of his makeup.

The best periodicals seem to have been at their very best when shepherded by one person with a vision. I think that was true of the NYRB under Robert Silvers (from 1963-2017) or the London Review of Books under Mary-Kay Wilmers (from 1992-2021) and now The New Yorker under David Remnick (from 1998 on). One person with a vision doesn't always work, however. John R. MacArthur has saved Harper's financially but he has hurt the the intellectual environment of that magazine in several ways. I'll stop there but just add that it's easy enough to Google it all.