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

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

Jeffrey, there is a new book, Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise by Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell, that explains what rural China is like today. It's a shocking book in terms of what it says about the state of affairs for the rural population, and maybe you need to start with this statistic that two/thirds of Chinese children are in rural areas. The rural schools and health conditions are terrible. I doubt that I'll read the book, but a short summary of it can be found in a review of the book in the week's (January 23, 2021) THE ECONOMIST.

John, I was pleased to see that Loeb's book had landed on my Kindle. I'll work it into my current reading.

This issue of Nautilus, the science journal, has an article--with associated poems--about the relationship between science and poetry.

It's "A collaboration exploring how poetry and science are intertwined, presented by Poetry in America and Nautilus."

http://poetry.nautil.us

Carol wrote: "What I wrote has just disappeared so will rewrite! Gremlins at work!
Theodore Roethke's poems seem very down-to earth and 'gritty'. His whiskey-drinking father is dancing inebriatedly (my grammar-c...For me it would be Mum or Mummy (or perhaps in the US, Mom?) rather than 'Mother'"

If you can see it, perhaps on the BBC for you, Carol ... Disney Junior here for us in the United States, try to watch the BBC/Australian BC cartoon series BLUEY. Maybe my favorite cartoon series ever ... each episode is between 7 and 8 minutes of joy ... and there is a Mum ... a family of dogs. Here's the Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluey_(...

Bluey Heeler, a six-year-old Blue Heeler puppy. She is curious and energetic.
Bingo Heeler, Bluey's four-year-old younger sister, a Red Heeler puppy.
Bandit Heeler / Dad (voiced by David McCormack),[3] the Blue Heeler father of Bluey and Bingo who is an archaeologist.[2]
Chilli Heeler / Mum (voiced by Melanie Zanetti),[4] the Red Heeler mother of Bluey and Bingo who works part-time in airport security.[2]

John wrote: "One more by Theodore Roethke. It may be his most well-known poem.

MY PAPA’S WALTZ

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy...."

I wake up and go to my iMac just waiting to see if someone here has posted a new poem ... and if so, I just start reading and reflecting as I read. it's such a good way to start a day. Thanks, John. And thanks, Carol, for your thoughts about this one.

Sher wrote: "Larry wrote: "Carol wrote: "John wrote: "I did not watch any of the inauguration, as I spent the day golfing and was just very tired when I got home. It has been a rather draining four years, worse..."

I bet a Mary Oliver collection will be coming.

Sher, that's a great question, but nothing comes to mind.

Probably the biggest surprise to me about Kindle books is how good some art books are. I'm mainly thinking about the art books in the Delphi series like this one: Delphi Collected Works of J. M. W. Turner (Illustrated). Having every known painting that Turner or Van Gogh or Rembrandt painted is incredibly valuable ... but then there are also some other ones like 149 Paintings You Really Need to See in North America: and 149 Paintings You Really Need to See in Europe that are great. And then this one Art+Paris Impressionist: Rise of the Impressionists and some others in this series.

There are some paper books that remain my favorites when it comes to art, namely these The Louvre: All the Paintings; The Vatican: All the Paintings: The Complete Collection of Old Masters, Plus More than 300 Sculptures, Maps, Tapestries, and Other Artifacts; and Florence: The Paintings and Frescoes in the City that Invented Art, 1250-1743, but again the surprise to me is how good ereaders can be when it comes to art ... as long as it's an ereader with color.

John wrote: "Larry wrote: "It's so hard to lose a favorite book, John. I'm glad you could find a replacement."

Thanks Larry. I was rather surprised to find out that the book did not make it to North Carolina. ..."

Over the last 10 years, we have probably donated/sold about 4,000 books. I'm not sure but I think we're down to about 3,000 books. I'll never read most of these books, as most of my reading takes place on my Kindle PaperWhite, but right now I still can't get rid of those 3,000 physical books.

It's so hard to lose a favorite book, John. I'm glad you could find a replacement.

From my favorite modern American poet, Billy Collins:

POETRY FOR THE DAY (23 January 2021)
The Present
by Billy Collins

Much has been said about being in the present.
It’s the place to be, according to the gurus,
like the latest club on the downtown scene,
but no one, it seems, is able to give you directions.

It doesn’t seem desirable or even possible
to wake up every morning and begin
leaping from one second into the next
until you fall exhausted back into bed.

Plus, there’d be no past
with so many scenes to savor and regret,
and no future, the place you will die
but not before flying around with a jet-pack.

The trouble with the present is
that it’s always in a state of vanishing.
Take the second it takes to end
this sentence with a period––already gone.
What about the moment that exists
between banging your thumb
with a hammer and realizing
you are in a whole lot of pain?

What about the one that occurs
after you hear the punch line
but before you get the joke?
Is that where the wise men want us to live

in that intervening tick, the tiny slot
that occurs after you have spent hours
searching downtown for that new club
and just before you give up and head back home?

SOURCE:
garrisonkeillor.com
www.garrisonkeillor.com

Carol wrote: "I think people wanted to forget and to heal as best they could. Difficult when many had died or had been a Japanese prisoner of war like my husband's uncle, but even so, there seemed to be a silence about what had happened...."

Carol,

My father was an Army officer for 23 years and I never once heard him or his friends talk about World War 2 ... with some very few exceptions and I can remember them all. The first was was on the importance of the meteorologist in giving Eisenhower about the date for D-Day. The second was--and he mentioned this several times--the importance of the code-breakers in defeating the Japanese. The third was that he knew one of the two pilots, both of whom had claimed responsibility for shooting down Adm. Yamamoto. I'm not sure which one it was. I think he was glad not to think too much about the war, which, at least in the Pacific, had been a war waged without mercy. Your comment "I think people wanted to forget and to heal as best they could." is so true.

My wife and I went to high school together and had two teachers, both of who were USMC colonels in the Pacific Island campaign. One was pretty conservative (we had him for American Studies as juniors) and one was pretty liberal (we had him for Government as seniors). Neither ever once talked about WW2, but both would talk a little about the ongoing Vietnam War (this was in 1965-66 and 1966-67). Both were good men and not bad at teaching.

Carol wrote: "I have never seen this small marker. Is that always the case in cemeteries for veterans in the US? I have been to the very large American War Cemetery near Liege in Belgium and there are white crosses for each soldier. A very striking and beautifully maintained ground. ."

Carol,

The following link should take you to the Arlington National Cemetery site app, showing my parents' tombstone. My father's information is on one side of the tombstone, and my mother's information is on the other side. This has been the standard practice at Arlington for a very long time for the graves where a veteran and their spouse are interred in the same grave.

https://ancexplorer.army.mil/publicwm...

My 7 year great niece was buried at Arlington a few months ago. I haven't visited her gravesite yet.

Larry

P.S. on the matter of crosses, at Arlington, you will find graves marked with different kinds of crosses, the Star of David, Hindu symbols, Sikh symbols, Wiccan symbols, an atom for Atheists, etc. I saw the list on some material they gave me when my mother was buried. I think that there were about 15 to 20 different symbols. You see more of the non-Christian symbols on the little boxes in the Columbarium than you do among the graves. I spent some time in the Columbarium when my daughter-in-law's grandfather died. He had flown fighters in WW2, switched to bombers when they were running out of bomber pilots, and then switched back to fighters in the Korean War. The Air Force honored him at the time of his interment with a flyover. To the end, he was a bit of a wild man, but most of all a loving grandfather. I think I knew more about his flying career than most of his own family ... simply because I kept on asking him questions.

Larry

PPS Our great niece's grave at Arlington. It makes me cry to just look at this.

https://ancexplorer.army.mil/publicwm...

Jeffrey, I'm actually going to start with the second book first, The World Turned Upside Down: A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution as soon as I finish the Yergin book I'm reading.

Carol wrote: "John wrote: "I did not watch any of the inauguration, as I spent the day golfing and was just very tired when I got home. It has been a rather draining four years, worse in the past year, and it ca..."

I do not understand why there is not an Emily Dickinson volume in the Library of America series. This is perhaps the most important omission in the whole series. It's just strange.

There are some nice Kindle collections. I just bought this one: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Poems...

Modern China, in a real sense, began when Deng Xiaoping became leader in 1978 (and remained that until 1989). He recognized the damage that Mao had done with the GREAT LEAP FORWARD which killed a minimum of 36 million Chinese and perhaps as many as 55 million and then the CULTURAL REVOLUTION, which in some sense was Mao's attempt to defend the principles of the GREAT LEAP FORWARD, and which tore the country and society apart. To understand modern China, and what came after Mao through Deng's revolutionary economic policies, it helps to understand the Great Leaop Forward and the Cultural Revolution. No one explains these times better than does Yang Jisheng in his two books, Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962 and The World Turned Upside Down: A History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution

Carol wrote: "The refrain 'Lest we forget' is from Deuteronomy, 6,12 and follows the form of a traditional English hymn.
It reminds me of Ozymandias and other poems which talk of the fall of Kings and Kingdoms. ..."

Carol, thank you for all of this information. It is great.

Carol wrote: "I had to finish watching the Inauguration before Amanda Gorman read her poem, so have not yet seen her do so. Is she only 14? If so, what an incredible honour at such a young age. I expect it will ..."

Carol, I think she is 22. But she is amazing. Her delivery--the speaking combined with her hand movements--was perfect.

What a remarkable presence!

On this most extraordinary of days ... a poem of the ordinary ... one that is sort of extraordinary for how it captures the commonplace.

Dinner Out
by Christopher Howell

We went to either the Canton Grill
or the Chinese Village, both of them
on Eighty-second among the car lots
and discount stores and small nests
of people waiting hopelessly
for the bus. I preferred the Canton
for its black and bright red sign
with the dragon leaping out of it
and sneezing little pillows of smoke.
And inside, the beautiful green
half-shell booths, glittery brass encrusted
lamps swinging above them.

What would I have?
Sweet and sour?
Chow mein with little wagon wheel- shaped
slices of okra and those crinkly noodles
my father called deep fried worms?
Fried rice?

Among such succulence, what did it matter?
We could eat ’til we were glad and full, the whole
family sighing with the pleasure of it.
And then the tea
All of this for about six bucks, total,
my father, for that once-in-a-while, feeling
flush in the glow of our happy faces
and asking me, “How you doing, son?”

Fine, Dad. Great, really, in the light
of that place, almost tasting
the salt and bean paste and molasses, nearly
hearing the sound of the car door
opening before we climbed in together
and drove and drove,
though we hadn’t far to go.

SOURCE:
garrisonkeillor.com
www.garrisonkeillor.com