Several things to comment on today. All of them important, but I’ll touch lightly on them and pass on, like an obsessive-compulsive in a faucet factory.
First of all, today is the anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy in 1944. Fewer and fewer there are among us who were there and can tell the story. A grateful nation honors the living and the dead.
And, as Phil mentioned, Ray Bradbury died today. I think I read most of his books in high school. Though I wasn’t a huge fan, I remember liking Something Wicked This Way Comes and The October Country.
Andrew Klavan illuminates both culture and the creative process in an article at The City Journal, No Joke. (In case you’re wondering, I found the joke amusing, but not hilarious. I guess that explains why Klavan’s famous and I’m not.)
Here’s a link to video from yesterday, when the Viking ship replica The Dragon Harald Fairhair was set in the water and christened in Haugesund, Norway. The video’s in Norwegian, but it’s mostly visual anyway. A fellow reenactor complained to me about the propeller that’s visible near the stern. According to the project web site, Norwegian law requires them to have an engine (for emergencies, one assumes). But they’re not planning to cheat. This is a sailing and rowing vessel.
And last but least, my test went fine, and the doctor said things looked good. Thanks for your prayers and good thoughts.
Hey Lars, thanks for linking the video. Looks like it’d take you a few minutes to walk the length of the ship if it had a full crew. Be easy to loose a friend in the crowd.
Ray Bradbury. I met a woman once who was a blacksmith, who’d met Bradbury, and talked with him. She laughed about how she was filling out an application for something, and the computer couldn’t recognize her profession. Bradbury said that some people in the world were like pterodactyls. She gave me his address and told be to sign any correspondence with “Pterodactyl Douglas”.
I remember finding “The Martian Chronicles” as a kid. I wasn’t sure I liked the poetic quality at first, as I prefered the hard sci fi of Heinlein and Clarke. But I was captivated, and went willingly into that aching world, and I’ve been a lifelong fan. It’s so good to have someone like him, who’ll tell an auditorium full of people that if anyone tells you to get a job based on making lots of money, to tell them to shut up.