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Passing up church for an Abbey
Aug. 29th, 2004 08:40 pmThe Unitarians had a Blessing of the Animals today, and I've always wanted to see one of those, but 10 a.m. is so early to be out and about...
Besides, I'd woken quite dehydrated today (the fault of not drinking anything with the bag of popcorn I ate while watching Britcoms last night), which seemed in keeping with the "desert discomfort" theme of the past two days. I noted this coincidence when I also started rereading Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey, set in the Arches National Monument in Utah, which I was due to reread now anyway. Muir had been interesting to read, but so quaint in his style, and so in love with his nature that he even romanticized a chaparral plant that goes by the common name, "mountain misery." Rereading Leopold was okay, but he's more sedate and focused than the other two. Abbey, though, is fun. Always lively, often startling, certainly amusing, more like an "untamed uncle" or archetypal Holy Fool. That, at least, was something he had in common with Muir; both men liked to describe their own extreme exploits, and whereas Abbey might recklessly slide down a mountain on his behind, Muir lashed himself to a swaying douglas-fir tree and spent the night up there during a windstorm. I can picture elderly relatives of both men shaking their heads and muttering about whatever "fool stunts" they were up to this time.
I also finished Cleopatra's Heir, and it must have been a challenge to Bradshaw to make the happy ending plausible. I forgot, in my earlier list, to mention her book about Archimedes, which I read last summer or the year before.
Besides, I'd woken quite dehydrated today (the fault of not drinking anything with the bag of popcorn I ate while watching Britcoms last night), which seemed in keeping with the "desert discomfort" theme of the past two days. I noted this coincidence when I also started rereading Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey, set in the Arches National Monument in Utah, which I was due to reread now anyway. Muir had been interesting to read, but so quaint in his style, and so in love with his nature that he even romanticized a chaparral plant that goes by the common name, "mountain misery." Rereading Leopold was okay, but he's more sedate and focused than the other two. Abbey, though, is fun. Always lively, often startling, certainly amusing, more like an "untamed uncle" or archetypal Holy Fool. That, at least, was something he had in common with Muir; both men liked to describe their own extreme exploits, and whereas Abbey might recklessly slide down a mountain on his behind, Muir lashed himself to a swaying douglas-fir tree and spent the night up there during a windstorm. I can picture elderly relatives of both men shaking their heads and muttering about whatever "fool stunts" they were up to this time.
I also finished Cleopatra's Heir, and it must have been a challenge to Bradshaw to make the happy ending plausible. I forgot, in my earlier list, to mention her book about Archimedes, which I read last summer or the year before.