Book completed

Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World, by Barry Lopez. Lopez, who died in 2020, lived just 40 miles east of me for a very long time, and even before I knew he was local I have long considered him one of my favorite writers, mostly because of Of Wolves and Men. I impulsively bought this book on a recent bookstore visit and was looking forward to reading it. However, the actual reading of it wasn't that wonderful. His regular habit of flying around the world to visit various locations seemed jarring, even though much of it was decades ago, as nowadays we'd consider that much use of fossil fuel to be inconsistent with his concern for the environment. In some of the early essays, he talks at length about the work of various landscape photographers, which I wasn't qualified to appreciate, and in most of the other essays there was very little warmth coming across (both personal and metaphorical). I'm content enough to read about the Arctic worlds he loved to visit, but Antarctica isn't all that appealing, at such length. Also I was dreading reading a couple of the later essays, which go into his childhood experience of pedophilia. So I'd been trying to read one essay a day, to get myself through it, but many days I didn't bother, and as of today I was only at page 145, with more than half of the book to go. I asked myself why I was even reading it, and yet I was convinced that I ought to finish. I came up with the plan of reading one-third of the remaining pages in each of the next three days, so I sat/lay down and applied myself, and actually I managed to finish the whole thing. The sex abuse was handled very thoughtfully, and the essays after it were all set here in our forests, where he lived, so I enjoyed them especially. However, I'm unlikely to impulsively read any of his other books that I haven't already read, at least without first confirming that it's not largely about Antarctica.

Movie night

Kung Fu Hustle! Yes! I'd seen it before, probably twice, but that was a long time ago. One thing I'd forgotten, but that I like about the movie, is that the overweight guy is also far and away the most handsome.