Haiku 1 in These titles mean nothing.

Aspire to great love
Ask wise elders for advice
Accept whatever comes

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Someone on FB asked for one word. I gave her Peace.

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I saw part of a Burt Reynolds movie in the middle of the night. He (framed cop) and Theresa Russell (inexperienced, well-dressed lawyer) and Ned Beatty (big-dog prosecutor) were directed by Michael Chrichton in 1989’s Physical Evidence. I kept falling asleep and eventually gave up on it.

I’d heard a woman on BBC radio interviewing Reynolds on my way to work one day last week. He’s almost 80 and his voice lacked energy. He is proud of the son he adopted with Loni Anderson who is now a film editor and proud of his acting school. The BBC lady lifted a radio eyebrow at the idea of Burt teaching acting and I think he noticed too. She closed the interview by asking if he was satisfied with his life. He said he had been until he’d done this interview. She thanked him and said goodbye.

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I read the first chapter in Simenon’s Magrait mystery The Yellow Dog. Penguin Classics is reissuing all of the 75 Maigrait novels - there are 28 short stories too. Jim is a Maigrait fan and he thinks about the translations from the French. He wonders if it isn’t better if someone with a French name does the translating so the whole French flavor comes across. This one is translated by Linda Asher. I liked it’s simplicity. There are no big words getting in the way of the story. We are taken to a time and place we have never been to and we understand the people and the events. I plan to read another chapter today.

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I’ve started John Le Carre’s The Naive and Sentimental Lover as my read at work book. It was published in 1971, the year Wiki says LeCarre was divorced and it is supposed to be autobiographical, and is his only non-genre(read spy) novel. I’m glad of that. Though I’m a bit sorry I looked at Wiki so early in my reading of the book. I like to find things out for myself… to accept a book on its own terms. I only wanted the year it was published because I was too lazy to get up and look for the book. Ah, the benefits and drawbacks of having all the world’s knowledge at your fingertips.

I saw LeCarre interviewed last night in the middle of the night. He is talking about his new novel Our Kind of Traitor, which is genre about a young couple who are lead into spy-dom. I’m sure it’s good but I’m glad I’m reading my beat up old copy of his only non-genre book even if I let Wiki give away the plot a bit.

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On Christmas Eve Jim and I visited the book store in McGregor and had a fantastic talk with the man who runs it. I wish I had talked less and listened more because he said some really good things about books and people who love them. He said a book collector is someone who: 1. has a lot of books 2. still wants more 3. not happy if they loan a book and never get it back, they may or may not be angry about the loss, but they never forget.

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I’m still eating sugar-less and wheat-less, continuing to avoid soda and vending machines. I have a lot of graham crackers and ritz crackers I need to get rid of, plus the Christmas gift hot chocolate mix. I’m thinking I could send some to Joana. They aren’t bad foods, just ones I don’t want to eat right now.

I wish I were someone who could do things in moderation. I wish I could eat two graham crackers, for example, without eating the whole pack. I can give them up totally, but I can’t just eat a reasonable amount. It’s my mother’s fault - after all, she’s the one who always said, “You won’t be happy till it’s gone.”

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Happy New Year everyone. 2016 will be a good one. They all are, aren’t they?

Last updated January 01, 2016