A Random Assortment

~ Laura Ingalls' autobiography released, but too few.

~ Oooh...I loved Bletchley Circle. They were awarded broaches, not medals. And met up for a book launch.

~ Bob Dylan sounds a bit like Aristotle:

OK, a lot of people say there is no happiness in this life and certainly there’s no permanent happiness. But self-sufficiency creates happiness. Just because you’re satisfied one moment — saying yes, it’s a good meal, makes me happy — well, that’s not going to necessarily be true the next hour. Life has its ups and downs, and time has to be your partner, you know? Really, time is your soul mate.

~ A review of McDonald's by an old lady in North Dakota. (Via Cardigan who said this woman's writing reminds her of mine!)

~ Never thought I'd be linking to David Brooks, but I found this interesting (on online dating, which I like just fine):

When you look at all the people looking for love and vocation today, you realize we live in a culture and an online world that encourages a very different mind-set; in a technical culture in which humanism, religion and the humanities, which are the great instructors of enchantment, are not automatically central to life.
I have to guess some cultures are more fertile for enchantment — that some activities, like novel-reading or music-making, cultivate a skill for it, and that building a capacity for enchantment is, these days, a countercultural act and a practical and fervent need.

~ Garance, on the Art of Living. I like Garance a lot, and insofar as I have any interest in fashion (let's just say I care about it leagues more than I did when I was a kid), it's probably due to her and street style photographers like Bill Cunningham and the Sartorialist. But this stuck out to me because I've been thinking about lifestyle a bit, particularly as Francisco and I are combining our ideas of the good life in our little family. And most especially with the coming of Baby Leopard, who means that we're more aware of how we use our time than ever. One of my friends told me when the baby was born, "Stay true to what you and Francisco deem as priorities." I think about this a lot--we can't do everything we did before, when it seemed like time was without a limit, but we can still do some things, so we have to figure out what we care most about and start there.

If I were living on my own, one of the first things to go would be mealtimes: I could survive just fine on carrots and pretzels (and chocolate!) (I don't actually like raw carrots much, but you know what I mean). In fact, I grew up in a family with extended dinner hours that sometimes drove me crazy--I just want to get on with life and be "productive." But Francisco really loves eating together, so that's part of our lifestyle. And I'm sure my life is better for it. We do love entertaining together; plus, that's an excellent thing to do with a kid, who is okay at going out to eat, but better at sitting in his highchair in his house (we can go seamlessly from awake and playing to napping and back). Going to church together on Sundays is another good part of our week--we all get a bit dressed up and go to our very nice church (good music, good people, good hymns). And afterward we go to the cheap produce market, which is near the church, or to the diner where all the people are friendly and love babies. And we love art galleries, so we subject the baby to that fairly regularly. And we love traveling, so we still try to do that from time to time. I think that's as far as we've gotten in terms of lifestyle. I think we need to incorporate some walking and then a little running when the weather gets better.

~ This building used to be on our block. I bet that tea store was great. (Via Francisco.)

~ On that new biography of Eliot. Things I never knew:

 In 1948, a line from one of his poems was used in an ad for Esso petrol (‘Time future contained in time past’).

 ...

In early 1899, when he was ten, he started a magazine called the Fireside, and its front page announced that this was ‘edited by T.S. Eliot’.