First Post: Friday, July 28, 2023

Reading fiction, classic literature etc. Every try it?

Today’s graphic lede shows some lines delivered by the character Doctor Astroff from early in the action of Anton Chekhov’s 1898 play ‘Uncle Vanya’. Astroff here is railing against the deforestation being carried out by his provincial countrymen so that they can fuel their stoves & furnaces. But now, a century-and-a-quarter later, we see that Siberia in his own fatherland has been catching fire of late, and even north of that we might within our lifetimes bear witness what global boiling could do the Arctic. Canada & Greece are ablaze, Arizona can’t cool down, and Homo sapiens all over the planet are finding out, at times fatally, that there are limits to the amount of heat the human body can withstand. Those limits are being exceeded more than we’ve ever observed. 

Astroff/Chekhov understood then, even in the embers of the 19th-century, that there was no way to turn back. You might have one high-minded nature-lover, naturalist, conservationist sounding the alarm, but what more could he be than a single tree standing, forlorn, powerless, destined to be burned to the ground by the raging inferno ignited by man’s quest for rampant consumption, destruction?

No turning back, then, from 1898 to now, 2023. We completed the Barbenheimer Double last night, watching Oppenheimer a week after having seen Barbie. That one scene in the former, when the title character tells Einstein, ‘I believe we did’, followed by the images that appear on the screen next, well, you can convey the same idea when it comes to climate, probably. 

Maybe you have been acquainted with someone you know who has died after some kind of illness, chronic, lingering or even brief. Many times the end comes rapidly, without warning, the vital organs & systems just start failing and then the vital dominoes all fall down in a matter of hours. So it might be here. In terms of the atmosphere, the gasses, the particulate matter outside, it’s pretty clear that we have been in a chronic state of decline for a while now. And it feels like the lungs of the forest and the blood & kidneys of the oceans are starting to call it quits. Now, Earth itself will heal eventually — the sun won’t suck it in anytime soon — but it’s hard to see us and all the other inhabitants being around for the recovery.

Aside from that, we still have reading, reading good stuff, not the syllabus from Trump Univ. or Prager U. or The Ayn Rand Institute for Objectivity, but things that examine the human condition and the meaning of all of it without being reduced to getting over on other people or accumulating as much as stuff as you can, and taking stuff away from other people. When you get into these good texts, the real art and abstraction of the good books, the good plays, the good poetry, the good music, you find something peaceful & calming, from the brain to the gut, and you sink into the rhythm of something eternal, that can’t be bought, that’s not easy or cheap but transcendent. 

Also, we find that reading something good while having the classical music playing softly in the background can lower the heart-rate to near-reptilian levels. If you enjoy a stable, non-fluttering heartbeat bordering on bradycardia, try it! 

BestLine Racing Society Recap:

The heat dome over the entire planet led to the cancelation of one of our scheduled ovals, Etobicoke Int’l., but we were able to audible-in Monmouth. So it was that track, plus the everyday tentpoles of Del Mar & Saratoga.

In Race 4 at Saratoga Springs, N.Y., #2 Hydra (.148 Win Prob / 5.76-1 Fair Odds / 8.46-1 Premium Odds) and #3 Everyoneloveslinda (.225 / 3.44 / 4.33) combined on your winning $223.50 exacta whose premium price was $90.18. Then in Race 10 there, #6 New York Thunder (.223 / 3.48 / 5.28) struck at $13-even.

BestLine Racing Society Nightcap: 

Chas. Town now.

Strongshots

Race 4
#6 Tiz the Reason (.396 / 1.53 / 2.03)

Race 7
#4 Maggie’s Girl (.507 / 0.97 / 1.37)

Longshots

Race 6
#1 May Mays Castle (.290 / 2.45 / 3.14)
#5 Blue Mountain (.246 / 3.07 / 3.88)
#2 Makinlimmargaritas (.202 / 3.95 / 5.93)

Race 8
#2 Mr Tingles (.278 / 2.60 / 3.32)
#3 STEVEthevandriver (.201 / 3.98 / 4.97)
#6 Day the Music Died (.163 / 5.13 / 7.59)
#5 Cowboy At Heart (.132 / 6.58 / 9.61)