Day Twenty Four
The Confessions by St. Augustine Page: 13
The Best of Wodehouse Page: 796 Finished
I don’t know whether to credit my vastly improved mood to the last chunk of Wodehouse, the tiny bit of Augustine I read or just to vacillating hormones but whatever the cause I’m feeling a bit more sunshiny today and happy about it however temporary it may be. I got 261 pages read and enjoyed them, I’m posting early again so that total isn’t too skewed and life is generally peachy and creamy. I had a few interruptions today including one of my least favorite things – a customer with a drum to beat and an inability to see when his audience couldn’t possibly care less. Apparently the world will soon come to an end because the UN and the US Congress are conspiring to convert our currency to the AMERO and for some reason this means that we will no longer have control over our own destinies. Now if you know me, you know one who is utterly indifferent to politics. I tend toward the view that, as I am not in direct line for the throne, I’m not the go-to-gal for figuring what is wrong with the government of these United States. Until my personal beliefs are outlawed, I probably won’t notice any changes in the law and when they are, I’ll quietly burn at the stake. So you can imagine how indifferent I was to his general drift and when you add in a crying one-year-old, his deafness and repetitiveness and the fact that I hadn’t had so much as a drop of coffee yet you have a glassy-eyed, irritated woman desperately instant messaging her faithful employee requesting a latte and a fake phone call.
Well it turns out Wodehouse was just the thing to read after polishing off Herodotus. When a character in Uncle Fred in the Springtime is speaking in a confusing manner, Uncle Fred says “You speak in riddles my boy. A little less of the Delphic Oracle. Let your Yea be Yea and your Nay be Nay.” I’ve come to expect the Biblical allusions and Shakespeare crops up quite often but I wouldn’t have caught this classical reference if I hadn’t just been reading The Histories. Such fun. Oh and then there was a Dr. Johnson quote “nobody but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.” So I’m thinking if I read what Wodehouse read will I write what Wodehouse wrote? Pretty damn unlikely… I strongly suggest that if you’re going to invest in Wodehouse for the first time go for the Everyman’s Best of because it really does include the best of Wodehouse that I’ve ever read. I was almost finished with the book and peacefully happy with the generally high-level of the prose and then I started the last section, an excerpt from his auto-biography Over Seventy, and was convulsed by the Forward. The rest of the excerpt is on the same high plane as his standard stuff but the Forward is worth the price of the book, rather it’s worth the price of ten books, perhaps it’s worth the price of this entire reading project. In other words, pretty freaking good. Get it.
January 25th, 2008 at 12:57 am
The AMERO is the proposed currency of the North American Union, of which plans for it are definitely in the works. It’s actually quite a scary thought. Talk about a loss of sovereignty. What the NAU means is more government, more regulation, and more taxes if the plan ever happens. For a small business owner that cannot be a good thing.
Anywho, I may just have to read this Wodehouse someday. British humor is absolutely fabulous.
January 25th, 2008 at 8:05 am
P.G. Wodehouse FTW!
Anemone
January 25th, 2008 at 10:04 am
http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/amero.asp
January 25th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Did I not bold the APATHETIC enough? I couldn’t care less about politics…and back in the first week of this blog I quoted Dr. Johnson saying that whatever happens by chance can’t be worse than what we try to force to happen…or something like that…
January 25th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Brent:
True, the Amero is more of a conspiracy theory then anything else. However, if something like the North American Union happens it would be logical that they would enforce a single currency.
The North American Union is not, however, a conspiracy theory although some people present as more of conspiracy theory then it should be presented as. The super highway, the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, NAFTA, etc, etc. We’re certainly moving in that direction…they are slowly erasing our sovereignty.
January 25th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Oh lordy. I happen to enjoy politics- just not conspiracy theories- and I was subjection to a similar sounding conversation just recently with an uncle who stopped by:roll:…… unfortunately I was stuck at home by myself and had no one to rescue me…. hope you got your rescuing phone call! (and your latte)
January 28th, 2008 at 11:43 am
If we just decided to get around to doing what was right and conquered Canada then got around to re-taking Mexico we could deal with the whole thing. Everybody could use the American Dollar, there would be no illegal immagration because they would be US citizens, and everybody could stop complaining they are are “Americans” too. Because once they were part of the U.S. they would be real Americans.