a rasher of thoughts

My brain has appeared clunked as of late, hobbled by a return to the grind of the workweek. I have impressed myself with some deft google efforts to help me recall a book by C.J. Samson that I had picked up from the library a month ago. Why can't library patrons access their records of items checked out? Does the NSA have such data? Can I petition them?

I went to the library book sale this a.m. with paperback copies of Foucault's Pendulumn in mind. Yeah, I used to own two of them but then I bought a nice hardbound version ten years ago and I know I gave one to Chris Spellman. ..Who knows? Eco has been high on my mind as of late and my goal is to finish Name of the Rose.

Samizdat has chosen Naked and the Dead as the next group bid.

I bought a few of the Patrick O'Brien books this a.m. I recalled an article that Hitchens devoted to such but for the life of me couldn't recall where. Google threw a host of blind alleys before me but alas I found it on Slate where he reviewed the Russell Crowe adaptation. The Persian Fire book I finished the other night has had a profound impact upon me. I have thought about Xerses and Alexander, their estimation of restraint and their failure to hubris: how would the forced-feeding at Gitmo have weighed upon such scales?

I didn't find any portable Eco but I did find a rare Thackeray penguin edition and the senior matron there told me that as a schoolgirl she was enchanted by a Thackeray poem.

Here's to William of Baskerville!