books read January--June

                        PORTRAITS OF THE MIND   Carl Schoonover

                shadows   Webb Chiles

                EXAMINED LIVES   James Miller

                THE INHERITORS   Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford

                AUGUSTUS   John Williams

                THE PEOPLE OF THE MIST  Henry Rider Haggard

                COMPASS ROSE   John Casey

                COLLECTED POEMS  William Butler Yeats

                NEPTUNE’S INFERNO   James D. Hornfischer

                THE SILENCE OF THE SEA   Vercors/Jean Bruller

                BUTCHER’S CROSSING   John Williams

                THE BUTCHER’S BOY   Thomas Perry

                THE BATTLE OF SILENCE   Vercors

                THREE SHORT NOVELS   Vercors

                THE LAST STAND OF THE TIN CAN SAILORS James D.    

                        Hornfischer

                EMPIRE OF THE SUMMER MOON   S.C. Gwynne

                LIFE   Keith Richards

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       The list of books read in the past six months is shorter than usual.  Possibly I’ve been working on GANNET more than I’ve been reading; but one of the advantages of riding the train is that I get to read for an hour each way.

        I read most of the last two books on the list on the train.

        LIFE by Keith Richards got such good reviews that I bought a copy even though I am not a fan of the Rolling Stones or rock and roll.

        Carol read the book first and enjoyed it, and so did I.  From it I learned that the body takes 72 horrible hours to go cold turkey from heroin, a subject on which Mr. Richards is an accepted expert.

        Beyond some interesting stories of his childhood and relationships with Mick Jagger and other members of the band, women and touring, I was impressed by Keith Richards’ dedication to music and his craft.  He passes what  I consider to be a litmus test of a true artist when he  states that he makes music for himself and would even if he had no audience.   Of course, that may be easier to say when you’ve already made tens of millions of dollars and have homes in England, Connecticut, Jamaica and France; but I believe him.

        The other book, EMPIRE OF THE SUMMER MOON, is about the Comanche Nation, which dominated the southern Great Plains before we European descended Americans reduced their population with bullets and disease and forced the remnant onto reservations.  Although it is probably politically incorrect to say so, after reading EMPIRE OF THE SUMMER MOON I don’t believe that was a bad thing.  The Comanches were great light cavalry, fierce warriors, and pitiless rapers, pillagers and slavers.    The Plains under their domination saw a Dark Age rather than a Golden one.

        I don’t know that there ever were Noble Savages as envisioned by European romanticism anywhere in the world.  Certainly the Tahitians, who had an early influence on that myth, were not.  They warred on other tribes, just as the Comanches did, though not as effectively.

        I like the epic; and the epic that was closest to my childhood was not the sea, but the opening of the American West.

        Another of the books on the list, BUTCHER’S CROSSING, is about the last days of the buffalo hunters; and we just re-watched what reportedly is Robert Redford’s favorite of his own movies, JEREMIAH JOHNSON.

        Saint Louis, where I was born, had its reason for being as the gateway to the West, justly commemorated by the exquisite arch completed after I graduated from college and moved away.

        I have read many poems during my lifetime, but only have memorized one, and that was as a teenager.

        “Bring me men to match my mountains.

          Bring me men to match my plains.

          Men with empires in their purpose

          And new eras in their brains.”

        When I grew up I choose to match myself not against mountains or plains, but the sea.  It is all the same.

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        Damage to the marina and my back have kept me from GANNET this week.  With her low contortion-forcing overhead GANNET is more difficult to work on than was the smaller CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE.

        The marina’s website now lists ‘I’ Dock as “accessible.”  I believe that means that the ramp has been fixed and water and power restored.  I don’t know if it means that the far end of the dock has been moved back into place.

        My back is almost back to normal, or what, for my back, passes as normal.

        A rare appointment today and another tomorrow prevent me from going up until Saturday, at which time, if I can’t go sailing, I have most of the elements of the electrical system ready to install.