*****
Remember how I was singing along with "Evacuate the Dance Floor?" And then remember how that song was stuck in my head for a damn week afterward? No?
Well let me tell you all about it. I sang along to that song one too many times, and then it was stuck in my head for a damn week. And if that was the end of that story, then there'd be nothing else to say. But that is not, as it happens, the end of that story.
I'm extremely susceptible to the curse of the earworm; and sadly for me, the songs that get permanently lodged in my brain are not always songs that I like. "Evacuate the Dance Floor" and "Just Dance" and "Badlands"? Fine. "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Where do Broken Hearts Go?" and "We are Never (Ever Ever) Getting Back Together"? Not so much.
In fact, just hearing one or two bars of a bad song at the wrong time are an almost-certain predictor of an earworm that will last at least 24 hours, and often as long as a week. It's like the aura that some migraine sufferers experience. It's like that vaguely feverish malaise that within hours morphs into full-blown flu. By the time you recognize the symptoms, it's probably too late.
*****
Sunday, June 10: So now It’s a rainy and unseasonably cool Sunday afternoon, and I’m just a few miles north of Baltimore, driving southward on I-95 after an overnight trip to Philadelphia. As always, I feel duty-bound to point out that I’m not actually driving the car that’s conveying me home. And I’m not online, either. I could write on my phone, but I’ve never learned how to type fast on a smartphone. On a real keyboard, though, I can type like lightning. I can barely see my fingers--that's how fast they're moving.
I’m beginning to resign myself to the likelihood of a cool and rainy summer. My swimming friends and I have been steeling ourselves to the icy water, because we’re determined to swim and if we wait until the water warms up, we won’t get to swim until July. I’m learning to like the cold water, though I’d take warm over cold any day. But once you get used to it...
*****
Friday, June 15. You might have read or heard somewhere that the Washington Capitals won the Stanley Cup (this, of course, is the thing that I couldn't put in writing). My friends and family in Philadelphia, even the die-hard Flyers fans, all congratulated me last weekend, as if I’d scored the game-winning goal. The last time I lived in a championship city was 1980 (Phillies, World Series), and I'd forgotten how much fun it was to be part of a joyous collective celebration. And I'm really happy for Alexander Ovechkin, the world's greatest hockey player. I know that he's a Putin supporter, but how can you not love this face?
*****
Speaking of my favorite Russians, I finally finished with the Count. I haven't read any reviews of A Gentleman in Moscow, and I wonder if any critics commented on the relative lack of suffering in the book. After all, it's set in Russia, beginning in the 1920s all the way through the mid 1950s--Suffering Central. Without giving too much away, the main character, Count Alexander Rostov, was in 1922 placed under permanent house arrest in Moscow's Metropol Hotel and remained there for over 30 years, eventually becoming the headwaiter of the Boyarsky, the hotel's renowned restaurant. Early in the novel, he is removed from his luxurious, expansive suite, and sent to a tiny room on an upper floor. He has an unpleasant encounter with a Bolsehvik aristocrat-hater. Soviet-style bureaucracy encroaches on his beloved Boyarsky, even its famous wine cellar.
But no one starves, and no one ends up in a filthy cell in Sukhanova. A few major characters disappear, though, lost to the gulag; and the reader always feels the Stalinist menace hovering over the Metropol and threatening all of its occupants, including the Count and his adopted daughter. I might write more about him next week. Once again, Stalinism and all of its totalitarian relatives seem particularly relevant right now.
*****
Stalinist menace or not, the weather has finally turned and it feels like actual summer again. The Count wasn't beaten or starved or sent to Kolyma, but he was held indoors for 30 years, never stepping outside, even during the summer. And right now, on the southern border of the most fortunate country in the history of the world, there are hundreds of children, separated from their parents, and held indoors in prison-like conditions for most of the day.
I have no idea why some people, or some countries, or some times in history are marked for suffering. I'll probably never know why, at least not in this life. All I can do is to not forget the people who suffer, and try to think about them and pray for them when the sun is shining on the pool water in just the right way and all is well in my particular part of the world at this particular moment.
*****
Speaking of my favorite Russians, I finally finished with the Count. I haven't read any reviews of A Gentleman in Moscow, and I wonder if any critics commented on the relative lack of suffering in the book. After all, it's set in Russia, beginning in the 1920s all the way through the mid 1950s--Suffering Central. Without giving too much away, the main character, Count Alexander Rostov, was in 1922 placed under permanent house arrest in Moscow's Metropol Hotel and remained there for over 30 years, eventually becoming the headwaiter of the Boyarsky, the hotel's renowned restaurant. Early in the novel, he is removed from his luxurious, expansive suite, and sent to a tiny room on an upper floor. He has an unpleasant encounter with a Bolsehvik aristocrat-hater. Soviet-style bureaucracy encroaches on his beloved Boyarsky, even its famous wine cellar.
But no one starves, and no one ends up in a filthy cell in Sukhanova. A few major characters disappear, though, lost to the gulag; and the reader always feels the Stalinist menace hovering over the Metropol and threatening all of its occupants, including the Count and his adopted daughter. I might write more about him next week. Once again, Stalinism and all of its totalitarian relatives seem particularly relevant right now.
*****
Stalinist menace or not, the weather has finally turned and it feels like actual summer again. The Count wasn't beaten or starved or sent to Kolyma, but he was held indoors for 30 years, never stepping outside, even during the summer. And right now, on the southern border of the most fortunate country in the history of the world, there are hundreds of children, separated from their parents, and held indoors in prison-like conditions for most of the day.
I have no idea why some people, or some countries, or some times in history are marked for suffering. I'll probably never know why, at least not in this life. All I can do is to not forget the people who suffer, and try to think about them and pray for them when the sun is shining on the pool water in just the right way and all is well in my particular part of the world at this particular moment.
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