Month: August 2021

Much reflection on the music that has so deeply informed my life these days. I thought (this morning, while I was running my two miles before fruit breakfast) of how short the Beatles’ moment was for a young observer in the US. Of course I was aware of them in a general sense from the Ed Sullivan appearance, from the films and the background music of cultural life, to the point of anticipating the release of Sgt Pepper’s; the White Album was the first Beatles record I owned, so let’s make 1968 my first full-on engagement with the Beatles, and the break-up, followed by the release of Let It Be, is only three years later. Three years is not long, especially in the retrospect of the timeline of rock history, especially in the retrospect of a lifetime. Even if (as a USian) one had been paying close attention all along, 1964-1970 is only six+ years. That’s a huge cultural impact in a very abbreviated window.

(Reflecting on retrospect also reminds me that one of the chart-toppers in my adolescence was the bathetic ‘Reflections (Of My Life)’ by The Marmalade, also from 1970.)

Two miles, hot breakfast, and a determination to dig in and benefit from yesterday’s instructive conversation. I was steered away from a grave false step, and steered toward many (too many) research sources; some tentative conclusions confirmed, some presuppositions disabused. Much reading, when the dogs allowed concentration.

One mile this morning, fruit breakfast, coffee with a colleague for a productive conversation about Anglican hermeneutics, home for an appointment and dog-oversight, and really not much time or energy for anything else at the end of the day.

Two miles (three days in a row), fruit breakfast, some reading but all in all a difficult day for getting things done.

Two miles, hot breakfast, Legends III ‘Moses’ Legacy to Joshua ,’ ‘Moses’ Last Campaign,’ ‘The Complete Annihilation of Midian’ (urk), and ‘The Gruesome End of Balaam’; Olympics, and a pleasant afternoon visit with Agnes, Isaac, Hannah, and Chris Dingwall-Jones. Minke demonstrated an unnervingly intense fervor for tennis-ball fetching.