I just finished reading two books that quite accidentally are perfect bookends for each other. Paul LaFarge's Luminous Airplanes is a wistful coming-of-age story. I usually avoid coming-of-age stories, I find that my own was quite enough, but this one slipped through. A young man goes to his recently deceased grandfather's home to clean it out. He begins a search for his dead father who he never met. He was raised by his mother and aunt, a fun pair of eccentric characters. He encounters a childhood friend, and begins a repeat of his father's failure. He had been a graduate student of history, always a good setup for characters looking back. History, memory, loss and finding you self.
In Lily Tuck's I Married You For Happiness a woman's husband dies unexpectedly after many years of marriage. She takes us through a stream-of-consciousness of memories as she sits through the night. Her husband was a mathematician, but not a recluse: he loved good food & wine, and sailing. There are fun math anecdotes, for example the story of "amiable numbers" and lots of travel references, especially in France. The two books make a good pairing, which I have not encountered in this way before.
Anonymous 4 performed at St. Francis Cathedral Basilica, as part of their 25th anniversary tour. They sang acapella music that spanned 11 centuries, including the 21st: a commission-in-progress by Pulitzer Prize-winner David Lang of Bang on a Can. This type of singing is not my usual cup of tea, but they were extraordinary. They are described as angelic and it is true: tight harmony, clear tones, perfect pitch, and....hooray...no vibrato! The Basilica was a perfect setting for this ethereal singing. They sang for 1 hour & 15 minutes in this dry climate, kudos to them! Speaking of centuries, the St. Francis parish is in its 401st year, which precedes the landing of the Mayflower! This town is old!
The novelist/philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein spoke at the Santa Fe Institute on "Why Einstein Wrote a (Bad) Love Poem to Spinoza". Her wonderful lecture was mostly about Spinoza, but also about his influence on some heavy weights, such as Einstein and Antonio Damasio. His work paved the way for "The Age of Enlightenment" after his death. As a non-dual meditator, I loved her comments about Spinoza the "great collapser", who sought non-dual unity, quite contrary to his older contemporary Descartes and his famed/dreaded duality. Salon.com's review of her book Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave us Modernity called Spinoza the "atheist Jew who was drunk on God". The definition of God, discussed in the lecture was quite interesting. I originally knew Ms. Goldstein from her novel Properties of Light: a Novel of Love, Betrayal and Quantum Physics, which I recommend. After the lecture, the SFI physicists cleared out quickly, so we got to have a nice chat with her. She was kind enough to listen to my story of how Spinoza influenced my cousin when she discussed him with her father as a young girl. By the way, Ms. Goldstein is the Miller Scholar at SFI, a chair funded by DRZ's old nemesis, Bill Miller!
I just finished reading two books that quite accidentally are perfect bookends for each other. Paul LaFarge's Luminous Airplanes is a wistful coming-of-age story. I usually avoid coming-of-age stories, I find that my own was quite enough, but this one slipped through. A young man goes to his recently deceased grandfather's home to clean it out. He begins a search for his dead father who he never met. He was raised by his mother and aunt, a fun pair of eccentric characters. He encounters a childhood friend, and begins a repeat of his father's failure. He had been a graduate student of history, always a good setup for characters looking back. History, memory, loss and finding you self.
