Tom Swift Writer’s Notebook

I took five flights — was supposed to be six, but one was cancelled — in the eight days leading to the holiday weekend and somewhere in one of a handful of cities I picked up an ornery bug. During the second-to-last flight’s descent my sinuses felt as though they were being squeezed with a pliers. Four days later, my left ear still hasn’t popped. This is the excuse I offer as to why I haven’t spent much time with the laptop of late. I’d like to say I’ve been blasting off fireworks and gobbling up barbecue but I’ve been blowing into tissues and sucking down Echinacea. I hope your holiday was degrees better than that.

The upside of travel and illness is reading time. A few items that found their way into the notebook:

• From a story I would either have skipped or laughed at before the Savage Beast entered the picture: “There are whole segments of the population that prefer being in the company of dogs than people, and I’m not sure that’s such a negative thing.”

• From a collection of Louis Menand essays I’m just getting into: “The silliest charge brought against the sixties is the charge of moral relativism. Ordinary life must be built on the solid foundations of moral values, the critics who make this charge argue, and the sixties persuaded people that the foundations weren’t solid, and that any morality would do that got you through the night. The accusation isn’t just wrong about the sixties; it’s an injustice to the dignity of ordinary life, which is an irredeemably pragmatic and ungrounded affair. You couldn’t make it through even the day if you held every transaction up to scrutiny by the lights of some received moral code.”

• The current issue of Newsweek reports that 77 percent of Americans can’t name the chief justice of the Supreme Court. Apparently, the chief justice has a similar regard for the 77 percent.

• In that same issue I learned (I am sure I was already supposed to know this) that Lincoln and Darwin were born on the same day of the same year. Interesting. Two great minds. Two brilliant writers. Two who changed the world. There must be something to that. Which reminds me: I was born on the same day of the same year as a fellow author.

This post was added on Monday, July 07, 2008 by Tom Swift at 09:04 and is filed under Reading Material, Swift Boat.