COVID Quarantine Diary

 Friday, October 29th, 2021: When we awoke there was a frost on the grass in front of my house. On our way to the school bus, I slipped and fell backward hitting my head on the ground. I was fine but I knew my neck muscles would be sore in the morning. 

Saturday, October 30th:  I awoke with neck pain, as expected, and a headache. Later that day, I showed my wife that I did have a scrape on the back of my elbow from the fall. She said "that's not a scrape, that is a tick." She could see it better than I. She tried to get it out but couldn't so I went to Urgent Care in the town of Georgia, a few towns away. They removed the tick and gave me an antibiotic. While I was there I ask for a COVID test which I believe that is something we all should do if we are in a clinical setting. She gave a quick swab in each nostril. They told me they wouldn't call me unless you are positive. Before I went to bed I noticed a voice mail from the clinic. They wanted me to  call them in the morning. They couldn't have the test results that fast could they? 

Sunday, October 31st: The headache continued and neck pain. I couldn't call the clinic until 9am, so I waited to call. While I was waiting, playing on my PC, I read an email from my doctor with the subject "COVID" and the text: "Your test was positive.  How are you!"  Then the clinic called with the same message. The worse part of this was telling the seven year old that his Halloween was cancelled. My amazing wife figured out a way for him to trick or treat over Zoom. He got dressed and she reached out to a ton of people that he got to show his costume without leaving the house. They choose treats for him, either gummies or red hots. It was pouring rain anyway. 

They left to get tested while I moved upstairs for the quarantine. I laid in bed the rest of the day watching movies and shows. My doctor suggested that I get tested again because he said it didn't sound right that no one in the house had any symptoms other than my headache which could be from the fall. I called the clinic and left a voice mail. 

Monday, November 1st: I called in sick and informed two people at work of my situations. I still had a headache and neck pain so I cashed out most of the day. I watched "Dune," caught up on my HBO shows and then continued to rewatch "The Sopranos." This gets old quickly. I went for a short hike on my land. I received a call from the VT Department of Health for contact tracing. I informed how remote (aka hermitlike) my life is and she wasn't too concerned about me spreading anything. My date of reentry should be the 10th. 

Tuesday, November 2nd: I had a scheduled holiday today, Election Day. I have one of those enlightened employers that gives us this day off regardless of whether it is an off year or not. I had a ton of appointments schedule today. One of them, ironically, the COVID booster which I may not need now.  My back was really starting to hurt because there is no comfortable chair in my bedroom and the time in bed, at this point, was extensive. I decided today that I would go for a longer walk. No one was around at this time of day. I went off our land and hiked on my road and onto a town path, round trip three miles. It was nice. I saw no one on my hike other than two ladies in the distance. That marked the point where I turned around to avoid them. The exercise was exactly what I needed. Headache was almost gone at this point.

Wednesday, November 3rd: This morning we had the first snow of the season. I returned to work, remotely of course. I couldn't justify not working. I had no headache or neck pain. To save my back, I moved my office chair with the lumbar support and my small desk into the bedroom. I jumped right back into things. It felt good to be back. 

My doctor asked me if I was ever retested and I told him that they never called me back. So he rescheduled an appointment for me at Fannie Allen, a local hospital. I went in at 2pm and the snow was gone already. I didn't stop anywhere. The Dunkin' Donuts was calling my name but I resisted. This time I was swabbed only once in my left nostril but for a lot longer than the Halloween swabbing. My eyes were watering.

Thursday, November 4th: Got up this morning and stepped in my workplace (about five feet away). Around 11am I received a notification that my test results were in.  I log into the portal and saw that I was negative. I walk downstairs and hug the kid and the wife. 

Whether the first test was wrong or they tested me at the end of an asymptomatic illness, I don't think we'll ever know.  Regardless, if I was sick, I am enormously grateful for the vaccine because it probably would have killed me if I was not vaccinated. In general, my health is not great. All in all, the only inconvenience was the kid's Halloween was cancelled, he was angry with me and referred to me as the COVID monster for a few days and my wife had to wait on me, going up the stairs to deliver me food and coffee.  For her I am forever grateful. 

What MLB Needs To Do to Save Baseball

My Red Sox were in the American League Wild Card game on October 5th. For those of you who don't follow baseball, this is a win-or-go-home type of game. This is exciting for me as a fan, the big problem was: I didn't know how I was going to watch the game. It was on ESPN and I don't have ESPN on my very basic cable package. I subscribe to several streaming services and one of them is MLB-TV (Major League Baseball). Even though I've paid for the entire season, I don't get the Post Season games. Every October, I have to scramble to find a way to see the games. I could pay for YouTube TV or Sling, but then if the Sox get eliminated, I'm stuck paying for a service I don't want for at least a month. I have zero interest in watching anything else on these services. The challenge of how to watch the game is a newish problem among sports fans. I finally found a reasonable solution to this one game. I watched it on a relative's laptop who was borrowing a friend's YouTube TV account. 

A lot has improved about the baseball fan experience since I was a kid but accessibility of the games is not one of then. Growing up in northern Rhode Island, I could watch all of the Red Sox games for free on channel 38 a local Boston channel, pre-cable. When I was down on the beach, during the Summer months, I could catch an occasional game on channel 6, a local Providence channel, on a miniature black and white set. We got better reception on cloudy days. It is so utterly frustrating that I could see more games, for free, under those circumstances than I can now. The entire season and playoffs were free back then and we only had a handful of stations. A curious kid couldn't help but fall in love with the game; one of the big reasons was that there was nothing else on. How can a kid, nowadays, stumble upon the game if even a hardcore fan like me, has go through high-tech gymnastics every October? MLB bleeding their hardcore fans dry while hiding the game behind a pay wall. 

Most people become fans of a sport when they are young. For me it was the 1975 World Series with Fred Lynn, Jim Rice, Carlton Fisk and captain Carl Yastrzemski on the Boston Red Sox, going up against the Big Red Machine of Cincinnati with Johnny Bench and Pete Rose. A classic. Many a New Englander fell prey to this affliction that Fall, called Red Sox Fever. I'd sit on the floor in front of the television with my baseball cards and check their stats. I'd arrange the players in the shape of a diamond in front of me. You had to check the paper each day to see what time the game was on. We had nothing like a smart phones sending us reminders. In the internet age I renew my MLB subscription each Spring for $106.00 for the season. With this I can stream every out of market regular season game. This is great for my wife who is a Cubs fan. They are out of market, but because I live in New England, the Red Sox game are blacked out. MLB is trying to get as much money out me as they can and force me to spend more money to pay my in-market provider. This is how badly MLB treats their loyal fans. I call my cable provider every year to find out if I can subscribe to NESN only (who broadcast the Red Sox). I don't want Comedy Central or the Golf Channel etc. I just want Sox games. I get a big NO every year. I would have to pay about $80 more each month for a few hundred channels that I  just don't want. 

It seems that MLB is missing the boat here. If they want young people to be exposed to the sport, they need to get the broadcasts out there. Get it into more homes, not less. Most kids now, won't be exposed to this game if their parents aren't subscribers to MLB or has paid enough to have NESN, the YES network or Marquee sports in their cable package. Another big way kids get exposed to the sport is by attending local minor league games, but MLB is contracting a lot of those teams as well. Go figure. 

Interest in baseball has waned in the past few decades giving way to faster more violent sports. The average age of the baseball viewer gets older each year because young people aren't being attracted to it. The average age of the current baseball fan is 53. If you didn't grow up watching games, you might find it boring or tedious. You might miss the sublties of the game-within-the-game that the hardcore fans love so much. Waiting four minutes for another pitch that gets fouled off is just not that appealing to a generation of kids brought up on the immediate gratification of iPads and X-Boxes. At least, that is what I hear. I am not so sure I believe it. No sport is appealing to everyone. Baseball is attractive to analytic types who love stats and the poetry of a crowd. I could go on about the beauty of the game, but today I talk about the problems of the professional game.

MLB seems to want to change the game to meets the needs of the young. This seems misguided. It has become a game of home runs, strike outs and walks and much less base stealing, bunting and the basic ground ball that goes up the middle. Advanced stats has a lot to blame here. If you know a batter hits to the left side of the field 70% of the time, you can shift your fielders to the left thus taking a hit away (aka less base runners and less action). Players only hit a pitch in play 15.8% of the time. Other times, it is fouled, a strike or a ball. This is down from 18.3% from ten years ago. 

In the 2021, over a thousand pitches were thrown over 100 mph. Twenty years ago, only about 100 pitches were thrown that hard in a season. The pitching has gotten so good, that hitting has greatly decreased. So we have less balls in play and if it is in play, the hitters are less likely to get a hit because of the shift. This means, you got it, less action. 

Some changes have been made to stop this, but not much. It is still the same game and has not had a huge affect. 

Universal DH: This is a long time coming. Currently, only the American League (AL) has the Designated Hitter. In the National League (NL), the pitcher actually bats. When I am in an NL park, I use this time to go take a pee, because there is a very good chance that nothing is going to happen. It is usually strike out and a bad bunt attempt. In 2021, pitchers batted .109 which is the lowest since 1916. This is horrendous. It is time to kiss this dinosaur goodbye. Like I say to my NL fan friends, "Who would you rather see hit? Jon Lester or David Ortiz?" This is a no brainer. Let the pitchers concentrate on pitching. For those few pitchers that are good hitters, let me come into the game as pinch hitters once in a while.

The Relief Pitcher problem: The game really slows down in the mid to late innings. This is because teams have some many specialty pitchers now, they bring them in whenever they need them. Some pitchers would come in for one batter and then another and another etc. This means that play stops, the old pitcher walks away often when a manager visits the mound, the new one arrives and he gets warm throws. It is crazy slow. The new batter minimum rule says that the pitcher has to stay in the game for at least three batters or finish the half inning. It was instituted for the COVID season, 2020, and stayed around. The big impact this rule has had is that sometimes a pitcher just doesn't have his stuff and he stays in the game giving up bombs or walking the bases loaded. I like it but, please note, not when it is the Red Sox having this problem. I do think this rule has help speed up the game. 

Extra Innings: A big complaint from players and basically, everyone involved in putting the game on, is that extra inning games can go on forever. Even television stations hate it because the unpredictable length of the game screws up broadcast schedules. The new rule, introduced during the COVID year, puts a runner on second base at the start of the extra inning. Whoever made the last out in the previous inning, gets put on second base. I was prepared to hate this rule, but I ended up loving it. It has a sudden-death quality that I find appealing. The best action in baseball is when there is a runner in scoring position (aka on second or third). With someone on second immediately, it is tense right away. The problem with the rule is that I don't think it speeds up the game. I haven't seen the numbers yet, but I noticed that often both teams score a run in the 10th and it goes onto the 11th because they are still in a tie. 

Seven inning double headers: Since COVID, when two games are played in one day (aka a double header), those games are only seven innings. I hate this rule. It made sense when they first started playing during COVID, limiting people exposure to each other. Now that most of the players are vaccinated, we can get rid of this which I believe they are. MLB hasn't reduced the price of seven inning games which is bullshit. They owe refunds to a lot of fans. Baseball games are nine innings ... enough said. 

Pitch clocks: Currently, there is a pitch thrown in an MLB game every 24.9 seconds. A 15 second pitch clock would really speed things up. It is being used in some Single A leagues and college games now. The time would be increased if there is a runner on base. It is doubtful if MLB will ever implement this. There is some concern that decreasing the time between pitches, may increase injury due to less recovery time. 

Restricting the shift: Starting in 2022, infielders will have to start the game on the infield. Crazy huh!  Sometimes they go further back onto the outfield grass. For some, this doesn't go far enough. I have heard some, like Joe Girardi, say that Short Stops and Third Basemen should have to start the inning on the left, Second and First Basemen on the right side of the field and the outfielders have to be in the outfield. So far I haven't heard any talk of this. 

If you are confused as to what a shift is, this is a video on how the Houston Astros shift against Joey Gallo:

Since Gallo usually hits to the right, the Astros put most of their fielders on the right side of the field. It worked. 

Cap on mound visits: Each team has a limit of five mound visits during a nine inning game. This rule was introduced in 2016. In extra innings the teams get more. A counter is displayed in most parks, if not all, showing the number each team has used. Mound visits do slow down the game, but I don't think this rule has helped speed the game up at all. Only once have I seen a team run out of mound visits and it was the Yankees in the Wild Card game mentioned in the first paragraph. If they really want to speed up the game, eliminate mound visit altogether. The pitcher is on their own. That would improve hitting as well.

Automatic intentional walk: When a player is intentionally walked, prior to 2017, a pitcher would lob four balls way outside the strike zone and the batter would take his base. Under the new rule, the manager just has to point to first base and the player is walked saving a little time. I have a few problems with this. One: it has happened in the past where the catcher has missed one of these lobs and the base runners advanced. Albeit, this is very rare, but very amusing when it does. Two: if you are in the stadium watching the game, you often don't notice this happens. It is confusing. A lot of people are saying "how did that runner got onto first?". They put this info on the jumbotron, but if you miss it, you are out of luck. If you are in old enjoyable park like Fenway, Wrigley, Camden Yards or Yankee stadium, some stranger around you may fill you in. If you are in one of the very loud stadiums like Tropicana Field, Guaranteed Rate Field or Minute Maid Park, you will just have to sit in ignorance because no one can hear each other because they are blasting Lady Ga Ga. No talking to strangers in those parks. 

My Wish List: 

Perhaps I am old school, but I don't think the game needs to change at all. I think it is perfect. Young people, not all, will love the game if you expose them to it. Many won't. Don't ruin your product that fans love to reach a crowd that may never be into it, no matter what. It is not football, soccer or basketball.

Here are some changes I'd make if I were commissioner of baseball. Please note: none of them have to do with game play.  

1) Every Sunday night, ESPN gets the Sunday night game. All other games are during the day. This sounds great except that for people like me, who don't have ESPN, I can't watch it. MLB-TV blacks out these games as well, out of market or not. Not only that, their coverage is awful. They spend most of the game pontificating about metrics, launch angles, past games and jerking each other's chain, often ignoring what is happening on the field. Everyone I know that watches these games, mutes it and listens to their local radio broadcast. If I were commissioner, I take the Sunday game away from them and give it to TBS or even Fox. 

2) Singing is fun at a ball park. The American and Canadian national anthems, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," "Sweet Caroline" at Fenway, "Go Cubs Go" at Wrigley and "Thank God I'm Country Boy" at Camden Yards are all very much appropriate and some of them are a lot of fun. After the 911 Terrorist Attacks, most (if not all) ball parks introduced "God Bless America" into the rotation. Some parks still play it. Some only play it on weekends and holidays but it is still out there. Sometimes an announcement comes over the loud speaker telling to stand up and put your hand on your heart. One: This is not our national anthem so no I don't stand or put my hand on my heart. Two: I don't believe in God or god. Three: even if I did, I don't think god would bless any nation over any other. This is an awful, offensive and divisive song and I resent getting the stink-eye every time I refuse to stand up for it. It has not place in a ball park. Games are supposed to bring us together. Even the song's writer didn't like the song. Irving Berlin kept it in a draw for twenty years before he shared it. If I were commissioner: Can the song! 

3) Mid season trades really bother me. In the middle of the year, the team that you root for becomes a very different team over night. If, in March, you bought a ticket for a September Cubs or Nationals game this year, the team that was on the field in September was nothing like the team that you bought the tickets for. Also, I wonder what advertisers think who have paid for the broadcast of a team of stars but then, mid-season a bunch of no-name players take the field. Even if you are on other end of these trade, receiving the stars not losing them, it is annoying. I would much rather the Red Sox develop their young first baseman, Bobby Dalbec, than trade for someone to replace him with Kyle Schwarber, even though I really love the ex-Cub. I was rooting for one team up until July and then ... boom ... mid-season it is a different team. Every team has a farm system to pull from. If I were commissioners, the trade deadline would be April 1st, no exception.

Today is October 19th. Game 4 of the ALCS is tonight and I cannot wait. My trial subscription to YouTube TV runs out tomorrow.  If there is a Game 6 or 7, how am I going to watch them?  I have no idea. The World Series is on Fox, a channel I have in my cable package. I can pay $50 or so for games 6 and 7. Oh no, I'm not. Crazy! 

I Am A Pacifist, This Is Why I Support the Draft

When I was 18 years of age, I registered for Selective Service (aka the draft board), because I had to. Every male citizen or legal immigrant aged 18 to 25 is required by law to do so (Selective Service Act of 1918). A lot of people don't. The percentages are different in each state which is because each states have different requirements. New Hampshire has a 100% rate, but Washington DC is as low as 51%. Some states have requirements for attending state schools. Ohio charges student out of state tuition if you are not registered. I haven't found any such rules for my home state of Vermont which apparently has a low 73% as of 2018.  I couldn't find any more recent numbers. 

If you are going to apply for any Federal student loans, you need to register with SSS. That is why I did it when I turned 18, you have 30 days to do so. I had a little bag packed for a drop-in on my Canadienne relatives if it did happen if my draft number ever did come up, but I did register. At the time, I thought we were going into Nicaragua. I am grateful I was wrong. 

I know plenty of people who don't even realize that their 18 year old boy is required to register. I asked a co-worker, years ago, if her son was going to register. She said she didn't realize he had to. I told her if he was going to apply for student loans he needed to. She said she was paying for his college. This, by definition, is called privilege. Poor people get drafted while the rich stay state-side. This is the way of the world. College deferment allowed the rich to avoid service in Viet Nam. When college deferment ended so did the war. America cannot handle seeing white suburbanites coming home in flag draped coffins. Poor kids, black and brown kids. No problem. Wealthy white kids ... This war has to end! 

Why only men? Only men are required to register mostly because we are a sexist society. War is thought of as a male thing so the men did the working and the fighting and women stayed home and took care of the kids. Now that things are different and women now participate in the workplace and combat, they should have to register for the draft as well, right? Congress says they are investigating it. We all know that no politician is really working on this. Meanwhile, some men find out when they are in their 30's or 40's that they cannot get a state or federal job because they never registered. 

Tune out:  The reason I now, a pacifist in my 50's, support the draft is that it will prevent tune out and ultimately make wars shorter. We were at war in Afghanistan for 20 years. To most of us Americans, this had zero affect on us. America hasn't had anyone forced into the military via the draft since 1973. It is entirely a volunteer outfit. When we think of the war, we think they signed up for this. Indeed they do, but a lot of them is because they have no other options. Very few Americans followed the war and it was hard to do if you wanted to. You really had to look for it. It isn't like it was important like Britney and her receivership. 

If ratings are down, media won't cover it. It is expensive and dangerous to put a journalist on the front line. But if your cousin, neighbor's kid or child were drafted, you would probably pay attention. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were huge mistakes that went on too long, but these were small wars. I am grateful to President Biden for finally ending it, regardless of how poorly it was done. Because it is so easy to tune out, a bullshit war like this can go on for 20 years. It also helps that only 2,200+ Americans died. We've gotten good at this war thing. This is small compared to the over 58,000 Americans who died in Viet Nam. Americans were only involved in that 20 year war for eight years, but they were deadly years. 

I am not naive. I realize that war is sometimes necessary. The bullshit wars make it difficult for us to get into the ones that are necessary. World War I was a bullshit war. If it wasn't for the isolationism that the US experienced after WW I, two decades later Roosevelt would have been able to get into WW II a lot easier. A lot more lives would have been saved if we had. 

As usual, I fear for the future. I have concerns for the big one that is coming. Oil will not be that important in the 21st century, but water ... yes, water will. Also, within the next ten years or so, I am guessing that it is going to get hot with China. Will we resist the draft because the memory of this bullshit wars are still fresh? Now that I am a dad,  (yes, I adopted a seven year old boy), the fear is more real than ever. 

Why this Liberal Won't Fly the Flag

Unless you know your neighbors very well, I would suggest you not make friends with them on Facebook. I've done this twice in the past few years and it has not been a good experience. One neighbor, whom I know her husband well but not her, was posting conspiracy theory memes about Hillary Clinton murdering Vince Foster and Jeffery Epstein. It is amazing how someone can believe that the most investigated person in American history can get away with murder. What a criminal mastermind Hillary must be!  I was in a quandary, of course, I must response to this nonsense. But how? I don't want to argue with my neighbor. The other option was to ignore the postings, but they kept coming. I didn't want to see my neighbors this way. So I unfriended her. Denial is easier. Now I wonder what she thought about my posts and if she reads my blog. Whenever, they don't return my calls, I wonder, do they see me differently now.  When it comes to neighbors, I just want to maintain the peace. 

The other neighbor is a guy I thought I knew well. He is very talkative so you think I would know him better. His FB feed was pretty quiet but when he did post, he said some fairly awful things about liberals. With my "Bernie for Senate" sign greeting him each day, he had to know that he was talking about me. The last one I saw was a meme that said something like "liberals don't put flags in front of their houses because they hate America," something of that ilk. I could not find the exact meme but I probably shouldn't share that bullshit if I did. I unfriended him. Many problems are solved with a simple click.

I saw him yesterday and he had a Trump t-shirt on. This made sense to me. Has he been radicalized by Trump or was he always like this, simply being polite to my face. I'm not sure if it matters, but one good thing has come of this experience. It got me to think about the flag. I have never flown the American flag in front of my house. My dad used to put it out on Independence Day, Veteran's Day, Memorial Day and perhaps, Flag Day. He was a WWII vet so his relationship with the flag was complicated. Mine is not. I just don't like the flag, period. But why? 

Mostly, it is an empty gesture without a lot of meaning to me. Like when a politician wears a flag lapel pin, it is more a gesture of posturing than it is of allegiance. So you love America? What does that mean, really? When you fly the flag, what are you saying that you love? Is it the government that you love? I think not. Is it the military that you love? That's a possibility. That is certainly a reason for me to not wave the flag. I do not love the military. That still does not seem right, though does it?

There is too much ambiguity in it all. Do I love America? I am not sure. Mostly because I don't know what that means really. I certainly don't hate America, but I hope for America to do better. I love somethings about being an American: the security, the opportunity and a certain level of liberty. Also, American history is fascinating but complicated and rife with problems. Racism, sexism and imperialism (I am sure a ton of other isms) is prevalent in our history. When I fly the flag, am I saying that I love that as well? When my father flew the flag, he wasn't. But he didn't think about such things, as far as I know. Life was less complicated back then, especially for us white guys. We didn't have to think of such things. This is called privilege. 

I am not a fan of nationalism. This is what the waving of the flag means to me. A blind allegiance. Nationalism leads to xenophobia, isolationism and war. I like America, but I also like Canada, France, Ireland, the Czech Republic and Portugal (these are my favorite countries which I have visited). Their histories are complicated as well. I think of them as good friends, while I think of the Earth as my mother. I only have one mother. Here's where I beat this metaphor to death: when any one of my friends give my mother a swift kick, it may seem like I hate them, but I am only protecting my mother from one of my friends who has been a bad decision. I just want America to change, to meet its potential and stop beating up on Mother Earth.

Okay, perhaps my relationship with this piece of cloth is complicated after all. My relationship with the Trump t-shirted neighbor isn't what it used to be. We had him over once. We used to chat a lot. Now I say "hi" when I walk or run by. I don't want to talk to him anymore. I just want to maintain the peace. Facebook is supposed to bring people together, but in a lot of ways, it can push us apart.  

I just wonder what he is going to think when I hang up my planet Earth flag. 

 "

Notes on Reading For Whom the Bell Tolls

I am at the point in my life that I have a bathroom book. Since I have committed myself to reading one classic of literature every year for the rest of my llife, these are perfect bathroom books. It means that I may take months to read some of these tomes, two or three pages at each "sitting." Think of me as a contemporary Leopold Bloom with a blog. 

Andy Warhol has a short experimental film called Haircut that I can't help think of when I read Hemmingway. The film is just of a haircut, other than the haircut nothing really happens, and it is quite boring. At some point towards the end of the film, someone sneezes. That simple sneeze seems momentous only because your sense of time and action has been altered by the film. It slows your brain down. This is what it is like reading Hemmingway. 

If you ask someone what For Whom The Bell Tolls is about, they generally say it is about a mission to blow up a bridge during the Spanish Civil War. I take issue with this description. It is really more of a book about a bunch of characters talking about a mission to blow up a bridge. They mention blowing it up on the first page, one hundred pages into the six hundred page novel they are still talking about blowing up the bridge ... page 350 they are still talking about the dam bridge. Nothing much happens, a lot of dialogue, but when the action happens, it just seems momentous, like Warhol's sneeze. The last chapter, the bridge is blown. 

I knew this going in. Slowing your brain down is particularly difficult in the internet age, my brain seems to be hardwired to expect stimulus every few seconds. When I was younger I read The Old Man and the Sea, an entire short novel about a guy trying to catch a fish. I also read the very short story, "A Clean Well Lighted Place," about an old guy in a bar being talked about by waiters. Reading something with so little plot may not have been a problem decades ago, before the rewiring, but it is now. Maintaining my attention span is a task which I have to put work into. I can only read it in spurts, a few pages at a time hence the bathroom reading. My mind wanders too easily for Hemingway. I started reading For Whom The Bell Tolls in late November 2020, I started blogging about it, this post, in December. I expected that I would not be finished until March. I write this sentence today and it is April 2021, I am on page 350. I finally finished the book in early June. 

I don't want to give the impression that I am not enjoying it. I am. Partially. I am saved by the beauty of the writing, here is the opening paragraph of Chapter 9:

They stood in the mouth of the cave and watched them. The bombers were high now in fast, ugly arrow-heads beating the sky apart with the noise of their motors. They are shaped like sharks, Robert Jordan thought, the wide-finned, sharp-nosed sharks of the Gulf Stream. But these, wide-finned in silver, roaring, the light mist of  their propellers in the sun, these do not move like sharks. They move like no thing there has ever been. They move like mechanized doom. 

Regardless of how well it is written, it is as boring as hell. It is a chore reading it, not an enjoyment. I have a completion complex. Once I start a book, particularly a classic, I have a thing about finishing it, so finish it I did. When I read a classic like this I always wonder what a modern editor would do to it. I've always thought that the middle third of Moby Dick would be removed completely if it were published now. If I were editing For Whom the Bell Tolls, much of the flashbacks seem unnecessary. The bullfighting would be yanked from this book. Some love the bravado of it all, but I am bored stiff with it. I'd move the last chapter to the beginning, parts of it, and make a flashback of the time in the cave. 

This is a book about death, not about a mission to bomb a bridge. The mission plot is mere background. It chronicles the four days before the mission, the characters are stuck in a cave about half the time. They know their death is near. Death lingers among them almost as if it were a character in their midst. 

This is a book with a lot of sex and a lot of violence, but it is written conservatively, not salacious or gory. Here is an example of how sexuality is handled, the opening paragraph of Chapter 33:

It was two o'clock in the morning when Pilar waked him. As her hand touched him he thought, at first, it was Maria and he rolled toward her and said, "Rabbit." Then the woman's big hand shook his shoulder and he was suddenly, completely and absolutely awake and his hand was around the butt of the pistol that lay alongside of his bare right leg and all of him was cocked as the pistol with its safety catch, slipped off. 

Sometimes artists can used the limitations imposed upon them and make great beauty with it, as if the limitation are just another color in their pallet. Hemmingway does this with self-censorship. 

Because there is not a lot of action, the dialogue drives the plot forward and it is a challenge. It was written in English but the characters are supposed to be speaking peasant Spanish. This presents a challenge to a writer because Spanish, like French, has a polite form while English has no such thing.  Hemmingway resolves this by using "thou" and "thee" in dialogue. Here is an example of this from Chapter 25:

       "He should learn to control them," Pilar said. "Thou will die soon enough with us. There is no need to seek that with strangers. As for thy imagination. The gypsy has enough for all. What a novel he told me."

        "If thou hadst seen it thou wouldst not call it a novel," Primitivo said. 

All the dialogue reads like this. It makes for odd reading until you realize why it is written this way. 

Also, the characters are very foul mouthed, but not explicitly. Hemmingway censored himself, because he knew the book would not have been read or published otherwise. Instead of swearing he used words like "expletive" or "unprintable," or used words that rhymed with the real word, like "muck" instead of "fuck." 

Here is a line from Chapter 35, this is the protagonist Robert Jordan talking to himself: 

You're mucked, he told himself. You're mucked for good and higher than a kite.

It is odd at first but you get used to it.  

Robert Jordan, our protagonist, is a stoic, tough and honorable character fighting Franco's fascists on the side of an underdog. He is constantly in a state of self-questioning and doubt. In chapter 39, he refers to another character, Pablo, as being "on the road to Tarsus."  I am familiar with the "road to Damascus" but I really had to think about and research "the road to Tarsus." The "road to Damascus" is a reference to Paul conversion while he walked to Damascus. He changed his name from Saul to Paul and became a disciple of Jesus. Paul's hometown was Tarsus. The "road to Tarsus," is returning to where you came from, a pulling back from your conversion. Jordan may be referring to Pablo, but he is also referring to himself. He wonders what he got himself into. He is in love with Maria, a woman he just met and knows they will not have a life together because their mission is doomed. His challenge is one we all have, do we go with our convictions or do we play it safe? In those four days, they live in the moment and things get tense between the characters. 

Jordan is full of shame. He is ashamed of his father for killing himself. He believes he is "flying above" his father when he joins the cause of the war, which America has no stake in. He is an American Spanish language professor and a munitions expert. Somehow he is pulled into this conflict. It is a losing cause and ultimately, him being there is a suicidal act but his cause is just, unlike his father's.  

I would not recommend this book to everyone, but it is hard to see what American literature would be without it, or American film as well. I see Robert Jordan in Casablanca's Rick and even in Rocky. The film version just arrived in the mail, from my Netflix queue, and I am looking forward to seeing it. With Gary Cooper as Jordan and Ingrid Bergman as Maria, I am expecting to hate it. 

Killing Garfield (the President, Not the Cat)

Americans tend to fetishize our presidents. We put them on a pedestal often representing entire eras, but they aren't that important. The American Presidency doesn't have that much power. Yet, they serve as a fulcrum to balance our understanding of history. I was at a physical therapy appointment today and the guy working my should asked me about the book I was reading. I told him it was about the assassination of President Garfield (Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Mallard). He said, "hmm, I don't think I knew Garfield was assassinated." That PT does better than most of us, because most people don't even realize that we had a president named Garfield. This is unfortunate because he could have been a great one but because of an assassins bullet, he is relegated to mere footnotes of a very turbulent ear. 

He was only president for five months, two of which he spent on his death bed. He was a reluctant candidate, he didn't want to be president, his party nominated him for the 1880 election and the Democratic party at the time was mostly ex-Confederates who had no chance of winning. This was a pivotal time for our nation. The reconstruction of the South, after the Civil War, was badly handled by the Federal Government. After Lincoln was assassinated we had Andrew Johnson who was impeached. After Johnson, we had Ulysses Grant who was a decent president for one term, but all the progress he made in his first term was erased by the drunken stupor of his second. After Grant, there was Rutherford B. Hayes who was the epitome of corruption. With the Confederates populating almost half of our Congress, getting any type of reform done was close to impossible. You think we are divided now. Check out this Electoral Map of the 1880 Presidential Election:

Yeow! It makes our current situation look united.  

Garfield was one of our log cabin presidents. He was fatherless at the age of two. He left his home in Ohio at age 16 to work on the Ohio and Erie canals. He was responsible for a mule who pulled ships through the waterways. He got sick less than a year later and returned home. While he was recovering, his mother convince him to return to school. His education was his salvation pulling him out of poverty. He attended college by doing handy man, carpenter and janitorial work. He ended up being an academic, a professor dealing in ancient languages, literature and mathematics. He wrote an original proof of the Pythagorean theorem once that surprised everyone when they discovered it was written by a politician. 

It was as a college student where Garfield had a change of heart about politics and the slavery question.  He grew up as a Disciples of Christ which was a religious sect that believed that you could not be a Christian if you were involved in politics. In college he attended two lectures where he heard two fiery lectures by abolitionists that blew his mind and changed his beliefs on the subject. College will do that to you. He was eventually made the President of Hiram College. When a member of the Ohio State Senate passed away, he was convince to run for his seat by the, then-liberal, Republican Party. By the time the Civil War starts, his state of mind is that the War is a holy crusade against a Slave Power.  He becomes a Colonel in the 42nd Ohio Infantry and by the end of the war, a Brigadier General. Before the end of the war, he is elected to Congress and services as a Congressman, representing Ohio. He did so for 17 years. As a Congressman, he fought for equality of freed slaves. He was considered what they called at the time, a Radical Republican, which was the liberal branch of the party. 

Like the party is now, the Republicans were split into two factions, the Radicals (also called the Half Breeds) and the Stalwarts. Stalwarts were mostly from the South who supported Grant to be president again. The 1880 Republican Convention was totally crazy. unlike anything we have seen in modern times. Primaries didn't exist back then, they actually nominated the candidates at the Conventions. In four days, they had 36 rounds of votes for 14 candidates. In the first round, Garfield had received one vote about of a possible 755. The top three were Grant, James Blaine and John Sherman (General Sherman's brother). During the first 33 rounds of voting, Garfield got one or two votes each time. It wasn't until the 34th, when future president, Benjamin Harrison, started promoting Garfield as a happy alternative to both sides of the party. He received 17 votes in the 34th round, 50 in the 35th and eventually 399 in the 36th (well above the 379 needed for the nomination). He may be the first president that had no interest in the job but he took one for the team (in more ways than one).

When Lincoln was assassinated only 16 years earlier, it was thought of as an anomaly, an eccentricity of life during wartime and nothing to be concerned about for future presidents. Presidents were not thought to need security so Garfield had none. When madman, Charles Guiteau shot Garfield while he was standing on a train platform in DC, he had his two young sons and two members of his Cabinet with him. No security!  The bullet missed all major organs and if this happened today, he'd be up and about a few days later. We'd find the bullet with an x-ray and would remove it without any infection. The bullet didn't kill him but the infections did. While he was on the platform bleeding, a local doctor was sticking his finger in the wound looking for the bullet. Can you think of anything more unsanitary than a subway platform? He suffered for a couple of months and eventually died after every doctor and their ego chimed in on his health. The one doctor they should have listened to, Joseph Lister, was considered a quack by many. He is now considered the "father of modern surgery" and he tried to get doctors of that era to wash their hands and their instruments, but he was laughed at by the gentry. Fifteen years later, we'd have the x-ray and would understand asepsis. 

You really have to wonder what this country would be like if this great man had survived. It wasn't until the early 20th century that we would have another strong president (Teddy Roosevelt).  After Garfield we had a string of weak and ineffective executives. Much of the problems we have today stem from the Civil War era from racial inequality  to unbridled/unhinged conspiracy theories. Northerners and Southerners still have wide fissures on how we see our country. When the Garfield died, the entire country mourned. Mourning his death was the first thing we did as a country together, reunited after the war. If he had time to use this popularity to actually reconstruct the South, we may not have had a KKK, Jim Crow or the Great Migration. Somewhere, perhaps, there is an alternative universe with Garfield is on Mt. Rushmore, the Proud Boys don't exist and Trump was never President. If so, I'd like to go there. 

 

Picks of the Year: 2020

The year has been rough, but for me, 2016 was worse for me personally. The pandemic didn't affect me much. I have been telecommuting since 2007, I am an introvert and I live in one of the states that has been handling this crisis very well.  This is more of the same for me. The only big difference is that I have more people at home than usual. 

I saw only one film in the theater this year and attended no concerts. Boredom is this year's hobgoblin. I cannot wait to get to a rock show. We should at least have some outdoor shows this summer, right? 

I made up for it by watching a lot of television, did some reading and bought a lot of new music.

BEST ALBUMS:

I bought 16 albums in 2020 ... that is, all the song in MP3 format on a release by an artist. I am not talking about vinyl. 

There are some surprises. All but five of these artists are fairly new to me. The Eels, Dan Bern, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams and Bob Dylan are performers I have been listening to for years.

I like them all but if I had to put them in order best to worst, it would be as follows: 

1. Song For Our Daughter - Laura Marling: I never heard of Marling until this year. I heard a few songs on Spotify and I was blown away. She has a Joni Mitchell-ish style of singing with some powerful lyrics. I bought her latest album and I wasn't disappointed. 
2. The Night You Wrote That Song: The Songs of Mickey Newbury - Gretchen Peters: This would have been #1 but there is one song that I just don't care for. The entire album is a group of songs by a late song writer that I have never heard of.  I have been listening to Peters for a few years now. I buy a song here and there. This is the first album of hers I've ever bought.  This is great stuff and only one song is "too country" for my taste. 
3. Bonny Light Horsemen - Bonny Light Horsemen: This band is the first folk supergroup that I ever heard of. It consists of Vermont's own Tony winner Anais Mitchell, Eric D. Johnson from The Fruitbats and The Shins and Josh Kaufman from The National and Hiss Golden Messenger. I hope they stay together and continue to make music together because I love their sound. 
4. Sex Education Original Soundtrack - Ezra Furman: One of my favorite shows of the year also a great soundtrack all by the same guy. Do I love the music because I loved the show or did I love the show because of the music? Probably a little bit of both.  
5. LP5 - John Moreland: This is my first Moreland album as well. This is a great bluesy folk singer that can write a great song: "you can't reach salvation from your rocking chair". He's got the Texas sound. 
6. Kingdom in My Mind - The Wood Brothers: Another new one for me. Chris Wood is famous for his other band Medeski Martin & Wood. He teamed with his brother Oliver and this is their eighth album together. It is folk rock, Americana, blues ... I don't know, I call it great. 
7. Rough and Rowdy Ways - Bob Dylan: Dylan is my guy. Whenever my wife says to me, "Did you hear?" I dread that it is about Dylan's demise. He's 79 years old and still putting out amazing stuff. This is his 39th album (if I counted correctly). Not all of them are great, but he's been on a roll lately. His past few albums have been great. 
8. Good Souls Better Angels by Lucinda Williams: I guess I went folk rock this year. She's been one of America's best song writer for decades. This is her 15th album and as good as any of them. 
9. Reunions - Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit: I love this guy. I love his work ethic, his dedication to the music and to his fans. More importantly, I love his tunes. 
10. Earth to Dora by The Eels: I was a little disappointed in this album by one of my favorite bands. Their songs usually grab me immediately. It hasn't happened yet. 
11. Ghosts of West Virgina by Steve Earle: Lots of songs about coal mining. I like it, I don't love it though. 
12. Rivalry by Dan Bern: I discovered this guy a couple of decades ago at Falconridge Folk Festival in Up-State NY. He is not your typical folk musician, he is over six feet tall, wears fatigues and sometimes scares his audience. He is a painter and an ex-ball player and writes songs about Henry Miller, Marilyn Monroe, Monica Seles and going down on Madonna. He put out three CDs during the pandemic. The one I bought was about baseball. Not as witty as usually, but I am such a ball fan, it almost doesn't matter. 
13. What Are We Frightened Of? - Alberta Cross: I always thought this band was from Alberta, Canada. They're from East London. Nothing on this album has really grabbed me yet. This is their sixth album. They started off as a two piece: Petter Ericson Stakee (singer and guitarist) and Terry Wolfers (bass). But this is the second album after Wolfers left the band. It is really just a Stakee solo album. Maybe that is what is missing. I still enjoy the album but it is not as good as their other stuff. Stakee, give Wolfer a call. 
14. Xoxo - Jayhawks: Alt-country at its best, but I've heard better from them. 
15. Holy Smokes Future Jokes - Blitzen Trapper:  I've heard better from them as well. The songwriter just doesn't seem to be there on this album. 
16. Friendly Figures - KULMA: A little bit of rap, a bit of techno, a bit of jazz. I know nothing about them but I still enjoy it. 

BEST SONGS

I bought 310 songs in 2020 totalling 20 hours and 9 minutes. One of these years, I will have an entire day of new music. Please note, this is new stuff that came out this year. I bought plenty of other stuff from prior years (like Deer Tick, Kamasi Washington, Peter Gabriel, ELP and Gov't Mule). This blog post will talk about just the songs that came out in 2020. It has been great year for recorded music. In an era when musicians can stay home and create an album on their laptop, the pandemic is not going stop creatives from creating. 

Below are all the favorites for the year. Some of my favorite musicians are here (Dylan, Ani, Bird, Bern, Earle and Isbell) and some musicians I never heard of (Coriky, David Alvin, Geek Music, David Dondero and Twisted Pine). Some of my favorites this year came from television shows with Ezra Furman's amazing soundtrack to Sex Education and perhaps, my favorite song of the year, "You're Dead" by Geek Music which is the theme song to What We Do In the Shadows. 

I never heard of Shirley Collins. I don't know why. It bothers me. She's right up my alley, a raspy and jaded folk singer. I may be buying a lot of her stuff in the coming hear. 

I bought some great cover songs this year, some of them I don't know the original version. My favorite cover this year is David Alvin's reinvention of "Highway 61 Revisited". It is a talking blues version with a driving steel guitar. It blows me away every time I hear it.  

Keep the Damage to Myself - Alberta Cross 

Hark! - Andrew Bird

Do or Die - Ani DiFranco

Hard Time Come Again No More - Arlo Guthrie

Murder Most Foul - Bob Dylan

The Roving - Bonny Light Horseman

Clean Kill - Coriky

The Legend of Yasiel Puig - Dan Bern

Highway 61 Revisited - Dave Alvin

Easy Chair - David Dondero

Thoughts and Prayers - Drive-By-Truckers

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde - Ezra Furman

You're Dead - Geek Music

The Sailor and The Night You Wrote that Song - Gretchen Peters

Overseas and St. Peter's Autograph - Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit

Living in a Bubble - Jayhawks

Let Me Be Understood and Harder Dreams- John Moreland

How Lucky - Kurt Vile (with the late John Prine)

Look What They Did and Private Lives - Low Cut Connie

Big Black Train - Lucinda Williams

My Brother, My Keeper - Mandolin Orange

Terminal One - Rymden, Bugge Wessenltoft & Magnus Ostrom

Sweet Greens and Blues - Shirley Collins

Black Lung - Steve Earle

Quarantine Blues - Steve Poltz

Papaya - Twisted Pine

Jitterbug Love, Don't Think About My Death and Little Bit Broken - The Wood Brothers

BEST TELEVISION SHOWS

I used to look to HBO for great television, but this has changed. HBO has because pretentious and in love with themselves while the other networks are putting out some great stuff. Here is all the new shows I watched this year. I tried to put them in order. Please note that this does not include shows that weren't new to me. I'm still loving The Crown, it is just not new to me anymore. 

Sex Education (Netflix) - Love this. The son of a famous sex therapist turns therapist to his fellow classmates. Everything is great about this show, especially the soundtrack. 

Ramy (Hulu) - A friend of my wife turned us onto to this. It is a very funny, poignant and educational. It is about a Muslim single guy trying to find a wife. 

What We Do in the Shadows (FX via Hulu) - Mockumentary about vampires. Hysterical. Need I say more?

Ted Lasso (AppleTV) - This is more heart warming than funny. Ted is an upbeat American football coach who gets hired a soccer coach in the England premiere league. It is a funny Friday Night Lights where they say "Wanker" a lot. 

Normal People (BBC3 via Hulu) - I almost forgot about this one. I published and went back to add it. It was very good and shouldn't be missed. This is about two Irish students growing up together and having an on-again-off-again romance. The writing and acting are top notch. 

Derry Girls (Channel 4 via Netflix) - I have to rewatch this with the subtitles on. The accent is a bit much but it is about teenage girls in Northern Ireland during "the troubles." Another one of those shows that is funny but also informative. 

Pen15 (Hulu) - This is cringe comedy. Two adult comedians, play themselves when they were teenage girl losers. It is sometimes hard to watch because you feel bad for them. 

Devs (FX via Hulu) - This is a sci-fi thriller about quantum computing created by the same guy we created the movies 28 Days Later and Ex Machina. I just loved this. It has surprises around every corner. This is a real sci fi. Not a bull shit action film pretending to be sci-fi. This is a mini-series so I guess I'm done with it but I don't want to be. 

The Flight Attendant (HBO) - This one surprised me. A flight attendant wakes up in bed with a one-night stand stabbed to death. Very well done. I wouldn't have guessed it by the trailer. 

The Boys (Amazon) - This is a super hero show outside the DC and Marvel universes. It is very good and profound at times. I had never heard of this series going into it. 

The Morning Show (AppleTV) - This has so many big stars that I expected it to be crap, but it was quite good with Steve Carell playing the bad guy.

Tehran (Apple TV) - This is another surprise that I just found by clicking away.  It is political intrigue between Iran and Israel with lots of spies. You like the characters but you hate the system they are intertwined in.   

Roadkill (BBC One via PBS) - This is a political intrigue drama starring Hugh Laurie which I really enjoyed but it only has four episodes. Come on BBC. 

Perry Mason (HBO) - This is not your father's Perry Mason (TV show from the 50's) but based on the original source material, the novels by Erle Stanley Gardner. Mason is not yet a defense attorney but an investigator. I almost didn't finish this, it took a while for me to get into it but it ended up being very good in the end. It is very gritty and it came close to being cliche, but it never crossed into it. 

Waco (Netflix) - I don't know how accurate this was about the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in 1993, but it is thoroughly entertaining. 

Red Oaks (Amazon) - This is very light but enjoyable. It is about a country club in New Jersey 1980's. Think of it as a less silly Caddyshack. 

Defending Jacob (Apple TV) - A kid is murdered in Newton, MA and the assistant DA's son is the suspect. Did he do it?  Honestly, I can't remember if he did or not. 

The Umbrella Academy (Netflix) - More people with super powers told in a creative way. As usual, this show suffers from the Netflix second series syndrome ... but not quite as bad as other Netflix series. First season, quite good. Second season, not quite so good. Maybe they've learned their lesson because it isn't as pronounced as some of their other shows. 

F is for Family (Netflix) - I still watch this occasionally. I think it is implied that F is for Fucked up Family. Regardless, it reminds me too much of my fucked up childhood. I love Bill Burr's humor, but it can be a bit depressing at times. Get out of my memories Bill Burr!

The Outsider (HBO) - Another Stephen King horror show. It is fun, it is gross. Not a lot else going on. I just expect more from HBO. 

The Undoing (HBO) - I would watch Nicole Kidman read the phonebook. Hugh Grant is her murderous husband. I liked this until the last episode. What a disappointment. 

Star Trek: Picard (CBS: Access) - But this is the year's biggest disappointment. One of my favorite Star Trek characters gets his own show. When disc one arrived in the mail, I reminded my wife to make time to watch it tonight. Mid-way through episode two - "Do you know what's going on?" You shouldn't have to look up a plot on Wikipedia to understand what is happening.  I am well versed in Trek lore. So far, I am not impressed. I also predicted the ending at around episode six. I hope season two is better. 

Queen's Gambit (Netflix) - I loved this show until she grew up and the show turned into sex and drugs and checkmate. I stopped watching. I am reading the book now. Maybe I'll watch the rest of the show later. 

Reckoning (Netflix) - I had to look this up because I couldn't remember what it was about.It was that unmemorable. Oh ya, that serial killer show. That's all you really need to know. That's all I remember. Nothing new here. 

Killing Eve (BBC America via Hulu) - This is another disappointment. It is okay but I stopped after season one. Maybe I'll return to it again, but it is certainly not as great as people claim.

Away (Netflix) - The personal lives of astronauts on a trip to Mars ... *yawn* Stopped watching.

Castle Rock (Hulu) - Another Stephen King series ... yada yada yada. 

Industry (HBO) - Hateful people doing things I don't understand on computer screens. Stopped watching. 

Lovecraft Country (HBO) - Lovecraft was a racist!? Oh ya, I guess he was. There is some interest stuff in this show but mostly it is over-produced and poorly written. Come on HBO, you can do better. Stopped watching. 

Next (Fox via Hulu) - Another AI is taking over the world. I wish an AI would take over the writing of this show. Stopped watching. 

Schitt's Creek (Netflix) - I'm not sure why so many people likes this show. It is basically Green Acres without the laughs and likeable people. They are annoying and pretentious. Worst of all, they aren't funny. I would  have stopped watching this long before I did (like the second episode), but my wife wanted to keep giving it another try. Eventually, she gave up and I was grateful. 

BOOKS:

I've committed to reading at least one classic a year for the rest of my life. This year's was a small one, The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, which I enjoyed. This is the third of his novels that I've read and my second favorite. I've read The World of the Worlds and The Time Machine with the latter being my favorite of his.

I only read eight books this year so it should be easy enough to rate them in order of preference:

Circe by Madeline Miller

Girl at War by Sara Novic 

The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

The Lake House by Kate Morton

Summer Hours at the Robbers Library by Sue Halpern (Vermont writer)  

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro 

Open Season by Archer Mayor (Vermont writer)

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

The first two books I really loved. Circe is a retelling of Circe's story from Homer's Odyssey. I generally don't like fantasy but this was so well written and since it was based in a story I already knew, it made it more palatable. 

Girl at War is about a war orphan from Yugoslavian civil war and her transition into being an American. 

The Lake House was good, but I've never been a huge mystery fan and everything wrapped up a bit too nicely in the end. 

I have determined that I am not a Neil Gaiman fan. This is the second book by him that I've read and hated. So be it. No big deal. Maybe I'll like his graphic novels. 

2021's classic is For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway. I'm about a third though now.  Wish me luck.