I didn’t post anything yesterday because of Armistice Day/Veterans Day: while some years I do not give it a great deal of attention, I’d been watching All Quiet on the Western Front the night prior and was more somber than usual. So, today’s Teaser Tuesday will join forces with WWW Wednesday.

Teaser….Tuesday

Müller greeted friends on the street in a courtly manner by tipping his hat, thus circumventing the “German greeting” (i.e., “Heil Hitler” plus the Nazi salute). To the solicitous advice that was given him to leave Northeim, he replied, “Where should I go? Here I am the Banker Müller; elsewhere I would be the Jew Muller.” (The Nazi Seizure of Power)

WWW Wednesday

WHAT have you finished reading recently? Eh, the Reverend Entwhistle book. In spite of having yesterday off, I didn’t finish or even look at the two books I’m close to finishing: instead, I listened to lectures and played through the last chapter of RDR2 for the nth time. (I’ve basically been playing RDR2 on a loop since 2018, except sometimes I restart at Chapter 5 because I really dislike Guarma.)

WHAT are you reading now? I am, as mentioned, quite close to finishing both The Nazi Seizure of Power and Sean Dietrich’s Over Yonder. I expect to finish Over Yonder today, but the Nazi book is one I’ve been dragging my heels through for weeks now.

WHAT are you reading next? Presumably some SF, but I am also wanting to try to balance SF and nonfiction this month so nonfiction can assume its proper place as top of the stacks in December. I don’t like fiction leading nonfiction and I’ll be dashed if it happens twice in a row. (Right now they’re at 56%/43% with fiction in the lead.) I got sidetracked from the zombie insects book but will return to it once I’ve gotten past the Nasties.

Long and Short Prompt: Being Thankful

Today’s prompt is things we are thankful for.

(1) I am still around. Having a surprise autoimmune disorder that killed my kidneys and almost killed me made this a close one, but I’m still ticking. Not only did I survive, but I was inexplicably blessed with an organ transplant that ended my need to be on dialysis. While this has brought with it its own complications — weight and bone density issues from the medication– as long as I am alive I can fight them.

(2) This Jack has apparently met his Joy. She’s put up with me for over a year at this point, even being the curmudgeon that I am.

(3) Good sitting trees. I spent much of college sitting under a tree and reading, and I have continued the habit well into my adult life. This past Sunday, for instance, I sat underneath a tree in my yard and read until the plunging temperatures overwhelmed my sweater. There’s the pleasure of sitting outside and reading, of course, but I also love the feel of a trunk behind me, and gazing up at the canopy.

(4) The enduring legacy of Montevallo, in fact. Before I lived there, I took for granted that I would one day move to a “big city” like Portland or somesuch, but when I lived in Montevallo I fell hard for the virtues of a ‘village’ type community. It helped that Montevallo had the walkability of a traditional town, but — because it’s a university town — it also had all the cultural opportunities of a larger one. Even if I lived there as a non-student, I could go to free recitals, public lectures, and so on. When I left Montevallo my purpose was to find something like that life wherever I went to next, and to a degree I was able to succeed. (At least, until COVID and the tornado gutted where I live, but c’est la vie.)

(5) The ability to find — and the willingness of others to provide — things like lectures, talks, songs, etc online. This is the thing I would miss most if I’d left Montevallo for someplace else in the pre-internet age. Public lectures outside of universities simply aren’t a thing unless you live in a TED-talk kind of city, and while I can go to chamber music recitals in nearby there’s always a fairly daunting fee, plus the driving. Online, though, I can listen to someone talk about southern agrarianism or overlooked garden vegetables or the literary influence of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn pretty much on demand.

(6) Fair Oaks Books, my town’s indie bookstore where I can ramble in on Saturdays after work, plop into a chair with a cup of coffee, and talk about anything — writing, town gossip, religion and philosophy, etc. Depends on who is around.

(7) And speaking of, people who still believe in, and work on, their local community. My hometown has been crumbling towards hospice care for decades now, but people still create things like Fair Oaks Books or other social/cultural events to remind others — we ain’t dead yet. I think this is vital not only for the meaning it gives to the participants, but for interrupting what could be a progressive feedback loop: things stop happening, people leave, there are fewer people to make things happen (or make things happen for), fewer things happen, more people leave, etc.

(8) The ability to find unexpected joy. Two years ago I wrote a short story and only in the last month was inspired to try a couple of related stories to it (think Port William-esque tales), and it’s been deeply fun to slip into that creative mode and play with the characters, dialogue, etc. I’ve had evenings where I didn’t watch anything, didn’t play any games, didn’t even listen to a podcast — I just typed, edited, typed, etc.

(9) An end to the Great Sticky Siege, at least until April or May. Or..mid-December. Alabama’s weather between October and April is bipolar.

(10) And music, in general. Yesterday I listened to “Piano Man” by Billy Joel like six times just because the storytelling in it impressed me.