dduh Saturday

 Got message from Allianz that 1k will deposit in bank account.  Realized there is another policy with one day difference.  Called them, spoke with agent (in Manila?).  Filed a new claim on that other policy.  Agent said it could pay 8k per person.  Sure hope so.  

Pulling up and out of my cold.  Long sleep  and sleep-in until 9.  Without theta vibrations this time too.  Canceled lunch with Ermelina and J until next Saturday.  Headache has kicked in while filing this claim thing.  Probably lie down in the recliner for a bit.  

Sunday  slept really late this morning.  Now almost 2.  Dave will call us tonight for his birthday greeting; he is out to dinner with a crew it seems.  

Gray skies from the nor'easter which Kathy at the Cape says turned out to be not as terrible as predicted.  

Trying to return to reading.  Reading.  What is reading?  

quiz  Chapter 4 Headlong  They drive around the villages, setting up a baldachin and microphone so as to speak to rallies.  Mostly at night, it is cold, the lake is near, they get water for the bucket to mix the glue for the posters.  He goes back to the blind man's place to sleep for the night.  Everyone there is blind; he can sense when some get up a feel their way around looking for the water tap, they find him on the bed, run their hands through his hair.  

now how does AI put it?  Alas, I did not find exactly what I was looking for.  Instead I found Andrei's incredibly detailed and helpful, overly helpful, essay on his blog (on their blog if Andrei is a group or collective) theuntranslated.  Here is one paragraph:  

A 600-page novel totally devoid of character psychology and blatantly unforthcoming with the motives for their actions is an uncomfortable read, to say the least. It would be easier to accept the book if it was a slim nouveau-romanish exercise in form and style, instead of an epic narrative spanning more than 20 years of Italian history in which the minutiae of everyday life and surreal episodes of brain-searing intensity are recounted in the same dead-pan, unreflective tone. There is some affinity between The Beginnings and Mircea Cărtărescu’s latest novel Solenoid: both novels integrate the fantastic, bizarre and extraordinary into the mundane to a stunning effect. Both are ironic subversions of the Künstlerroman and both contain a heavy dose of autobiographical material. But Solenoid is all about the voice and attitude of its main character, who obviously serves as the mouthpiece for Cărtărescu’s own ideas. By shutting down this “channel” for his characters, Moresco heavily sacrifices the readability of his book: it’s as if he had chosen to show a sound film without the sound. Out of the two novels, Solenoid is by far more enjoyable, whereas The Beginnings is more iconoclastic in the uncompromising pursuit of its artistic principles to the detriment of readerly comfort."

with this sort of cliff notes help will I bother to keep reading any of Moresco?  Why?  Why not just read the blog summation and evaluation?  Am I loving the experience of reading the Beginnings on my own?  A difficult question.  Am I trying to be in the chosen company of those rare readers who "have done it". Like climbing Everest?  Posting it on X as a boast for the month?  What pleasure or experience am I getting by reading the remaining 2j-300 pages exept the passing of time, the distancing curiosity of doing something, anything, while sitting alone with a book in my hand.  ?  What is reading; what do we want from it?  With it?  Is Moresco worth it?  Should I shift to DFW or someone else.  Oh, and of course, I am waiting for the greatest of great new books, the disappearers, which, I already know, given the hype cloud around it, will disappoint me even more than The Beginnings is disappointing.  

Ah, but is it disappointing?  There it is.  One admission is that on the blog, looking forward into the next hug volumn, the Songs of Chaos, Andrei's exclamations about the unimaginable weirdness of the next book makes one want to read it, maybe, and therefore to have experienced what went before just to be ready for what comes after.  Why do we submit ourselves to writers in the first place; why invite them into our minds and homes?  Is Booth's "friendship" not too gentle and genteel, midwestern and relentlessly upbeat?  These writers horrify on purpose.  What purpose?  They waste their time and they waste our time.  They assume and presume.  We wish and wonder and take a chance.  Gambling all the way.  Desperately finding what we want no matter what.  

We find ways to admire the performance because it is unlike any other.  "I felt myself being brushed against on all sides by soft elbows, by tender knees.  There was a feeling of sweetness no longer controllable, of memorable mush."  300  yes, bravo! we say.  I'm getting it.  Keep going,  

"the shutters falling thunderously"  just like that, we were there, in Santiago, Chile, when the water canons came out into the riotous streets, the shopkeepers dropped their metal curtain doors.  The feathered ones breaking bones of faces and shoulders with the butts of their rifles.  

now by 303 we are in surreal dreamscape.  interesting, or same old same old???  the black nun, all black hair, the Italian catholic seminarian's nightmare figures 

Games of Eternity (Giochi dell’eternità) by Antonio Moresco

Posted on July 31, 2018 by Andrei

https://theuntranslated.wordpress.com/2018/07/31/games-of-eternity-giochi-delleternita-by-antonio-moresco/  

empty Friday

 25th   We were both ready for this, slept in an extra hour. Nothing on the docket.  Rick Evans called to come see us about moving to his new operation.  He had 730 clients on his list right before leaving the Hanover office.  Still feeling honored that he wants to keep us as clients. 

Told Phil he should move into Sunrise asap.  John messaged that he will talk with him later today.  

Came down with a cold yesterday.  Chills in the afternoon.  I blame the flu and pneumonia shots taken together about a week ago.  Medieval mind at work, nonscientific humanities geek.  Oh well, nap all day and hope it goes in three days.  Sinuses of course.  Ate a few slices of apple and the sugars in that sent me into sneezing.  Oatmeal in water, green tea and cacao in separate cups, advil, and no dairy.  Absolutely no dairy.  Had too much of it in past week;  stopped oatmilk and started using milk.  Mistake.  I know better.  Water.  

Waiting to see if Allianz will come through with refund for cruise.   Essayist and teacher? Andrew Bertaina posted this from Annie Dillard.  Do I subscribe to it?  Guess so this morning for today.  "“I would like to live as I should, as the weasel lives as he should. And I suspect that for me the way is like the weasel's: open to time and death painlessly, noticing everything, remembering nothing, choosing the given with a fierce and pointed will.” Annie Dillard

Sounds a good deal like Wendell Berry too.

attorney

 Learned to spell the word again today after our meeting.  Looks like it will cost a few thousands to have the Albuquerque property put into the NH Trust for David to inherit with the least difficulty.  Probably should do it just to make all the paper connections as legal and smooth as possible.  

Happy to be back into Moresco's slow prose.  Disappointed that Disappearers has still not appeared.  Started into the ultra-refined prose of Hermann Burger.  Seems as if there is more to consider.  Oh, yes, Cliff has canceled his trip north and visit with us to take care of his father's doctor appointments.  His dad has had two strokes and now there is prostrate trouble.  Cliff did a walk-on as body double for Richard Gere for some movie.  We decided today that yesterday Rachel was super-wired on coffee before she got here and thus was hyper through the whole first trip to waterville's pool.  Too bad the lift battery was out.  

Chase is looking into a divorce and has hired a lawyer on GH.  Feels too close to David's situation and our re-doing our trust papers.  Plus the potential move of portfolio to Rick E's new outfit.  All this shifting to prepare to bring in the Blue Wave and have it flush out the white house.  Blue Wave Floods White House, Destroys Everything made of gold and gold colored tin.  

Anne called last evening.  She had a night in the hospital because she seemed to stutter when she had a migraine while at the doctor's office.  Over reaction.  She confirms that normal advil not at all helpful with migraine once it gets started.  Made me more sure that over the past few years I have been having something very like migraine headaches.  More than ever before in my life.  

mind stage

 Priestley ends the book with the bang hoped for.  The solid Socialist promise of a serious future making films meaningful, back turned on empty, flashy hollywood glamour.  "A little brilliantly-illuminated stage. . . atmosphere of solemn tenderness for life.  . . . that theatre of creation . . ."

The Allingtons flawed so deeply that Joan had pushed Eva off the ledge.  "Hinchcliff" surely too much of a name for a character but he did it anyway.  Perfectly structured five act, twelve chapter drama, with the ten year old girl on the ledge being the one thirty years later to give him the final revelation of the murder and the promise of a new life, with her perhaps, and in the new british cinema of renewed communal destiny.  

PT with Maggie and use of the cane; double checked on the approval from cardio to renew snorkeling.  Pavers have polished up their work on Emerson Street.  Wade phoned from Lebanon about swapping the cars tomorrow; mine now fully charged.  

Why did I read that novel again?  I suppose a masochistic desire to do penance for once before having tried to skim it, speed to the ending, mistreat it.  

-----

Damian Kelleher posts "It’s difficult to overstate how exciting the second book in the trilogy is. All of the conventions of the first book are overturned and literature itself gets knocked down and rebuilt

It’s like going from two dimensions to four. And the fourth is pure obscenity."

so maybe I will have to go back to Beginnings after all? If I read Bright Day twice I can go back and finish B in order to be ready for the great porn of volume 2! Otherwise it would be on to Kafka's Castle and maybe Bachman's Malina. Why not all three? If I do go back to Moresco it would mean letting Kelleher refute Billings.

I'd vote for Kelleher, Australian writer, bit older than Billings (who is doing the back to nature thing in Maine).

the unexpected

I had had a feeling about the cruise the whole while we were setting it up, imagining it through, rehearsing every detail possible.  The feeling was vague and strong that it would somehow not really happen.  I warned myself not to think so just because part of me did not want it to happen, while other parts said, oh, don't worry, it's not like that at all.  The unexpected was the stenosis returning; the cruise didn't happen, right, that deep sense was after all true.  The heart valve as the reason is what truly surprised us both.  

Satisfying visit with Dr Hill yesterday at Hanover.  A real doctor at last, the old style, familiar kind.  Took plenty of time talking with us, taking notes, reviewing the whole situation before sending us off for the blood draw, which was usual.  I regret I didn't take a photo of the big image of Joe in his fishing gear on the wall, a big digital image from the short film they made about him and Pie.  DHMC may have paid them something for that?  or maybe made a donation?  Not that that matters at all.  The photo so reworked it did and did not look like Joe.  More like the new saint's chapel icon.  This is how the saints were made centuries ago.  And still today.  We can all hope to go as quietly and sweetly as Joe did.  We used to joke in the manly manner about take me out in a kayak and tip me over.  Not exactly that but pretty close to it.  

Lots of haunting echoes in the dh building for me from 23 years ago, and yet because the doctor was so right I did find myself hoping we might get the valve procedure there instead of cmc.  But all the vibes suggest it will be a cmc event with deep repetition resonances there because I think it was on the exact monthly timeline pattern.  Alert in late summer, appointments, procedure in early December or so.  Recovery going for longer than planned out into late January.  At least this time we are not booked on that super long trip to Bali.  As splendid as the whole trip was in hindsight it is a shame I did not enjoy Bali.  Just so miserably humid I could barely bear it on an hour by hour basis.  

$58 to fill the Tiguan loaner tank all the way up!  On the way home over 118, 75 miles of gas left, traffic on the road stopped, cars lined up behind and ahead.  Could see some on the hill in the distance.  After a while cars turned around at both ends. We turned after someone driving away told us "power line down, no idea when the trucks will get here."  Back in Canaan for gas at the Irving and then drover through Grafton and Grafton Center, Danbury, then Bristol.  Twilight and tired by then.  Hill had gotten a beeper call when he was with him and we had a long wait there too.  Bela said she wanted a burger but no lights were on at the Big Catch so we sped by there.  Then she said she wanted to get another pita wrap at Yamas so that's what we did.  Got into the house with it just as darkness covered the sky.  Still feel achy and tired from the whole drawn out day.  Longer driving than I've gotten used to.  

The Destroismaison massage is a poor idea so will cancel that.  No matter how cool the name be.  What is "being tired" after all?  How can I have slept pretty well but not have slept well enough? What all does the body do when we're not conscious of watching what it is doing?  

Back to Priestley.  The plot with Nixey is now thickening.  He was up to no good and Dawson was young and uninitiated in such things.  Alington who he admires is somehow flawed but he does not yet know how.  Music evening at Leaton's.  Summer of 1913. 

As I read along I kept saying why does this book remind me of so much---even of Brideshead Revisited in some strange way.  Finally looked it all up  One year apart  Waugh's 1945; Priestley's 1946.  Old Catholic money and spirituality vs socialist, Yorkshire business and future prospects.  Still, the style of writing in and of itself, period perfect.  The language of mid-century post-war England. Very different, much alike in spite of themselves.  

Admit it, Obama's tower haunts us with the medieval atmospherics of San Gimignano.    

He and Michele visited the Borgo Finocchieto in May of 2017.  

google suggested I look at Knausgaard since I am missing Handke; also a Polish writer.  Also asked why I didn't like Fosse.  His work is poetic, mystical.  But for my taste the mysticism feels faked, borrowed, constructed.  Handke's mysticism feels more genuine because not worn on his sleeve.  

"This time the reason why you can’t see for yourself is because the essay was withdrawn before English-language publication, but this intimacy, this directness of contact, is what readers of My Struggle love. Somehow his writing, the total opposite of Fosse’s, was just as pure. Fosse’s is pure poetry, Knausgaard’s is pure prose.

The difference between lines and sentences, between poetry and prose in a technical sense, is simple enough, but that’s not the interesting distinction. Poetry, I came to see, is visionary world-creation, an eruption of transcendence; prose is communication, interpersonal, horizontal. (In Norwegian, fittingly, fosse means “waterfall” and knausgård means “hillside farm”; it’s the same name as “Hillyard.” Kierkegaard, also fittingly, is “churchyard.”) Prose shares, poetry transports. Prose connects, poetry creates. Only pure prose could have taught me the difference.

Damion Searls, the Daily’s language columnist, is a translator from German, French, Norwegian, and Dutch."  Paris Review 

However much I may not like it, The Disappearers will be a very welcome contrast with Priestley's book.  Of course I can finally dive into Kafka's The Castle.  

Priestly

 "which means, I take it, that I am essentially a romantic." 155 sent Dave his 500  he sent, paid a dollar? to send a Pretty Please kitty gif!

72  "fell in love with all three at once.  This is possible at eighteen, when love is magic rather than revealed desire, when it rises in us like a tide on which the mind can float, when it can be exquisite and poignant and yet entirely unfocussed, arched above a whole company like a rainbow."   He is good!! 

Thursday morning after the night of debauchery at Yamas with the Spanish-speaking group formed partly by Rosa and partly by Rob(inson)(from New Hampton school, whose mother spoke Spanish, and who knows Tom and Dottie Diehl but has no memory of Rbt Tisdale).  Total of 15 at the table? To my left the husband of John and Heidi Allen's oldest daughter, she taught at InterLakes grade school for 31 years, she and Timo now retired at 65-66.  John now 92 along with George, Heidi about 88.  Bela complimented me on my Spanish this morning, so it seems I spoke some.  Five or six young Hispanic women, teachers in their 30s.  One from Peru.  We didn't really  get to chat with each one.  Will, a young forest ranger in White Mtn Forest service who spent years in South America working in the bosques.  Had been to Patagonia, Argentina, elsewhere but didn't get the details.  Just before we ordered our meals he took out a syringe and injected himself in his stomach.  Had never seen that before.  Diabetic or weight-loss; wanted to ask him but didn't.  

New of a Swiss writer via X this morning; a now famous suicide, alas, but look at this passage from Wiki--"When he was young and wanted to build his style of writing, he did copy passages out of literature (e.g. by Thomas Mann) and filled their syntax with new content. The protagonists of his novels and narrations try to describe the situation of their lives in a way that is linguistically virtuosic and in love with details. Those protagonists mostly are diseased, and the receiver of their texts is very often a higher authority, e.g. the "Inspektorenkonferenz" (inspector's conference) in "Schilten" (1976).

Remember how often in the past I thought of doing this or something like it.  That one summer when I read two novels by a Stanford writer and tried to copy-insert my own content into the shapes or emptied forms of his story telling.  Or copy passages and use the syntax---brilliant but I never did exactly that.  but had very similar impulses.  And of course in the few years in the painting studio I did just that from photos of paintings, over and over again, giving myself a short course in mid-century abstract expressionism.  That painting that Dick Mertens has in Hyde Park (which some have even admired) is perhaps one of my best direct copies of a painter named???  Jenkins?  have forgotten.  Have never told Dick it is a copy!  He may have even bought it from me for a token figure.  He called yesterday spinning and spinning again over the works of Wendell Berry and wondering why he, Dick, had never gotten a career as a writer with as much coherence and success as Berry had.  The father:  Berry had a father who loved him and loved the land and Berry flourished under the rich blessings of his father's successes and loves of the land and of farming (even while his father had been mainly a lawyer, yes, with a love of the land and of farming but still, not so much a farmer as a lawyer).

the whole pattern, seems to me, part of the larger tale of the South's losses of the war, of slavery, of how they treated the land and farming when they had slaves to help them work it so richly.  A small farmer in Kentucky did not have a plantation (system) under him but he would have had a few slaves.  So the whole "Agrarianism" of Southern poets and writers was this long, delicate lament for loss of every sort, loss and nostalgia, moaning and suffering under the guise of nobility of aspiration and purity of intention.  Allen Tate, John Crow Ransom, Faulkner himself, Toni Morrison, et al.  

Would I like this depressed Swiss, Hermann Berger---in line with Bernhard and Kafka?  Maybe so.  This morning J B Priestley seems more clear:  so bright and brilliant.  "Brilliant" the word became or continued to be the highest praise the Brits seem to use now for every thing.  If the novel did not have the narrator on his journey I would be much less satisfied with it because then it would just be Dickens all over again.  Characters in their idiosyncracies being as british as possible.  The empire was created and ruled, then, by the thin layer of really gifted Ts, brainers, who worked the capitalist dream as perfectly as possible, executed, their schemes, by the happy muddlers below who filled out the pyramid of bureaucrats doing the slog.  Muddling through was the motto of the raj but Priestly's genius looking back shows us the brainy brilliance of the few who knew how to manage the muddled masses in the offices.  

I could easily stop the novel here and would not miss it, am on page 83.  I still suspect once more that in fact I did do that years ago, because I think there is a repetition at work---Nicholas praising it, linking it to Jung's praise of it and my trying to like it as much as they each did, and, failing.  More Beckett, myself, than either of them were, are.  

The Puckrups  page 83 ff in Priestly   How fundamental for the Brits is theater, after all, performance, on stage, off stage, the music hall.  They might write decent novels, some of them, but at heart it is all about theater, theatricality, nothing more, nothing less.  An endless cast of characters waiting in the wings, ready to be hooked off as soon as applause dies,  the great chain of being on-call and off-call.  Life as the endless audition for a better part.  

He decries the ancient mustiness of the now gone Christmas, the ancient relatives, family histories, but loves describing it all, the great Christmas set-piece, the scene, the atmosphere, the sets, the food, the food, the sweets, the drinks, whist on Boxing Day 

3:30  we canceled the pt this afternoon, about an hour and a half ago.  Good move, Bela now sleeping some more after GH.  Last night, out, did us in; neither of us slept well enough on such a full stomach and "late" night socializing with a crew of strangers.  Too taxing!  

Just after the pantomime scene and liking the book much better now that I keyed in once more on the main feature of what it portrays so well---the young initiate outsider who longs to belong to the chosen inner circle of those who seem magical and blessed beyond belief, the adoration of another family so much more gifted and elevated than one's own.  What is our narrator's name?  And how he discovers his desire to write and his ability to write as the chief way he can sustain his membership in the new inner circle of the blessed family which has taken him in, taken a liking to him, begun to reveal themselves to him so he can enjoy their bliss and begin to turn their hidden fractures into observations which will feed his discovery of writing.  

"some inner aloffness he always seemed the long distance traveller halted for a brief space." 99  (Chatwin will become this writer a generation after Priestley, Patagonia even invoked). 

You're a queer young boy, Gregory.  96  this seemed a queer topic 99  the sister's second sight

Gregory Dawson.  a pang of envy, jealous of Ben,   Life needs magic, his long talk with Jock

Jock warns him not to see them as magical, the desire for which comes from within him

I feel like the dutiful English major reading the british novel on assignment 

now on 120  in the present with Elizabeth Earl and George Adony and it all sounds exactly, exactly like a 1942 movie in crisp black and white and in sharp dialogue.  Such a period piece through and through,  1946 this book appeared first, we were two years old, dad was driving that black pontiac.  The dialogue here is almost hard-boiled detective prose--maybe in '46 all good writing was heavily film affected, noir derivative, the speech of the geist.  

now about 5:15  Bela has been dozing in her white chair for half an hour; I was dozing here at the table earlier in my wooden chair for half an hour.  Rain outside dripping.  The asphalters still moving their machines in the distance but the brand new sidewalk looks super out the window.  

two vaccines and one appointment

Got the vaccines for pneumonia and flu at midstate.  Drove to Owl's Nest, scouted the massage set-up, vaguely recalled that we had indeed been there before, way before the place exploded into a mini-wv valley and clone of the villages.  From Jamie learned about the tech we have booked for Bela's appointment on Oct 1.  Ended up finding his link on a site and booking another appointment a few days before hers.  What possessed me?  Must be the mix of the two vaccines coursing through my body, intertwining in the bloodstream from opposite shoulders.  Beautiful sun all day.  Had poke bowl at mb.  Rachel and Bela had yamas take-out.  Bela and I just binging on cherry garcia.  End of summer, dying of daylight.  Got farther into Priestley and liking it.  Did I read it years ago, or start it, on Nicholas's recommendation?  Crisp, bright, smart, nuanced early 20th C British prose at its finest.  Will look up the famous movie Last Holiday.  Bela now watching Barisnykov in Summer Nights.   Destroismaison!

oh dear

8:40 pm  I decided to ask Chat about the relationship between The Cat and our narrator.  Poking around after a decent enough answer, I popped open a review on LARB.  Only at the last paragraph did I find that it is written by Josh Billings in Farmington, ME.  I had run across him before and liked his reviews and essays a lot. He loved Schattenfroh a year ago.   He has his own lit mag now too.  Rustica.  He is living off the grid, sort of, in Farmington, going for the Wendell Berry award for his generation.  His comments about Moresco are ringing awfully true and direct.  And look at how even as I did read many pages of it today with something like pleasure, in my other hearts I can't wait for Disappearers to arrive even as I dread it will be too violent and angry, as previews suggest.  Here is Billings and he is very astute and convincing through his whole piece:  July 20, this year, "Doing It Wrong:"  "

(Max really got there, you’ll feel the language laugh at you in English as well.)

Reader, you will not. Again, I admit this without relish, through gritted teeth—as someone who embarked on The Beginnings in good faith, in the hope of gaining some sort of aesthetic experience out of it. But in order to have an experience, we have to feel something—to believe that we are submitting ourselves to a singular vision, even if it is a frustrating, negative, or outright perverse one. Of all the mysteries that The Beginnings leaves us with at the end of its 500 pages, the one that really holds our attention is its failure to convince. Moresco is a legend of underground Italian fiction; Lawton is a genius supertranslator who has already performed at least one miracle, and will no doubt perform more. But the proof is on the page. There, despite all our best wishes, a legible toggle of translatorial self-assertion and self-effacement has not been achieved, and The Beginnings has been stranded in the dead middle ground with all the other “masterpieces.” The water has stayed water and the loaves refused to replicate. Our feast is a fiasco. And this really is a pity.

so have I stopped with the book where the bookmark is tonight?  in the convent of the celestine father where the organ is booming ?   253 paragraph opens "The autumn wind had arrived."   That was indeed true today, beautiful wind when I walked a bit while Bela was in PT.  Should I allow one strong hearted fellow like Billings bully me into stopping?  Or is he not bullying but lamenting, sadly, truly, deeply?   

uh oh

 what if Moresco is basically a cerebral writer, a T?  Colder Monday but super bright in that great autumnal way.  Scale must need batteries; is my weight really down to 185? floor slopes too.  Hard to believe.  Test it out again.  Today in Abq TLC may call about the electrical panel install.   

neither happened.  Bela sleeping a lot after the pt session and lunch.  Photo from Lou of her new great granddaughter in Denver

getting worried about Bela but not certain what to do;  texted the cardio office but no reply from them 

no word from TLC workers and no show from Overhead doors  --  Monday  Should I go ahead with my day off tomorrow?  Yes, of course.  Rachel will be here and provide lunch.  I can get two shots at MidState and go to Owls Nest for exploration.  Then buy meals at Market Basket frozen aisle; see if can find some odd ones.  

in Moresco The Cat has just offered his first solemn mass after having been tonsured and ordained 

pipe organ at the celestine father's convent  ---  "the growing veil of tears that was coming forth from some infinitely secret point within my body"  252

luminescence  every where  all over  

Sebastian Romero with TLC just called.  his phone number  505-382-4539  went to MAS high school at Yale school campus  1718 Yale SE  and Old Coors

Sunday 13

 Dear Dave, After listening to you yesterday, these are some of my thoughts:

Get Cécile to see a grief therapist and maybe go to their first meeting yourself(might give you some ideas on a way forward...

Ask one of your buddies if you can stay at their home for a few days.  Offer to cook in place of paying rent??  You might be able to make a little cash by hiring yourself as a " concierge cook"(you could make a menu of your top dishes)

All my wisdom for now...

bela

I asked google about the stenosis and the results were very helpful to hear---You should pause swimming immediately until you speak with your cardiologist. While swimming is a wonderful, low-impact exercise, severe aortic stenosis means your heart valve has narrowed significantly, forcing your heart to work much harder to pump blood. Because you also manage hemiplegia and a seizure disorder, the combined risk of a seizure, sudden lightheadedness, or fainting while in the water presents an immediate safety hazard

there was much more information and advice, drawn from heart.org and other such reliable sites so we're both glad we looked it up and read what is said.  Main help, Bela has no clear symptoms like shortness of breath or dizziness or fatigue.  

already after noon, slow rainy, gray morning of goofing off 

at the end of chapter 13 our seminarian merges the night singing of the passion on good friday with his own circumcision.   Is that practiced in Italy in adolescence?  Has Moresco imagined the whole thing to dramatize what being in the seminary does to one?  More likely that; most likely that, and it goes so well with the whole holy week passion play mythos-vibe.  

We actually listened to the kelly corrigan wonders radio show this morning.  Talk with two musicians about the science of music and all that music does to and for humans.  

I'm 82, hemiplegic woman with seizure disorder, in excellent health. My cardiogram says I now have severe bioprosthetic aortic stenosis. Should I keep swimming once a week? What needs to be done? How dire is this situation?

11:57 AM

You should pause swimming immediately until you speak with your cardiologist. While swimming is a wonderful, low-impact exercise, severe aortic stenosis means your heart valve has narrowed significantly, forcing your heart to work much harder to pump blood. Because you also manage hemiplegia and a seizure disorder, the combined risk of a seizure, sudden lightheadedness, or fainting while in the water presents an immediate safety hazard. [1]

How Dire is This Situation?

While the word "severe" sounds frightening, this is a manageable situation, not an immediate catastrophe. Your excellent overall health works heavily in your favor.

• If you have NO symptoms (no chest tightness, shortness of breath, or dizziness): The situation is stable but requires prompt medical evaluation to plan next steps before symptoms develop. [1]
• If you DO have symptoms: The situation is more urgent. Severe aortic stenosis cannot be cured with medication, and waiting too long once symptoms start can strain the heart muscle. [1, 2]

What Needs to Be Done?

You need a formal evaluation by your cardiologist or a structural heart specialist. They will guide you through the following steps:

1. Symptom Review: Your doctor will ask if you have noticed subtle fatigue, shortness of breath during daily activities, or lightheadedness. [1]
2. Review of the Echocardiogram: They will look at the specific measurements of your bioprosthetic valve to confirm the degree of narrowing. [1]
3. Discussing Valve Replacement: Because your current valve is bioprosthetic (biological), it has naturally worn down over time. For an active 82-year-old, the standard, highly successful approach is often TAVR (Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement). This is a minimally invasive procedure where a new valve is guided through a small tube in your leg, avoiding open-heart surgery entirely. [1, 2]

Safe Alternatives for Right Now

Until you see your doctor, swap the pool for safe, land-based movement. A gentle walking routine or a stationary recumbent bicycle are excellent ways to preserve your mobility and strength without overexerting your heart. Always stop immediately if you feel winded, dizzy, or uncomfortable. [1, 2]

When is your next appointment with your cardiologist, and have you noticed any recent shortness of breath or dizziness?

----

a cross-eyed girl playing a harmonium on the other side of the courtyard in the seminary!!

my goodness, I'm old enough and from an Italian Catholic parish that I know what a harmonium is, what it sounded like and how well Moresco talks about it, uses it, in his dreamy narrative flow 211

headache most of the morning, low pressure, rain, water, worry, all of the above?  doomscrolling plus, ? 

journalist Karen Ho popularized "doomscrolling" in 2020 after the word appeared somewhere around 2018  on Twitter !!!!