Day: March 1, 2025

Weekly Round-up, March 1, 2025

John Winkelman

The view east from Draper Cemetery in Jackson County, Michigan.

[The view east from Draper Cemetery in Jackson County.]

After last week’s whirlwind project, which I can’t discuss but during which I learned a LOT of Python, I am completely exhausted and took the last two days of the week off as sick days, for the sake of my mental and emotional health. Twenty years ago I could have recovered from a 70+ hours-in-eight-days marathon of work by getting a single night of sleep. That simply is not the case any more. I need down time.

This past Tuesday we laid my aunt Judy to rest. She was my Mom’s older sister, and the third of the four siblings to pass. I saw many relatives who I had not seen since Mom’s funeral back in the fall of 2021. The family just keeps getting smaller.

Reading

I am about a third of the way through The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966. So much good stuff here!

Writing

I have had neither time nor energy to put pen to paper this week, other than minimal journaling and some light note-taking and list-making.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Spiritual Beings, Portals
Setting: Ship
Genre: Western

Listening

“Ghostwriter” by RJD2, from the album Deadringer. I listened to this song a lot during my first few years as a web developer, on a compilation album someone gave me back in the early 2000s. The whole album is quite good.

Interesting Links

February 2025 Books and Reading Notes

John Winkelman

At long last, over two months since I cracked it open, I finally finished Doctor Zhivago. It was a long read – mostly beautiful, occasionally frustrating, and above all definitely worth the effort.

Now I am reading short fiction, to help reset my brain. Currently I am working my way through The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966, which, in addition to being full of superb short prose and poetry, is an interesting time-capsule of the state of literature almost seventy years ago.

Acquisitions

The Blaft Book of Anti-Caste Speculative Science Fiction

  1. R.T. Samuel, Rakesh K., Rashmi R.D. (editors), The Blaft Book of Anti-Caste SF (Blaft Publications)

Reading List

Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak

Books

  1. Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago [2025.02.14]

Short Prose

  1. Jim C. Hines, “Kitemaster” (Patreon post) [2025.02.11]
  2. Samuel Beckett, “Dante and the Lobster”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.14]
  3. Jack Kerouac, “October in the Railroad Earth”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.14]
  4. Patsy Southgate, “A Very Important Lady”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.16] – [Note: I could find almost no information at all on Patsy Southgate online. Anything I found was as a side note to other writers and creative types. The two obituaries I could find, from 1998, were behind paywalls. Perhaps I will gather some sources and put together a Wikipedia page.]
  5. Kameron Hurley, “At the Crossroads of Many Futures” (Patreon post) [2025.02.16]
  6. Tobias S. Buckell, “The Last Cathedral of Earth, In Flight” (Patreon post) [2025.02.17]
  7. Alexander Trocchi, “From Cain’s Book“, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.18]
  8. John Rechy, “From City of Night“, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.18]
  9. William Eastlake, “Portrait of an Artist with Twenty-Six Horses”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.18]
  10. Carlos Fuentes (Lysander Kemp, translator), “The Life Line”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.21]
  11. Juan Rulfo (Lysander Kemp, translator), “From Pedro Páramo“, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.22]
  12. Octavio Paz, “Todos Santos, Día de Muertos”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.24]
  13. Henry Miller, “Defense of the Freedom to Read”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.24]
  14. William Eastlake, “Three Heroes and a Clown”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.25]
  15. Terry Southern, “Red-Dirt Marihuana”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.25]
  16. William S. Burroughs, “Deposition: Testimony Concerning a Sickness”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.26]
  17. Eugène Ionesco, “Foursome”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.26]
  18. Martin Williams, “Charlie Parker: The Burden of Innovation”, The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966 [2025.02.28]