Kanlaon

Finished A Promised Land. Self never thought she would say this about a Presidential memoir, but it was a lot of fun to read. For example, Sarah Palin’s energy policy summarized in one quote: “Drill, baby, drill!”

44 displays some mighty clear-eyed thinking about bin Laden and the decision he made to authorize the Navy Seal mission. He had choices: he could have ordered a drone strike. But with a drone strike, they could never be absolutely sure they had gotten their man. The identification of bin Laden, to 44’s thinking, was paramount. And he was right.

Yesterday, self began reading Dark, Salt, Clear, Lamorna Ash’s memoir of her year spent living in a small fishing village in Cornwall. Self has been itching to read this book since forever. She, too, has taken that same rail journey from Paddington. Unlike Ms. Ash, she did not continue all the way to Penzance, she got off at Par. The not-quite-a-week self spent in Cornwall, in May 2019, was her homage to Daphne du Maurier after reading Tatiana de Rosnay’s marvelous Manderley Forever.

The prologue to Dark, Salt, Clear describes a life drawing class in which the male model “did not curve his body self-consciously across some chaise lounge but looked at us head on, legs apart, arms outstretched as if to say: Here I Am!“

• His body bore the marks of a life lived hard — his arms strong and sinewy, his face cross-hatched by wrinkles, his back and biceps scribbled all over with dark blue tattoos.

He was a Cornish fisherman.

Below, the harbor at Fowey, Cornwall, May 2019.

Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.