On Mar 25, 7:27 pm, UaNe...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
> On Mar 25, 9:02 pm, Dover Beach <moon.blanc...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>
>
> > I'm looking at the list of 100 books, and I'm thinking that although
> > I've read some of them (I couldn't be arsed to count) I read them a
long
> > time ago. And you know why?
>
> > Because I can't focus on anything anymore. Here is my reading so far
> > this afternoon, after I got the taxes to the CPA. I started by
> > wondering about the book S**** Pit. Can't remember what triggered it.
> > Oh, yes I do -- I heard a recording of Sylvia Plath reading her poem
> > Daddy on some XM channel. So I started thinking about crazy chicks and
> > political analyses of crazy chicks.
>
> > So I used one of my gray-market library cards and found a 1979 article
> > about the difference between the movie and the novel (S**** Pit, that
> > is), analyzed in political/feminist terms. The woman who wrote S****
> > Pit was sort of lefty and it was unclear whether that was partly why
she
> > had been committed. That article made reference to the Children's
> > Bureau publication from 1914 called Infant Care. So I read that.
Well,
> > partway. It got boring about how to fold diapers. I got through at
> > least 10 pages, though. I noticed that Julia C. Lathrop was the head
of
> > the Children's Bureau. In 1914? A woman was head of a gov't agency
in
> > 1914? So I looked her up and it turns out I really should have known
> > about her because she was in with the Jane Addams/Alice Hamilton
> > Hull-House crowd.
>
> > So back to my online library account. I looked up Julia Lathrop and
> > found some correspondence between her and a working class woman from
> > right around 1914-15 and it was just riveting, and heart-breaking,
> > because I swear conditions for poor women in Chicago have actually
> > gotten worse in the last 100 years. Then I got led off into a puzzler
> > about the Progressive Movement and the conflict between the radicals
and
> > the reformers, and found some material that described the criticisms
of
> > the Settlement House programs, which were assimilative and promoted
hard
> > work and sobriety and a bunch of other conservative, unpopular stuff.
>
> > Then I needed some M&Ms and I thought about how I really probably
would
> > have been better off if I had just sat down and ground my way through
> > some more of Plath's poems, and just thought about those, but my head
> > just constantly explodes and with teh Intarweb being universally
> > available I now cannot stay focused on anything.
>
> > I'm sorry, what were you saying?
>
> Yes. I'm not much for abstaining from anything in an organized way,
> but lately I've been staying offline for the bulk of the day, just
> checking email and surfing a bit once in the morning. It's been a
> great victory. Though I've been feeling more like being outside in
> the sun, doing some sort of physical something rather than reading a
> book. The other day I spent the whole damn day driving around not
> buying a boat, which was another great victory, of a sorts.
>
> Huh. I wasn't even trying to ramble, there. It's worse than I
> thought.
I planted tomatoes. Did I mention that?
V.
--
Veronique Chez Sheep
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