Weird Times Call for Good Reading

Did I shoot this from the hip?  I must have, but the horizon is too straight.  I don't remember taking this photograph at all.  Perhaps I was holding the camera to my eye when they walked by.  Maybe I was getting bold. 

I was not feeling well yesterday and lay down for a couple hours in the afternoon.  I was being babied and rubbed the entire time, and all I thought/dreamed about was. . . Leica digital cameras.  I want one, but not quite as they are and not at the price.  I thought to rent one to see if I would like it, but the rental is $325 for five days.  I have decided that I really don't mind digital, but my film Leica is smaller and cooler.  The extra thickness of the digital Ms is a complete turnoff to me.  They are much heavier, too. 

And still, in the cool, air conditioned air of a hot summer day. . . .

I read somewhere that ten million gay immigrants are illegally crossing the U.S. borders.  They want Social Security and Obamacare. 

I was surprised to learn that Puerto Rico can't pay its ten trillion dollar debt.  They are asking everyone to help share the pain.  Shocked. 

The SpaceEx rocket blew up.  Where did all the toxic materials go?  Nobody is reporting on that.  Why?  They are made up of horrible, terrible things.  The damn thing blew into a kajillion pieces in the atmosphere.  People living around there. . . well. . . Florida is the weirdest state as we all know.  There must be a reason. 

The Donald is a popular choice for president.  He is absolutely the only person who can stop The Hillary. 

The new "True Detective" series sucks. 

Oh. . . I saw that Lawrence Osborne has published a new novel, "Hunters in the Dark" (review).  He has become my favorite contemporary writer, so I was excited to order the book as quickly as I could.  I tried downloading it to my iPad, but Amazon said it wouldn't be available until January, so I tried to order the book.  First Amazon said I could buy a used one, then it told me I couldn't.  Seems it won't be published here until next year.  So I went on Amazon UK and tried to download it.  I got a message telling me I was a naughty boy.  Finally, I was able to order a hardback copy from The Guardian bookstore in London.  It should be here in--what--a week or so?  It is sure to send my life off in the wrong direction again.  But oh that fucking Osborne can write. 

From the review:  "For Osborne, the mysteriousness of these non-western cultures is not an excuse to satisfy anew the jaded occidental appetite for exoticism. Instead, he seems to be engaged in turning inside out, in startling ways, that old Jamesian theme of the confrontation of old and new worlds, of innocence versus experience, except that the new world here is the European one, “dying on its feet of torpor and smugness and debt”, from which Osborne’s protagonists are in full flight."

That's just like all the stuff I cut my adventure teeth on.  He and me--we love the other.