The Explorers Club
No. CXCIII - Fritz Duquesne (1877-1956), Part I: The Second Boer War & "the Man who Killed Kitchener."







He's Dead, Jim
After mowing the lawn on Friday & schlepping up & down the grounds of the Renaissance Festival all afternoon on Saturday without experiencing any ill effects, I am declaring my feet fully recovered from Objective FINNLAND. I won't have the chance to put them to the test at a ska show for almost another month, though, alas.

The week before last, I went to the optometrist for the first time since 2001 (according to their records, since I didn't remember precisely, instead saying "about ten years"). Given that nine years have passed, my eyes have changed rather little. The vision in my left eye is almost perfect, farsighted only ever so slightly. My right eye, by contrast, is nearsighted, and slightly more so. I've had prescription spectacles since I was perhaps twelve or thirteen, but have never in my life had to wear them with any regularity. I get by just fine on the strength of "Lefty," and that's not just my opinion: the State of Michigan does not require me to wear corrective lenses while operating a motorcar. But I do have spectacles & I have long believed that it is only a matter of time before I must join the rest of my immediate family (both of my parents & both of my siblings) in needing to wear spectacles in everyday life. I am acquiring a new pair of spectacles, in part to acclimate myself to them for the future. I almost never wore my old spectacles in part because I never liked the frames (which predated that last appointment in 2001) & in part because, as the years passed, their out-of-date prescription defeated the corrective purpose of the lenses. Experimentation will begin once my new frames & lenses are prepared.

The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
The Hold Steady, "Girls Like Status" from Boys and Girls in America (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: Note to self: Acquire status, Project PANDORA's success may well depend on the success of Project EPIMETHEUS.

Sonntag, 26 September
Less Than Jake, "We, the Uninspired" from the Absolution for Idiots and Addicts E.P. (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: "World is for the living not the dead."