Kith & Kin
My father has recently started watching Grimm, a show I've followed since its premiere in the fall. I would love to be a big enough man not to be irked by this, but watching a show with my father is a grueling experience. He makes unfunny jokes about the on-screen action, jokes at which he laughs loudly, & with a disturbing frequency he misses key plot points & asks me to explain them to him. This isn't necessarily the encroachment of senility—he claims to "zone out," a plausible explanation given his "absentminded professor" persona—, but if he wants us to watch a show together is it really too much to ask that he pay a modicum of attention? Most irritating of all, he always refers to the protagonist, Detective Nick Burckhardt, as "Grimm." This is not necessarily inaccurate, as Nick is a Grimm, & the only living Grimm of whom we are currently aware within the universe of the show, but there is something in the way my dad uses Grimm as the character's name that reminds me of an old bit in which Homer Simpson referred to John McClane, Bruce Willis's character from the Die Hard film franchise, as "Die Hard."

I am well aware of the blessed nature of my life that such a trifling annoyance is one of my bigger vexations. I grouse in part as a way to remind myself of how fortunate I truly am.

The Queue
To blazes with David Ignatius & Body of Lies! The governing principle of my reading selections is "so many books, so little time;" I have not the time to waste on such as that dreck. Bring on City of Gold by Len Deighton!

Also, the other night I caught the motion picture The Man Who Would Be King on Turner Classic Movies, thus prompting the swift rise of The Man who would be King and Other Stories to near the top of the queue. I enjoyed Kim immensely & the time has come to experience more of Kipling's prose.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Senator & The New Republic, "Intermission" via iTunes, (free) Single of the Week (T.L.A.M.)