Fifty years ago to-day, 22 November 1963, C. S. Lewis (born 1898) & Aldous Huxley (born 1894) both died. The lamentations for the passing of these two literary titans were somewhat muted due to the magpie nature of men's minds; elsewhere on the same day, something shinier had happened & captured all the world's attention. Lewis was most famous for his heptalogy of children's high fantasy novels, The Chronicles of Narnia; Huxley was best known for his dystopian masterpiece, Brave New World. I read most though not all of the Narnia novels as a boy; as an adult I've read The Screwtape Letters & I wish to read more of Lewis's apologetics, such as Mere Christianity & God in the Dock. Despite enjoying (by which I mean being profoundly terrified by) Brave New World, I've never felt the least inclination to read anything else by Huxley; this is likely at least partially a product of my contempt for the intellectual deficiency ('tis indulgence in laziness & hucksterism) of seeking the divine through the use of mind-altering drugs. Aldous Huxley & C. S. Lewis perished, fifty years ago to the day.
Requiescat in pace.
Project GLOWWORM
I prepared & scheduled for robotic publication today's R.B.D.S.O.T.D. post last night, before I retired, knowing that this morning I would be harried & rushed to leave the house. When I awoke & dressed, I was confronted with the coincidence that with the pirate shanty "Shiver Me Timbers" as the R.B.D.S.O.T.D. & the commentary to same making mention of the forthcoming television series Black Sails, supposedly a prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale of pirates & buried treasure, Treasure Island, that to-day's boxer shorts should be one of the three pairs I own featuring a skull & crossbones pattern. I leave ye with the words of plain, simple Garak, "I believe in coincidence. Coincidences happen every day. But I don't trust coincidence."
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