Listening to Mark Twain at the gym. His earlier works are full of humor, though not lacking in a certain satirical edge. And his grasp of human psychology is amazing. His last work, The Mysterious Stranger, becomes practically un-listenable-to. Deeply bitter, and more than contemptuous of humanity. Sad to see his genius put to such use.
As much as I enjoy watching X-Files reruns, it can be such ham-fisted bullshit. Chris Carter's scripts sometimes sound like parodies of Chris Carter scripts. (A few of them actually are.) But the made-up untruths about matters of history and fact, some of which must be consciously insulting even by reason of carelessness, sometimes make the seriousness of the storyline pretty silly. And I'm not talking about the aliens, etc.
Had a very enjoyable day with Mr B yesterday. A trip out to the Marin shore, dinner at what he calls The Free Cake Cafe --cause I had the staff surprise him with a birthday cake there several years ago-- and the various pleasures of his company. He is the most congenitally genial and sunny man I have ever met. I do a lot of laughing and smiling when he's around.
Overheard a conversation at the table behind me in the coffee shop. One guy, with an Arab background I think, complaining to another guy about someone in his family back in the old country who was going to marry a cousin. He found it embarrassingly barbaric. The speaker, it turns out, was a gay man...married to another man.
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