Ĉi tiu afiŝo temas pri libroj. Eble pri basbalo. Eble pri katoj. Mi supozas, ke katoj estas neeviteblaj.

(Fun Fact: Not gibberish.)

Someone suggested I have stopped writing about baseball here because I haven’t been writing much baseball on here. (Not sure if they were disappointed or relieved.)

And anyway, not true. Look …

Pete!

Fun Fact: Pete Alonso became the first player in baseball history to lead both the National and American Leagues in RBIs, doing it with the New York Mets in 2022 (131) and the Baltimore Orioles in 2026 (113). He also led the American League with 43 home runs this season.

More Fun. More Facts: The World Series, which opens tonight in Milwaukee, will include eight former Baltimore Orioles on the Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays rosters. Five for Tampa Bay, three for Milwaukee.

Go O’s

But no, I don’t always write about baseball.

You know, The New York Times doesn’t just write about New York.

TIME magazine doesn’t always write about watches.

But when it does, it sometimes mentions a cow that swallowed a watch.

I don’t think Rolling Stone has written a single thing about geology.

* * *

If you took all the nouns and verbs ever written, put them in 12-point type, and laid them end to end with proper spacing, do you know how long that line of words would be? Me neither.

* * *

Looks At Books.

It was brought to my attention – by me – that my well-above-my-paygrade mention of Thomas Pynchon in my last post felt a little … um … highbrow, and I don’t want to give the wrong impression.

(Fun Fact: Did you know that reclusive Pynchon appeared not once, but twice, on The Simpsons?)

There. Securely deposited back into my proper place.

I finished Shadow Ticket, but grudgingly.

(Fun Fact: Gravity’s Rainbow. Allegedly not about rainbows.)

I’ll be honest. I’m not reading Pynchon every day.

Look! Yeats!

A speckled cat and a tame hare

Eat at my hearthstone

And sleep there;

And both look up to me alone

For learning and defence

As I look up to Providence

(Fun Fact: No cat has ever looked up to anyone for learning. They know. They already know.)

So Many Poems

I desperately want to be erudite. Failing that I just want to use it in a sentence. Done!

Enheduanna

(Fun Fact: Enheduanna, a Sumerian high priestess from around 2300BC, is thought to be the first named poet.)

(The Fun Never Stops Fact: I actually wrote about Enheduanna before on here. She is credited with being the first to write about “writer’s block.” But, if she wrote about writer’s block, doesn’t that mean she didn’t have writer’s block?)

(Not Done Yet Fact: Enheduanna was writing some 1,600 years before Homer came up with The Odyssey, which became a three-hour Matt Damon blockbuster this summer. In sum, Homer likely gets an Oscar but no one bothers to remember Enheduanna. I see.)

(Not Quite A Fact Yet: Maybe I should change the name of this site to The Enheduanna Bloggess.)

Speaking In Tongues

Sometimes the best book is a free book. I don’t mean the one that someone loaned you and you failed to return. (You know who you are.)

I mean the one you find at the “share shed” at your county’s transfer station (previously known as the dump).

This book, which contains an entire new language within its 368 pages, was supposed to provide a complete roadmap to Esperanto, a language that all the world could learn together.

All the world could learn together. Someone actually thought that.

And that is precisely what Old Testament God was trying to make sure didn’t happen. So if you’re wondering why you never learned Esperanto in high school, blame God.

But Google will translate Esperanto for you.

Do eble ne ĉio estas perdita.

(Admit it, you’re learning a lot from me today.)

Erudite Alert!

Editor/Husband paid just $2 for this 700-page book at our local library sale.

Editor/Husband will now share a brief, but fun, fact he has learned from this 700-page book:

In 1782 Founding Father Gouverneur Morris proposed to the Continental Congress that U.S. coins be called, in ascending order, unit, penny-bill, dollar, and crown. Later Morris invented the word “cent.”  

Morris also gave currency to the term “to eventuate.”

I’m only on page 124. 

(See. More learning.)

Things I Read While Editor/Husband Reads Important Things

(Fun Fact: Elvis Costello wrote an enormous and delightful 59-page essay as part of his new five CD-box set celebrating the 49th Anniversary of his album My Aim Is True.)

(This Fact Is Also True: You can stream the entire five-disk set online. But you’d miss out on these liner notes. Don’t be a misser-outer.)

(Fun Fact: Frank O’Hara really did write many of these poems during his lunch breaks.)

Found this on my desk the other day. Warning me about something in really tiny letters and in many really tiny languages. Too tiny to read. Hope everything’s ok.

Oh, Cats.

Book. Cat.

Excellent Book. Actually two cats.

Book. Cat.

Good book, but not as good as the other one.

Alright. Baseball.

If you haven’t read The Bronx is Burning by Jonathan Mahler, then you really haven’t experienced the true wild spirit of baseball in noun-and-verb format.

I’m no Yankees fan. Need proof? Just google “Jeffrey Maier.”

(Esperanto Fun Fact: La Yankees aĉas.)

But, if you’re going to write a book about New York City on the verge of exploding in 1977, it’s only fair to star Reggie Jackson, Billy Martin, and George Steinbrenner in much of it.

I just discovered I like this book so much I have two copies.

I hate to say that a book about a city teetering on the brink of destruction is a fun read. So I won’t. But I won’t not say it either.

* * *

I’ve read a lot of words in my day. I’m guessing you have, too.

Look! You just read six more.