Music of the Day: Mark Knopfler, Back to Tupelo

I see a cobalt sky with just the slightest touch of pink, the temperature is about 80 degrees, and there’s a slight breeze blowing (or is that the little electric fan we keep in the ranch house?)—a stomp-down beautiful evening. MLB is collapsed, literally, in one of the library recliners, Max the Wonder Dog is semi-comatose next to the lateral file, and I have a snoot-full of decent wine—to be more specific, it’s a Gewurztraminer, which means for those of you who have forgotten your high school German, “A snoot-full of decent wine.”

I am surrounded by beauty and erudition; on my immediate left is a copy of Bill Bryson’s wonderful book entitled A Short History of Nearly Everything (which is a must-read if you have any interest at all in anything remotely scientific); the headphones are now full of Poncho Sanchez’s tune Conmigo; the aforementioned Gewurz-its-name is rattling around in my skull, and MLB, her own beautiful self, is reading Nora Ephron. Other good books are at hand, including Dr. Richard Mitchell’s The Graves of Academe—see the link for The Underground Grammarian to find all of Dr. Mitchell’s (RIP) works, which you should download and read this weekend if you wish to think of yourself as a truly educated human being.

Surely there are weighty issues, political and otherwise, that could be, or should be, addressed here—the candidates for president, their gyrations and maneuvers; the price of oil; baseball statistics; Wimbledon results; yesterday’s place in American history (the invasion of South Korea by the North Koreans in 1950 and the thousands of Americans who gave their lives in defense of that tiny country that is still threatened by its communist neighbor to the north); and, of course, the impending actor’s strike.

But the evening is too nice, the colors are too vibrant, the air is too cool and sweet, the wine is too German (a sweet 2005 vintage), and the music is too good to ruminate and brood about all of that stuff—another day. Right now, I want to enjoy the buzz and the nearby babe (MLB!) and the books and the beast (Max!) and to hell with the rest of that other stuff.

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM’S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.

Any and all typos, grammatical errors, and the like are the fault of the Germans who produced the wine.