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Ken Lacroix's avatar

What an informative and entertaining dissertation. I'm hoping death will be seducing someone and somewhere else today. There is some heavy reflections here. How old are your daughters?

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Rebecca Gordon's avatar

The best quip ever: I'm hoping death will be seducing someone and somewhere else today. That made me laugh. Well done. Not today!

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Rebecca Gordon's avatar

They're 8.5. You're right. It's heavy. I'm sorry! 🙈 I'm also a cancer survivor, so spiritually accepting my mortality is part of what came out of that experience. Did you have a nice family vacation? What are you reading now?

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Ken Lacroix's avatar

Vacation was fabulous but short. Finishing Cursed Bunny, a short story collection, by Bora Chung in about an hour, then starting Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich. On an audiobook, I've finally started Don Quixote by Cervantes. That one is keeping me company on my walks! 🚶‍♂️‍➡️What are you reading?

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Rebecca Gordon's avatar

Sounds good. Are you enjoying Don Quixote? I've never read it, but I know the story. Sounds funny. I am reading The Garden of Evening Mists by Eng and The Secret Scripture by Barry. Have a huge TBR pile, and my bibliomania has been acting up, thanks to the Booker group. I wish I could listen to literary fiction. I like visual reading in order to go at my own pace and attend/process fully. I listened to Walden by Thoreau on walks once, which was wonderful.

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Ken Lacroix's avatar

I really like both Eng and Barry as storytellers and enjoyed both of those novels. Don Quixote is very good so far but I still have 800 pages to go. lol Enjoy.

p.s. Are you OK now? A cancer scare takes its toll.

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Rebecca Gordon's avatar

I've been in remission for 4 years. Thanks for asking. :-)

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Ken Lacroix's avatar

Good to hear. Be well.

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Rebecca Gordon's avatar

And re-reading A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki.

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Cecile De Forest's avatar

I absolutely loved this post. Will return to listen to the rest of the music you included later.

My two middle school girls finished The Graveyard Book last Thursday. Margaret Atwood writes an excellent forward in the newest edition. Neil Gaiman writes one chapter entitled Danse Macabre. Very fitting to your post and if I thought my girls would understand it, I would share it with them.

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Rebecca Gordon's avatar

Thank you, Cecile!

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Rebecca Gordon's avatar

I've never read The Graveyard Book. Can't wait to read it with my daughters when they're old enough! I wonder how the motif of the danse macabre shows up there and if it's doing something different than I've tried to articulate.

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Cecile De Forest's avatar

It’s similar. I sent it to my granddaughter along with two others and she put the book down for later. Murder on page one.

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Kerry Muir's avatar

Your girls are a hell of a lot smarter than me. I got totally lost in amongst all of that. 😵‍💫

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Rebecca Gordon's avatar

Oh, no! Did you listen to the first song? I think listening to the song "Paris is Burning" and watching the second video I embedded may help. It may not be for casual reading. Maybe it's stream of consciousness. Sorry it was hard to follow!

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Kenny Miller's avatar

How does a person go about commenting on such a magnificent piece of writing? One reading certainly isn’t enough, maybe a dozen won’t be either. Your article (?) has so much in it that I want to learn so much about that I don’t even know where to begin.

I said article (?) because that term comes nowhere near to capturing it’s weight, its value, it’s extraordinaryness. Maybe I’ll add it to my TBR and read it everyday for a while, then maybe, just maybe…

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Rebecca Gordon's avatar

Thank you, Kenny! It's a relief to know it wasn't just daft, indulgent ranting to everyone.

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Kerry Muir's avatar

I certainly didn’t think anything like that. I’m just totally in awe of your intellect! 🥰

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Rebecca Gordon's avatar

Oh, thank you very much. That's too kind!

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Kenny Miller's avatar

There was not one single daft or indulgent thing about it!

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Cecile De Forest's avatar

I listened to the first two.

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