Did you hear the one about S. Gregory?

Went to the rodeo today. I saw the cowgirls lined up on the fence. No, not really, just listening to ‘Harvest Moon’ (album) and they are some lyrics from it. I’d really much rather be here listening to beautiful acoustical sonics from the lovably daggy, Muppet-voiced Neil Young than at a rodeo, actually. I don’t even know for sure what a rodeo is. Is it where people ride bulls that wish not to be ridden and try not to get knocked off the bulls and whomever stays on a bull for the longest wins a trophy? Anyway, all the dust raised would get into my CD player or if I had an iPod.

I’ve had a fairly unproductive time this week due to depression. My last few posts fairly reflect my ignoble state of mind. Suffice to say that I am feeling okay at the moment, thankfully. Hope, hope, will I always live merely in hope? But let’s not dwell on that – it’s depressing. Also, it is boring.

But what IS boredom? One person’s thrill is often another person’s tedium. I’m going to brew up a cup of Irish Breakfast tea. (Seriously, I really did feel like one before I thought up that boredom question.) (Lovable dag?)

Last Tuesday, I procured a copy of ‘The Ingenious Hidalgo, Don Quixote de la Mancha’. The reason why the title is only partly translated into English is because ‘Penguin Books’ wanted to be a little pretentious but not a lot. This suits me because I only want to be a little pretentious and not a lot. I’ll only loudly pontificate about how superior my taste in literature is at HALF as many cafés as I would reading any other great classical tome while slurppping my semi-caff wheat-germ officially-licensed designed-in-Sweden/ made-in-out-the-back-amongst-the-saliva-drenched-dishes latté.

Seriously, though, this recent new-translation (already revised for this 2003 edition) by John Rutherford seems excellent. Apparently, whereas it had often been translated into English as a sombre tragedy which the author never intended it to be, Rutherford turns ‘Don Quixote’ back into the often hilarious tragicomic book it is in Cervantes’ original Spanish. That is why I have chosen this translation to read, and read it soon I shall begin to. (…and he gallantly and unpretentiously ends his sentence upon a supposition!)

I am currently reading ‘The Sun Also Rises’ by Ernest Hemingway. It’s a smart-assy kind of book but simple (not simplistic), and apparently quite revolutionary back in 1926 in its prose style. So far along, Ernest is seemingly being coy about the lead male World War I veteran character’s missing genitals. Was this just produce of the prudishness of the times?

Am also finishing reading 1933’s ‘The Private Life Of Charlie Chaplin’ by Caryle T. Robinson, Chaplin’s press representative from 1917 –1932. Interesting piece about the great man’s love-affairs but not enough descriptive hardcore fucking action. I mean, for ME, that is – Shantoozy’s asleep and that’s why I have to read books, hee-hee.

If only I could obtain some of that home-porn that Chaplin supposedly made. I’m serious, I would love to see that stuff. I think that, deep down, any fan would like to sneak a dirty peek, even the most conservative or prudish. I wonder if any of the footage features his third wife, Paulette, the sexiest screen star of her era, in my opinion...