Zip. There went another day. And another day may disappear if I'm not careful. Not yet.

* # & ? !

Well, not quite. Yesterday I didn't get near my electronic servants/masters. I spent the day, long overdue, with my son, Matthew. I went to his place and talked to his counsellor, whom I also had seen rather intermittently over the past few months. I missed her birthday because she was too busy at the time but I continued a tradition I began a few years ago: taking her to lunch and treating her to a book of her choice, after she has browsed (for a long time!). So, after our discussion - about air conditioning, of which more anon - we went to a great burger and shake place for two sliders each. And then Matt and I went to WalMart to see if we could find a room air conditioner because the one in their window is not working and if anyone has noticed, it has been very hot recently, so it would be nice if they could cool off a little.

We didn't find what we needed (I don't know what we needed), but it took a while and then it took a while to get home and it was hot but I got online to find out more about air conditioners. I still don't understand. I made a light supper for us (after those sliders for lunch) and we watched a movie-on-demand. I don't use Netflix because if I had it I would do nothing but watch movies so I pay for one at a time - to guarantee fewer.

And there went the day, and today the same, except I managed to put in a couple of hours at - guess what-- my long-suffering screenplay before Matt came for us to go to a movie - his treat, thanks to a gift coupon he received for his birthday. We went to Incredibles 2 and it was very funny. So them we went home and I was feeling kind of dizzy and a nice woman on the subway train took one look at my face and gave me her seat and she was younger than I. I had a short nap and then we made dinner. I say we because Matt works the Spiralizer for me and made a pile of Zoodles. We had Zoodles and shrimp with basil-garlic pesto I made with basil from my balcony garden. And then we re-watched the on-demand movie we watched last night, to get the story straight (it was Murder on the Orient Express) while i multi-tasked and finished going through half a dozen TLSes, clipping and making notes. (Sill more work to do with follow-ups).

And it's the end of the day and tomorrow is another one. I'm going to try to finish that screenplay - again - in the coming week. And several blogs.

Please, hang in there.

Now I will focus on Kahlil Gibran (1863--1931). He came through Elis Island twice, the first time, very young. At school his teacher changed the spelling of his name from Khalil to Kahlil, and he liked it and used it as an adult. When he was 15, he went back to Lebanon (still part of the Ottoman Empire when he was born) for further schooling (hence twice through Ellis Island). He is best known for his book The Prophet (1923) and he is one of the best-selling poets in the world, behind Shakespeare and Laozi. This is all thanks to Wikipedia. I never knew any of this until this week.

The Times Literary Supplement offers a review of a "reverent biography" by a cousin who was named after him, and another relative, Jean Gibran (probably male). The TLS reviewer (Phil Baker) describes Gibran's writing as "sententious pseudo-wisdom (running) the gamut from the spurious...to the totally meaningless." He concludes that most of Gibran's writing "remains a touchstone of hokiness", while conceding that "it is still possible that Gibran was a woeful stylist but a good and sincere man".

I was 17 when I picked up The Prophet in a friend's house where her parents were having a coffee party for her, or something - certainly not wine. I started reading casually and then went back and began at the beginning, and loved it. It wasn't on any college courses I was taking. In any case, that wouldn't have taught me much more than the attention I was giving it. Academia was going through a phase then of studying the work, not the writer. The New Criticism was enthusiastic about William Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity. (You can look it up.) I was half way through my research on my Master's thesis subject, W.H. Auden, before I learned that he was gay. Homosexuality was still against the law, of course, but my thesis advisor was probably too embarrassed to mention it to his tender young student. I was still only 20. He never did mention it. I was invited to give a preliminary report on my progress to the English Club and it came up in the course of discussion that my hero was queer. For that matter,I didn't learn until I read his obituary that Auden and I shared the same birth date - not the year but the day.

For us in those days, it was the creation, not the creator. I didn't know anything about Aldous Huxley until I read a "definitive" biography last year, but I had read all his novels. i guess it has made me a very attentive reader.

But not that attentive. I really liked Gibran, that is, The Prophet. I still do. I've quoted him several times in my blogs. Well, we go on learning. I still like The Prophet, but I'll be more discrete (sic, in case you didn't know).