Day #4 of the 30 Day Book Challenge

I'm skipping days. Sort of scaling back my computer usage and internet posting. Also switching up the meme. Changing categories etc.

The prompt for Day 4 is:

A fictional novel about politics or features a political theme

[I'm making it harder - non-fictional novels about politics are easy, but finding fictional ones is somewhat harder, I think.]

Advise and Consent by Allen Drury - which I read my senior year of high school for an American Government course.

I think I also saw the film, but I remember the book slightly better.

Advise and Consent is a 1959 political fiction novel by Allen Drury that explores the United States Senate confirmation of controversial Secretary of State nominee Robert Leffingwell, whose promotion is endangered due to growing evidence—explored in the novel—that the nominee was a member of the Communist Party. The chief characters' responses to the evidence, and their efforts to spread or suppress it, form the basis of the novel.

It was adapted into a film in the 1960s. And won the Pulitzer Prize.

Watch on YouTube

My mother read the book when she was in high school and college, and was deeply affected by it. So persuaded me to read it - I read her copy. It wasn't the first one or the last she'd recommend.

30 Days of Halloween - last day

Pick a Horror Novel or Film from the Decade You Were Born

Watch on YouTube

This is actually the version of Turn of the Screw that I read in High School - I read the adaptation written by Truman Capote and William Archibald. (I've never made it through a novel by Henry James. I think I agree with Mark Twain - who sunk the "Henry James" in Huckleberry Finn. Of course it could be a mood thing?)

I also saw the film. It's a creepy psychological horror story - similar to the Haunting of Hill House, which may explain why they chose to do a television adaptation of it. Although the original is better - in that it doesn't romanticize the ghosts, nor does complicate it. It's simpler.

(no subject)

The day is gloomy, with rain pattering in the distance. Birds tweeting here and there, and the leaves slowly drifting from green to red.

Wandered around the cemetery on Friday and Saturday evenings - the last time I could in the early evenings from roughly 4pm to 6pm. Starting today, it will close at 5pm each night. Since it's usually dark at 5 anyhow, now, this is not an issue. It's a bit controversial - thirty states want to make Daylight Savings Time Permanent and not to Fall Back, another group of States, have never practiced Daylight Savings Time, and still another want to stick with what we currently have.

Friday was quieter, although I got rained on. It was beautiful and sunny, one moment and rainy the next. Cold. In the forties. Yesterday, it was just plain beautiful - with a crystal blue sky and hardly any clouds. I paused for a bit, next to a tree overlooking one of the turtle ponds.



Halloween costumes aplenty. And various people socializing in various areas. I saw a group of young women sipping wine and chatting on a blanket amid the grave stones.

I circumvented most of the activities, since social distancing wasn't readily apparent. But I did wave to my neighbors. And in a way it was a relief to see the masked trick-or-treators, the candy being handed out on the sidewalks, and Halloween decorations. On one block they had a large skeleton on stilts they were carrying about, with music playing.



The New York Times, apparently, felt guilty about all those articles attempting to scare the hell out of me - so posted Election Distractor. It's basically a collage of calming videos and informational shorts about space, the undersea world, etc. Lots of videos. Kind of cool actually - the New York Times is finding new and innovative ways of justifying my continued subscription.

I've decided to ignore the news for the next four days. I'm taking a break from things for a bit. The internet, the election, all of it. Just for a little bit.

So here's a bunch of photos I took during my walk yesterday...instead.

( photos )