Daily Thoughts 1/7/2009

Café Griensteidl in Vienna, printing by Reinhold Völkel, 1896

Daily Thoughts 1/7/2009

Today is a day for departmental reports for the month. It is my turn to write the one for this month. We try to keep our reports to a single page.

I also had some time to look at reviews. There is a forthcoming book which seems interesting, You Are Not A Gadget A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier which looks interesting.

I've been looking at more local authors; Jean Craighead George lives in Westchester county. There is also a new label for the religious fiction.

I am almost finished reading In The First Circle. There is one chapter that stands out among all the chapters called The Buddha's Smile on page 420. It is the story of a visit by Eleanor Roosevelt to a Russian prison. The guards rush in and change everything before her visit. Then when it is all over all is left from Eleanor Roosevelt's visit is a small statue of the smiling buddha. It has a very zen feeling to it. There are minor touches of mysticism throughout the book. A painter is painting a picture of the castle of the holy grail, some mathematicians are called rosicrucians. Even the material on the Russian orthodox church has an aura to it. It is sad in a kind of lilting way.