Tuesday

[nightdog_barks]

Warm and uncomfortably steamy -- 89 degrees (31.7 Celsius), feels as if it's 97. At least slept a bit better -- took a couple of ibuprofen and that seemed to help a lot.

Many things to do today. Mr. N is off to Atlanta this weekend. Finished reading Pearl Buck in China and am about to start The Coroner's Lunch, by Colin Cotterill. Set in 1970s Laos, the protagonist is a doctor/coroner detective named Siri Paiboun.

More news and speculation has surfaced about the so-called Crosby-Garrett Roman parade helmet -- namely, that it may not have been found in Britain after all. There are many unanswered questions, laid out in this fascinating blog entry by archaeologist Paul Barford (via The History Blog). Interesting stuff!

Comments

[hannah]

One thing I like about this collection are the essays he wrote about the nature of writing short stories, and the craft of writing in general. There's a couple of great anecdotes about how outside influences affect works in progress, like being called by someone asking for a person who wasn't there, and Carver writing in a person with the asked-for name into the story because he realized that person needed to be in the story. I know I'm not the only person who writes something and then realizes of course that had to be there, but seeing someone else describe that moment of discovery rang very true.