Also, I've been too blabby and opinionated.

No such thing!

My view -- and I won't apply it to Lewis because I haven't read his work -- is that I won't let incidental examples of the views of an age spoil my enjoyment of something. For example, I won't turn against a 1930s movie just because the only black character is a maid or the porter on a train. Now, if the character's part involves being a living embodiment of racist stereotypes, it's a very different story.

What he said. Except I can even get past characters being living embodiments of stereotypes, sometimes, depending.

My cafeteria lunch had yummy yummy Yukon Gold mashed potatoes and I am NOT going to eat any more of my much too generous serving.

Who's the standard of our age? (Note: If it's Antonin Scalia -- and you could probably raise at least a half-sound argument that it is --

Hope not. For one thing, I hope my age is not characterized by pointless crabbiness.

In ballpark news, the Red Sox game is under way. In the introduction of the players, all the Yankees got booed as expected, except Mariano Rivera, who got cheered wildly for giving up the hits that let us win last week. He laughed about it, tipped his cap.

I have skipped lunch. This is assuredly a mistake. What lunch can be achieved at 3pm, I wonder?

In ballpark news, the Red Sox game is under way. In the introduction of the players, all the Yankees got booed as expected, except Mariano Rivera, who got cheered wildly for giving up the hits that let us win last week. He laughed about it, tipped his cap.

That reminds me, the game is on tv here, so I need to get out of work sharp so I can catch the end of it.

I won't let incidental examples of the views of an age spoil my enjoyment of something.

I think it's a complicated issue. For me, much depends on what kind of "view" it reveals (I'm more forgiving of sexism in the 1930s than anti-semitism or fascism, for example). And what kind of writing it is. It's easier for me to pin a label onto a work of art than onto the artist who created it, unless that artist has made it abundantly clear in his/her personal and polemical writings that he/she shared that worldview.

That is one of the reasons why Wrigley Field is so beloved, DXM--they've done an excellent job of keeping the advertising to a bare minimum.

Oh, Fenway is pretty much the same. They make their money by charging outrageous prices for standing room "seats." Shea is one of the loud stadiums,not helped by the fact that it's directly under one of the flight paths out of LaGuardia.

This does make me wonder who exactly will be looked upon as the standard of our age, centuries hence. I'm thinking Ghandi and the various WWII leaders had more impact on the actual flow of events than anyone else... but I wonder if individuals who are actively worshipped as gods will end up having longer-lived recognition. (Elvis is the only major Western figure of the 20th century I know of who has such a cult springing up, though I'm woefully ignorant of other cultures that have deified historical personalities.)

I hope my age is not characterized by pointless crabbiness.

Hey, my youth was, why should my decrepitude be any different?

Yeah, don't get me started on how cool smoking is with all the fun stuff and business to do. Except it only gives you something to do with your hands in the privacy of your own home anymore -- at least where I live, you can't smoke inside anywhere else.

Every third improv scene on earth has someone smoking and probably for these very reasons.

When I was a kid, I got these fake cigarettes from some mail-order novelty shop. They had red foil on the tips, so in the right light and from a distance it really looked like you had a lit cigarette.

ION:

My name is tommyrot and I have an addiction. An addiction to Jelly Belly Raspberries and Blackberries. They're sorta like regular Jelly Bellys, but instead of a hard shell they have many tiny jimmy-like dots on the outside (making them look sorta' like berries). So nummy, and rather expensive. Saturday I took a train to downtown Chicago just so I could go to Neiman-Marcus and buy some.