A Progressive on the Prairie

Minor difficulties with trying to update the look of the site lead in large part to relatively lengthy marginalia. I think those issues are largely resolve now, though, and hope to change the site’s appearance in the immediate future.

• Maud Newton has a nice post by Marie Mockett about my favorite bookstore in the world. Each individual and family trip to San Francisco has always had several hours consumed wandering around Green Apple Books, falling even more in love with the creaky floors and unbelievable variety of new and used books. I proudly own a Green Apple hat and the Chinese and other Asian restaurants in the immediate vicinity certainly rival those in Chinatown (and without all the tourists). Like Marie, if anything ever happened to the store it would be a “personal book apocalypse.” In fact, I may need to head back to San Francisco just to get a Green Apple fix.
• For whatever reason, I didn’t realize until late Wednesday that it was the 36th anniversary of the Concert for Bangladesh, what is probably the godfather of the variety of benefit and cause concerts we’ve seen the last several years. Although, like All Things Must Pass, the three-LP box set was kind of pricey for a teenager, I picked it up as soon as it was released and have even a more vivid recollection of sitting in my hometown theater late in 1972 watching the film on the big screen.
• While I’ve always been intrigued by apocalyptic movements and fiction, I’m starting to lean toward Robert McHenry’s assessment: “As my brain-cell count declines gracefully toward the minimum needed to remember to take the next breath, I’m thinking it’s high time to start conserving my mental energies by limiting how much I worry about things.”
• The LA Times religion reporter describes his loss of faith. (Via.) He was also interviewed by NPR last week on the subject.
• Speaking of NPR interviews, anyone who writes should listen to last s interview with Annie Dillard. An example: her latest book, The Maytrees, clocks in at 216 pages “with lots of void space around the margins.” At one point, it was at 1,200 pages.
• In the event you haven’t seen it, Rolling Stone promotes a piece on “The Ethanol Scam” on the cover of its latest issue. The article, written by contributing editor Jeff Goodell, asserts that “the whole point of corn ethanol is not to solve America’s energy crisis, but to generate one of the great political boondoggles of our time.”
• Reinforcing my decision to add An Angry Dakota Democrat to the blogroll: Brent opines on hockey v. other pro sports. You gotta like a guy that thinks hockey is as important as politics!

“Bangladesh,” George Harrison