Ring

I had a very...interesting night.  Couldn't sleep, then went to bed, felt low blood sugar, snacked, went to bed, woke up again...same...then woke up at nine.  Oi.  Not a lot of quality sleep.  In the meantime, I discovered that as always, the heat plays a trick with my back, and it is a little sore...not sure why, but it is.  Argh.  But here we are...sort of made it, I guess.  I did crack and put the AC on, which sort of helps.

I am reading Ring Lardner's Stories and Other Writings; I saw it in the WSJ a few weeks ago, and it is next up on the reading list.  I like it...I mean, it is interesting and sort of wry, but I can see no one reads him anymore, as it is terribly dated.  I mean, a lot of the characters he uses -- the stock and naive bumpkin -- we just don't have anymore, and some of the plot twists and the list -- baseball players cajoling for money -- really would be incomprehensible to the modern reader.  This is sort of a shame, as he does give a good sense of the era and of the life of ballplayers and sports figures in general in the day.  But such is the nature of things...