Isolated Blurt Thread

[_Lynn_]

Look after yourself and tread very carefully until the medics have sorted you out.

x 3

I would have used the heart smilie, but that didn't seem appropriate until your heart is ready to smile again.

Og

Thanks, Og. I don't think I'll do anything for a while, other than write.

 

[JWren]

Thanks, Og. I don't think I'll do anything for a while, other than write.

Ditto sentiments from HP and Og . . . Health is ALL important. Take care

 

[trysail]

http://www.loa.org/images/volumecovers/153x195/1598533088.jpg

http://www.loa.org/volume.jsp?RequestID=407


​

In 1936, at the age of fifty-five, H. L. Mencken published a reminiscence of his Baltimore boyhood in The New Yorker. With this modest beginning, Mencken embarked on what would become the Days trilogy, a long and magnificent adventure in autobiography by America’s greatest journalist. Finding it “always agreeable to ponder upon the adventures of childhood” (as he wrote in his diary), Mencken created more of these masterful novelistic evocations of a bygone era, eventually collected in Happy Days (1940). The book was an immediate critical and popular success, surprising many of its readers with its glimpses of a less curmudgeonly Mencken.

Urged by New Yorker editor Harold Ross to send yet more pieces, Mencken moved on from his childhood to revisit the beginnings of his legendary career. Newspaper Days (1941) charts the rise of the brilliant, ambitious young newspaperman, in an astonishingly short time, from cub reporter to managing editor of the Baltimore Herald. Among the book’s memorable episodes are the display of Mencken’s “talent for faking” in his invented dispatches of the Battle of Tsushima in the Russo-Japanese War—accounts that largely turned out to be accurate—and his riveting narrative of the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904. “In my day a reporter who took an assignment was wholly on his own until he got back to the office, . . . today he tends to become only a homunculus at the end of a telephone wire.”

The final volume of the published trilogy, Heathen Days (1943), recounts his varied excursions as one of America’s most famous men, and one who, by his own account, “enjoyed himself immensely,” including his bibulous adventures during Prohibition and his reporting of the 1925 Scopes trial over the teaching of evolution.

Until now, however, the story told in Mencken’s beloved Days books has been incomplete. In the 1940s, Mencken began making extensive notes about the published books, commenting on what he had written and adding new material—but stipulating that these writings were not to be made public until twenty-five years after his death. Days Revisited presents more than two hundred pages of this material for the first time. Commentaries are keyed to the main text they gloss with subtle marks in the margin (the volume includes two ribbons to allow readers to flip back to the notes), and they are supplemented by rare photographs, many taken by Mencken himself. Here is Mencken’s classic autobiography as it has never been seen before. - See more at: http://www.loa.org/volume.jsp?RequestID=407#sthash.rKv0muli.dpuf

If you have never read H. L. Mencken's semi-autobiographical "Days" trilogy, you're lucky and I envy you— you've got a treat in store.

Library of America books are lovely. They're beautifully crafted, small enough to be held comfortably in one hand and printed on acid-free paper.

Mencken was the best prose writer of the 20th century. These stories are laced with intelligence, erudition and rollicking humor. There are stories that left me convulsed in laughter when I first encountered them many decades ago.


Table of Contents:

Happy Days 1880–1892
Preface
I.Introduction to the Universe
II.The Caves of Learning
III.Recollections of Academic Orgies
IV.The Baltimore of the Eighties
V.Rural Delights
VI.The Head of the House
VII.Memorials of Gormandizing
VIII.The Training of a Gangster
IX.Cops and Their Ways
X.Larval Stage of a Bookworm
XI.First Steps in Divinity
XII.The Ruin of an Artist
XIII.In the Footsteps of Gutenberg
XIV.From the Records of an Athlete
XV.The Capital of the Republic
XVI.Recreations of a Reactionary
XVII.Brief Gust of Glory
XVIII.The Career of a Philosopher
XIX.Innocence in a Wicked World
XX.Strange Scenes and Far Places 


Newspaper Days 1899–1906
Preface
I.Allegro Con Brio
II.Drill for a Rookie
III.Sergeant’s Stripes
IV.Approach to Lovely Letters
V.Fruits of Diligence
VI.The Gospel of Service
VII.Scent of the Theatre
VIII.Command
IX.Three Managing Editors
X.Slaves of Beauty
XI.The Days of the Giants
XII.The Judicial Arm
XIII.Recollections of Notable Cops
XIV.A Genial Restauranteur
XV.A Girl from Red Lion, P.A.
XVI.Scions of the Bogus Nobility
XVII.Aliens, but Not Yet Enemies
XVIII.The Synthesis of News
XIX.Fire Alarm
XX.Sold Down the River


Heathen Days 1890–1936
Preface
I.Downfall of a Revolutionary [1890]
II.Memoirs of the Stable [1891]
III.Adventures of a Y.M.C.A. Lad [1894]
IV.The Educational Process [1896]
V.Finale to the Rogue’s March [1900]
VI.Notes on Palaeozoic Publicists [1902]
VII.The Tone Art [1903]
VIII.A Master of Gladiators [1907]
IX.A Dip into Statecraft [1912]
X.Court of Honor [1913]
XI.A Roman Holiday [1914]
XII.Winter Voyage [1916]
XIII.Gore in the Caribbees [1917]
XIV.Romantic Intermezzo [1920]
XV.Old Home Day [1922]
XVI.The Noble Experiment [1924]
XVII.Inquisition [1925]
XVIII.Vanishing Act [1934]
XIX.Pilgrimage [1934]
XX.Beaters of Breasts [1936]


Days Revisited: Mencken’s Unpublished Commentary
Preface
Notes on Happy Days
Notes on Newspaper Days
Notes on Heathen Days

Chronology
Note on the Texts
Note on the Illustrations
Notes
Index
 - See more at: http://www.loa.org/volume.jsp?RequestID=407&section=toc#sthash.EWzk6fFI.dpuf

​

 

[sr71plt]

Looking at the Atlantic Ocean from a 7th-floor condo in Ocean City, Maryland, and thinking of what my grandmother from Colorado said the first time we took her to an Atlantic beach, which was, "It's nice, but somehow I expected it to be bigger."

 

[Handley_Page]

Looking at the Atlantic Ocean from a 7th-floor condo in Ocean City, Maryland, and thinking of what my grandmother from Colorado said the first time we took her to an Atlantic beach, which was, "It's nice, but somehow I expected it to be bigger."

Nice one!

 

[_Lynn_]

Ditto sentiments from HP and Og . . . Health is ALL important. Take care

Doing what I can. Thanks.

 

[Handley_Page]

Doing what I can. Thanks.

and very GENTLY please.

 

[_Lynn_]

and very GENTLY please.

That I am, HP.

 

[Handley_Page]

That I am, HP.

And when does Medical science actually DO something about it ?

 

[_Lynn_]

And when does Medical science actually DO something about it ?

As of the latest scans, the aneurysm appears to be stable, so no surgery unless/until it grows or shows other signs of changing.

 

[Handley_Page]

As of the latest scans, the aneurysm appears to be stable, so no surgery unless/until it grows or shows other signs of changing.

And what are you supposed to do; sit on your backside all day waiting for something to happen ?
There are times when I question the Medics . . .

 

[_Lynn_]

And what are you supposed to do; sit on your backside all day waiting for something to happen ?
There are times when I question the Medics . . .

That would drive me crazy.

 

[JWren]

As of the latest scans, the aneurysm appears to be stable, so no surgery unless/until it grows or shows other signs of changing.

Stability is good news, assuming you continue to be monitored regularly. Also, how do you feel? Tired, I guess after the stress.

 

[_Lynn_]

Stability is good news, assuming you continue to be monitored regularly. Also, how do you feel? Tired, I guess after the stress.

I've been sick for over a month so I was already tired. Thus the initial scan which found the AA. An appointment with a specialist and an MRI will hopefully find the cause. Close monitoring of the AA begins with a second specialist.

 

[JWren]

I've been sick for over a month so I was already tired. Thus the initial scan which found the AA. An appointment with a specialist and an MRI will hopefully find the cause. Close monitoring of the AA begins with a second specialist.

It sounds that you're in good hands. Close monitoring should be reassuring at this point. Easy said, I know, but try to be positive

 

[Handley_Page]

I've been sick for over a month so I was already tired. Thus the initial scan which found the AA. An appointment with a specialist and an MRI will hopefully find the cause. Close monitoring of the AA begins with a second specialist.

That's good to hear Madam. Real good.
Erm. . .
How close is "close"?

 

[Hypoxia]

The latest update from the oncologist is good. Whew.

 

[Handley_Page]

The latest update from the oncologist is good. Whew.

Amen to that.
I know that feeling very, very well (I have two years to go)

 

[doctormayhem]

"Bras are awesome. But what's inside them are even awesomer."

 

[Handley_Page]

Waking in the morning is awesome !

 

[JWren]

Waking in the morning is awesome !

Long may it continue

 

[Handley_Page]

Long may it continue

'ere, 'ere.

 

[Hypoxia]

Ah, it's blood test day. A fasting blood test, too, which means no food/drink for 12 hours before. Tis now about 7:30am. My last consumption was 9:30pm, so I must wait TWO FUCKING HOURS before I can have my ginger tea. Gosh darn. And the lab is a one hour drive away, in San Andreas (it's not their Fault). And there's NOTHING worth eating in San Andreas, trust me on that. So, after the vampire session, we'll head for Angel's Camp (of Jumping Frog fame) for a Thai brunch. Yippie Thai-one-on, pardner.

Blood test. Hope I pass.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

Did I mention that I need a new job? I spent the last week getting up at 4:00 in the morning and then getting home around 7:00 in the evening just to go to bed at 9:00 and repeat. Next week I will be at a different site with different people and I can't take this anymore. I need a desk job. I'm surprised I didn't give my two weeks notice yesterday evening before leaving the office. I wouldn't be surprised if I gave it on Monday. I don't have a job lined up but I'm not sure if I care anymore. I can't take much more of this...

 

[Handley_Page]

If anyone ever tells you that they are suffering "Trochantric Bursitis", just sympathise, eh?.
It really is bloody painful.