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Edmund Charles Davis-Quinn

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The Ecq Review

The Best Day, The Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon

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I just finished the beautiful but brutal “The Best Day, The Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon” by Donald Hall. It took me two and a half months.

It’s beautiful to listen to Hall’s love for his wife Jane Kenyon. And absolutely brutal to hear about all the struggles she went through with leukemia.

It just reminded me too much of my dad’s struggles with brain cancer.

Beautiful book, but an incredibly hard read to anyone who has lost someone to cancer.

I much preferred Donald Hall’s sparer book of poems and letters to Jane Kenyon including after death “Without”. That I flew through, this was much, much harder.

***1/2

Pizza

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I was just thinking as I will be driving through NJ tomorrow to visit my mom in Bethlehem, PA and go to Musikfest, that I love NJ pizza.

Maybe it’s because both Rodolfo’s and Alfonso’s were good. Just like Ms. Chow’s and Hunan were good Chinese in Montgomery, NJ.

You don’t realize these things sometimes until you move away.

It’s interesting in the New Haven, CT area. The classic apizza places like Roseland Apizza in Derby or Sally, Pepe’s and Modern (which I still all need to visit) are world class.

But, the average pizza joint around here isn’t that good in Ansonia. It’s kind of odd.

I actually preferred the Maine thin crust pizzas at places like Angelone’s to most of the pizza places here.

Roseland Apizza in Derby is a treat and a trip. Expensive but worth it and there since 1935.

But, I have had some bad slices too. Not Sbarro bad, but not good either.

I do love great pizza though. I can even really enjoy mediocre stuff like Domino’s thin crust. Bread, cheese, tomatoes and toppings are delicious.

What is your favorite pizza place? I would go Roseland Apizza right now.

Taking Classes

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I love to learn new things.

I took a Community Health Worker class at Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport, CT a couple years ago. Very interesting class, but didn’t follow up with it enough for jobs I don’t think.

I have the MBA, and I really haven’t done anything with it.

Considering taking some accounting courses and maybe getting a CPA.

Although the idea doesn’t thrill me, seems more like something that makes sense to do than something that I want to do.

Going to go check out Super Saturday at Housatonic tomorrow (every community college in the state is doing it for admissions).

I don’t think I need another degree so thinking of taking a class or two.

Maybe Intermediate Accounting I if I qualify. I do have a Financial Accounting and I think Managerial Accounting course from the Drucker School. It’s crazy it’s 16 years ago in 2001.

I do wonder if I made the right choice going there. The career services were terrible and I considered places like the Fletcher School and the School of International Studies at Johns Hopkins.

I also have often considered the Ph.D. but the cost-benefit analysis in humanities and social sciences is terrible. Sadly that is often true for STEM majors like Biology and Chemistry too. Even with the supposed demand they often lead to post-docs and not always to university jobs.

It’s crazy how much schools cost too.

I almost wonder if there are other methods than college.

Like dorms or housing that has classes and lectures.

To pay a quarter million dollars for a degree like at Brandeis or Pomona College or Amherst or Yale is just crazy (tuition plus room and board). And that doesn’t even include the lost income.

A lot of academic types live in a nation of debt with student loans and credit cards.

Having $100,000+ in debt is a tough way to start life.

But I keep wondering what’s next. Maybe I just need to make a choice.

I still like the idea of going for an APRN in psychiatry in some ways. Although I am not great with blood so being a nurse might be hard for me. And would be a ton of debt, and an incredibly difficult first year.

What was your best academic choice?
What is the best thing you ever learned in school?

Are you happy with your education?

If it wasn’t for the cost I might have a bunch more degrees, but who knows. I know we can do so much better.

Cleaning Madness

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We haven’t had a guest in a while, I think it’s been months.

It’s good to have them, one because we like being hosts and seeing friends.

Another big one is it forces us to clean.

Unfortunately, when no one visits things tend to accumulate in the guest bedroom. And we don’t change the shower curtain, or clean the tub or big stuff like that.

So still a bunch of stuff to do tomorrow and figuring out where things go.

But at least we got some laundry done, doing some dishes, vacuumed the living room floor, and cleaned the sink, toilet and tub in the bathroom.

It’s definitely a start.

And since we both procrastinate, it takes until the guest is almost here (arriving tomorrow night) until we actually get stuff done.

But we do have a spare bedroom so please come visit. And if we get more visitors things will be kept nicer!

From the NFL to MIT

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I was just watching PTI tonight and heard the story of John Urschel, former center of the Baltimore Raven who retired today to study for a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from MIT.

This makes me very happy.

As does this wonderful piece about the work John Urschel does in the MIT Technolgoy Review.

Although the reason he is leaving the NFL at 26 is very sad.

He’s an incredibly smart man who loves “reading math, doing research, and playing chess”. None of which are expensive. But he’s worried about CTE, a chronic brain disease that affected 110 of 111 brains studied from NFL players in a recent New York Times article.

He loves his brain and his family more than football.

And it makes you wonder about the future of American football.

It can seriously impact the brain to have so many collisions.

I hope for great things for John Urschel.

And I hope we learn more about concussions and how to prevent them. Also the many small injuries that football players and I am sure players in other sports get.

Here is a nice video about him from NFL Films, “The NFL’s Smartest Man.”

And here is a great Real Sports piece about him. I really like this guy. And I am happy he is leaving the head injury dangers of the NFL and going to get his Ph.D. and be a wonderful professor and researcher somewhere.

“I Am Not Your Negro” ****

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Both me and my wife Lanna were blown away by the preview. Thought of paying $5 to rent it but it came free on Amazon Prime.

It started with an idea from James Baldwin for a movie about 3 civil rights leaders who all died in the 1960s in their 30s: Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Medgar Evers. I had no idea they were all so young. All younger than I am now.

The documentary talks a lot about James Baldwin’s very realistic and still literary voice.

I have read some of his essays and they are still strikingly modern even 50 years later.

African American History is American History. As is Native American history, both are shameful. There is no reason for white to be considered better except to gain power. It’s absurd and shameful. And absurd that white supremacy with Donald Trump is still winning elections. Race baiting has been part of America since the colonies. 400 years of African Americans all the way back to 1619 in Jamestown.

So much wealth made on people as property, so many lives lost.

Absolutely necessary viewing. Although not easy to watch.

I need to read more of James Baldwin. ****

Burning CDs

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I have so, so many on iTunes.

Sometimes, I wonder why.

It’s actually a lot easier today in a lot of ways to just use Spotify or something on your mobile devices.

It’s probably why a lot of young people aren’t buying CDs at all.

Which makes me sad in some ways.

I grew up in the 80s during a time when young people, especially young men bought a ton of stuff. CDs, books, LPs, stuff.

I feel like in the digital age of Kindle and Spotify, it’s probably a lot easier to move.

All those books and music and comics and … really adds up.

But, although I liked my Samsung CD burner it wasn’t very durable. Died after a couple years. And I’m not burning nearly as many CDs these days.

I got a new one today and burned the American Idiot Broadway soundtrack and a Bruce Springsteen bonus record from Born to Run. Also the last 2 CDs from a Bo Diddley compilation that was the last thing my old CD burner got through before stopping working at all.

Interestingly, the one in my old laptop was very durable.

But, internal CD-Rs aren’t even part of computers anymore in the cloud age.

And, I feel like I could use a little CD player. If nothing else to play along with for the bass and guitar lessons in my Hal Leonard books.

Do you still burn and buy CDs?

Star Fluxx

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We used to play Fluxx a lot, but we haven’t recently.

I even had a session at SnowCon, a gaming convention in Orono, Maine a few years ago with all the Fluxxes we had.

It’s a fun game.

Starts with one draw, one play and gets more complicated.

There are a bunch of different versions. Fluxx, Eco Fluxx, Zombie Fluxx, Monty Python Fluxx and even Stoner Fluxx (the weakest I’ve played) and Cthulhu Fluxx (which I have not played). I have also not played Oz Fluxx and a few others.

Each one has a theme this one was kind of Space/Star Trek.

Lots of the Keepers (you win with keepers for goal which keep changing) in this version had extra rules which was fun.

Like with Captain you could steal other’s keepers like Doctor and Engineer.

There are also creepers that can cause you to lose the game or win with some conditions.

Fun stuff, but we won’t ever play it as much as we do Dominion.

I would give Star Fluxx like ***. I think Zombie Fluxx and regular Fluxx are better. And I am just not into Fluxx as much as I used to be.

I think Dominion and Splendor are going to stay our main games, but I got this a while back and it was nice to open it tonight.

Learning to Read Music

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Since my bass lesson last Wednesday, I have been practicing less. Because I am intimidated by the bass and treble clef and reading music.

But today after work, I gained some courage and finally started the Hal Leonard Guitar Method Complete Edition I got for Christmas in 2015. I also have the Hal Leonard Bass Method Complete Edition I got this Christmas.

They really intimated me, because I find learning music scary.

I am not sure why.

It just starts with 5 lines and 4 notes between the lines. It’s really not that much.

I know what whole, quarter, half and eight notes are.

I can do it.

Ad spending that 90 minutes going on the guitar through the first 4 higher guitar strings is great practice. As was writing the notes down on a piece of paper to look at them.

I find I remember things better when I write them down.

It’s a start of a wider world.

I also missed playing with my guitar as I have been concentrating on bass.

I definitely think it will take me a while to figure out the notes in pacing enough to count time. But I think I will get there.

I also think I might want to try some guitar lessons with bass. Although I wonder if that is too much.

Music makes life richer. As I listen to the absolutely fabulous Bo Diddley on my iTunes.

Celebrity Detox ***1/2

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I flew through Rosie O’Donnell’s book “Celebrity Detox.” I read 90% of it yesterday and finished it today.

She decided to decline fifty million dollars and quit her talk show.

She wanted to spend time with family.

She knew she had enough, and needed balance.

And she even started a business with cruises for gay families.

The book talks a lot about her experiences in a year working for “The View.”

I understand very well now why she isn’t in the public spotlight.

And hearing her side of her ridiculousness with Donald Trump, makes me wonder even more if he can be an effective president.

To be all up in a tizzy from a six minute segment on the View, which I found through the magic of YouTube is so incredibly sad. I have no idea how someone who gets all riled up from this can deal with the challenges of being President of the United States.

It’s a very good book, a super fast read and I am so happy Rosie O’Donnell found balance in her life. May we all learn to have enough.