3/5/2007

Enjoying the sun in Union Square while his wife shops for shoes, reading Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World, by Margaret MacMillan. Before this he read Paris 1919 by the same author and a biography of Stalin. He's from the part of Poland that was occupied by the Soviets after the Soviet/Nazi 1939 non-agression pact, and moved here in 1944. Now, at age 92--or, if you ask his wife, who had returned with her DSW bag, 93--he lives in Laguna.

"If I couldn't read," he said, "I wouldn't want to live." This was the most beautiful thing I'd heard all day....up until eight o'clock this evening, when my yoga teacher quoted Bikram in class, saying, as we were stretched out in the twenty-first posture, kneeling with our arms stretched out in front of us, trying to keep our butts on our heels, "this one is eight hours of sleep in thirty seconds." Maybe, with all that stored up REM, etc., I'll stay up and finish my book--I'm about three-quarters of the way through My Name is Red and two of my friends want to borrow it.

His favorite author is Ayn Rand. "Atlas Shrugged," he said, "is the greatest novel ever written." What's so good about it--the scope of the characters. More Rand fans on October 9th, 17th and January 26th entries.

If you do happen to get on line--thanks for all of your advice.