Shel Graves' Sensorium

Taste: unsweetened peanut butter   Sight: dark evergreen fringe on deep clear blue sky Sound: bamboo wood chimes; "You're talking to the guy who snorted wasabi up his nose. I regret that. I regret that to this day."; Pearl Jam "Corduroy"   Touch: stinging razor cut; a warm hospital blanket   Smell: field daisies   Extra: "It's American to be from somewhere else, and it's American to go from east to west. It's American to seek your fortune someplace other than where you are, or to be escaping something..." Carol Emshwiller, "Ledoyt " Grateful for: things which remain as much fun at 40 as they were at 10: biking, going to the symphony with Dad, reading a good book, reading comic books

This is a fascinating and informative book, which I should never, ever have given to my Dad as a Christmas present. Firstly, although father is not adverse to fact dense books, he is a slow and careful reader and this book is a long slog. Secondly, while this book has an uplifting premise and the word "angels" in the title, it's filled with gore, vileness and gruesome records of atrocity. Dad, I read this book so that you wouldn't have to. Pinker expects his readers to be resistant to the idea that violence is on decline (just look at the news!), so he bolsters his position. His argument begins with the idea that far from being angels now, we have forgotten the devils we used to be: murdering children, torturing women, and likely to stab each other over dinner. It's a history of homicide, democide, genocide, ethnocide, politicide, regicide, infanticide, neonaticide, filicide, siblicide, gynecide, uxoricide, matricide, and terrorism by suicide. Ugh! Als...

Taste: Wayfare sour cream and hickory cheese spread   Sight: cornflowers; the polished lights of a symphony on stage; an above ground pool, a enormous American flag   Sound: The Planets by Gustav Holtz: Uranus Touch: headache; celery strands and watery crunch Smell: patchouli smoke; she rolls her head in a interesting patch of grass and returns to me smelling of plumeria   Extra: moon geography — Orientale Basin; Shackleton Crater; South Pole-Aitken Basin; Tycho Crater; Aristarchus Plateau; Mare Serenitatis; Compton-Belkovich; Jackson Crater; Tsolkovsky Crater — NASA's Narrated Tour of the Moon Grateful for: things bigger than me: trees, planets, the sky

Taste: vodka soda with a twist of lime   Sight: white petals with fluffy yellow stamens — camellia; pink poppies; she contemplates the ingredients on the back of the yogurt cup Sound: squish underfoot; "Shallow Nation," "Rot V 1.0," "Inhuman," "Fragments"; distorted robot voice mashed up with seagulls shrieking Touch: bloating   Smell: charcoal briquets; cotton candy Extra: the man riding the bus reading; the man riding the bus reading a true crime story from a small indie publisher   Grateful for: search engines and wi-fi