Vacancy

Sorry, but my brain seems to have stepped out for a bit. For some reason, it has become harder and harder for me to sleep while on travel, and Sunday and Monday nights I don't think I got more than 45 minutes' worth of uninterrupted snooze time. I did much better back home at Orgle Manor last night, of course, but I'm still behind.

Thus, I'm falling back on the old blogger trick of slapping down just a few random things rattling around in my otherwise empty cranium:

***The woman who cut my hair yesterday not only insisted that the Giants/Pats game was going to be a close one, but that the Giants have a genuine shot at pulling off the upset. I hope so. I hope so.

***Do hotels that cover every square inch of their bathrooms in marble (faux or otherwise) understand the accoustic effect that such material creates? Somehow, I doubt it. Nor, apparently, do most of their patrons using such facilities. I don't believe I'm that much of a prude, but as a general rule I don't care to listen to other people's bodily functions.

The couple in the room next to me the other night seemed to have some grasp of the concept, but I'm afraid they rayther overestimated how much keeping the faucet running would cover their, ah, bathtime frolics.

***There is something hi-larious yet creepy in listening to a non-parent gas on about theories of child-rearing. Recently, I was forced to hear a long diatribe about the eeeeevils of letting kids believe in Santa Claus from such an one. He thought the dishonesty was unprincipled and also sowed the seeds for later distrust of everything else told the child by the parent. Instead, he argued that children should be told Santa is a fraud from the very beginning (as part of a wider "Kantian" ideal of absolute honesty). I replied that if he took that line, his kids would be routinely beat up by their classmates when young and grow up to be prigs. (Helpful ol' Robbo. Perhaps I should start an advice column.)

***I saw a bald eagle yesterday. It was sitting in a tree on an islet in the Potomac just downstream from the Roosevelt Bridge. Very nice.

***I wish my voice were a bit lower. Whenever I read the Narnia Chronicles to the eldest Llama-ette, my Aslan keeps coming out sounding like Liam Neelsen's. I objected to his doing Aslan's voice in the movie because I didn't think it low and resonant enough, yet here I am perpetuating the same mistake.

***Speaking of movies, I introduced the elder two Llama-ettes to The Princess Bride last Friday evening. Instant hit. "Inconceivable!" is now rising fast in the household lexicon.

***I finished Stanley Loomis' Paris In The Terror: June 1793-July 1794 yesterday. Afterward, I noticed something of a bloodbath going on in the review section over at Amazon.com, half of the commenters raving about what a great book it was and the other half denouncing it as outright lies. Personally, I simply don't know enough about the period to offer an informed opinion. However, I will say that I don't much buy Loomis' attempt to separate Danton from the other leaders of teh time, making him almost warm and snuggly in comparison to the raving Marat and the cold, steely Robespierre. He may have loved his wife and appreciated the pleasures of country living, but he was still up to his eyeballs in the collective madness that seized France at that period, and I doubt seriously whether knowing he had a more humane side would have been of any comfort to the thousands of innocent men, women and children slaughtered during the Terror.

UPDATE: Oh, and if anyone can recommend a good history on the Revolution, please feel free to send it along.