Online Meetups

Whereto answering, the sea,

Delaying not, hurrying not,

Whisper'd me through the night, and very plainly before daybreak,

Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word death,

And again death, death, death, death,

Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my arous'd child's heart,

But edging near as privately for me rustling at my feet,

Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and leaving me softly all over,

Death, death, death, death, death.

--a rather Povian verse from Walt Whitman's "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking"

Today I hosted the first online event for my Meetup groups.  My History Meetup discussed the world in 1900, and it felt pretty timely.  I actually came on an hour early, but Subha from Korea made the same goof and we had a good talk waiting for the others to arrive.  In the weeks to be come I'll be hosting the book club online and even have a watch party for a historical movie.

I've really been getting into Walt Whitman's poetry! (I was worried about finishing it in time for next week's Meetup, but I'm well on schedule.) His sea poems are vivid, and he wrote some of the finest poems about old age.

Just finished rewatching the King Piccolo arc of Dragon Ball. (Now it's time to return to Sailor Moon.) That arc is the series' best of all!  It involves the evil alien King Piccolo out to reconquer and destroy the world, who's killed three of Goku's friends so they want to find the dragon balls to bring them back to life and Goku wants to destroy Piccolo, but Piccolo got the dragon balls and rejuvenated his superpowers and then killed the dragon...   Tribesman Yajirobe is a funny sidekick for Goku.  The part where they go through an icy underground maze with a spirit who plays mind games, to get a drink of ultradivine water, is especially imaginative.  And the subplot about Tenshinhan's need to take on Piccolo in order to atone for his past misbehaviour is dramatically strong.

We've started watching Peaky Blinders on Netflix.  It stars Cillian Murphy as a numbers racketeer in Birmingham, England a century ago dealing with communists and the IRA as well as the police.  The music's oddly anachronistic, like in Boardwalk Empire.