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Encouraging Perfect Propriety in an Imperfect World since 2001
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THIS IS ROBERT TALKING . . . Or, the Dark Side of Etiquetteer :-)

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Martin Luther King, Jr. Weekend 2018

January 15, 2018

1) It's Monday morning, and I'm realizing that yesterday, Sunday, was almost a tech sabbath: zero time on ye Fycebykke and ye Twyttyr, minimal time on ye Flyckr, two texts, two phone calls. I spent most of my time listening to episodes of the podcast You Must Remember This.

1a) This doesn't really mean I've become a recluse. I gathered with a group of friends Friday night, met someone else for a late lunch Saturday (after the temperature had dropped significantly), and had a couple other friends over for a very small poverty pasta on Saturday night. All necessary and good social interactions.

2) Baltasar Gracián's The Art of Worldly Wisdom is one of my devotional books (I discovered it on the sale rack at the MFA bookstore several years ago, before the new east wing opened, and was so impressed that I gave a copy to a friend for Christmas one year), and I was struck by part of #120 when I was reading Saturday:

"Ways of thinking change, and so does taste. Don't think like an ancient; taste like a modern . . . When you must, follow the common taste, and make your way toward eminence. The wise should adapt themselves to the present, even when the past seems more attractive [emphasis mine], both in the clothes of the soul and the clothes of the body . . ."

That brought me up short, since we all know I've made a bit of a joke of ignoring anything that happened after I was born - and also in my anxiety not to look like "mutton dressed as lamb." The aphorism goes on to specify that goodness is timeless. I rather think I need to do a better job of blending the ancient and the modern.

3) It's snowing! Later today I will have to get out and shovel, since I'm the Owner on Premises this weekend. I have such a long list of things to do this weekend, and yesterday I paid attention to almost none of it. This must be why Mother raised us on "Never put off til tomorrow what you can do today," because you never can tell what's going to crop up.

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