Posts

Showing posts from June, 2019

2019 Atlanta Braves at 50 Wins

The Atlanta Braves defeated the New York Mets 5-4 in a rain-delayed game yesterday. It was Atlanta’s 50th win of the season. As of today, only five out of the 30 major league teams have that many wins. The Los Angeles Dodgers, arguably the best team in baseball at this point in the 2019 season, have 56 wins and won their 50th back on June 19. The surprising Minnesota Twins got to 50 on June 21. The Yankees did it on June 24, followed by the Houston Astros on June 25. Yesterday the Braves joined this elite club.  Every team will win at least 50 games this year. Tommy Lasorda famously quipped: “No matter how good you are, you're going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you're going to win one-third of your games. It's the other third that makes the difference.” And that is true. But winning 50 games before most any other does is one indicator of how good a team you have – to this point of the long season.  The Braves are in the midst of

Gaming Barbarossa

Image
The opening situation for Operation Barbarossa, June 22, 1941.  The Germans are massed along the border.  The vastness of the Soviet Union and the restructuring Soviet military is before them.  The Pripyat Marshes are the dominant feature on the map. I have mentioned before about how much I enjoy complementing my interest and study of military history with my hobby of wargaming.  This summer I decided to play a game I first played several years ago called The Dark Valley , a strategic/operational look at what has been called the Russo-German War .  To repeat, more human beings died as a result of combat and atrocities (by both sides) on the Eastern Front than in all other combat in Africa, Europe and the Pacific combined .  More than 3.5 million Germans and over 27 million Soviets died.  There has never been warfare like it on the face of the earth and there likely won’t ever be again.  Civilized society cannot even fathom such destruction today; people simply would not stand fo

Reading Proust: Finishing Sodom and Gomorrah

We saw how the telephone affected communication as a rather odd novelty earlier in the novel.  In Part Two: Chapter Three of Sodom and Gomorrah Proust introduces the reader to the invention of the “motor-car” and the “aeroplane.”  By now, the narrator and Albertine are almost constantly together.  She complains that Mme Verduirn’s villa is so far removed from other places she enjoys visiting, which prompts him to order a car (which comes with a driver at this stage, the general public is too accustomed to horses and carriages to handle a motorized vehicle.)  Spoiling her at every opportunity, he gives her new clothes to wear, which she adores and wants to show off with the top back on the convertible.  “We could lower it later on when we wished to be more private,” the narrator mentions.  There is little doubt what is on his mind. Suddenly, places that used to take up an entire day going to and returning from are accessible in a matter of minutes.  This brings a revolutionary experie

Reading Proust: Continuing Sodom and Gomorrah

At the end of Part Two: Chapter One there is a short section of the novel entitled “The Intermittencies of the Heart.”  The narrator, upon learning that Mme Putbus will be staying at Balbec, immediately arranges a visit there as well, along with his mother and Francoise, in hopes of taking advantage of a possible opportunity to fulfill his sexual fantasies with Mme. Putbus’ “gorgeous” chambermaid.  But things don’t turn out that way.  All his planning a scheming and anticipation is abruptly shattered. “Upheaval of my entire being.”  With that simple phrase the narrative takes an unexpected turn.  The narrator is suddenly struck with “cardiac fatigue” at the realization of being at Balbec without his deceased grandmother.  Although she died in the middle of The Guermantes Way , some 560 pages ago in the novel, the full weight of her passing hits the narrator only now.  For Proust, this is due to how memory works. “For with the perturbations of memory are linked the intermittences of t

Reading Proust: Beginning Sodom and Gomorrah

Sodom and Gomorrah , the fourth book of In Search of Lost Time , is the last section of the novel to be fully completed by Proust and the last to be published before his death.  It begins by overlapping a seemingly minor occurrence in The Guermantes Way .  On page 784 of the previous book, the reader finds the narrator venturing out early one morning to visit the Duke and Duchess Guermantes upon their return to Paris.  But, he is too early, they have yet to arrive.  Later that afternoon, he decides to wait for their carriage, out of sight so as not to be too conspicuous upon their return, upon a staircase in the courtyard.  At which time he reports to have made a discovery that the telling of which is “preferable to postpone” so as not to interrupt the narrative of the moment. The narrator is on the staircase at the start of Sodom and Gomorrah .  Passing time, he is observing the Duchess’ courtyard orchids.  He considers himself an amateur botanist and is wondering if he might observe