What’cha Reading?

[Sancho]

Yep. I’m no expert, but I did watch a Netflix miniseries on the opioid epidemic… I think it’s just one example of how profit motive and patient advocacy in the American healthcare system are at odds with each other, another being HMOs.

And yep, right up near the top of the list of debts of gratitude I owe my mother is a healthy skepticism of medicine and doctors. Numero uno is of course her having me in the first place. Sadly (and ironically) prescribed medication is largely what took her. She was put on prednisone (a steroid) for a relatively minor problem and it wound up wasting her bones. My five-foot-nothing mother was about four and a half feet tall when she died. Now I give doctors and hospitals a wide berth. Dentists, not so much.

That said, I haven’t gone down the rabbit hole of internet conspiracy theories where medicine is concerned. I trust science rather than some podcasting blow-hard. I didn’t take a horse wormer (ivermectin) for Covid-19. I got vaccinated. And boosted. In fact, it seems to me vaccines are good medicine. I get all the vaccines I can. The occasional side effect is nothing compared to disease they’re protecting against. They’re good for me and good for the “herd”.

Speaking of herds, I wonder how many wormy horses there are out there because so many internet experts scarfed up all the ivermectin.

[Sancho]

David Copperfield is going swimmingly. The words in my head are coming in with a London accent.

[Danik 2016]

Well, the world of Dickens looks rather innocent in comparison of today.

[Sancho]

Ya know, it seems quaint to us now, but back in the day I’ll bet it seemed anything but.

Also it’s got me wondering if it’s worse to be born in the rabble, or to be born to pretty good circumstances and then descend into the hoi polloi.

[bounty]

am glad you are liking Copperfield so far.

as to your question---and your recent revelation of liking Seinfeld:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2JKXbVGq7A

[Sancho]

Haha! There it is. You can’t go back to coach after you’ve been in First.

Here’s a Seinfeld moment in Dickens:

Tell ‘er Backis is willin’

It’d be funnier if my own early attempts to woo women weren’t about as equally sophisticated.

[bounty]

Well. I'll tell you what," said Mr. Barkis. "P'raps you might be writin' to her?"
"I shall certainly write to her," I rejoined.
"Ah!" he said, slowly turning his eyes toward me. "Well! If
you was writin' to her, p'raps you'd recollect to say that Barkis
was willin'; would you?"
"That Barkis was willing," I replied. "Is that all the message?"
"Ye–es," he said, considering. "Ye–es; Barkis is willin'."


are you half thinking that's kinda like the menage a trois proposition where jerry ironically finds out "she's into it!"

I just found out jane siberry has a song entitled "barkis is willing" how about that.

[Sancho]

Dickens certainly creates vivid characters. With just a few of his words I can picture Barkis sitting there on the driver’s seat, staring at the space between the horse’s ears, thinking about Clara Peggotty. Evidently I’m not the only one who found Barkis vivid. I mean all these years later people are writing songs about him, eh?

As for a ménage á trios, well, Leon weighs in on that subject…

I remember a scene in Curb Your Enthusiasm with Larry David, Tracy Ullman, and Leon Black. Leon wants to eat his breakfast at a table where Tracy is working on a jigsaw puzzle. Things get heated and Tracy tries to get rid of him.

She says something like - I don’t know if you’ve heard, Leon, but two’s company and three’s a crowd.

Leon comes back with - No. The saying goes Three’s company. You know with two girls and one guy.

But my all time favorite Leon scene is when Susie meets Leon for the first time. Two strong personalities collide:

https://youtu.be/2f6ZelaWyC8?si=KlmiKCK3ZFYHZ9kS

I was depressed when Seinfeld ended, but then Curb Your Enthusiasm came along — Woo Hoo.