Saturday, March 20, 2010 ~ three anniversaries ~ A year ago come April I was in Memphis, to deliver a paper on the role of circularity in Plato's Meno. I arrived early enough to drive around the city. Repulsed by the exorbitant parking fee for Graceland, I turned around in a nearby shopping plaza and eventually found my way to the Stax Museum, where I was surprised to learn that Big Star had been on that label.
For months I've had the four-disc retrospective Keep Your Eye on the Sky on my queue at the public library in Homewood; coincidentally, I was finally able to borrow the set today. This was my second trip to a library. The first was in the morning, to go to the book sale at C. C. Mellor with Beatrice.
She and I went last year as well. This year she was even more independent, sitting and reading in the children's section while I wandered the cavalcade of books. I located three atlases as inspiration and information for my Moon plaque project, as well as MacDonald's book on the Pantheon, the National Gallery pocket guide to Colour, a collection of MAA high-school contest problems including the ones I must have taken back in the day, and a delightful book called Food Finds, subtitled "America's Best Local Foods and the People Who Produce Them".
As for Beatrice, she was delighted that we picked up one of the books in what she calls the "Jack and Annie" series, Viking Ships at Sunrise. We also found a Golden Book related to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood called Henrietta Meets Someone New, which we read together there and later as her bedtime story. Yesterday, she went to the Children's Museum and listened as the player piano played Mister Rogers' songs; we heard the start of one of his albums this morning; we saw a video on YouTube in which Mister Rogers appears on Sesame Street (!). This evening she announced that she likes Mister Rogers' songs better than Elvis, and that she likes the Beatles and Mister Rogers best.
