Spring random

1. The Front Lawn Library is open for business. Copped a copy of Karen Armstrong's Buddha. The Front Lawn Exchange is likewise a go. Copped a small (8 in square) art deco mirror from across the street. Copped also three wooden louver shutters, hinged in the middle, maybe 10 in wide and three feet high. Probably custom made; if they were three inches higher they'd be perfect for that annoying study window whose left half I spend the summer trying to block. As it is they're almost perfect and I may look forward to not being dazzled/ broiled come July.

2. What a good thing I didn't try reading Adele Blanc-Sec in French, she says palely. It makes no sense in English. I fancy it's not supposed to make sense.

3. Jiro Taniguchi's The Walking Man is a lovely low-key manga whose plump and ordinary protagonist does nothing much except what I did- walk about the neighbourhoods of Japan. It's probably not Tokyo he's walking in, but it could be. (Unnamed protag also strips down and has a swim in a closed public pool, which is most enterprising of him.) I was a little put out that he was always coming home to his plump and ordinary stay-in wife, but then occasionally he runs into her while she's walking the dog, so evidently she gets out as well on occasion.
( Cut for potatoes )