And i'm still coming down from my rehab reading, Thomas Pynchon's "Against the Day."  This book stunned me.  Partly an expose of pirate capitalism and current power politics, it's actually a fantastical roller coaster ride   across the continents in the period leading to WWI.  With a measure of the supernatural thrown in as the major powers search for Shambala in the Mongolian desert with undersand ships while the Balkan tinderbox catches.

There's lots of anarchy and bombs in the war against the mine owners in Colorado and Mexico, and even a gumshoe kidnapped by a "Crowley" sect with deep ties to British intelligence (such as it is.)

There are airships circumnavigating the globe, and strange lights which disrupt civilization and time, not to mention the Tesla coils.

Plus there's lots of cowboy sex with exotic heiresses, mostly set between the Riviera and the Balkans.  Ohhh, and talking dogs and mad scientists and the battle between the Vectorists and the Quaternions at the University of Göttingen, which also had sex amongst mathematicians.

Pynchon's latest is rather a 1200 page frenzy than a book, and for DoDo, when they're not blowing up trains, they're riding them.

Meanwhile, back at Casa Crazy, i'm about to shave so i don't look so haggard at the whisky tasting, where i will hope to receive the good news that Anya's bestest survived her first parachute jump.  (Of course i should be working, which i've barely done for two months.  and no, there is no amount of money which will get me to Hell-Hole Houston in June for the American Wind Energy Conference, even if Lyle Lovett is playing opening night.)

Skennah Kowa