I had a pretty nice day. I spent a good deal of it reading, finishing both Art Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of No Towers and David Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp, a couple of recent graphic novels I picked up at the local library this morning. I enjoyed them both, although I think I’m perhaps a little glad that Spiegelman’s (nevertheless wonderfully drawn) book about fall of the Twin Towers feels just slightly dated. And I did some writing — or maybe I should more accurately call it transcribing, piecing together a story I found in an old notebook, which I’d given up, at least temporarily, for lost. I’m not sure exactly why it stalled out on me the first time — my natural proclivity to let stories stall out on me, perhaps — but I like it, and I think I’d like to see where it’s headed.
After dinner this evening, I watched Green for Danger, a delightful British murder mystery from 1946 set in a World War II hospital. Honestly, how can you not like a movie with exchanges like this?
Barnes: I gave nitrous oxide at first, to get him under.
Cockrill: Oh yes, stuff the dentist gives you, hmmm — commonly known as “laughing gas.”
Barnes: Used to be — actually the impurities cause the laughs.
Cockrill: Oh, just the same as in our music halls.