Monday, November 3rd, 2008

Monday, November 3rd, 2008. The day before the biggest election of my life. Weather in Oak Park is surrealy nice -- 75 degrees. All the trees are changing into their striking fall colors with no fall chill, not a hint of winter in the air. It's been this way for about 3 days, and we'll keep having mild sunny days for the next few days. Who would have thought the Midwest could have finer weather than California? A thunderstorm that will break the spell is set for Thursday, or Friday. After obsessively watching the polls and the predictions, I've been reading old Horizon art books, right now I've gone over a interview of Hemingway by George Plimpton in Havana, in 1959. Hemingway, of course, is brilliant in the discussion and a bit quarrelsome with some of the questioning, as if he was hung over, or wanted to get drunk again, or both. He also said some things that are new to me, and I can think about what he said that day, back in 1959, in Havana, for a long long time. Making sure I spelled George Plimpton's name correctly, I discover he died in 2003. I didn't know Plimpton was dead. Hemingway, he blew his brains out with a shotgun in 1961, aged 61. Plimpton died of natural causes in his apartment in New York City, aged 76. Can you imagine the way you'll end up? The time, place, and circumstances? With such events happening around me, intertwined with the past, and the fine weather at the present, it seems inconceivable that I, or anyone living now in this moment, should die.