We’re back from our mini-vacation in Harrachov. We took the ski lift to the top of the mountain this morning and walked down, then got some ice cream, took the kids to a playground, took a drive to the cottage which was stop and go due to road construction but beautiful, through Krkonoše National Park, stopped at the cottage where I picked a lot of cherries and gooseberries, the red currants are also bright on the bush but we didn’t actually stay very long. There is really so much fruit there it’s amazing in the summer, it’s barely an acre plot and there are two vegetable gardens, a couple of apple trees, a couple of cherry trees, a couple of plum trees and, I think, one peach. There are flowers in front of the house, a few chickens in the back and the gooseberries and currants growing on the fence around one of the vegetable gardens. So, I pick as much as I can whenever I’m there in season and they make wine as well, but half of it just falls on the ground and rots, I’m sure.
Robert Galbraith is Really J.K. Rowling
Of course, the main conversation today is about George Zimmerman. Like most of my liberal friends, I consider this a perversion of justice, de facto legalized murder. The son of a bitch even got his gun back! So, since we all agree, and I don’t even want to hear from anybody defending Zimmerman, I am already aware that the world is filled with racist, murderous filth and don’t want to be reminded, I will just say that my sympathies on this day go out to Trayvon Martin’s family, and leave it at that.
One item in the news today that pleased me was that J.K. Rowling has written another non-Potter book, actually it came out in April but, although she put her own name on The Casual Vacancy, which I thought was pretty good, she wrote this one under the pen name Robert Galbraith. It got good reviews, but didn’t sell nearly as many copies, obviously.
I find this interesting, for a couple of reasons. One, it reinforces my view that J.K. Rowling, in addition to being a great author, is probably a pretty cool person, too. This is the equivalent of Paul McCartney putting on disguises and busking in the London Metro, which he has been known to do.
Second, and somewhat more negatively, it shows how hard it is to get something accepted if you are not already famous. Of course, now it will sell like pot brownies at a rock festival. So, maybe smart marketing, too.
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