Lee Van Cleef

            In the winter, because it's so hot in my apartment, I never use my comforter and often sleep naked with no covers. But in the spring I use it because when the temperature is fluctuating, the heat will often go off when it’s warm and not kick back on again until my placed has cooled down considerably for several hours.

            On Sunday morning I was re-reading the second part of Thomas De Quincey’s "Confessions of an English Opium Eater” when I got very sleepy and had to take a very early siesta. I got up at about 10:30 and finished reading the section called "The Pleasures of Opium”.

            I had a salad for lunch and went back to reading but got sleepy again and went to bed for a little more than twenty minutes.

            I finished re-reading “Confessions of an English Opium Eater”. There’s some very fine prose in that work. In some ways the writing reminds me of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer.

            I re-read the first 18 pages of De Quincey’s "The English Mail Coach". It's very funny.

            I found a beautiful photo of Josephine Baker that I wanted to post on my Josephine Baker facebook page. But since it showed her nipples I anticipated that Facebook might raise a puritan fuss and so I switched to my Myown Dick facebook persona to post it. Sure enough, Myown’s posting abilities have been suspended for three days. Half of Josephine Baker’s photos are topless. It was part of her art and so in denying someone the right to post her image facebook is effectively cancelling out one of the great performing artists of the 20th Century.

            I had a salad for dinner and watched The Rifleman. In this story, Dan Maury the man that crippled Marshal Micah Torrance’s right arm has just gotten out of prison and has come to North Fork. Micah is sure that he wants to kill him and so he is watching the saloon while Maury sits drinking whiskey and watches the sheriff from the window. Since Maury hasn’t broken any laws he can’t be arrested for anything, but Lucas walks in, shoots Maury’s glass from his hand and tells him to leave town. A little later, Lucas is at home chopping wood when Maury shoots him a couple of times from the bushes. Maury then returns to North Fork to keep the same vigil as before. Mark comes home from school to find his father wounded and he takes him into town on the buckboard. Lucas has been wounded in his shooting arm but even after the doctor gives him sleeping pills he struggles to the window. Meanwhile Maury has out watched Micah, as Micah falls asleep. Maury comes into Micah’s office and takes his shotgun, then he wakes him up and forces him into the street. They’re to have a shootout but with Micah using his bad hand. Lucas stumbles out onto the street with his rifle even though it’s his shooting arm that’s been wounded. Maury begins to laugh. Lucas stands beside Micah and tells him to draw his gun as soon as he steps in front of him. With Lucas between the outlaw and the sheriff, Maury can’t see Micah draw. Lucas collapses, Maury draws but Micah shoots him.

            Maury was played by Lee Van Cleef, whom I didn’t recognize at all because of the blonde hair and no moustache.  Van Cleef is famous for being the bad guy in many westerns.

            I re-read the section of The English Mail Coach entitled "Going Down with Victory". It's about the experience of elation that comes from delivering news of England’s war victories along the routes of the mail coach.