What I've Been Doing to Avoid 'Politics'.

For the past couple of weeks I've been attending to Trump-matters in the Washington Post, Guardian, New York Times and The New Yorker - good stuff in all. But the reporting on the Con Man can be for one, for me, unhealthy, troubling, depressing, a straight-up waste of energy and time. Is there a pharmakon for my troubles? Yes, the Muse, Music. Enormous amounts of chamber music is just the thing: Schoenberg and Bartók string quartets, Dexter Gordon and Eddie 'Lockjaw' Davis, Glenn Gould, Billie Holiday, Pierre Boulez's Le Manteau sans Maitre, Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. Lot's and lots of music.

The O. J. Simpson documentary on ESPN is also worthwhile. My wife and I did 3 hours last evening - only 5 hours to go.

- see Zadie Smith's http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/crazy-they-call-me -,