Books AKIC Read in 2023

 Here are the books I read in 2023:

2022:  Year in Review by Dave Collum

Sword of Honor by Evelyn Waugh

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

Othello by William Shakespeare

The True Believer by Eric Hoffer

A Short History of Decay by E.M. Cioran 

Oblomov by Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov 

Hard Sayings by George Tyrrell S.J.

Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom by Patrick Moore

All Gall is Divided by E.M. Cioran

Conversations with James Joyce by Arthur Power

The Basic Laws of Stupidity by Carlo M. Cipolla

Chasing the Light by Oliver Stone

Prayers of the Middle Ages edited by J. Manning Potts

Travellers in the Third Reich by Julia Boyd

Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne

Springtime for Snowflakes by Michael Rectenwald

The Google Archipelago by Michael Rectenwald

A Vagabound Journey Around the World by Harry A. Franck

2021: Year in Review by Dave Collum

Two Cheers for Anarchism by James C. Scott

The Psalms (King James Version)

Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne

The Basic Laws of Stupidity by Carlo M. Cipolla

Thirty Years in American Journalism by Tucker Carlson

Prayers of the Early Church by J. Manning Potts

Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson

Talking to Strangers by Malcom Gladwell

Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 by Hunter S. Thompson

NOVA ET VETERA: Informal Meditations by George Tyrrell S.J.

Notes of a War Correspondent by Richard Harding Davis

The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday

Real Soldiers of Fortune by Richard Harding Davis

Maxims and Reflections of a Renaissance Statesman (Ricordi) by Francesco Guicciardini

Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikubu

The Faith of Christopher Hitchens by Larry Alex Taunton

Selected Poems of Sylvia Plaith edited by Ted Hughes

77 Dream Songs by John Berryman

Pandemia by Alex Berenson

Four Quartets by TS Eliot

The Lives of the Noble Grecians & Romans, Volume 1 by Plutarch

The Big Short by Michael Lewis

Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky 

Baltimore Catechism, No. 4 by Thomas L, Kinkead

Collected Poems 1909-62 by TS Eliot

Eisenhower In War and Peace by Jean Edward Smith

Tucker by Chadwick Moore

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

Blindsight is 2020 by Gabrielle Bauer

The Ancient City by Numa Denis Fustal De Coulangies

Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

The Poems of Thomas Carew

Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompson

2023: Year in Review by Dave Collum

The New Testament (KJV)

The G.K. Chesterton Calendar selected by Cecil Palmer

Aphorisms by Nicolás Gómez Dávila

The Way by Josemaría Escrivá

The Hundred Best English Poems selected by Adam L. Gowans

The Oxford Book of Englsh Verse 1250-1900 edited by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy translated by Rosamund Bartlett

I have been keeping track of the books I've read since 2014. Here are the links to previous lists:

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

Any comments on my reading? Send an email to  andiskaulins@protonmail.com.

10:15 AM View

 That sun is great.  It dries the laundry quickly and makes the dining area warm,

Just called from brother and mother from the future,  2024 Andis phoned his 2023 mother and brother.

Now, I am going to try my hand at making pancakes for my son.

6:41 AM View

 Does that look more sunrish?  (Am I coining a new word?)

I phoned my Mom.  She was in 2023; I was in 2024.  Everything has gone haywire in Canada she tells me.  Prices are high and the medical system is short of staff.

5:26 AM View

 

I was hoping to get up earlier and do the view but didn’t.  Still. I’m up early all the same.  I’ll phone my Mom who hopefully will be still in 2023.

8:59 PM View

 There you go!  The last view from the dining area of my Jiangyin apartment for 2023.  I am going to take a pee and go to bed.  I want to be the early worm of 2024.

7:45 PM

This is the last photo to be taken of me in 2023.

It is the continuation of my chronicle of the last days of my life.  How long these last days will be I have no idea.  Hopefully, they won’t be of short duration.

Addendum:  people saying I look too serious in the photo.  I took smilies but I didn’t  like the look of them. The smilies didn’t look symmetrical to me. I like photos where the mustache is straight and I’m thoughtful looking.  Smiling photos reduce the IQ of its subject.

6:57 PM View

 This will be the second last view from the dining room of my Jiangyin, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China apartment for the year of our Lord 2023.  I’ll take the last view photo before I go to bed which I hope will be many, many minutes before midnight.

The trip, the journey, that I bragged about in the previous epistle to my rare readers, went off but with one hitch.  It took us about 30 minutes to get a ride using the app.  My son Tony gave up and only joined me because I was able to phone him before the didi arrived.

We went to Heng Long shopping plaza.  We had our last meal at the KFC where we were able to get our food without having to wait long.  Then we bought drinks, snacks and my fried peanuts at the grocery store. Surmises surely must have been exchanged by the locals on account of the sight of a gangly grey-bearded foreigner making his way through the aisles. We were then able to quickly summon a didi for the trip back to Casa Kaulins Jiangyin.

The didi drivers appreciated me telling them “Happy New Year”, 新年快乐, in Chinese.

Now, I am listening to a Meghan Murphy podcast with her squishy guest Jonathan Kay.

3:25 PM View

 My son Tony & I are about to go on a journey that will be truly epochal in scope.  Paradigms will be shifted.  Long held assumptions about the nature of reality will be upturned, never again to be held, like a trashed hotel room that was full of rare Ming China vases could never be restored to its original and authentic condition.  It will Newton, Einstein, our journey in that order of progression.  The trip won’t be like the resurrection as I like to think I possess a soul that knows which side of its bread is buttered on; but poems along the lines of On first looking at Chapman by John Keats will be inspired by this journey.

Tony & I will make our last shopping trip of 2023 to Heng Long, which after going there for over a year has become part of my furrowed-browed demesne. I know where to go there to get the stuff I need. This I can say out loudly and boldly.  And when the locals see my son & I making our way through the aisles, they will look at each other with wild surmises that may well last them to next year.

Besides drinks, I’ll buy a bag of fried peanuts.

11:41 AM View

 My most viewed AKIC Daily Video was yesterday’s.  It had a negative complaining vibe about my computer problem.  Maybe, I should make my daily videos more negative,

Made my son breakfast.  I did a good job, I thought.

My highlight of 2023?  The week, I had six Wordle hat tricks and one two-guesser.

Detroit Pistons losing 29 games in a row.  They’re the awful boys; not to be confused with the Bad Boys that won NBA titles.., Why am I talking about sportsball? I haven’t gotten it completely out of my system.  No more.

I got to throw out garbage.  This afternoon, I’ll plan best I can and we (I & Tony) will do our last 2023 shopping trip.

9:06 AM View

 The charger on my MacBook Pro laptop is not working which is an f-ing annoyance because I got work I need to do. My wife had ordered me another charger and I have to hope that I can soon get it and that it works.  

The charger problem I had anticipated and so I bought a replacement charger.  That new charger stopped working before my old charger, go figure. It doesn’t help that Apple has monopolistic practices when it comes to replacement parts and keeps changing the connections on its products to seemingly make them obsolete sooner.  So I can’t use my son’s MacBook Charger for my older MacBook.

I can’t recall thirty years ago, people saying how Mac was an alternative to the evil empirish Windows.  Now, Apple is just part of the borg, the blob that is trying to control us.

F Apple!  Let’s go Brandon!

7:41 AM View

 I’ve overslept.  I drank too much and smoked too much at the 60 day baby party last night.  The party was okay. We sampled many fancy local delicacies in a ball room of a grand hotel in the western part of Jiangyin city which becomes bigger every time I travel to an unfamiliar place in it.

Hopes for 2024?  The people currently in charge of the countries of the occident all get removed and replaced by something more sane.  For example, bye bye Biden.  I want to see Trump get re-elected.  

Predictions?  More bad shit happens.  The hope then will be that people finally rise up against it.

4:22 PM View

 The last view I can do today because in twenty minutes I’m going out for dinner.  I believe one of the Chinese staff is doing a 100 day party for her daughter.

I will Didi it to somewhere in downtown Jiangyin it looks like.  I wonder if I’ll be the only foreigner there.

8:21 AM View

 I’ve just finished reading Anna Karenina and Dave Collum’s YIR.  Both satisfying reads.

I very much can identify with the character Levin in Anna Karenina.  His thoughts about the big questions are akin to mine.  He comes to realize that Christ is the source of goodness in this world,  He knows to the fiber of his bones that the progressives are wrong even if they can beat him in verbal sparring.  He hates himself for getting drawn into arguments and losing his temper.  In these ways, the character resembles me.  But he is a more practical man of the earth than I am.  Anyway, Anna Karenina is a great novel.  So much of it rings true to life.

Collum’s YIR was a good recap of the year filled with wit and insight.  His writing intermixed with tweets, memes and images makes a powerful document for future historians to ponder.

I wait for my son to arise so I can make him breakfast,

6:45 AM View

 What?!? Another view so soon after the previous view?

Well.  What can I say?  I can’t help myself.  I had this urge on account of the way the dawn seemed to be cracking to take a photo of it and show it to you rare readers and bots.

I just listened to a  Gerald Celeste Judge Napolitano podcast.  Too many Libertarian lines, which though I agree with them, turn into cliches when endlessly said. I love it when Celente goes on swear word tirades against the baddies of the world.  They are especially effective with his New York City accent.  Which makes me wonder how is it that my mental images of New Yorkers doesn’t conform with their voting habits. I see New Yorkers as no nonsense people who don’t put up with bullshit and yet they vote mayors in with bullshit ideas.

On my first cup of coffee .  Yooza! Hooza! Oh boy!

4:27 AM View

 A super early Trumpian early view and on a Saturday morning no less.  I woke up at 4:00 this morning and regret not having pulled myself out of bed then and done an even more Trumpian time view.

Did you know Donald Trump gets up super early — like 4:00 AM every morning — or are you one of those people he thought that whenever he got up in the morning, he would practice Fascism and Racism before being served breakfast on a gaudy golden platter?

I memorized On first looking into Chapman’s Homer: probably Keat’s greatest poem.  And I made a video of me reciting it here. I may have mixed up the order of a couple of words but I like my rendering nonetheless,

Today, I’ve got planning to do. I managed yesterday to overcome my urges to go home early and to put things off till today by getting completely caught up on my grading. I’ve got a phone call to make, a baby party to go, three cups of morning coffee to enjoy, and shopping to do. So much for a restful weekend.

I’ll finish my Tolstoy and my Collum today.

5:46 PM View

 At 5:08 PM, I told myself to wait eight minutes before taking a photo from the Jiangyin apartment dining room.  Of course, it slipped my mind. I took the photo half an hour later.

I said a lot of “see you next year!” today.

I took my sixty first AKIC Daily Video today.  Go to AKIC Wordpress to see it.

Over a hundred views of this site.  Who the fuck are these viewers?  How about sending me an email.  andiskaulins@protonmail.com. You goddamn fuckers!! Communicate!

These Jimmy Fore podcasts I’m listening to are awesome.

My goal for the rest of 2023?  To finish reading Anna Karenina & Dave Collum’s YIR.

5:15 AM View

 The fog hides the hills this morning which is my last day to work in 2023.

I’ve then got three days off during which I hope to finish Anna Karenina which I now know how to spell.

Last night, I must have fallen asleep very early.  And should did Tony.  He’s up early this morning.

5:20 PM View

 Tomorrow is my last day of working for 2023.  It will be followed by two days of dull and the first day of the new year.

Life is dull, but I suppose it could be worse.  It could be interesting in a way that is stressful.  The thing about this dullness I’m experiencing is there doesn’t seem a cure.  I do this thought experiments in which I seem to be experiencing the interesting thing, but it is not satisfying because I am feeling like it isn’t natural.  That is, I either feel I don’t deserve the experience or I am so full of adrenaline that I end up with this feeling of being out of control and thus sheepishly embarrassed.

I hear Trudeau is mandating tampons in men’s bathrooms.

Are there real people who actually like Joe Biden?  What the hell is wrong with them?

Anyway, my wife Jenny is with us in the apartment this evening so I will have a home cooked meal which I probably don’t deserve.

5:16 AM View

 Second last day of teaching for 2023.  I’ll have a lot of grading and prep to do.

Long weekend will be spent in Jiangyin.

4:27 PM View

 

My wife Jenny will join us boys in Jiangyin tonight so I got to get this view entry out of the way,

I saw my son Tony perform on drums at a show this afternoon.  I thought he killed it but what do I know? I am his father and not a drummer.

Saw the last of one group for this year.  The other group of miscreants I’ll see the last of, for this year, tomorrow.

My plan for the rest of the year is to finish Anna Karenina.

4:54 AM View

 As I was telling someone, I get up Trump early in the morning.

I’ve had my shower.

I’m a making meself coffee.

My heel still bothers.

I forgot to mention that I was Duolingoing.

Working my way through Dave Collum’s YIR.

Man of the year?  Tucker Carlson.

Woman of the year?  Tamara Lich.

6:55 PM View

 There is a lot more light in these evening views from the Jiangyin apartment than you would see if you were able to stand beside me admiring the view.  Be that as it may, are the clouds spectacular?

I am listening to a podcast interview with M Joseph Sheppard, a pollster who defines himself as reactionary.  He doesn’t want to be called a conservative in an age where conservatives are losers.  Who can blame him?

My view is that the Democrats are irredeemable and the Republican Party needs to be destroyed and replaced by a Redneck party with backbone,

Where will I spend New Year’s Eve? Probably in Jiangyin, On December 31, I plan to be in bed by 9:00 PM.  Anyone who would stay up till midnight is a moron.

My Official Wordle Retirement Announcement

 I’m retiring so I can spend more time with my family and to deal with pending scandals, whatever they might be.  

This retirement is permanent.  Let me make that perfectly clear.  No returning to Wordle under any circumstances that don’t involve me making money or responding to a groundswell of demand for my return.

Looking at my stats, I can hang up my vocabulary with my head held high just like Jordan did when he decided to give baseball a try. 

I am looking to give having ten more minutes a day to deal with the challenges of life a try. And add more wit to my View entries.

5:27 AM View

 So, begineth the first day of the post Wordle AKIC era, which is a good thing because I’m so slow ass this morning.

How was my Christmas? Not good.  But that was my fault because I was passive aggressive during it.  It was good to sit in the dark with a flashing toy while my feet were kept warm by a block heater.

7:28 PM View

 Doth cometh to an endeth, my Christmas Dayeth.  It was alright in that the melancholy was sweet.  Somewhere along the line, I realized something: I’m lucky to be married and the price I’ve had to pay was worth it.  My son Tony was a bonus and a blessing. I’m lucky to be married considering what a schmuck was in Canada.  Tony, when he smartens up, will be great.

And it is all about the birth of a child between an Ox and an ass.  The Santa Claus stuff is b.s.

5:21 AM View

 Christmas Morning in Jiangyin, China

—Toda verdad nace entre un buey y un asno.

—All truth is born between an ox and an ass.

Nicolás Gómez Dávila

I am working today,  7:20 AM kickoff.  I’ll try not to mention Christmas if I can help it,

Wordle 919 3/6

 I’m contemplating retiring from Wordle,

This may be my last time.

I’ll end on a good note,

4:44 PM View

 KFC for dinner.  Hurray!

I’m listening to the Jimmy Dore podcast.  Frigging hilarious.

Did the shopping i think I mentioned i was going to do.  I decided to buy chocolate to give to some of the students tomorrow ‘cause tomorrow be Christmas.  I won’t use that word.  I’ll call it Occidental Winter Holiday.

I’m in a scroogish to-hell-with-you mood even though I deserve the things that are making me irked.  Oh well!  Serves me right!  The universe is just!

That all fours time is auspicious.  In China, it doesn’t mean Bobby Orr! Bobby Orr! Bobby Orr!  It means Death! Death! Death!  

Tomorrow will be the time to celebrate a birth but it can’t be said almost anywhere in the world.

Proof it’s below zero in Jiangyin

 The pond has a layer of ice.

So, I have done my reading and I did make breakfast for my son Tony.

I am making my way through Dave Collin’s 2023 year in review.  A great read.  I came across this quote he posted:  John C Maxwell: “Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about themselves and small people talk about others.”  I am average, according to this quote, as this blog shows.  I do talk or post about myself ninety percent of the time in this blog.  The other ten percent could be said to be postings about ideas and about other people.  Though the other people are the locals, what some famous people are up to, but not gossip.

Though I never think of myself as being average.  I’m an odd one.  I have no tribe and think of myself as an observer,

More ideas?

9:04 AM View

 I achieved my Wordle goal (see below / see previous) so I’m happy on the relaxed, for me, morning.

I’m on my first cup of coffee.  I’ve showered, I’ve done my Duolingo. I’m ironing clothes.  Left on my slate: daily reading, podcast listening, making breakfast with my son Tony, maybe a shopping trip, and planning for the school week,

The podcasts I listen to, which are downloaded from California, have a lot of annoying ads and PSAs that are in conflict with the topic matter of the podcast.  Just now, I heard an advertisement for Pfizer before a Kunstler podcast where the guest says the WHO is a criminal racket.  The Pfizer ad started bright and cheery but the legal jargon at the end was a dead giveaway.

7:51 AM

 The second photo of the series where I chronicle myself in the final days before my death.  How imminent my death is I really don’t know.  It could be today if some accident happens or I die of a heart attack It could be twelve or so years from when I would pull off the Harry Houdini fear of living equal time in two centuries.  It could be even longer than that, which would be unfortunate for you.

As the Tyler Durden character said in Fight Club;  “You have to realize that one day you’re going to die and until you realize that, you’re useless!”  My body, thankfully, has helped me realize this.

I’m grateful to the lord above for the days I’ve had so far, and hopefully will be grateful for whatever more he allows me.  Already, it’s more than I deserve.

Tomorrow, celebrate the fact that over two thousand years ago, between an ox and an ass, wisdom was born.

Wordle 918 3/6

I was feeling pressure today but I chose wisely on my second guess.  Knowing the last three letters, it was a case of guessing what was the most likely word for this time of the year.  And so….

I got my 100th hat trick of the year!

 

Saturday Night Views in Jiangyin

 Saturday night, my son Tony (aka Anthony aka Arnis) went to the Monte Carlo’s Bistro for pub grub. There were two big tables of foreigners having Christmas dinner. I shook the hands of a guy sitting at the bar after wishing him a Merry Christmas.

Then we wandered around the downtown and I took this photo.

Tomorrow, I’ll be getting ready for a week of work at my school. I won’t mention Christmas to the students.  Apparently, we’re not supposed to be doing this.

Christmas Donuts

 I bought this at a bakery in Jiangyin.

This is not an endorsement of Santa Claus. I post it as a depiction of what I come across in China,

8:58 AM View

 Got out of bed late this morning. (Note the wording) So, my early view is showing the sun.

So far, I’ve done my Duolingo, Wordle (Hurray!  I got a hat trick!) and my reading (Anna Karenina, Nicholas Gomez Davila, poetry, Chesterton and Escriva). Now doing laundry and making coffee Got to start planning soon.

Listening to the PBD podcast.

Had to put my first cup of coffee into the microwave because I put the coffee maker on the cold setting.

2023: Year of the MF.