Diary

I've been reading some new and old poetry for the last few days but haven't found anything that I like. The new poetry generally seems stilted to me, and I don't think that I agree with the current norms within the publishing industry. I have yet to find a poem that I like in the New Yorker or the New York Review of Books, and the ones that I do like I usually find only occasionally in anthologies. Of course, a lot of this is just a matter of personal taste, and what is considered a good poem at any particular time may not match your preferences at all. The impression I have is that this is not an exciting time in American poetry, and you may just be stuck with what some editor thinks is good – or what some poet thinks some editor thinks is good. Although I like New Yorker cartoons, I'm letting my subscription expire – again. I've also been trying to find some long biographies but so far have only found a couple of short ones.

The late summer here has been cool. I think that all the hummingbirds are gone. I have ripe tomatoes, but the ripening process is slowed by shorter days and cool temperatures. Now that the plants are exposed, they occasionally get nibbled by deer, but the deer don't like the tomatoes themselves and only eat some of the new shoots. I haven't seen any hornworms and may never, because the yard is enclosed by the woods. At first I missed having views from the house, but I now like the privacy and quiet, and I think that the air quality here is better than it was in Middlebury. Since I hike more often now, I still get in plenty of scenery. In this neighborhood, rain made it a soggy summer, and there were blights. I trimmed out the dead leaves from my purple lilacs. My tomatoes are fine, but all of my neighbor's died. There are lots of puffballs in the yard, and on Saturday I held a puffball puffing event.

At the moment, I'm very satisfied with the house. The well and its filtration system are working properly. The plumbing ventilation was blocked, and I fixed that. My indoor plants are happier here than they were in Middlebury. All of the appliances are working properly, though they're old. I think the clothes drier is 42. The refrigerator is 15. The stove is ancient, but it works fine.

I gave up on the new telescope mount that I bought and returned it, because I think that it was defective. Since winter is approaching, I'm going to wait until spring to buy a different model. The viewing is usually bad here during the winter because of clouds. Amateur astronomy has changed since I started in 2013, and there has been a shift from direct viewing to astrophotography. Because long-exposure photography doesn't require large telescopes or mounts, the equipment is somewhat less expensive. I prefer direct viewing, and photography doesn't interest me. Astrophotography attracts a different kind of person and can be competitive when you submit your photographs for publication. Although they can be spectacular, they are usually so doctored up that they look nothing like what you would see with the naked eye. You do get more bang for the buck, because a long exposure time can provide you with the equivalent of a large telescope. However, it's still just a photograph, and no optical telescope on earth can match the Hubble or James Webb telescopes.

The problem with my new mount had to do with the fact that it was made in China, and they are dumping them on the U.S. market and putting local manufacturers out of business. Their U.S. vendors are complicit in the process. It is impossible to get reliable reviews, and the vendors never tell you their true opinions of the equipment. Rather than alienate the Chinese manufacturer, they just allow you to return the equipment – as long as you pay a restocking fee and the return shipping cost. This removes the risk for vendors, but hardly qualifies as good customer service. I plan to buy an American-made mount of known reliability from a different vendor. 

It looks to me as if the Trump era is about to end. For the first time since 2016 there is open discussion about how the press has mishandled reporting on political candidates. Because the liberal newspapers knew that they had already locked-in readers who prefer progressive candidates, they had no incentive to attack Republican candidates, because that was the only remaining segment in which they might increase their readerships. They have been covering this up by pretending that it is their journalistic duty to remain neutral on political matters, but the real reason is that they would love to pull readers from Fox News – or anywhere. In any case, newspapers have been dumbing down for decades to attract readers, and they all resemble the National Enquirer now more than they did twenty years ago. Clickbait has taken off everywhere, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. I am hoping that Kamala Harris will rise to the occasion and publicly eviscerate Trump in the debate tomorrow. He eventually fails at everything he does, and this has the potential to end his political career.