New 'Essays in Idleness' & Other Reviews from The Hard Flex Cafe

A bootpal reminds me that most don’t want a prolix philosopher’s ramble but a get-to-the-point review.     Most are looking for help with the hard stuff, especially fit and quality.     The meaning of life is not usually on the list even when there is interest in matters of history and provenance. I might lose you but I’m going here anyway. The readers of the great Patrick O’Brian have long commented that his first novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series, 1969’s  Master and Commander  is perhaps too much action, too strapping and overly masculine.  His follow up,  Post Captain , develops the principal characters, introduces their love interests and a host of interesting female characters, but as some critics would have it, too internalized, too much psychological study and not enough action.  Arguably, O’Brian arrives at near perfection in his third novel,  H.M.S. Surprise  where both compelling action and the deeper examinatio...

I started this blogspot with some trepidations and admittedly some feeling of embarrassment.  I still have those feelings.  What does it mean when a grown man wants to share his obsession with boots and leather and jeans and all the places those things take him in his memories and even to the store?  In the real world anyone who knows my so-called real self also knows that the things I write about here are but the tip of my iceberg of obsessions ---and yes, that is the right word, because obsessions are not always bad things.   What are the alternatives?  Superficiality?  Not caring?   Indifference?  Mere hobby?  We like to think that there are "more important things in life" but what's more important than the things you love?  Sure, the people, the places things take you, to cite a good pal.  But since we can't take it with us when we finally go, we might well go with the good stuff.  Each of us defines the "good stuff" t...