Breadmaking today and getting my flat tire fixed and driving boys to piano lessons and soccer practice and band practice, and doing laundry, of course, and a bit of Exhibit Hall organizing; feeding goats, chickens, and dogs, and I ought to be weeding as well, although that seems unlikely: but I'm also continuing to compose my brand-new essay, which I've managed to start this week and which is so far going swimmingly.

Books discussed: A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch; Loving by Henry Green; The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen.

Thesis (if one can use such a formal word about my slapdash opinionating): That certain 20th-century prose writers carry on the narrative-poem tradition that their 20th-century poet contemporaries (Eliot, Pound, etc.) eschewed. That language and image and poetic structure are essential to these novels, as they were not for the 19th-century novelists.

In any case, this is my planned thesis. Very likely it will be derailed by my usual maundering into other as-yet-unknown avenues.

Quote of the day [shouted by Forrest, age 12, as he and his friends were judging the baked goods entered in the Harmony Fair Exhibit Hall competition]: "Argh! These biscuits are the same as last year's biscuits!"

Handy note for Exhibit Hall organizers: Always use 11- to 15-year-old boys as judges in baked-goods competitions. They will eat anything at 9 a.m., even last year's biscuits.