While reading a 1954 Mentor Classic paperback of Dante's The Inferno, I found this penciled margin note, apparently by a Mrs. Ruth Harris:
"Read all of the Inferno, pick one circle of Hell that has a strong modern parallel & be prepared to talk about that parallel on Tues.
already discussed
Glutton--junky
Great denial--we in extreme situations will go along instead of doing what we should."

Peter Donohue and I were talking in his law office about North Dakota mineral rights when his secretary came in with the phone. "It's for you Ted, a Dr. Duffy." I was surprised because Dr. Duffy, my psychiatrist from 25 years ago, was to my best knowledge dead. "John Duffy?," I said into the phone. "This is a surprise." He said he was checking to see how I was doing. "I'm in my attorney's office. I think you should talk to him, he's Irish Catholic too and knows Latin."
I handed the phone to Peter and saw a widening smile as he talked, but my dream was fading so I couldn't understand what he said.
Before going to bed I had watched Godard's Made in USA (1966). The dream could have been a scene from the movie.

Supper with Dante

It's National Book Week

"priority, which spurred a drive for territorial expansion; supplies of guns and..."
--North Country: The Making of Minnesota by Mary Lethert Wiingerd

(It's National Book Week. The rules are: Grab the closest book to you. Turn to page 56. Copy the 5th sentence into your blog. Don't mention the book. Post these rules as part of your bl...og. )

Had breakfast at Coburn's on Cooper with Arthur, a retired junior high school art teacher and one of my students in my first year teaching at St. Cloud State 45 years ago. He is very excited by new plastic toys he said are inspired by contemporary Japanese animation. He is also distraught about recent attacks on unions, especially in Wisconsin. I had a cheese omlete without potatoes. Arthur had a cheese omlete with potatoes.