I think I convinced a lot of my progressive or prog-leaning Fb friends that I'm some kind of Trumpist fanatic because I pooh-poohed the "literally a fascist" nonsense about him. And also sometimes ventured to correct false "facts" about him, like the great Charlottesville lie.

I stay on Fb mainly now just to keep in touch with family and friends who don't live nearby.

You could certainly do a lot worse than delve into Lynch. I’ve been thinking of trying Blue Velvet again. I watched part of it decades ago and bailed out when the Dennis Hopper character started getting really weird with the beautiful woman, whose name (the actress) I can’t remember…Belluci?

Someone who really gets Tolkien told me the other day that the new series is pretty much ordinary mass entertainment.

That did seem to be a factor in Grumpy leaving. She also didn't like me criticizing Pope Francis.

I haven't considered Succession because it's HBO and I would have to pay extra for it. I guess if it's really successful the library might have the dvds.

I hate how blase I've become about bad language. I find it very tiresome but can usually just ignore it. I talked to someone the other day who had started watching The Wire on my recommendation and stopped after a couple of episodes because the language was so bad. I didn't even remember it being that bad, though given the milieu it portrays it would inevitably be somewhat that way.

Well obviously The Wire must be a lot worse than I remember. It's probably been 10 years, or close to it, since I watched it. Possibly even more. So maybe I've forgotten. But in any case it didn't stop me from watching it.

Rod Dreher's blog used to have some very interesting conversation. And I say "interesting" rather than "good" because it was sometimes very rancorous, but there were a lot of people who knew what they were talking about and were capable of defending their views (or attacking yours). But The American Conservative killed it by only allowing subscribers to comment, and only under their own full name.

I'm glad you're glad. :-)

It's not very fair of me to complain to the people who do still read and comment about those who don't. Reminds of a pastor at the church I grew up in. I remember my parents complaining that he was always complaining about people who don't go to church, but the only ones who heard him were the ones who did go.

Succession is available on DVD -- that's how I've watched it. At first the language really bothered me (it's worse than in The Wire, truth be told), but after a little while I started to see the point: these are very successful people in a worldly sense, but they are all basically rudderless in terms of morality. Why would they be expected to talk any different? I think that the fact that they all talk as crudely as they do is part of the satire. As is the related fact that when they have to actually slow down and talk about something serious and personal they have a hard time doing so, partly because they can't be all jokey and swear-y about it.

I do still try to avoid things that have lots of foul language in which it seems to have no point. I thought that The Wire transcended its language in that regard, but I can certainly see how someone might disagree.

Re: blogs, the only other site that I frequently visit that has/had quality conversations without rancor is Front Porch Republic. But the amount of commenting on there over the past couple years has dropped off as well. There used to be a lot more back-and-forth than there is now.

I think you'll like the Alleyns -- they're very good.

Speaking of a more civilized world, I'm currently reading Bradbury's 'Dandelion Wine.' It's set in small midwestern town in the 20's and is partly based on Bradbury's own boyhood. This is the 3rd time I'm reading it -- wonderful stuff.

I haven't read Dandelion Wine. Bradbury for me has always been a pretty mixed bag, but he can be very good.

Don and Anne-Marie, I am happy to have readers, whether or not they comment. The discouraging thing to me is that so many hits on the blog are from Google and seem to be searches for some specific thing that I happen to have written about, and those people don't usually stick around. A search for "getting started with kierkegaard," for instance, returns my post by that title in the first half dozen or so hits. But there's not that much pure philosophy here. I guess that's part of the price for writing about a lot of different things.

I personally didn't notice a lot of change in online conversation with Covid, but I'm sure that would vary a lot.

The only covid-related argument I recall on Facebook was about whether Facebook should suppress information that didn't support the government's view. In that context I was surprised by the authoritarianism of some progressives. I'm not surprised anymore.

I have likewise drifted away from reading your blog regularly. More distraction than lack of time in my case. I was just checking in yesterday, in fact, and I see I've missed several posts.

I'm glad you think I've been balanced and reasonable on those topics. A baby boomer quirk: my first interpretation of "PF" was "Pink Floyd." I actually had to stop and think to realize what you meant.

What do Donald Trump and Pink Floyd have in common?
They were both mentioned today at the same time in Mac's blog.

Craig, sometimes when I think my life is too hectic and full of distractions, I think of such incidents and tell myself to shut up.