The other day, I was writing a poem that referenced that notorious apple scene in the Book of Genesis where Eve was seduced by the Serpent, and the seduced Adam. We criticize her, but to make the proper decision in the first place, wouldn't she need the knowledge (information) that the tree held?

Even I can't draw a line between that and Tax Day. I pass along the appropriate sentiment.

Specious goals, and creepy follow-up.

A recent article in Buzzfeed had a picture of a library receipt that claimed the borrower saved $20.00 by using your library. You have saved $320.00 this past year and $64,641.00 since you began using the library.

Now, I don't know about you, but saving money was never a reason for borrowing a book. I went to the library to:

1. Discover new books. I checked out lots of books that for whatever reason seemed appealing or interesting (some turned out not to be). I would never have considered buying these books, so can you really say I saved money.
2. Get a technical/reference book that I needed for one specific thing, and had no particular desire to possess. Again, purchase never contemplated.
3. Mind candy. A lot of library borrows were books that were tremendously enjoyable, and I just wanted to keep reading through a series. Think Terry Pratchett, P.G Wodehouse, Sherlock Holmes or The Black Stallion. They were engrossing, and I bought books by certain authors later in life after a first exposure as a child, but mostly, they were one-time reads and I was short on shelf space.
4. To maintain my book-reading addiction which one summer was up to three books a week.

To me, saving money should never be a reason for going to the library. Improvement, yes. The thrill of being surrounded by thousands of books. Possession of a hardcover book, at least for a little while. The ability to explore multiple worlds. The ability to enter into a community of readers gathered around a particular author. You don't get that as directly when you buy a book.

There was a certain fascination in seeing the return dates stamped on the card holder in the back of library books in the good ol' days. I always wondered about the people that each stamp represented. Did they like the book? Finish it? Have to renew it? Even start it before it had to be hustled back to the library to avoid paying that onerous 5¢ fine, or worse, call down the wrath of the librarian who would sic the library police on us, confiscating the library card and slapping library handcuffs on us before dragging us to the library jail and tearing our library cards to confetti right before our eyes?

But then we come to the whole tracking aspect. Let's use that that $20 saving as a baseline. This person has borrowed 16 books this year, and over 3,200 books over the life of their library card. I bet you wouldn't have to do too much digging to attach 3,200 titles to all those savings. If those records became public, well, there would be no great damaging revelations along the lines of having my name found in the Epstein papers, but I might have some 'splainin' to do if that summer of reading Mary Stewart came to light.

A word from the spouse.

PBS is airing a remake of The Forsyte Saga. As is her way, she is also watching the original series from 2002.

Her recommendation: don't do that. The new series is more of a reimagining of the John Galsworthy novels. It pales in comparison to the original.

It's probably much like the Sherlock! series, wonderful on its own, but once the ghosts of Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce and Arthur Conan Doyle enter the picture, things get muddied. Accept that they are their own things, and enjoy.

Things I did not know.

• India is a major produce exporter and is the world's top producer of fruit. Primary vegetable exports include onions and tomatoes.

The implications of this are staggering. Was my mother lying to me all those years ago when she used 'the starving children in India' ploy as the rationale for our eating all those unpalatable greens? Or horribly, were we taking food from the starving children, food that should have stayed in India? Or, ironically, were the 'starving children in India' refusing to eat their vegetables and instead sending them to us, as at a certain age we threatened to send the undesired vegs to the starving Indian children?

No matter the causality, this, along with other brief insights into the global supply chain and economy, makes me wonder about America's self-sufficiency in the most basic necessities.

Old words, explained.

Like in the old 'definition' of American and British English (The English and Americans are two peoples divided by a common language.), there are sometimes words that separate generations. A few examples:

classic(al)

actual meaning: a track record of accomplishment as established over centuries, as in music or art; of or having to do with the Roman and/or Greek civilizations at their height; a noteworthy automobile more than 25 years old. As used by Gen Z, millennials, and Gen Alpha: music by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and their contemporaries; anything from the last century.

antique/antiquity

actual meaning: articles over a hundred years old; happenings from the early days of recorded history. As used by Gen Z, millennials, and Gen Alpha: stuff in their grandparents' house or apartment; the stuff grandparents talk about doing when they were kids; the grandparents themselves.

vintage

actual meaning: between 50-100 years old; As used by Gen Z, millennials, and Gen Alpha: stuff picked up from the thrift shop; a no-longer-popular form of distribution, e.g., DVDs of paper.

prehistory

actual meaning: 'before records were kept.' As used by Gen Z, millennials, and Gen Alpha: 'anything that happened before I was born.'

Probably politically incorrect.

Who in the Jeffrey Epstein organization thought it was a good idea to keep all those files/records, now totaling over 6 million (known) pages? More to the point, why?

I feel badly for the people who had to sort through, redact and catalogue all that material.

Connecting the dots.

On a TV show featuring Karahan Tepe (a lesser-known site near Gobekh Tepe), the commentator noted a large number of carvings and statues of serpents, and added that the snake was worshipped across much of the Fertile Crescent because of its ability to regenerate itself by shedding its skin.

It's interesting that the serpent is the bad guy in the Garden of Eden story in Genesis, and pretty much disappears from the Biblical narrative after that, while other, surrounding cultures were all in on the scaly skinshedders as divinities.

Cookie cutter comedy.

So I was reading this article in People magazine, and this quote caught my eye, and I immediately recognized that I had fallen upon the premise of every 'workplace' sitcom, if not every 'non-family' sitcom ever made. I took out the title. Can you guess the show?

At its core, xxxx was about a group of very different people coming together, episode after episode, to talk, argue, fall in love and support one another.