Nothing happening?

There's lots happening here, but more on that later.

For now I am sorting my phone problems. VOIP dropped out and I still investigating that. But I have sorted my mobile phone problem - calls were either not ringing in or they were dropping out within a few seconds. Some callers couldn't get a ring a tone, and one that did, complained about interference/static. I have different IT services for VOIP and mobile. The mobile service support was useless - couldn't speak English that I could understand and he kept asking me to check a message to validate my identity, after he rang me on the number listed for my account, and after he had already asked for personal details to verify my identity!

Mobile service in my area is dodgy at times - Netflix struggles to maintain a connection. I had 5 calls from the hospital and 4 dropped out. The one that was not disconnected - I switched to speaker and that seemed to make a difference. Taking calls outside also makes a huge difference to performance - in my office I am sitting with an ADSL modem, a VOIP modem, a LAN wifi modem, and a security camera wifi system. Some friends have reported similar problems depending on the ADSL provider. But everything worked perfectly for several years before now.

When i first started experiencing problems, about a week ago, I purchased a new mobile phone and SIM card. I now see that I am connected to a 4G network which has repeatedly been upgraded - so there is no telling what is really causing the problem.

I finally got New York * into the marinade, and now do not need to think about it for two weeks.

...

I guess you had to be there.

* In full: New York: Its Upper Ten and Lower Million by George Lippard. Published in 1853, it is the single worst novel I have ever read in my entire life.

the single worst novel I have ever read in my entire life.

But the title *does* sound interesting. Is that why you started to read it?

But the title *does* sound interesting. Is that why you started to read it?

A little insight into how I select the books I put online:

In Edmund Pearson's essay collection Queer Books (no, not that kind of queer, it came out in 1928, enabling me to put it online in 2024) there is a chapter called “Side-Whiskers and Seduction”. He spends some time on a trashy novel whose title begins The Startling Confessions of Eleanor Burton and goes on for many many more lines. He includes some verbatim quotes, so I did an exact-text search ... and landed on New-York (hyphen ad lib). Turns out, a sizable chunk of the latter is verbatim Eleanor Burton--which perfunctory research reveals to be not a novel but a 30-page pamphlet, published in Lippard's home town of Philadephia--with all names changed. I don't know whether Lippard ripped it off, or if he repackaged something he'd written himself under a pseudonym. And once I discovered how unspeakably dreadful it is, I was hooked.

I walked into the local art gallery about a month ago - some interesting exhibits of local artists. But upstairs was a solo exhibit and apparently one that has been travelling Australia It was a huge exhibit, perhaps 50-60 large sheets of watercolour paper displaying what was supposed to be plein-air. I shall not mention the artist's name because while he may have written a couple of books and has in the past painted some nice watercolours, what was shown on those walls looked no more than a child's first attempt using wash.

I can only assume that the gallery booked this exhibit on the merit of a single painting attached to a bio. If anything what the exhibit represents is what can go wrong with such an arrangement.

Anyway, it has inspired me and my partner to enter their upcoming art contest. Now getting those entries submitted was a feat, especially for my partner because she opted to enter a painting that she has been working on for more than a year - she has been repainting sections over and over again. I have been encouraging her to finish and start a new one and hoped that a 30 day deadline would get things moving along. But no, it wasn't until the last hour, half an hour before the deadline closed, that I was able to photograph her painting and get it submitted online.

On the up side, seeing that abysmal exhibit in such a wonderful art space has been inspiring - because I have started work on 20 new paintings, designed to travel as a solo exhibit.