TheBlessingWay/KarlMarx/TheMusicBox

Today I read the next fifty pages of Tony Hillerman’s The Blessing Way. Almost the whole of this section of the book focuses on McKee, perhaps reflecting the fact that he was originally the book’s main protagonist. McKee and Ellen Leon, Canfield’s assistant, try unsuccessfully to escape from the Navajo murderer and in the process McKee finds Canfield’s body. He knows now exactly how serious his situation is but still knows nothing about the Navajo’s motive. Leaphorn, meanwhile, thinks he has figured out why Luis Horseman was killed, but it still way behind in the sense that he doesn’t even know McKee is in danger. Technically, Leaphorn is Hillerman’s protagonist, but in this section seems unaware of the fact! Interestingly, Hillerman has the Navajo be very aware of the witch legends, though there is still some room for doubt about whether he’s using these legends as part of his cover or whether he’s actually a skinwalker.

I also read the next fifty pages of Jonathan Sperber's Karl Marx. In this “Legacy” section of the book, Sperber first discusses Marx’s complicated relationship with scientific positivism, emphasizing the extent to which Marx always tried to combine some elements of positivism with Hegelianism, which continued to influence him throughout his life. This combination can be seen especially clearly, Sperber argues, in Marx’s reaction to Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. Although he admired many aspects of this crucial work, he also criticized those who believed that positivism had essentially rendered Hegel’s ideas useless. Sperber then proceeds to the unenviable task of a discussion of Capital, a task that taxes his synthetic gifts to their limits. By focusing on such issues as how challenging it was for Marx to explain such phenomena as the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, as well as his surprisingly developed thoughts about the importance of agriculture to capitalism, Sperber finds a way to be selective without being dismissive—a considerable achievement.

I also watched The Music Box, a 1932 short film directed by James Parrott, produced by Hal Roach, and starring Laurel and Hardy. It’s probably my favorite film by them (with the possible exception of 1937’s Way Out West) and it won the first Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film (Comedy). The premise is simplicity itself: Stan and Ollie have to deliver a piano to a house at the top of a very long flight of steps. Various accidents follow in what is physical comedy at its finest. A lovely touch comes when they finally succeed in getting the piano to the top of the steps and then they are told by the local mail carrier that they could have used a side road that comes right up to the house. What do they do? Carry the piano all the way back down, load it on to the cart, and use the road, of course! I first saw this film when I was kid and I still howl with laughter when I watch it forty years later. Incidentally, the original steps can still be seen in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles.