So , waiter make it


     Donald ‘s final , and last, role of the dice. . Because , sadly ,we  probably  can’ t yet completely stop , while a portion of his ¨base¨ still agrees that  he should be indulged in attempting to ¨ restore”¨the economy”.(Perhaps with  Secretary of Treasury  Jared    moving to   660 Sixth Avenue- cut down his commute.)


    What we may be able , and should certainly try to  do, is to make sure it’s final. And  only.


    Any rational (if only !) executive  , would have automatically grasped  that ,at a minimum . the vaunted  restoral should be a single header.  Even so limited  ,say, to  one smaller State , (not NY or California) it will be  fraught with apparently  unresolvable enigmas.. 


    Which  he  can attempt to de-enigmatize if the unfortunate patient is, say, South Carolina. And it will be done because
    It has to be.

    And somehow done, it will be reasonable for us to  propose a format for a less more strenuous  round two. Etc.

    Unlike WW2 's Seabees whose 

     ¨ the difficult  can be done immediately ,  the  ¨ impossible just  takes  a little longer  ¨ 

     it can t ..

    Limit Act 1 of the restoral  to ¨a learning experience." 

    Remember ,as  Sgt Westmoreland put it- in Fort  Dix in 1951 :¨You don´t learn from trying the impossible. You just suffer¨.

     

    revised to substitute ¨Remember ¨ as the first word of the last sentence,

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    Until Covid 19 I used to read to a person with autism .And to those of  his house mates who wanted to listen

    .Unlike them he has never had any speech-he can spell a message by pointing to the  letters

     that make a word. He seldom does.

    Hemingway's ¨The Killers"" kept his attention .

    Jack London ś ¨To bui;d a fire".¨When I temporarily closed  it  he came from his usual chair , opened it and

    handed it  back to me.

    I ḿ  going to resume reading. Any suggestions?


    Maupassant's The Necklace?

    May Day, F. Scott Fitzgerald?

    Truman Capote has some nice straight forward short stories

    Ballad of the Sad Cafe/McCullers

    certain Bradbury?

    (I'm assuming subtext & abstract might be tough?)

    A Perfect Day for Bananafish? (not sure how dark endings work)

    Here's a collection of short stories - i don't know all of them

    https://lithub.com/43-of-the-most-iconic-short-stories-in-the-english-la...

    A Curious Story of a Dog... is about a bright boy who's autistic-like - gets lost in large numbers but has trouble understanding irony and people's cues - may be fun/may be confusing...

    As I Lay Dying

    Larry McMurtrey, such as Leaving Cheyenne?

     


    Thanks.

    I'm  thinking of John Cheever and "The day the pig fell in the well".


    Nice. I was thinking about "The Things They Carried".

    I'm still curious what the traits are that fit this autistic reader's delight - is it meticulous linearity, description? Is there a type of humor he appreciates? Is there something about more rural or nature settings, or is A Farewell to Arms in a hospital suitable? Does it have to be clean, uncluttered, or does the mayhem of Wise Bloodnor A Confederacy of Dunces work? Can it be grotesque, like Vonnegut's book about the perverse super intelligent twins?


    How nice to see your name and commentary, Flav! (thought for sure you were gone this time forever.) That is all. No need to reply.


    I couldn't begin to guess what he might like and could make a list of the classical greats, which I'm sure you already know and have thought of. How about something a little more unusual? The Diamond Age by Stevenson, Child of Fortune by Spinrad, or Stand on Zanzibar by Brunner. Child of Fortune is pretty far out there. Maybe too much? He might prefer more real world stories.Maybe the Mars Trilogy by Robinson. It's pretty mainstream in it's characters and the difficulties they face while being set on Mars. And Red Mars stands alone and doesn't have to be followed by the rest of the trilogy


    Just as an awareness, i used to read with one kid who had trouble with any subtlety, any "hidden" but obvious (to most people) subcurrent. It's like you're reading Old Man and the Sea and you finish and while everyone's nodding waiting for the obvious conclusion, she says "what shark?" As long as it's on the surface it's manageable, but once it requires intuition or non-linear thinking, the plot's lost - the guy rising to heaven obviously the savior instead is just some flock of birds for no reason. Ask for the logic in the response and you get some wild ass guesses that often get further afield than closer. "He's a pilot" "he's climbing a mountain" "he's afraid of Earth"... (I guess I'm channeling Jonathan Livingston Seagull here, but you get the point - the story that clued me in was only 3 pages long, but it was like slicing off the bottom half with her. Eventually it got better, but it was a huge awakening about different perceptions )


    Yeah, it's a puzzle. My dad isn't stupid and when I was a kid every night after work he'd sit down and read the newspaper from first to last page.He started to read a lot of books when he retired, mostly the Mike Hammer type of detective novels or country/western novels. So I went through my collection and gave him what I considered some of the greatest sci-fi books every written. It wasn't so much that he didn't like them or called them weird and crazy. He didn't understand them and quit after half of the first one he tried.


    It might be loss of fantasy, but I'd guess it's more comfort with what's already known and long baked in. It could be easier to have somewhat dementia seniors in 2010 hold a 1950s party and be perfectly comfortable, whereas a 1990's/2000's theme be full of confusion and forgetfulness. (there might be psychological relaxation too - "it's so long ago, it's no surprise if I don't remember - oh gee, i did!" vs (to self) "you big idiot, why can't you remember what you had for dinner yesterday?")

    So much of "cognition" is learning comfortable patterns rather than thinking tough thoughts.


    Thanks all. Useful to encourage me to give him more options.

    Perhaps in conflict with that Malumud ś The Assistant would let him share in the for him foreign  world of social relations


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