Reading: A History of Secret Societies by Arkon Daraul
Music: Gaelic Storm"Tell Me Ma"
TV/Movie: Gilmore Girls Season 2
Link o' the Day: Meta-religion.com

I suppose I should have felt a little bad about playing hooky from work today, but in fact it's exactly what I needed. Folks who have been tuning in since my return know that my latest 'cause d' whining' was been my twisted knee which continues to improve. But given that I did the full work thing all week and have been a lot more active than the previous week, I think it all caught up to me. This morning my knee was stiffer than it should have been, and a little swollen. I took a pill and went back to bed and slept for a scandalous amount of time, but by the time I woke up, all was well again. Probably even better than before. Add to that witnessing people slipping on the ice at 6 in the morning from my porch as they went down Heartbreak Hill, I think I made the right decision.

Now I'm getting some work done and will hopefully get a lot of said work done over the next couple of days. Staples has a 17-inch monitor within my price range, and they deliver, so I may even have an improved setup before long. Because I do a lot of page layout, a big monitor is always better. While the ideal would be something more along the lines of a 23-inch or more, a 17-inch is still pretty good.

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Yesterday I mentioned the book on pirates I'm reading, I'm also reading A History of Secret Societies by Arkon Daraul. I'm a bit of a fan of "secret histories" and one of my favorite books is Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, so it's little surprise that a book covering the histories of the Assassins, Templars, Illuminati, and more would appeal to me. Arkon Daraul is a nom de plume for author Idries Shah who is more know for writing about the Sufis and for making some claims to being privy to some of ancient and inner secrets.

Okay.

It's a fun book, and reads easily. It lacks some signs of scholarship such as citations or footnotes, and the inexplicable presence of seemingly-random figures make me wonder if this book didn't inspire Eco's Garamond Press scam from the previously mentioned Foucault's Pendulum. If so, I think that's pretty cool. Pretty Maggie found it for me in a bargain bin, and as far as I'm concerned, it's a great little find. It's a fun and entertaining book--even informative if you take some of the author's anecdotal pieces with a touch of skepticism. Recommended for those who are also interested in secret societies, but not as the only source. Consider it an important book to the genre, but not the entire genre.

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Time to get back to work, but before I go, today's link leads to Meta-religion.com "...to promote a multidisciplinary view of the religious, spiritual and esoteric phenomena." It's an interesting site, a clearinghouse of information on religion, science, psuedo-religion, psuedo-science, and more esoterica than you can shake a stick at (if that's your idea of a good time). Best not to try to explain further, better to explore on one's own.

Enjoy!