The Wombat should really be in bed (although of course the common or coarse-haired wombat is nocturnal, and this specimen used to be, it's amazing what you can do with operant conditioning.)

There are a number of things large and small weighing on the marsupial brain tonight, and I hope to revisit some of them at a more reasonable hour. But I'll pause to enumerate them here:

1. I still don't know where my New Orleanian friends John and Christa Love are, nor how badly their home was damaged, nor if John's parents' home -- which was situated dangerously close to Bay St. Louis in Mississippi -- survived Katrina. I trust that all of them and John and Christa's boys got safely clear, but I don't really know. I don't have valid email addresses for any of them, and while a white pages search has given me some possible recent home phone numbers, I don't think it's likely that I'll find them there. Still, I'll try those tomorrow. Damn.

   John was my best friend during my years in southern Mississippi, and I've seen him exactly once (a few years ago) since moving away.
   

2. Although I am sure the literary and lit-blog establishment have long since finished hashing this one out, apparently I'm a sucker for having liked Saturday, according to recent Booker nominee John Banville, whom I've never read (and I should note that the Sarvas-praise has been causing me to want to). Banville's slam was so ringing it made me wonder if I'd read the same book or merely dreamed I had. Just to convince myself I wasn't alone, I went back to Lee Siegel's praise -- and Siegel is no critical pushover, generally, although his approach to Eyes Wide Shut showed him to be on the side of the artist whenever possible, looking for the reasons why seemingly baffling or difficult choices make sense.

   The two reviews make for interesting comparison, in the now-agreeably middling distance. Or, rather, so I suspect. I haven't the brainpower at this time to run through them both again as they deserve. But it's something to come back to -- because if the eloquent Banville is right, I've been hoodwinked, and it wouldn't have been the first time.
   

3. On the subject of reading, I not long ago finished David Mitchell's Ghostwritten, wonderful in places, just fine in others, not-quite-doing-it-for-me in a few, and interestingly linked in ways both thematically and in-jokey to Cloud Atlas. Oh, and now I know where Ed got his alter ego.

   Not that any of that's substantive or analytical, but see above re: it's too damned late. But really, a fine read. Unless John Banville says its crap. In which case, what do I know. I'm just an exhausted Wombat.
   

4. Roberts says he'll "hear cases with an open mind." That's nice. He's also going to be using absurd sports metaphors: "And I will decide every case based on the record, according to the rule of law, without fear or favor, to the best of my ability. And I will remember that it's my job to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat."

   I could read between the lines and say that Roberts is making quite clear his intentions to be, if not a strict-constructionist, then a "the federal judiciary has like totally limited powers, dude" kind of judge. As some of what's apparently in these documents seems to suggest. (I can't really claim to understand the legal logic in his brief on why the girl who was raped by her teacher wasn't able to sue for monetary damages under federal antidiscrimination law; but it adds up to a pretty narrow view of what restitution might encompass and what the federal court system ought to do for people).

   Not that I would always disagree with Roberts' past arguments. He also apparently thought the federal government shouldn't have gotten involved in that whole Iran-Contra thing. Go figure.

   Of course, I might just be really tired, and mistaking the meaningless formalities of these hearings for news, on a day when a hospital full of bodies has been found in New Orleans.
   

All right. I'll go crawl in my hole now.