I am not a barn boots guy. But Michael Perry keeps them on my mind. Perry lives in Wisconsin and writes about life there. He often writes about farming, the type Wisconsin soil, climate and rainfall support.
My wife is a potter and pottery is heavy. So, the other day, she asked me to carry a crate of her pieces to the Q Gallery on Main Street as part of her exhibit. I spotted Perry's latest book "Montaigne in Barn Boots" in the window of the Kindred Spirits bookstore. I couldn't believe the simultaneity of his book launch. My philosophy friends and I are using Sarah Bakewell's look at Montaigne's essays in her book "How to Live".
I try not to buy books in paper since they are usually more expensive than Kindle books, more trouble to handle and house, and more trouble to highlight. But I am grateful to Kindred Spirits for showing me the book's existence. I gave them one dollar less than the cost of a paper copy to ease my feelings.
Perry's Montaigne book shows signs of spying on me and how I behave:
In Montaigne's time, memory and intelligence were seen as one, and the phrase "he has no memory" meant "he is stupid." "When I complain that my memory is defective [people] either correct me or disbelieve me, as though I were accusing myself of being daft," says Montaigne, referring to every person who ever said, "We just talked about that!" "We went over this yesterday!" Or, "Why don't you just write yourself a reminder?"* Trouble is, many of these failures occur within time frames and situations in which writing one's self a note is impractical. In the category of driving off with things on my car roof I count one wallet (circled back and found it in the Culver's drive-through; celebrated my good fortune with a second order of curds), one iPhone (heard it thump the luggage rack, then watched in the rearview mirror as it pinwheeled down the highway), and an infinity of coffees, each of which I placed on the roof "just for a second" only to forget it in two.
Perry, Michael. Montaigne in Barn Boots: An Amateur Ambles Through Philosophy (p. 65). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
