Pondering Unanswerable Questions [1984]

[8 July 1984]

I

’m lying here sleepless, pondering unanswer­able questions—and not even big unanswerable questions, just puzzles like why do standard Beatle discographies insist that there are no cuts from the movie on the album Let It Be when it is obvious that at least two and more likely three cuts are found on both? or What possessed J. A. T. Robinson (the late Bishop of Wool­worths) to claim that the church’s condemnation of a narra­tive about Paul proved that the early church objected to the common Hellenistic practice of pseudepigraphy (the narrative was anony­mous, after all)? or why don’t any two Persian music theo­rists agree on the actual intervals used in Persian music?

It’s been a good day here, today, I mean. We went to a private screening of Return of the Jedi this morning, which was okay, I guess, and talked afterward with (well, listened to mostly) this character whose hobby is restoring old film projectors—mon­stros­ities from the 20s mainly.  It was a warm day, sunny and clear. Last night I dreamed about a lost tooth and a girl I haven’t seen in fifteen years.