So k*thy said "It’s good to see the tone of this post turning to suggestions to just ignore him."

"I was reading this, last night, had started to post, but got interrupted. My initial response was in the voice of talking to a close friend. Saying with all the sincerity, clarity and love I could muster, 'Generally, folks are more worried about their own shit and really not at all that interested in yours. You’re not at the center of their universe, they are. Anyway, it’s all a bunch of snark. Really. Let it go.' Anyway, enjoy this instead."

("Centraal Station Antwerpen gaat uit zijn dak!" Translation?) AND: It occurs to me that this is exactly the sort of thing Andrew Sullivan frequently posts under the heading "Mental Health Break." Like this one, posted at 4:20 p.m. yesterday, just a few hours after he demonstrated — at my expense — his need for one. Oh, sorry, k*thy, I couldn't resist. I know. "Let it go." But... is that my approach to blogging? I don't think so. See that quote in the banner? "Althouse digs in." You know who tried to push me back with that observation, don't you? I'm not pushable back. Althouse digs in. By the way, my mother's stock response was "just ignore him." Usually, punched up with: "You'll only encourage him." And I know it's true. Sullivan digs in.
Bah! It will never end. Blog on, bloggers.

John Updike has died.

Link.

What have you read and what have thought about, reading John Updike?

ADDED: "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu":

Fenway Park, in Boston, is a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark. Everything is painted green and seems in curiously sharp focus, like the inside of an old-fashioned peeping-type Easter egg. It was built in 1912 and rebuilt in 1934, and offers, as do most Boston artifacts, a compromise between Man's Euclidean determinations and Nature's beguiling irregularities. Its right field is one of the deepest in the American League, while its left field is the shortest; the high left-field wall, three hundred and fifteen feet from home plate along the foul line, virtually thrusts its surface at right-handed hitters. On the afternoon of Wednesday, September 28th, as I took a seat behind third base, a uniformed groundkeeper was treading the top of this wall, picking batting-practice home runs out of the screen, like a mushroom gatherer seen in Wordsworthian perspective on the verge of a cliff....

(K*thy in the comments says: "A gem and one of the best and most famous pieces of baseball writing ever.")