Hilary is off to her post as an election judge, and I’m facing a blank grayish day. It starts with a mug of French roast coffee and a CostCo croissant from the freezer.
Are they any good? At fifty cents apiece they’re quite good. The ones at Patisserie 46, at $6 apiece, are only slightly better. And they’re a half-hour drive away.
I can
remember a time when the only place in town you could get good croissants was
the New French Café. This was followed by the era that produced two important
works: The Preppie Handbook and Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche. From
there, it was but a few short steps to the January 6th riots and the first
major attempt to overthrow a freely elected U.S. government.
Before rosy-fingered
dawn had shown her smiling pink face, I’d already done the Wordle and
Connections, and read Paul Krugman’s latest column, in which he restates the (to
some of us) obvious fact that the American health care system has been largely government
subsidized for decades. He goes on to describe the private insurance industry
as “parasitic.”
Everyone
should read this column, but few will read it. I would go farther and
suggest that all government activity is by nature socialistic. Good governments
handle their responsibilities sensibly; bad ones don’t.
Krugman
follows up the reasoning and the statistics with a popular song, as usual.
Today it was “Closer to Fine.” I didn’t recognize the Indigo Girls. (They were
after my time.)
I'm trying to tell you something 'bout my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
And the best thing you ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously…
By now, so many popular musical groups are “after my time” that I can hardly make it through the daily crossword puzzle. “Lead singer of REM, Michael _____.” If they didn’t do a half-time show at the Superbowl, I’ve never heard of them. I just watched Help for the first time the other day—on DVD. (I liked it.)
Right now my
main concern is to determine which translation of The Odyssey is best. The Emily Wilson version that I requested arrived at the library the other day. I’m
finding that the iambic pentameter doesn’t really flow. She might just as well
have straightened it out into prose paragraphs.
Of course, any translation will be radically different from the film, a medium that even in the surest hands lacks the tools to bring the lyricism of the original to life.
Down by the stony trail they made their way
As far as Clearwater, not far from town—
A spring house where the people filled their jars …
And round it on the humid ground a grove,
A circular wood of poplars grew. Ice cold
In runnels from high rock ran the spring,
And over it there stood an altar stone
To the cool nymphs, where all men going by
Laid offerings.
Yesterday was a marvel of serendipitous conversation. We chatted at length out in the street with our neighbors Brendan and Sara. They were hard at work digging up a rectangle of bare ground the local energy company had disturbed while installing a new gas line. We discussed the neighborhood owls, Brenden’s success at selling odd pieces of junk on Facebook Marketplace, and the deterioration of their mini-camper, which hasn’t left the driveway all summer.
Our next-door neighbor Rocky was also out in her yard—a rare occurrence. Brendan told me she bought a robot lawn-mower, and it seemed she was trying to program it with her phone.
We might have stopped over to say hi, but we were heading down to Edina to
pick up a book-club book from some friends. They were expecting us. We sat in
their imaginatively landscaped front yard sipping drinks that Michel concocted in
a big wooden bowl with fresh limes, Brazilian rum, and salt. Conversation
roamed from the nature of “borderline personalities” to office politics at Metro State to the rising stars on the
women’s tennis tour. Michel later brought out a succession of choice morsels
from the kitchen. I might call them cheeseballs or bruschetta; he would call
them acılı ezme or bolinho de aipim.
Late in the afternoon I took some newspapers out to the recycling bin and ran into our neighbor Brian, out for a walk with his daughter, Vivian. He’s seldom around; we chat maybe once a year.
“How’s the
sound-track industry treating you,” I asked him.
“It tanked.
My sponsor lost his funding. Now I’m installing audio systems.”
“Well, at
least it gets you out of the house,” I said.
Vivian has grown
in the course of a year. “Gee. Are you in college now?” I asked.
“I’ll be a
high school junior next fall.”
Favorite
subject? “English, I think.”
Good answer.
All young people should read Middlemarch, All the King’s Men, Notes
from Underground, and A Farewell to Arms, don’t you think? But who
knows? Maybe she’s been reading Gravity’s Rainbow, Bel Canto, Olive
Kittridge, and Bright Lights, Big City?
Now the sun is out. Rising. Along with the heat. It's the same thing every day, but with variations. The hummingbirds are starting to get belligerent around their red plastic feeder.
"Take it easy, fellas. There's plenty for everyone."
And the catbird is devouring the berries on the dogwood. Cats and dogs.
Any time now, I'm going to go vote down at the fire station. While I'm at it, I might as well check the water clarity at the bridge above Bassett Creek. It's getting better, year by year.
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