A while ago Verlyn Klinkenborg wrote about Angela Thirkell in his column and I was jealous that he liked her so much because I had tried to read her stuff years ago and found it annoying and twee. But my friend Jeanette recently hunted up a bunch of the novels and passed them on to Janet and me and…they’re so good. One of the things I love that I could not appreciate twenty years ago are the sons. There are so many sons in their early twenties. They come home, leave their tennis rackets and hiking boots and clothes and books everywhere, immediately get on the phone to their friends, disappear after bestowing a distracted kiss on the parental forehead, stay out late, then jump on the back of a friend’s motorcycle and leave. And the mother? She is in ecstasy, gazing at the clothes strewn everywhere with deep, motherly happiness. So on mother’s day, I recommend Angela Thirkell, who understood a lot.

Also, I have discovered a glorious site to buy her books and every other English novel you might might to get your hands on. Anglophilebooks.net

Happy Mother’s Day!

I was staying at a friend’s house when someone emailed me about an article she was translating from Italian into English which quoted some parts of Rameau’s Niece. The translator asked me to check some passages so that she would not be translating back into English from the Italian what had already been translated from English into Italian, if you follow me. Luckily, there was a copy of the paperback of Rameau’s Niece in my friend’s bookcase. When I opened it up, I was able to find not only the requested passages, but also the traces of real book worms. I like it when the basis of a metaphorical phrase turns up. And I found the holes in the book strangely moving. Here are some blurry iphone pictures of their tunnels, which look very cozy.

I have noticed that instead of hearing “no problem” (the uncooperative taxi driver’s mantra) all the time, I have started to hear a much more spiritually melodious phrase: “No worries.” This is the refrain to soothe the anxious Jew. I thought it sounded laid back and Carribean, but Janet assures me it is Australian in origin. As in, “No worries, Mate.” I’m glad it has migrated here. Welcome.

Woof Patrol (click here), a great site all about, what else, dogs, has a link to a pug doing what all pugs really want to do: clean your computer screen. Go there AT ONCE. Your screen will never look better. It’s a thing a beauty! CLICK HERE!!!

I like antiquated locutions that pop up in everyday life, like signs that say “Inquire Within.” Here is a lovely one posted on in an alley in Venice.

I was walking along the other day thinking of common offensive phrases of my youth. When we dropped pillows from on high we used to cheerfully chant, “Bombs over Tokyo!” Charming. And in the family lore of there is the delightful story of a day at my grandparents’ house, some holiday or other, when my little brother of about two was standing idly petting the wall, which was covered, as I remember, with a pale green fabric. My Aunt Norma said something in Yiddish. Ricky, my brother, said, “What?” And I cleverly said, “She said, Get your cotton-pickin’ hands off the walls.”
So, I was walking along the other day thinking that everything about that incident dated it to the 1950s: The aunt speaking Yiddish in a white clapboard Connecticut house, the child knowing the phrase cotton-pickin’ from our housekeeper, a young black woman from South Carolina name Elle. The wallpaper. Times have changed, thought I. Then, as I was making my daily Doonesbury check, I saw this in the “Say What?” section:
“Not a single one of these cotton…[stammering]…these just ridiculous politicians should be the moderator on the issue of race.”
– Lou Dobbs, on Condoleezza Rice
Now I just have to figure out how to say that in Yiddish.

Hector spent a week at the beach, much of it lolling in the surf, but this is not that. This is a site called wavemypic that allows you to upload pictures of, say, your dog and give it this effect. Thanks, ndozo, as always!

I usually write on this blog late at night when I can’t sleep. But in the last few months, my insomnia has disappeared, and so I have neglected it. Another thing to feel guilty about? Maybe, but on the other hand, how transcendently, terrifically, gorgeously swell to sleep at night!
I think this may have something to do with being in California, which I am. The street I live on in New York has, thanks to Donald Trump, been flooded with extra traffic in the last year, and the sounds of thumping music, rattling and roaring mufflers, wailing women, whistling cads and the midnight chortles of boulevardier infants comes wafting up through the air conditioner with increasing volume and frequency. Here, there is the occasional dog barking, the wind in the trees, a mockingbird, a helicopter. Intermittent. Soft. A lullaby. We are in a very peculiar and wonderful part of Los Angeles called Venice. It was built about 100 years ago by Abbot Kinney, a tobacco baron. He dug miles of canals, some of which are still here, and called it Venice of America. There are also walk streets with gardens and cottages (and remodeled cottages in every known style, in the LA tradition) facing each other across a little paved pathway. We’re on a walk street. And in Venice, unlike most other parts of LA, people actually walk. To stores. To restaurants. Like New York! With sun. And flowers. And one of our neighbors has a red chicken that walks around the yard.

Now, as for the election, my Jewish anxiety kept spoiling the joy of having two such intelligent and decent and articulate candidates, because it was just too good to be true, I want to work for both of them, how could you choose, Oh dear now they are turning each other, why can’t we all just get along, I wish she hadn’t said that, I wish he hadn’t said that, I knew something bad would happen, I hate the media, That was quite a speech, Jon Stewart is brilliant, How could America vote off Chekesi and leave the one who calculatedly sang I’m Proud To Be An American…oops. Wrong America. Ish.

© Elliott Erwitt / Magnum Photos
I go to Slate pretty much every day, (sometimes mostly to read Doonesbury, I admit,) and I almost always look at the Magnum photographs. Last week they had a particularly wonderful batch, in honor of the Westminster dog show. Lots of the divine Elliott Erwitt, of course. Other great photos, too. click here!

Mr. Henry, the always entertaining purveyor of culinary wisdom on Manolo Food, has a post about what he cooks for his wonderful dog, Pepper.

Pepper’s Breakfast

3 lbs. boneless breast chicken
1 cup cooked lentils
½ bunch kale (or spinach) - leaves & small stems
1 sm. bag carrots, peeled baby
½ bag cranberries
2 apples
blueberries, a handful

Click here for more of the pleasantly tart Mr. Henry, and his equally tart readers and their thoughts on shedding, raw diets, feces and vegans.

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