Friday

1 December 2017

— a little after 7:00 and yet pitch black out there.

Good Morning All:

Good Gravy, here we are in December!  I feel as though we have at last made the clubhouse turn, the end of this—for me, most enjoyable, but long--steeplechase now just thirty horse-lengths away.

So far, I am both delighted and chagrinned to note no one has reminded me it was Tolstoi—not Dostoevsky—who jotted down War and Peace.

Our Detroit rep reports that the Islamic word for Jesus is Isa ibn Maryam, عيسى بن مريم‎, “Jesus, son of Mary”, whom the Muslims regard as the penultimate prophet of Allah. I cannot help thinking that Issa, the cup-of-tea poet who encouraged the snail to take his or her time up Mount Fuji, would smile at this news. 

At Rutgers, we English majors were raised on something called New Criticism, a principal concern of which was: “The work itself, the work in and of itself, is all that matters.” We were encouraged to pay as little attention as possible to the author. The novel (poem, movie, portrait, etc.) was the thing, not whether the author was a left-handed, Jewish-Irish-Mohican who died in your arms at Monte Carlo. It may be handy to mention this now because the Day Book includes a passage by Woody Allen, who I understand may not be the most savory of people who have made great movies and very funny books. Whatever he may be guilty of, Annie Hall is—to your basic New Critic--innocent.

No one successfully guessed my all-time favorite quote, but then only one person took a shot it. If you read the quotes in the Day Book, you know it’s Louisa May Alcott’s: Love is a great beautifier. The older I get, the more that observation seems transcendently true. On the most simple level, people often observe the bride to be the most beautiful woman at the wedding. Maybe not the prettiest, most glamorous, or whatever, but the most beautiful, as if she is giving off some aura only subconsciously visible to most of us, as if her inner self is in perfect balance with her outer self. 

And you may laugh, but a month or so after Britta and I fell in love, she looked even more beautiful to me, and I found that I no longer had to keep my eyes shut while shaving.

There were five e-mails from family and friends waiting in my box this morning. A Red letter day! Including one from a friend I’d not heard from in months, to report, among other things, there is a new parrot in the family! 

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron

P.S.  Two Holly snaps: