I've limited my acquisitions of books this year but I'm picking up a few eBooks courtesy of the University of Chicago Press' flash sale. Also note that UCP makes an eBook available for free each month. Check out their site each month or get on their mailing list to see what's available. If you haven't checked out their site, it has links to their blog and so much more.
I have no affiliation with UCP. Also, I take no responsibility to damage done to anyone's budget other than my own.
Title page to Clerks / Chasing Amy: Two Screenplays: by Kevin Smith
Robin,
See? Now this sucks. You get this cool gift, right. And that's okay. But now you know Dwight's going to hold it over your head forever. Maybe even extort sex from you as well (if he's not a relative...hell, maybe even if he is a relative).
I'm sorry I was a party to this.
[signature] Kevin Smith
Work has been overwhelming lately (just finished a round of funding and an audit starts next week), which has meant almost no time to read. Hopefully things will slow down in a few weeks.
In the meantime and to mark his passing, here are a couple of scans from Art Linkletter's book. My favorite moments from his show were when he would ask the kids what their parents told them NOT to say. The kids, of course, would go into great detail on everything the parents had hoped to hide. As my wife and I found out, if you don't want everyone (in the grocery store, at a birthday party, etc.) to know something, don't tell the kids!
From the preface:
In seeking to stimulate the interest of children and young people in the worship services of the church, through the years I have used a number of ideas for Sermonettes. Just one has succeeded beyond all expectations—“Bird Life in Wington.”
Picture on a stand beside the pulpit a little white cardboard church with steeple and miniature bells—the First Birderian Church of Wington. … Parents seem to enjoy the Wington stories as much as, if not more than their children—often observing slyly that I am aiming over the heads of the children for the grown-ups. But far from objecting, they have not only called for more (which has caused me to prolong the series far beyond my original intention), but have urged that I publish the Wington stories. This little volume is my response to their request.
And now, a cultural artifact, originally published in 1928...
From an article on "The Green Pastures":
Roark Bradford (1896-1948) grew up on a plantation in Tennessee, where he, a white child, heard many African-American folk stories from the black workers. In 1920, he began working as a reporter, and, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica, “met the colorful characters of various southern cities, including the musicians, preachers, and storytellers on the riverfront of New Orleans.” Based on these experiences, Bradford wrote down a series of African-American folk stories, which were published in the New York World. His first book, a collection of the retelling of biblical stories from among his published works, Ol’ Man Adam an’ His Chillun, was published in 1928. Bradford’s work, however, cannot be considered an accurate or authentic representation of African-American folk culture. As is noted in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, “A major weakness of Bradford’s work is his reliance on stereotypes of his black subjects. Yet his writing accurately reflects their dialect, and his approach is gentle and humorous.”
In 1982 I bought a copy of Pellegrino Artusi’s La Sceinza in Cucina e l’Arte di Mangiar Bene, “The Science of Cookery and the Art of Eating Well,” from a used-book seller who also carried a few new books on the side. My copy was new. I didn’t want a new copy, but when I asked him if he had any used ones, he shook his head and replied that mothers passed their copies on to their daughters. He’d sold only three used copies of Artusi, as the book is called, in thirty years. I thought about that on the way home, and when I opened the book, began to see why.(Mid-January 1997) After many telephone calls I finally found an inn that had an opening the weekend after Valentine’s Day. Every place I called in Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley were already booked, but then I found a room in an inn on the coast in a little town called Elk. The owner was another Alabama transplant and she recommended a nearby inn if I wanted a unique dinner. She told me that the couple that owned the inn, Luciano and Pauline, sometimes served special dinners for a small group of guests. I called and got their last available seats for the Sunday evening dinner.
La Scienza in Cucina is more than just a cookbook. Pellegrino Artusi read widely, corresponded with the intellectuals of his day, and had something to say about just about everything. Almost half the recipes contain anecdotes or snippets of advice on subjects as varied as regional dialects and public health, and while cooks may open the book to find out how to make minestrone or a German cake, they northern Italy in the 1840s were like. While today his comments are merely interesting, at the turn of the century they undoubtedly provided the first glimpses of the outside world to many of his readers who lived in small towns and had neither the means nor the opportunity to travel.
(from the introduction by Kyle M. Phillips III)
29 – Minestrone
For me, minestrone brings to mind a year of great public suffering.
I spent the bathing season of the Year of our Lord 1855 in Livorno; cholera was slithering here and there in many provinces of Italy and had everyone dreading a general epidemic, which in fact burst out forthwith. One Saturday evening I entered an inn and asked, “What kind of soups do you have?” “Minestrone,” came the answer. “Bring me the minestrone,” I replied. I dined, took a walk, and went to bed. I had a room in a spanking-new building owned by a mannamed Dominici, in Piazza del Voltone. During the night my insides rebelled in a most frightful manner. “Damned minestrone, you’ll never catch me again!” I repeated countless times as I went to and from the privy until dawn. Exhausted, I took the first morning train to Florence, where I recovered immediately. Monday came the sorry news that cholera had broken out in Livorno, and Mr. Dominici had been the first fatality—minestrone indeed!
If I knew who invented the oven, I’d erect a monument to him at my own expense. He certainly deserves it far more than many others who’ve been honored in this monument-crazed century.
The great rivalry between the Blacks and the Whites that followed on the heels of that between the Guelfs and the Ghibellines, desolating Italy for so long, threatens to flare up anew over truffles. Be reassured, gentle readers, that no blood will be shed this time, because the supporters of the blacks and whites now under discussion are much kinder-natured than the fierce contestants of yesteryear. I support the whites and believe that the black truffle is the worst of all.
I don’t want to give myself airs, but to amuse the reader and fulfill the desire of the unknown admirer who sent me this letter from Portoferraio on July 14, 1906, when I was correcting the galleys of the tenth edition:
My dearest Sir,
A poet gave me a copy of your fine book, La Scienza in Cucina, adding the verses I have included in the hope you will find a place them in your next printing, which I hope comes posthaste. Here are the verses:
This is the breviary of health,
The apotheosis of the bud:
With its guidance a man can live a century,
Sipping life drop by drop.
The only true human bliss (for the others are games)
God placed in the hands of cooks;
Let the unhappy man accuse himself
For being without Artusi’s book upon his shelf,
And let him call himself an ass ten times over
For not knowing its precepts by heart.
An admirer.
I have mentioned that my parents saved most of the books I had while growing up. A couple of this week's favorites with the boys revolve around Lyle the Crocodile. My favorite part is in Lyle and the Birthday Party, where I read Lyle's doctor with a German accent (think of "Hogan's Heroes" with a southern accent and you're pretty close).
Here's the end of The House on East 88th Street:
So now if you should happen to be
walking past the house on
East 88th Street
and if you should happen to hear
sounds that go:
SWISH, SWASH, SPLASH, SWOOSH!
don't be surprised.
It's only Lyle.
Lyle the crocodile.
The most popular books this week with the above audience:
Doctor Dolittle's Circus--we should finish this book tonight and start on the next in the series this weekend
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Thomas and the Big, Big Bridge
Olive the Other Reindeer--I think they are hoping to get a jump on Christmas
My parents kept all my books from when I was a kid, including this copy of Doctor Dolittle that one of my brothers gave me over 40 years ago. My wife and I have been reading it to the boys, and I should finish the last two chapters tonight. To say that it underwhelms me, as compared to when it was first read to me, would be an understatement. The boys love it, however, and it delights me that the book would make the perpetually enraged PC nannies even more upset. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that someone has tried to ban it.
The boys love hearing about Jip and Polynesia and Chee-Chee and Gub-Gub and the pushmi-pullyu et al., so I'm not going to worry about my feelings toward it. Every night it has been "We'll read from Doctor Dolittle, right?" Good thing I have a box set of more Doctor Dolittle books. An excerpt:
So that was the way the Doctor came to know that animals had a language of their own and could talk to one another. And all that afternoon, while it was raining, Polynesia sat on the kitchen table giving him bird words to put down in the book.
At tea-time, when the dog, Jip, came in, the parrot said to the Docto, "See, he's talking to you."
"Looks to me as though he were scratching his ear," said the Doctor.
"But animals don't always speak with their mouths," said the parrot in a high voice, raising her eyebrows. "They talk with their ears, with their feet, with their tails--with everything. Sometimes they don't want to make a noise. Do you see now the way he's twitching up one side of his nose?"
"What's that mean?" asked the Doctor.
"That means, 'Can't you see that it has stopped raining?'" Polynesia answered. "He is asking you a question. Dogs nearly always use their noses for asking questions."
