As Robin and I were breaking our fast one morning, my mind came loose from its moorings just slightly and I found myself thinking about themed restaurants. You know, where the items on the menu have cutesy names, like the John Wayne Burger or the Bugs Bunny Blueberry Cobbler.
When my mental Wheel of Fortune finally clicked to a halt, it was pointing towards what it might be like to create a literary-themed establishment.
First off, we would name it the Algonquin Cafe, and all of the tables would, of course, be round. The walls would be adorned with framed quotations written in bold calligraphic strokes.
Some examples of such decorative plums might be:
“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second-greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first-greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”
Dorothy Parker
or:
It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.
Robert Benchley
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Then I moved on to thinking about the names of potential menu items, again using the loosely literary approach:
- Finnegan’s Cake
- For Whom The Bull Toils (Burger)
- The Codfather (Fish n’ Chips)
- Prawn With The Wind
- War and Peas
- The Sir Francis Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato (sandwich)
- Julius Caesar Salad
- Of Rice and Men
- Blooming Paul B’onion
- Edgar Allan Po’Boy
- Eclair Lewis
- Pepperjack Kerouac
I am sure that with the enormous amount of brainpower resident in the readership of this modest blog, there could easily be better entries. If you have a suggestion just put it in the comments and I will add it to the list. Keep in mind that the worse the pun the better.
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This morning Youtube served up this gem, with three of my favorite performers doing this tender song, one that is very meaningful to me. The venue was one of Neil Young’s Bridge Concerts, in 1999.
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Good Lord! As I read each paragraph in this story I became more and more amazed. A nine year-old girl has become one of England’s best chess players. She began to learn at the ripe old age of 5 years. It is obvious that she has some sort of gift for the game, some working-of-the-brain that most people don’t have.
I, for no particular reason that I can think of, have precisely the opposite sort of brain. I am unable to learn chess beyond reading the two sides of the small sheet of instructions that might accompany the purchase of a cheap playing board.
When I was trying to learn the game several decades ago, I would buy these little books that took you move by move through famous games. I learned words like gambit and en passant. But it was when I realized that those who played the game well were looking ahead a great many moves down the road that I knew it was never going to be my game. My level of play I will call Buddhist-ish. I am so much in the moment that the greatest number of moves that I can look ahead is two.
Therefore I content myself with the many wise adages that suggest that each of us has some talent that only waits to be discovered. I’m not sure what mine might be, but I do know that it doesn’t involve a chessboard.
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Robin and I are painting our bedroom. We’re tired of the color, which we put on those walls ourselves about a decade ago. So we made a trip to the paint store to choose a new shade and replenish some of the things we needed to do the job, like brushes, new trays for paint rollers to play in, etc. The project is going well, and so far there have been no plops on the carpeting.
Over my lifetime I’ve painted lots of rooms. Things have changed greatly over that time, and nearly all for the better. I started out with oil-based paints that dissolved parts of your brain while you were using them. There were suggestions on the cans that it would be a good idea to do the job in a well-ventilated room, or you might find yourself doing odd or unpardonable things, like signing your checks wrong or joining the Republican party. Also, using these paints was quite a bit messier. When you raised the brush above chest level paint began flowing down the brush, onto your arm, down to your elbow, and thence onto the floor.
Robin and I are cautious about doing projects together, choosing them carefully and setting boundaries and tasks very clearly. We learned the value of this approach when we tried wallpapering a room as a couple in the first year we were together. Within an hour we were are each other’s throats and wrestling on the floor in a room littered with ladders, utility knives, and remnants of mis-cut wallpaper. When we were finally exhausted we retired to separate rooms to gather strength. Robin’s room had a phone in it, so she called a girlfriend who was talented at all things home-decorating-wise, and presto!, I was replaced. Discharged. Canned.
We have never tried papering together since that signature day more than thirty years ago. It’s not worth the threat of breaking up a marriage or losing body parts.
But painting … we can do that.
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Little Home In The Valley 