Morning

¶ Brooks: As sermons go, David Brooks’s column on the evils of encouraging consumer debt is tidily effective: it’s both frightening and obviously correct.

¶ Kakutani: One might well ask why Janet Maslin didn’t review David Sedaris’s new book for “Books of the Times.” Ms Maslin writes very creditably about crowd-pleasers; she knows that prospective readers are looking for a good time. Michiko Kakutani’s idea of a good time, however…

Noon

¶ Sex and the Lightbulbs: I still can’t believe it! Yesterday, in view of the extreme heat and a consequent overloading of the power grid, Con Ed called Yorkvillians to ask us to turn off our “energy-intensive” appliances — everything except the refrigerator. Well, this afternoon, they called back! To say that, whatever the problem was, they’d fixed it! This takes us to an entirely new level of civic cooperation — and at least three bunny hops away from Idiocracy. If I’d known about the call sooner, I’d have stayed home and cranked up the a/c — and I wouldn’t have gone to see Sex and the City. But I’m sure glad I did!

Night

¶ Remains: Reading Cara Buckley’s story about the return of Native American remains from the American Museum of Natural History to the appropriate tribal area in British Columbia, it occurred to me (not for the first time) that, if I had to identify one collection from the omnium gatherum at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that does not, to my mind, belong there, it would be the immensely popular Egyptian art — most of which centers on human remains. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s too hot to read Aubrey. Ditto Merrill — or verse of any kind. So:

¶ Decameron X, v disappoints on two fronts. First, it depends on a magic act, which is very unusual in this collection. A magician causes a garden to bloom in Dolomitic Friuli in January. He’s hired to do this by a grandee who wants to win the affection of a married woman; she has proposed the stunt thinking it to be impossible. The moral, spelled out by her husband, is “don’t barter” with would-be lovers. If I were more industrious, I would enumerate the other stories in the Decameron that flaunt this precept. IX, i comes straight to mind.

Second, the orgy of liberality at the end of X, v is unpersuasively excessive. Why, the magician won’t even take his fee!

¶ Clive James on Duke Ellington: It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing. James shows that Ellington didn’t follow this advice himself, but kept trying to write earnest, “symphonic” jazz. About Coltrane, James is almost savage.

There is not a phrase that asks to be remembered except as a lesion to the inner ear, and the only purpose of the repetitions is to prove that what might have been charitably dismissed as an accident was actually meant. Shapelessness and incoherence are treated as ideals. Above all, and beyond all, there is no end to it. There is no reason except imminent death for the cacophonous parade to stop, a fact which steadily confirms the listener’s impression that there was no reason for it to start.

James astutely notes that the Twentieth-Century’s general disapproval of pleasing art was intensified in the world of jazz, and given great political force, by the determination of black musicians not to be condescended to by grateful audiences.

Morning

¶ Hot: It’s too hot to do just about anything but read, and that’s what I spent all day yesterday doing. But inactivity on that scale is depressing, and I’m bedeviled, this morning, by a sense of the futility of things.

Noon

¶ Onward: Paul Krugman writes very optimistically (I think) about the “de-racialization” of American politics.

Night

¶ Sudden Death: The whole day was overshadowed by the looming of power cuts. Just when I’d decided that the crisis was past, I got a phone message from Con Ed. Here’s the gist.
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¶ Decameron X, iv is very much a young person’s tale. Don’t you remember those college bull sessions — do they still call them bull sessions? — in which someone would propose a fantastically unlikely, but nevertheless very catchy, hypothetical situation, so that everyone could chew over that most important of youthful questions, “What would you do?”

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This is not a shot from the film. Jim Broadbent is telling us how proud his character is of his son, played here by Matthew Beard. That’s something that Arthur Morrison couldn’t quite manage whenever Blake Morrison was in the vicinity.

I loved this film — but then Blake Morrison (whose story this is) is only two years younger than I am. My own father was a sweetheart who was either working, golfing, or napping. (I do believe that eating was a form of napping for him.) But I was terrified of dads like Arthur. Come to think of it, my mother had more than a little Arthur in her.

Joseph O’Neill, author of Netherland, read from his novel and signed copies at the 82nd Street branch of Barnes & Noble this evening. I bought the novel for the fifth and sixth times. The first copy, you can read about here. The second copy, purchased at St Mark’s Bookshop, went to the other O’Neills, my daughter and son-in-law. The third copy went to Lady Diana (our Lady Diana, sister of late House Secretary Sir Kenneth Bradshaw). The fourth copy is destined for Nom de Plume. I don’t know what I’ll do with the fifth copy, but don’t worry: the one sure thing is that I’m not giving away the sixth copy that, very obligingly, Mr O’Neill signed for me on page 135, alongside the following passage:

There we instantly became confused by a succession of signposts placed in accordance with a bizarre New York convention that struck me again and again, namely, that all directions to motorists should be so located and termed as to disorient everyone except the traveler who already knows his way.

With this single sentence, Mr O’Neill proves himself to be the master of New York life that Tom Wolfe so entertainingly but regrettably showed himself not to be when he built an entire novel on a “save” that, while it might work anywhere else in the country, no born and bred New Yorker (“Sherman McCoy”?) would think of trying. As a traveler who grew up on local roads, I had the leisure to note how useless the signs were. If you’re on the Bronx leg of the Triboro bridge, hoping to get closer to Times Square, and you suddenly see the “Downtown NYC” sign with its little arrow, you’re probably toast. Your chance to position yourself in the correct lane expired fifty yards ago.

And then there’s the beautiful prose in which Mr O’Neill embeds his observation.

So, bibliomanes everywhere: know that there is a copy of the most beautiful novel in the world that does not, on its title page, appear to be a “signed” copy. Whilst, one fine day many centuries from now, in a world that, it’s to be hoped, has not been reduced to cinders (I’m not giving up the book any sooner), a general reader will turn the page and frown, seeing what you see above. What’s, she will ask, that about? 

Morning

¶ Permission: When Kathleen, home late last night from Washington, told me that she just wanted to forward a message from her new personal computer to the office, before going to bed, I almost begged her not to. Then I wished that I had. Finally, though, I sort of fixed the problem.

¶ Eric: One of the smartest bloggers to grace the Internet has returned, après une longue absence, as a French textbook about a fellow called John Hughes (Zhan Ãœg) put it when I was in school (it is possible that I remember this because I never read next, or any other, sentence in the book), to the Blogosphere. “And they were Sore Afraid.”

Afternoon

¶ Strange Maps: Wow! If there was ever a site for me, Strange Maps is it! (Thanks, kottke.org.)

Night

¶ Full Faith & Credit: Article IV of the US Constitution begins:

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

This will sound elitist, but I’d be amazed if one of this country’s three hundred million people knows what this clause means. What it means was just tested in one of our most conservative states, Virginia, and amazingly well. The justices of the Virginia Supreme Court (a state, not a federal, court) probably don’t like same-sex marriage any better than the lower judges who ruled the other, more popular way, but they do credit to their grand old man, Thomas Jefferson, a man who always seemed to know when to turn off his inbred inner bigot in favor of his outer enlightened idealist.

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William J Bernstein’s new book, A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World, is a paradigm-shifting book if there ever was one. In all the hoo-ha that we have had to listen to about Islam in the past seven years, no one has gotten to the heart of the matter more clearly than Mr Bernstein does here:

Alone among the world’s religions, Islam was founded by a trader. (Muhammed’s immediate successor, the cloth merchant Abu Bakr, was also a trader.) This extraordinary face suffuses the soul of this faith and guides the historical events that ricocheted over the land routes of Asia and the sea-lanes of the Indian Ocean through the next nine centuries. It’s traces are visible in today’s world, from the modern colonies of Muslim Indians in East Africa to the Lebanese merchants still active in West Africa to the “Syrians” who populated the third-world outposts of Graham Greene’s novels.

The most sacred texts of Islam resonate with the importance of commerce, as in this famous passage from the Koran: “O you who believe! Do not devour your property among yourselves falsely, except that it be trading by your mutual consent.” The most important passages on trade and commerce, however, are found in the hadith, the collected stories of Muhammed’s life, which offer advice on the conduct of trade from the general … to the specific.

…

Within a very few decades, the new creed would sweep from Mecca to Medina and back, next across the Middle East, and then west to Spain and east to India. In a commercial sense, early Islam can be thought of as a rapidly inflating bubble of commerce; outside lay unbelievers, and inside lay a swiftly growing theological and institutional unity. 

Mr Bernstein goes on to hazard a quickly-sketched explanation of Islam’s very rapid spread that makes it sound rather more like a Lions’ Club than a world religion.

Morning

¶ Marion: The Édith Piaf biopic, La Môme (La Vie en Rose), made a big Marion Cotillard fan out of me, and I set about seeing as many of her movies as I could. Her presence in Ma vie en l’air, which didn’t even make it to the United States as a video, is somewhat decorative; the movie is really about two guys who don’t want to grow up. But she brings to it a screen-goddess quality that’s reminiscent of Ava Gardner or Rita Hayworth. Unlike those divas, Marion Cotillard is a genuine actress, but, at least in this droll comedy, she’s a goddess, too. There are always a few goddesses running around, but today’s filmmakers don’t seem to know what to do with them.

¶ Newton Falls: The heartwarming story of a pluckily-revived paper mill in the middle of Nowhere, Upstate, will — ought to — make a great movie. But I wish that reporter Fernando Santos had given my inner business historian something more to work with.

Noon

¶ Exemptive: “What is the scope of the Commission’s authority to exempt?” This burning question is addressed as I write by a panel of securities lawyers that includes my dear wife. Tune in!

Night

¶ Dissertation: As the song says, “At Last.” I had a call from M le Neveu this evening. To get an idea of how unlikely it was that he would finish his dissertation — and I hasten to note that he has finished his disseration — have a look at the table entitled “Cumulative Completion Rates for Cohorts Entering 1992-4, by Fields” (scroll down a bit).
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¶ In the Decameron, X, iii, the story of Nathan and Mithridanes, is the one that I would urge everyone to read, not so much because it’s a “good story” as because it casts a  beautiful light on bygone mores. Again, as in X, i, the longing for recognition is praised as a sign of noble character, even though — this time — the fame-seeker seeks to murder the gentleman whose reputation he would outshine. Read the rest of this entry »

Morning

¶ DC: Kathleen is off to Washington this afternoon. She’ll be participating in a panel discussion of the history of exemptive orders. Don’t you wish you could be there?

Noon

¶ Fat Lady Yet To Sing: With a headline like this, you know that the story is still not over: “Top Democrats Press for Unity After Obama Secures Victory .” 

¶ Sparkle Plenty: Happily, I don’t have to hire a service such as this. (A window washer’s blog! What will they think of next?)

Night

¶ Aria: Finally.

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¶ In the Decameron, a sort-of Robin Hood story, involving a brigand and the Abbott of Cluny. Did I say “brigand”? Ghino di Tacco comes off as a Mafia don. As for the Abbott, I remember him: he appears in I, vii.

On the whole, I find Boccaccio’s anecdotes from real life to be somewhat disappointing. I much prefer the tales that, even by Boccaccio’s day, had been handled to a fineness. Read the rest of this entry »

A big issue, with lots of Noes. “Summer Reading” is not “Summer Reviewing”!

Morning

¶ Suddenly, It’s Summer: The window unit in the blue room, necessary because the HVAC service is always sluggish there, is keeping the room with the most books cool and dry, which is good for them and good for me, too. But I’m sitting in the living room, with the balcony door open, keeping comfortable with a Vornado fan.

¶ Heather Does Not Have Two Mommies: RomanHans slays me with his parody of political correctness. Part I, Part II. We must all pester our favorite booksellers for the other titles in Roman’s “Heather” series, thus creating demand, and, perhaps, the books.

Noon

¶ Crackdown in Dujiangyan: A demonstration by grieving parents, protesting the shoddy construction that killed their children in classrooms, was more or less peaceably broken up by a swarm of intimidating policemen. Edward Wong reports.

¶ Under Construction: Ha ha ha, that’s what most of the pages say at the Web site of New York Crane and Equipment.

Night

¶ Clinch: You’ve got to love the headline: no Dewey Beats Truman! this time!

¶ Prima la musica: Listening to Mr Mozart (as Florence Foster Jenkins appropriatingly called him, making him one of us), K 516. Music one has known better (much better) than the back of one’s hand for over forty years. And tonight it sounds as though I’d never heard it before. The amazing Mr Mozart.
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¶ Neifile begins the Tenth Day of the Decameron with a story about that earliest of life’s discontents: wanting something just because other people have it. Ruggieri de’ Figiovanni, a Florentine knight, sojourns at the court of the King of Spain. He has no intention of becoming a Spaniard himself, but he resents the King’s liberal handing out of castles and estates to men less illustrious than himself. Interestingly, the story rewards the longing for recognition that underlies Ruggieri’s discontent. Whether canny or sincere, Boccaccio takes pains to appeal to aristocratic readers. Read the rest of this entry »

Morning

¶ Quiet: The calendar is blank. Nothing on for the entire week. No excuses, in other words, for not attending to the prosaic domesticalities that have been piling up for weeks.

Noon

¶ Eco: At Varieties of Unreligious Experience, the Web site that he revived not too long ago (how quickly I lose track, though!), Conrad Roth lays into the historical fiction of Umberto Eco, which he used to like but now finds emptily pretentious.

Night

¶ Parade: Make nice, sez hizzoner. Don’t board up the borders because the [epithet deleted] are coming.

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One day last week, I happened upon a Web-page discussion of Netherland, Joseph O’Neill’s astonishingly beautiful new book. I had just finished reading the novel, I think, when I read that Mr O’Neill published a piece about a Trinidadian death-row prisoner in an issue of Granta entitled “Overachievers.” My heart leapt. “Overachievers” is one of the handful of old Grantas that I’ve held on to. Now, where was it? Read the rest of this entry »

On Fifth Avenue, actually.

This summer, I tell myself. This summer, I’m making some big changes!

In my mind, two completely distinct but not incompatible ideas of summer overlap, and yet the combination, if my track record is any indication, proves to be inert. When fall rolls around, I haven’t made any big changes. A few salutary fixes, perhaps. Perhaps even an entirely new blog platform: that’s what happened last August. But I didn’t do any of the work on that. In fact, I don’t know what I did last summer.

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