I thanked our host (Guy) for recommending Joe Squared and told him how much we loved the pizza. He said the director Martin Brest (“Scent of a Woman”) stayed at the Inn once and when he recommended the pizza, Brest said, “I’m from NY and I’ve been everywhere, so I’m not easy to impress with pizza.” Brest insisted they go together to try it and after his first bite he said “You’re right.”
Not to dwell too much on it, but I visited the website and discovered that the very pie we had (Bacon and Clams) was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. I challenge you to watch this without drooling.
It was Ernest Hemingway’s birthday yesterday, Oak Park, IL, 1899. It was also the day, in 1925 that he began his first novel, The Sun Also Rises. Cheers fans may recall that this is the book, a first edition of which Diane borrowed money from Sam to buy. When Sam saw it, he scoffed and said: “The sun also rises — that’s profound.” I know I’m digressing badly but it was such a good episode. Sam eventually borrows the book, reads it, and loves it! But he took it with him to read as he was taking a hot bath and dropped it in the bathwater. So he brought it back all puffed up and bloated. Sorry, that’s all I remember.
Back to Hemingway, when the novel was published, it got good reviews in the NY papers, but was not well-received elsewhere in the country, including his hometown Chicago. Get this — his own mother wrote to him: “It is a doubtful honor to produce one of the filthiest books of the year. […] Every page fills me with a sick loathing — if I should pick up a book by any other writer with such words in it, I should read no more — but pitch it in the fire.”
A sick loathing! Ouch, Mom!
It was published by Scribner’s with Maxwell Perkins as the editor. For Hemingway’s second novel, Perkins had to defend the colorful language to his boss, Charles Scribner, but was so uncomfortable saying the words that he had to write them on a memo pad for Scribner. In the end, three words were not included in A Farewell to Arms, and were replaced by dashes. Hemingway wrote them back in by hand on a couple of copies, including one that he gave to James Joyce. You all know what he looked like, right? So here’s his granddaughter Mariel, born four months after his death by suicide just shy of his 62nd birthday.
This poem from Today’s Writer’s Almanac is by Jane Kenyon, and it’s called “Coming Home in Twilight in Late Summer.”
We turned into the drive,
and gravel flew up from the tires
like sparks from a fire. So much
to be done—the unpacking, the mail
and papers…the grass needed mowing….
We climbed stiffly out of the car.
The shut-off engine ticked as it cooled.
And then we noticed the pear tree,
the limbs so heavy with fruit
they nearly touched the ground.
We went out to the meadow; our steps
made black holes in the grass;
and we each took a pear,
and ate, and were grateful.
An amazing exhibit in Baltimore’s wonderful Visionary Art Museum is a series of over 30 embroideries by Holocaust survivor Esther Nisenthal Krinitz. She was a seamstress and dressmaker in her own shop, so was no stranger to needlework, but she didn’t view the embroideries as art — for her they were a way of telling her story. The museum ran a video of her discussing them. This one, the one I asked Phil to shoot for us, shows her family and neighbors leaving their homes under Nazi orders to walk to the train and their eventual deaths. Esther’s mom had her and her sister run to a gentile friend’s house who helped them escape. The rest of the people in the embroidery perished, including Esther’s family. She remembered the sky was black on that day, and vultures circled. At the bottom of most of the works, she embroidered the date and an explanation of what was portrayed. You can see the small letters, but they are not legible in this photo.
This heartbreaking embroidery in retrospect is of her childhood home and family, before the war.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is so divorced from reality that she had no idea that a recent speech she gave lambasting Biden would be viewed by most people on Planet Earth as praise. Biden’s campaign actually repeated it with the note: “We approve this message.” The speech said Biden “had the largest public investment in social infrastructure and environmental programs that is actually finishing what FDR started, that LBJ expanded on: programs to address education, medical care, urban problems, rural poverty, transportation, Medicare, Medicaid, labor unions.”
OK Greene. Anything else?
We drove up to Cockeysville, MD last night (it’s right next to Poopietown, Raffi would say) to see a romantic comedy called No Hard Feelings starring Jennifer Lawrence. Some of the scenes tried too hard and didn’t work, but we enjoyed it and liked how it resolved things. Matthew Broderick was sensational in a secondary role. There was one excellent line that I am about to spoil for you — so if you plan to see the movie, skip down to the next separation bar. Jennifer Lawrence is applying to adopt a dog, and the guy is interviewing her to make sure she’s a suitable pet owner. He asks her – “Why are you adopting a dog?” and she says, “Because I can’t have my own.”
Tonight is our last night of what has been a very good getaway so far, kinahora. Good weather, good eats, nice people and activities. We’ve put this evening in the hands of the Nats — we have tix for their game against the Jints down in DC. Ace Josiah Gray is pitching for us (I call him Jedidiah), so we may have a chance. I prepaid for parking (it costs more than the tickets) so I’m a little worried about how that will work.
Here’s a shot of Nats Stadium on the day Jesus came down to the game. They still lost. D’oh!
See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 