I love reading The Spectator, not just for the witty writing but for the different perspective, a perspective, I should add, that I don’t always agree with but always admire for the flair with which it’s presented.
Not surprisingly, this week’s issue, which just arrived on my iPad, is full of stories about the new prime minister. Toby Young, writing in the back of the book – the part of the magazine I read first, and most enthusiastically – applauds the great breakthrough Rishi Sunak’s appointment represents, noting that “25 years ago someone with his characteristics could never have become prime minister.” Two sentences later he writes: “I am thinking, of course, of his height.”
At 5’7” Sunak apparently ranks as one of Britain’s shortest prime ministers.
I am not a fan of press trips, and back in 2010, when I took one of my last, I was not a big fan of country music. But the two combined to give me a memorable weekend in Nashville.
It was shortly after the city had sustained considerable damage from floods. Vince Gill, performing at the Ryman Auditorium on Friday evening, told the audience that he had lost most of his guitar collection in the floods. He added that his wife, Amy Grant, told him: “Honey, you only need one.” Then for the next two hours he and his friends played bluegrass with an infectious joy.
I returned to the Ryman the following night for the Grand Ole Opry, which had been moved back to its longtime home because of flood damage at Opryland. On the bill was Loretta Lynn. When she came on stage, the audience gave her the welcome of a legend. And when she sang her biggest hit it transcended autobiography and spoke to the assembled of overcoming adversity.
I’m coming to the end of a long essay I’ve been working on for a while and I’m thankful I’m not a figure skater. For then one little stumble would ruin everything I’ve done so far. If I falter as a writer – something that's pretty much guaranteed – I will just delete and try again, and again, until I get it right.
Here's a link to the article about Poland I mentioned last month: https://theamericanscholar.org/polish-lessons/
Going into the weekend I had never heard of Katy Tur. But watching CBS Sunday Morning, I saw a story on her and her new memoir, which is about her life as the child of news reporters. I also learned that she is married to Tony Dokoupil, an anchor on CBS Mornings. This seemed a little odd, that the network was doing a story on the wife of one of its employees. The memoir, I should add, includes revelations about her abusive father who, in later life, transitioned as a woman.
Then in the afternoon, I picked up the New York Times Book Review and found that the weekly By the Book interview was with Katy Tur. When asked what contemporary writers she admired, she mentioned, among others, Tony Dokoupil.
This morning I turned on CBS Mornings, with Gayle King, Nate Burleson, and Tony Dokoupil, thinking the first two might mention to the third the Sunday appearances of his wife, maybe even razz him a little about them. No, King said they would have a story about her.
I keep thinking of my drive last Friday along the back roads of Lancaster County. Young men in suspenders drove horse-drawn plows; cresting one hill I saw a team of seven. Women in long dresses hoed in their gardens (two young ones with bare feet). By a stream, a thick-bearded man walked hand-in-hand with his daughter on one side and his son on the other. A tent appeared, and I asked the young man mending the fence if they were getting ready for a picnic. “Fishing derby,” he told me, and I wished him good luck. Then I passed a boy driving a cart pulled by a pony. Everything was suffused in the golden light of early evening, and I thought how far away the rest of the world seemed: the war in Ukraine, the stock market crisis. It didn’t occur to me then to include mass shootings.