Until last night's Emmy Awards show - specifically Hannah Einbinder's acceptance speech - I had never heard anyone express support for Palestine and the Philadelphia Eagles in the same sentence.
One of the problems with nationalism is that it’s indiscriminate: you support whatever and whoever is from your country, regardless of merit. At the U.S. Open, fans rally behind the American players, just as, at the French Open, all the French players get the crowd’s support.
But good and bad exist under the same flag, as this year’s U.S. Open has shown us. Last week, the Polish player Kamil Majchrzak was signing autographs after a win when a man in the crowd snatched the cap he had just signed for a young boy and stuffed it into his wife’s bag. Majchrzak, who was still signing autographs, was unaware of the petty theft, but learned about it later. He reached out to the boy and made arrangements to meet with him, at which time he gave him a new signed cap (and some other things as well).
This made me feel very good about Poles, a people I have lived among and written about. Then the news surfaced that the man who stole the boy’s cap was a Pole, a wealthy businessman. The callous act of one Pole led to the generous act of another.
My general rule of travel is that, wherever I go, the weather is unseasonably cool. It was this past May in Philadelphia, last March in Charleston, September 2022 in Warsaw, where I bought a scarf the day I arrived and wore it every day for three weeks.
Tomorrow I’m flying to Raleigh, NC, where I think that rule is going to be challenged. See you back here in August.
Made it back to physical therapy yesterday for my knee – whose pain had disappeared in the interim – and accidentally kicked myself in the shin, drawing blood. I felt like the character in the Peter De Vries novel who visits Lourdes and catches a cold.
I had a beer last night with my friend Javier, who grew up in Peru but has now lived here for nearly half his life. A few years ago, when he became a citizen, he told his mother that he was an American.
“What are you saying?” she scoffed. “You’re Peruvian.”
Then a few months ago the new pope was elected. “He’s Peruvian,” his mother announced.
Yesterday we drove to Finster Murphy’s on 17th Street for lunch. During the 10-minute drive I had to swerve on Davie Boulevard to avoid hitting a car that had pulled out abruptly from the slow right lane; then, a few minutes later, on Miami Rd., I had to stop suddenly as the van in front of me made a U-turn in the middle of the street. Arriving at the fish shop, I found a car taking two parking spaces, not in the usual way, by straddling a line, but by sitting horizontally across two spaces.
Fortunately, my king mackerel and seaweed salad were delicious.