I’m in week two of my cold and appreciative that the weather, thanks to Saharan dust, is as meh as I feel. Napping, reading, and watching TV – in addition to sports (tennis, soccer, baseball), quality shows that nobody talks about. We finished the British series Trying, about a couple who, unable to have children, look into adoption, and now the Danish series Chaos, about a couple who are co-hosts of a morning talk show and, off camera, are divided on the subject of children. (He wants them, she’s not sure.) Despite the common theme of family, the shows have almost nothing in common: the British series is funny, the Danish one is much more of a drama; the first is all about home life, the second mainly about professional life. But they’re both about the everyday life of normal people, their relationships with their friends and parents and co-workers, the sort of thing that, when done well, has no need of a murder.
Trump is not a student – of history or anything – so he may be unaware of how his ICE raids on immigrants resemble the rounding up of Jews in Nazi Germany. There is the same racial profiling, the same absence of due process. That it is happening in the United States of America in the 21st Century is a national disgrace. Cities around the country should cancel their 4th of July fireworks out of a collective feeling of shame. Instead of celebration, we should observe a night of silence and opposition.
The world is a mess but today is the first day of Wimbledon, when all the courts are green and every player’s hopes are high. The tournament that is played on the most outdated surface is still the one that commands the greatest respect.
I’m enjoying “Outrageous,” the BritBox show about the Mitford sisters, though I suspect the portrayal of Nancy is off the mark. Her comments are bland, with none of the withering wit that made her novels popular and her letters cherished by Evelyn Waugh. The reviewer for The Spectator had the same reaction, and suggested her persona was changed with an eye on ratings. You could get viewers to warm to a Nazi sympathizer (sister Unity), but, the reviewer suggested, they would draw the line at a first-class snob.
It’s said that if Anthony Trollope finished writing a novel in the morning he would start a new one in the afternoon. I find that remarkable. I recently finished reading a book – Czesław Miłosz: A California Live – and am taking a break before starting the next one.
Monday I received an email from someone who had recently read my first book – published 34 years ago – and wanted to thank me for it brought back memories of his one trip to Warsaw, back in 1987, while on tour with the Cleveland Orchestra.
I’ve been fighting a cold for almost a week and the message worked better than any medicine in improving my mood.