Our friends from St. Pete arrived in Fort Lauderdale Beach yesterday afternoon with their two teenage sons and their German short-haired pointer. We met them for happy hour at their hotel, the Shorebreak, which accepts dogs. (It's part of the Kimpton group.) In fact, a sign in the lobby, above two water bowls, reads: “Dogs welcome. People tolerated.”
In the bar, we found a beautiful German shepherd-and-chow mix and a gorgeous Newfoundland, both evacuees from the west coast of Florida. We learned that the Newfie had not made it to the room yet because he was scared to walk down the corridor.
Shortly our friends arrived, with their pointer on a leash. Taking him in, the Newfie’s master said, “It’s like the Westminster Dog Show in here.”
New Rule for Real Time with Bill Maher: When they run the same show two consecutive weeks perhaps they can call it a “repeat” instead of an "encore presentation.”
September 1, 1939 – December 7, 1941 – September 11, 2001 – February 24, 2022 – October 7, 2023.
I’ve spent much of the week happily engrossed in a novel written by a friend. Brave in Season, by Jon Volkmer, tells the story of a group of Black railroad workers in the 1950s who spend part of a summer in a small Nebraska town, where interactions between the “gandy dancers” (as the railroad men are called) and the townspeople are mostly cordial but reach a climax in an exhibition baseball game. Described as “a novel of race, railroads, and baseball,” Brave in Season is that and more: It is a beautiful evocation of small-town America and a touching coming-of-age story (the title is taken from a poem by A.E. Housman). It has memorable characters, emotional scenes, and occasional drama. In fact, it would make an excellent movie – a better one, I suspect, than the fantastical Field of Dreams. And Nebraska’s most famous director – Alexander Payne – would be the perfect person to make it.
Monday I had an MRI and yesterday I got a text thanking me for choosing the facility and asking for a review.
Really, I thought, a review? Then I remembered that I had asked for classical music and they had given me easy listening.
An interesting review in Sunday’s New York Times Book Review of Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life by Joshua Leifer, who writes in the book, as an example of the watering down of Jewish identity in this country, that instead of Saul Bellow novels we now have Seth Rogen movies.