R.I.P. Dolly Parton

… whose music I don’t know well – I confidently recall only her songs “Jolene,” “9 to 5,” and “Islands in the Stream” – but whose generosity I appreciate. My children have received dozens of free books from Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.

Speaking of libraries: Abel has become almost impossible to supervise in actual ones. He climbs on tables, ravages displays, chews tips off markers, and dumps toy bins upside-down. I follow in his wake, cleaning his messes. Today, while I was picking up toys, he moved through the Spanish-language book section like a tornado, pulling several shelves’ worth of volumes onto the floor.

The library’s rules, unfortunately (or fortunately), do not permit me to reshelve books.

My two least favorite librarians were on duty – the ones who sternly call me “Sir.” They were kind this time.

Yes, it’s good that we receive plenty of books at home, thanks to Dolly Parton.

A culinary dream

Sometimes, my CPAP machine pumps my stomach so full of air that just before I wake up, I have dreams like this one:

I’d just had a large breakfast when Martin showed up at my house and said, Come with me, I’m taking you out for pancakes. There was no refusing him. (Cut to the diner.) The pancakes were impressive – one was actually a huge, flattened cinnamon roll – but afterward, goodness gracious, did my belly ever hurt. (Usually, in dreams with food, I don’t get to eat the food.)

The dream also may have been prompted by my having gotten back on the dieting horse. In three weeks, I’ve lost eight pounds.

If there’s anything more tedious than having to listen to other people talk about their dreams, it’s having to listen to dieters tell about their new regimes and food hacks.

Our new food hack is the George Foreman grill that Karin found at Goodwill.

I also just learned a great way to fry an egg. Pre-heat the pan; put in a little fat; put in a tablespoon of water, and then the egg. Cover the pan.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Why do Karin & I keep going on dates to Niles, Michigan? What is the town’s allure? Is it the riverwalk? Is it the pleasant drive from Granger, Indiana, where we deposit our children? Is it Casperson Books? Is it Pizza Transit, with its series of outlandish “pizzas of the month” (e.g., Mexican street corn pizza)?

Is it the Wonderland Cinema?

Is it the knowledge that Ring Lardner walked these streets?

IT’S ALL OF THE ABOVE.

Today’s excursion was to eat hot dogs and popcorn and watch The End of Oak Street, David Robert Mitchell’s movie about time-warped dinosaurs preying on suburban Michiganders. Another of Mitchell’s wry commentaries on the inevitability of death.

Body-text fonts, pt. 54: Poliphilus

Way back when, I’d often mistake Poliphilus for Bembo. “Old Bembo” is how I thought of it. Of course both are derived from the work of Francesco Griffo.

Poliphilus lacks its own italic but usually is paired with Blado.

This specimen is from Aesop, whose fables I like to read to Samuel at bedtime when he’s too tired to stay awake for anything longer.

“A lion and an ass made a partnership and went out to hunt.” It’s surprising how many fables begin that way. (Sometimes a fox joins them.)

It’s surprising, too, how often the lion is not just strongest but also wisest. Aesop has something of a “might makes right” streak in him.

I literally wrote this blog entry in my sleep.

A backward/forward look

We have been immersing ourselves in intermittently glorious, surprisingly mostly dreary Oxford drama: begun in Inspector Morse (1987–2000); continued in Inspector Lewis (2006–2015), which features Morse’s former Detective Sergeant; and prequeled in Endeavour (2012–2023), which is titled after Morse’s Christian name. It’s the last of these we’ve started with. Long ago we saw some of “Morse Proper,” and knowledge of it gives Endeavour a foreboding air: this young 1960s constable will turn into a first-rank curmudgeon, an object of near-horror. There are some explicit portents – Endeavour Morse is solitary, has a savior complex, relishes crosswords and classical music perhaps too much – yet the dread is largely inchoate. There is unease even as this hero, with each new success, rises in his profession. There is gravitas although the genre trundles out its tropes. The classic “Morse” theme music, equally suited to a mountaineering documentary, has been retained for the prequel. As Young Endeavour, Shaun Evans is brusque, skinny, and sallow, with a deer-in-headlights expression. The show’s real human treasure, however, is Endeavour’s mentor, Detective Inspector Fred Thursday (Roger Allam) – surely one of the genre’s wisest men. Had he been higher-born, he could have been a don; as it is, he holds his own against the silly college men he questions, who consider him beneath them. Rank is all in Thursday’s world (and at Oxford). And yet, unlike his own superior, Thursday doesn’t lord it over Morse. The show’s other great virtue is its artifact selection. I’ve not seen another in which beer mugs and wallpaper were so lovingly displayed. The story could be nonsense, the historic University could be ignored, and I’d still watch just for those things.

Our chemical romance

Ziva (cat no. 2) and Dory (no. 3) used to fight several times each day, really brutally; but since we’ve begun using air fresheners to pump feline pheromones into our house, they’ve gotten along much better. This gives me hope for the harmony of our household, and for that of humankind.

Seriously, things are more peaceful now.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

We attended a quite lovely wedding after-party this evening, in someone’s back yard. There were many children. There were dogs of very different breeds and sizes, to warm the heart. The music was from the nineties and early aughts; the catering was local Mexican. There also was much uninhibited vaping. I was amused to see the bride and groom puffing away together at their special table. But they weren’t the only ones. Everyone was at it. Perhaps all the vaping was what made everything harmonious. Halfway through the party, it started raining, and no one really minded.

The children played in a sandbox and got filthy. They had a precious time; afterward, we had to drag Daniel, kicking and screaming, to the car.