1. Shawn lost some time on this project when the two guys who worked for him quit or were fired. To make up for that lost time, Shawn has been working on Saturdays and, along with Teresa, worked at both our house and at Christy's. They put up trim and touched up paint. Shawn continued to work on details in the bathroom and on our new closet. Shawn, the Deke, Paul, and I worked together to move Christy's freshly shampooed furniture into her house from the garage. I would say at both of our houses we are seeing an end in sight.
2. Maybe my sense of humor has improved since I was in my late twenties and early thirties when I first started reading Elizabeth Drew. I don't remember finding her as witty, as sardonic, as droll, as subtly funny when I used to read her as I do now. She has a keen sense of irony, of political and bureaucratic absurdity. The book I'm reading is entitled Washington Journal: Reporting Watergate and Richard Nixon's Downfall. Here's an example. See what you think. I laughed out loud when I read the following two sentences, written in her journal entry dated October 20, 1973: "It is a spectacularly beautiful day, warm and springlike. It's unfair to have to give it up for a Constitutional crisis."
3. After the Deke and I shared a rib eye steak at home for dinner, visited Cas up at the Inland Lounge for a while, and after I spent some time visiting with Christy and Everett and the Deke, I came home and watched two Anthony Bourdain episodes. The first was on Netflix from his series Parts Unknown and featured Bourdain's tour of the food, culture, and political uncertainty of Myanmar and then, on YouTube, I watched an episode from A Cook's Tour. In it, Bourdain dove into the variety and vigor of eating the superb cuisine of Tokyo. (You can watch it, here.)
It has disappointed me to read his death referred to as a "celebrity death". Anthony Bourdain vigorously transcended celebrity status. He was much more a cultural guide and educator and a television artist than a celebrity. His work on television intelligently transported viewers into the copious wonders of the food, cultural traditions, history, and political realities of places around the world. In every country and city he visited, he arrived not as a celebrity, but as a man eager to learn about and experience that place and to help his viewers see all that is strange and different outside) the USA as a source of wonder and goodness.
I am told that in the early days of television, idealists envisioned television as a medium that could enhance all of our lives by bringing the depth and beauty of the arts and other sources of sublimity into our homes. For the most part, that didn't pan out, but Anthony Bourdain seized upon the ways a television show could deepen its viewers humanity by educating us in the many different ways people around the world live, tell stories, participate in their religions and rituals, experience their governments, and, above all, cook and eat in their homes, on the streets, and in cafes and restaurants. His work inspired other similar shows, making it possible for us to better know the world we live in and to enjoy and admire the ingenuity, industry, devoutness, and goodness of people worldwide.
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