The New Yorker, Feb 25-Mar 2 issue, has an essay by New Yorker copyeditor Mary Norris that delighted this former high school English teacher. It was a treatise on the comma. What joy. Reminded me how I insisted on teaching my college preps how to diagram a sentence.
Last Saturday night, I was listening to Jonathan Schwartz on NPR, as he celebrated the 100th anniversary of Frank Sinatra’s birth. He played Sinatra, then he said that Bob Dylan had recorded some Sinatra songs as a tribute. Dylan fanatics, turn your eyes away. Dylan singing Sinatra? Ghastly, beyond ghastly. Like listening to an emery board. Made me shudder. Had to turn off the radio. Hey, does anyone remember the jazz musician Chet Baker? Trumpet. Vocals. Died too young. Drugs. But oh, how he could sing My Funny Valentine.
I just finished Danish crime writer Jussi Adler-Olsen’s :A Conspiracy of Faith. It’s the second of his Department Q series that I’ve read, and it was pleasure. The writing is eccentric and unique. I am now settling (?) down with Richard Price’s The Whites. I love his writing.
