A Happy Anniversary, &c.

On ‘Onward and Upward,’ singing presidents (and prime ministers), WKRP, and more

(Photo by Kelly Common on Unsplash)

In recent months, I have gotten into the habit of sending you a column on Sunday. I like the idea of a “Sunday column.” It usually has less of the political and more of the cultural. (There’s a broad word: “cultural.”) But here is a column on Saturday, and I will not have a column tomorrow—although there will be a Mother’s Day item at the end of this one.

Happy Mother’s Day Minus One, by the way.

Today’s column is unusual in another respect. Usually, I begin with some big issue or idea. Today, I will begin with a little bidness—and a little song of myself, I’m afraid. (It won’t be as good as Whitman’s.)

Next Thursday will see an anniversary (minor): the first anniversary of Onward and Upward. My first column here appeared on May 14. I am grateful to my readers and subscribers. Very.

Last year, in May, I suffered an employment shock. Many do. Happens every day. One Friday morning, there was a phone call, lasting five or ten minutes, and that was it. I was out of a shop I had worked in for 27 years. No handshake, no brown-bag lunch, no nothin’.

I think of a friend of mine. Years ago, he was fired from his job and left by his fiancée—on the same day. These were unrelated events, let me state.

He got back on his feet. What a satisfying thing, to get back on one’s feet!

And it helps to have friends. The saying goes, “A friend in need is a friend indeed.” Good saying, and true.

I could detail my “employment shock” and have been urged to do so. “It’d be good for business,” people say. But would it be good for one’s soul?

As you know, I named my new site “Onward and Upward.” Looking back did not do much good for Lot’s wife. And while we’re on the Bible: “… forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before …”

I also think of a hymn, setting a poem by Whittier: “… all of good the past hath had / Remains to make our own time glad …”

Last October, a friend with whom I used to work at National Review sent me a note—a note that tickled me, as we say in the Midwest:

Loving your newsletter. So great. Joyful even if the analysis is clear and unsparing. It’s nice to detect joy here and there in this strange world. It is “NR” to me, in the sense that “NR” to me is a spirit, a way of being, not a magazine or website.

(National Review was founded by William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. I did a series on Bill last year, on the occasion of his centennial. It is in eight parts, the last of which is here. There is a note at the top that links to the preceding seven parts.)

My audience, some people have observed, is niche-y. In today’s climate, there is not a big market for Reagan conservatives who are also inclined to arts and letters. There are much, much bigger markets for … other things.

But, you know? That makes one appreciate one’s audience—one’s readers and listeners and so on—all the more.

Thus far, Onward and Upward has been free to all. Paid subscribers have access to the comments section. There may come a time when the site goes “all-paid,” or “paid-only.”

But, you know? Papa so vain, he like everyone to read. In other words: I am such a show-off, I like my material available to all.

At any rate, to be determined. I am going to end this song of myself, blessedly—but not before thanking my readers and subscribers once more. Thank you ever so much.

***

Did you hear Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, singing “La Bohème,” not the opera by Puccini but the song by Charles Aznavour and Jacques Plante—Aznavour’s signature song? You can hear Macron here. If I were an assignment editor, I’d suggest that someone write an article on heads of state or government who sing.

I recall Stephen Harper, when he was prime minister of Canada: singing a Beatles song along with Yo-Yo Ma and others. Go here.

***

A line from Jonathan Martin, the ace political reporter, put me in mind of Bill Clinton. J-Mart had interviewed JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, and asked whether “the country is ready for a husky Jewish billionaire”—as president.

“Husky” is an interesting euphemism in our society. I remember being touched by something President Clinton said—at a time when I was flamingly anti-Clinton. He talked about having been “the fat kid in the size ‘Husky’ jeans.”

Department stores had such sections: “Husky.” Very embarrassing for the boys who had to shop there.

***

Everyone my age watched WKRP in Cincinnati, a sitcom that ran from 1978 to 1982. (I was in junior high and high school.) Do you know that Cincinnati now has a real WKRP? In fact, that is the title of an article by my friend Jim Swift: “WKRP Is Real.”

I’ll be danged.

***

Let me share a picture with you—of some light-orange blossoms in Riverside Park (on the west side of Manhattan) on a rainy day. More like a misty day. A soft day.

Hold that thought. Here’s the picture:

Do you know “A Soft Day,” the song by Charles Villiers Stanford? It sets a poem by Winifred Mary Letts. The song was recorded, indelibly, by Kathleen Ferrier. Hear it, and her, here.

The second (and final) stanza goes,

A soft day, thank God!
The hills wear a shroud
Of silver cloud;
The web the spider weaves
Is a glittering net;
The woodland path is wet,
And the soaking earth smells sweet
Under my two bare feet,
And the rain drips,
Drips, drips, drips from the leaves.

***

Speaking of rain in May, do you know this old joke? The elementary-school kids in your life might get a kick out of it. “If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring? Pilgrims!”

(Think 1620 and the New World.)

***

I have a friend who sometimes signs himself “Scott from Sconnie.” He is from Wisconsin (the northwest of the state). He now writes,

Jay, a brief piece of trivia for you:

George Roy Hill, the director of such classics as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, and Slap Shot (one of my favorites), studied composition under Hindemith during his time at Yale. Maybe you knew this, but I did not.

Perhaps this is something with which you can impress your friends at future intermission get-togethers!

I met Scott, in the flesh, at intermission once—at the Metropolitan Opera, where his daughter sings.

***

End with a song? It is a great one, by Hugo Wolf, which begins “Benedeit die sel’ge Mutter” (“Blessed be your mother in heaven”). The poem is by Paul Heyse. And here is DFD, i.e., Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, to sing it.

I have gone from a song of myself to a song by Wolf—much better! Later on.