Day One and Thereafter

On beginnings; a brave Russian; Pope and Sinner; the ‘brows’ of journalism; and more

Birthplace of Richard Nixon, Yorba Linda, Calif. (National Park Service)

I was born in the house my father built. No, no—just kidding. That was Nixon. (You recall that our 37th president begins his memoirs that way: “I was born in the house my father built.” It is a great opening line—vaguely haunting or hypnotic, even.)

I was born in Ypsilanti, Michigan, next door to Ann Arbor, where I would grow up (if grow up I did). Many people assume that “Ypsilanti” is an Indian (or Native American) name. There are lots of those in southeastern Michigan, and elsewhere in that state, and in our country at large.

No, the town was named after Demetrios Ypsilantis, a hero of the Greek War of Independence (1820s).

I was born in Beyer Hospital, delivered by one Dr. Potter—a woman. Unusual, in those days. (Not to be a woman but a female ob-gyn.) On the way to the hospital, my grandmother ran through a succession of red lights—utterly out of character for her, law-abiding as she was.

Okay, is that enough autobiography? We’re only on Day One. I have spent a great many days since. But we’ve heard enough Song of Myself.

Speaking of songs, or arias, maybe I could quote Rodolfo, wooing Mimì, at the beginning of La bohème:

Chi son? Sono un poeta.
Che cosa faccio? Scrivo.
E come vivo? Vivo.

Which is to say,

Who am I? I’m a poet.
What is my work? I write.
And how do I live? I live.

I am not a poet, though I have written many—many—limericks, most of them not suitable for publication. You recall what George Bernard Shaw said about limericks: There are just two kinds—dirty and bad.

Which is not entirely true. I will paste you a limerick that is both clean and excellent (though dirty-sounding). It was taught to me by my grandmother (not the one who ran through the red lights):

There once was a girl from St. Paul
Who went to the birth-control ball.
She bought all the devices
At exorbitant prices
And nobody asked her at all.

Before I get down to business—do you want to hear Pavarotti sing that aria, from La bohème (Puccini)? No one has ever rendered it better. Here he is.

Now: business.

***

For the Associated Press, Dasha Litvinova reports,

A court in Moscow on Wednesday convicted one of the leaders of a prominent independent election-monitoring group on charges of organizing the work of an “undesirable” organization and sentenced him to five years in prison.

He is Grigory Melkonyants. From his defendant’s cage, he told his friends and supporters, “Don’t worry, I’m not despairing. You shouldn’t despair either!”

What a man. I hope he survives his prison sentence (he is 44 years old). As in Soviet days, some of the bravest people in all the world are Russian.

It is well to remember: Putin and his type are not all of Russia.

***

President Trump has gone to Saudi Arabia. It is his first trip abroad in this new term. He did the same the first time around. His first trip abroad, in 2017, was to Saudi Arabia.

Upon landing there, eight years ago, he said, “We are not here to lecture. We are not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to worship.”

Let me quote from a piece I wrote in 2020:

That was undoubtedly music to dictators’ ears. It’s their job, as they see it, to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, and how to worship.

The Saudi government does this job every day. So do other dictatorships, all around the world.

Maybe one more quotation, from that piece:

Vladimir Bukovsky, the famed Soviet dissident, once said something like this: “Free World governments should do what they have to do, as they look after their national interests. But, every now and then, they should pause to consider: ‘How will it look to the boys in the camps?’”

Yes.

***

Did you see pictures of Pope Leo with Jannik Sinner, the tennis champ? They are joyous, wonderful pictures: go here. The new Pope loves tennis. My preferred caption, for any of these photos, is: “The Pope’s kind of Sinner”—or variations on the same.

(Jannik Sinner is an Italian, with an un-Italian name. He is from South Tyrol, where they speak German and other tongues.) (A diverse peninsula, Italy. Very.)

***

An article says that Pope Leo—Robert Prevost, from Chicago—“was elected the first pope from the United States in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church.” Hmmm. I would have written that differently: “the first pope from the United States in the 250-year history of his country.”

Do you agree?

***

Oh, cripe: “Cannes makes it official: No nudity on the red carpet.” (Article here.) What has France become, Puritan England? Let France be France!

***

Another headline: “Bucs rookie Desmond Watson, at 430-plus pounds, wants to make people forget his size.” Well, good luck with that. The article, however, quotes him as saying something kind of touching—certainly understandable. He does not want his size to be his “narrative.” “I want to be known as a football player, and a good football player at that.”

Go get ’em, Desmond Watson.

***

Startling news from the Antipodes:

The unofficial national fruit of New Zealand isn’t native to the country—it’s South American. It isn’t exclusively found in New Zealand. And it’s not, perhaps surprisingly, the kiwi. It’s the feijoa.

All her career, the great New Zealand soprano, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, has been known as “Kiri the Kiwi.” “Kiri the Feijoa” . . . doesn’t cut it.

***

Elizabeth Pochoda, the journalist—a very versatile journalist—has died at 83. To read her obit in the New York Times, go here. I very much like something she said in an interview (with the Chicago Reader in 1993): “I don’t believe in different brows—high, low, middle. I believe if you write about things with the proper excitement, they’re accessible to everybody.”

Right on.

***

“I was born in the house my father built.” Yes, an excellent opening line. My favorite opening lines of all time? I think I have two of them. The first comes from Marchette Chute, in her book The Search for God: “Job was not a patient man.” (It was his very impatience—“yet in my flesh shall I see God”—which made him great.)

And here is how P. G. Wodehouse opens his short story “The Heart of a Goof”: “It was a morning when all nature shouted Fore.” Can even non-golfers love that? I think so.

***

I have done many a podcast with Mona Charen, and several have been about music: including this one, recorded just recently. We listen to music and talk about it. If this floats your boat, your boat will be floated.

Thank you for joining me today, my friends. Subscribe if you like. See you soon.