Fred's Book Club: The Family Kerr.

Wednesday is Hump Day, and it's time for the Humpback Writers, our book feature that generally has writers that do not have humped backs, but maybe some do. I don't like to ask. However, I am certain that today's writer did not, because she was portrayed by both the lovely Doris Day and the lovely Pat Crowley, and never by Charles Laughton.  

"We are very careful with our children," Jean Kerr writes in the opening essay of the book Please Don't Eat the Daisies. "They'll never have to pay a psychiatrist twenty-five dollars an hour to find out why we rejected them. We'll tell them why we rejected them. Because they're impossible, that's why."

Thus begins the titular piece in this famous collection of suburban humor. Jean Kerr and her husband, the Pulitzer-winning drama critic Walter Kerr, raised six children, so as you might imagine she had a lot of material. Some of her pieces in the book ran in magazines such as Ladies' Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post. The collection was first published in 1957. My beat-up paperback was a 1959 edition acquired cheap from a used-book store many years after that.   

Walter was a playwright in his own right, but is best remembered as a sharp critic of the theater, and the only critic I know of who has a theatre named for him. Like his wife, he had a terrific sense of humor; his review of I Am a Camera in 1951 concluded "Me no Leica." Jean too would write plays; she wrote the Tony-award winning King of Hearts and the long-running Mary, Mary. If that were not enough, she wrote three more collections following Daisies (two of which I have -- somewhere). 

And no wonder -- she has a wonderful touch. On shopping for a home, she introduces "Kerr's law, which states in essence: all the houses you can afford to buy are depressing. For months and months we followed happy, burbling real estate agents through a succession of ruins which, as the agents modestly concluded, 'needed a little paint and paper to make them happy.' These houses invariably had two small dark living rooms and one large turn-of-the-century kitchen -- and I don't mean the nineteenth century."

Of course, many of the jokes are dated; there are any number of references to slogans of the day, and Davy Crockett and Jackie Gleason don't conjure now the way they did in the fifties. 

But take this from a story on dogs, as fine an example of visual comedy as one can expect in a book: 

It's not just our own dogs that bother me. The dogs I meet at parties are even worse. I don't know what I've got that attracts them; it just doesn't bear thought. My husband swears I rub chopped meat on my ankles. But at every party it's the same thing. I am sitting in happy conviviality with a group in front of the fire when all of a sudden the large mutt of mine host appears in the archway. Then, without a single bark of warning, he hurls himself upon me. It always makes me think of that line from A Streetcar Named Desire -- "Baby, we've had this date right from the beginning." My martini flies into space and my stockings are torn before he finally settles down peacefully in the lap of my new black faille. I blow out such quantities of hair as I haven't swallowed and glance at my host, expecting to be rescued. He murmurs, "Isn't that wonderful? You know, Brucie is usually so distant with strangers."

As the wife of a major theater critic, though, she has some pieces specific to her lifestyle, such as:

In my short and merry life in the theatre, I have discovered that there are two sharply contrasting opinions about the place of the drama critic. While in some quarters it is felt that the critic is just a necessary evil, most serious-minded, decent, talented theatre people agree that the critic is an unnecessary evil. However, if there is some room for argument about the value of the critic, there is none whatever about the value of the critic's wife. To the producer, in particular, it is painful enough that the reviewer must bring his own glum presence to the theatre, but the thought that he must bring his wife and that she, too, will occupy a free seat is enough to cool the cockles of his heart and send him back on a soft diet.

Jean Kerr is still funny, and I am certain that the success of her writing opened doors for many other women to write humor, such as Erma Bombeck. And, as I said at the beginning, this book was adapted into a film starring Doris Day as Jean Kerr (under the nom de filme of "Kate Mackay") and a TV show with Pat Crowley (as "Joan Nash"). Though Jean Kerr died in 2003, the family continues on. 

And if you're wondering where Jean got the terrific title for the essay (and thus the book, the film, and the TV series), it all comes from this: 

My real problem with children is that I haven't any imagination. I'm always warning them against the commonplace defections while they are planning the bizarre and unusual. Christopher gets up ahead of the rest of us on Sunday mornings and he has long since been given a list of clear directives: "Don't wake the baby," "Don't go outside in your pajamas," "Don't eat cookies before breakfast." But I never told him, "Don't make flour paste and glue together all the pages of the magazine section of the Sunday Times." Now I tell him, of course.

     And then last week I had a dinner party and told the twins and Christopher not to go in the living room, not to use the guest towels in the bathroom, and not to leave the bicycles on the front steps. However, I neglected to tell them not to eat the daisies on the dining room table. This was a serious omission, as I discovered when I came upon my centerpiece -- a charming three-point arrangement of green stems. 

Rest in peace, Jean Kerr.  

Voices from the sky.

"Mother Earth is angry," the Speaker of the House declared last month. Well, that's a very interesting proposition. I'm impressed that Ms. Pelosi is able to receive intimate messages of emotional content from the Earth Spirit Gaia. Interestingly, it does not seem that Mother Earth had very much to say about wildfires and hurricanes and tornadoes and whatnot before Mr. Trump became president of these United States, but perhaps Mother was holding her tongue, trying not to interfere, as a good mother often does.

Be that as it may, I -- like Ms. Pelosi -- am an expert in interpreting messages from nature. In fact, I have some small renown in being able to get such messages from my observation of the sky. Here are some photos from recent weeks and the messages that are being sent from Mother Nature, courtesy of my interpretive powers.

"Everything is on fire. This year sucks."

"Lex Luthor is attempting to turn the sun red to deprive Superman of his powers. Alert Batman."

"Shoppy Mart has swordfish steaks on sale, $8.99 a pound."

"Your finances are a mess. Consider moonlighting. How about Lyft?"

"Your fly is open."

"Cannot predict now."

White chocolate supremacy?

Got a case of the Mondays? Tired of all the fighting and fussing in our society? Well, let's start the week off with some candy! And since we're in October, it's finally appropriate to delve into the Halloween loot. 

Mmm, Reese's White Chocolate and Peanut Butter. But wait! What's this "white créme" stuff? I'm sure I saw these on sale last year, but was nothing about white créme, whatever that is. 

Of course, there were lawyers involved. According to an article in Confectionary News from July 22, 2019, "Consumers filed a complaint in the Eastern District of New York last month alleging that the confectioner was knowingly deceiving consumers. The suit alleges that Hershey has engaged in deceptive trade practices, negligent misrepresentation, fraud and unjust enrichment, as well as breach of express and implied warranty." 

Whoa! Sounds serious! What's all the hubbub, bub?

It's all because "the ingredient deck omits cocoa butter -- the key ingredient in real white chocolate -- which the defendants [I think they mean plaintiffs] claim as misleading."

Well, I think we can all draw the same conclusion from this terrible circumstance -- that our country has too many goddamn lawyers with too much goddamn time on their hands. 

Hershey countered that its wrapper did not say White Chocolate; the regular candy was just called "White Reese's" and still is. However, in response to the lawsuit I suppose, they are now specifying that it is "White Créme" and peanut butter. According to Taste of Home magazine, "Even though it technically isn’t white chocolate, it sure does taste the same."

You ask me, the term "white créme" is a little suspicious on its own. Try not to think about it.

Really, who the hell cares? "Real white chocolate"? White chocolate isn't even real chocolate, so what's the issue? With all the things going on, even all the things that were going on a year ago, we had to waste the court's time on this? If the suit had gone forward, would we have seen commercials about it? "If you or a loved one has been exposed to fake white chocolate, you may be entitled to compensation." Then Spencer and Sheehan, the class-action weenies who brought the suit, would get fifty million bucks and the "injured parties" who signed on would each get a coupon good for one (1) Hershey bar. 

It must be said that the Eastern District of New York courts seem to have a lot of time on their hands as well, working on political hit jobs of the president among other stupid things. Might as well get into a candy imbroglio as anything else. 

But enough of that -- let's get to the important stuff. How does the White Reese's pumpkin taste?

I agree with Taste of Home; not one person in a hundred could tell that "white créme" is white chocolate. My wife, who doesn't like white chocolate, wouldn't like this much either. I did, but I have to say that peanut butter doesn't work as well with the white whatever-it-is than with milk chocolate or even dark chocolate. Peanut butter has a strong flavor, and aside from its sweetness, the white stuff has a mild flavor, so the PB overwhelms it. 

I don't care. It was good. So don't try to get me involved in your class-action lawsuits against Hershey's, you blasted ambulance-chasers. It's fine no matter what the company calls it. Happy Halloween.

D'oh! The deer.

As if this year was not bizarre enough, now we're having a deer die-off. No, not a competition among our local whitetail population to see who can be the most dramatic; I mean a serious illness is leaving deer carcasses all over the joint. 

I haven't witnessed this slaughter myself, but I have heard about it. There's a long walking / biking trail along the old train tracks in the county, and apparently the stink from rotting deer is making it most unpleasant.

Here's the word from the New York DEC:

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) today confirmed that several white-tailed deer in the towns of Nelsonville and Cold Spring in Putnam County and near Goshen in Orange County died after contracting Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD). EHD is a viral disease of white-tailed deer that cannot be contracted by humans.
    EHD virus is carried by biting midges, small bugs often called no-see-ums or 'punkies.' Once infected with EHD, deer usually die within 36 hours. The disease is not spread from deer to deer or from deer to humans.

Thirty-six hours from bitten to biting it! And we're upset about Chinese Death Virus.

It's believed that the frost will kill off the bugs; in the meantime, "Hunters should not handle or eat any deer that appears sick or acts strangely." Okay! And none of that Road Kill Café stuff, either! Don't go harvesting venison flambé or grilling a hamBambi from meat lying in the road. Apparently humans can't get sick from EHD unless we eat the damn thing that has it. 

Luckily EHD doesn't seem to affect cows or dogs or other more valuable animals. 

Let's face it: Deer are cheap. We've had to shove off most of their natural predators, and fewer people are hunting these days, at least in downstate New York. Deer population in the United States was about 300,000 in 1930, but 30,000,000 in 2014, a hundred times larger, at least according to the Koryos Writes blog's data. Cars and trucks can't keep the numbers down all by themselves, you know. And this explosion in deer numbers helps spread those sickness-carrying deer ticks that ruin the health of perfectly nice human beings. Deer don't even get Lyme. 

Deer have a lot of natural abilities that keep them going. They're fast, they're champion leapers, they can eat anything if they have to (even meat), they can fight like wild if cornered, and they give birth to up to three babies at a shot. They are, of course, not Mensa candidates. It takes a deer five minutes to realize a cement mixer is bearing down on him. In fact, deer are so dumb...

How dumb are they?

Google and Facebook are trying to get them to register to vote.

I don't know what the answer to deer population is, but I hope rampant fatal disease isn't all we've got. I've suggested commercial culling, but no one seems to be keen on the idea. Just call it "wild caught" or "free range" venison, though, and maybe the idea will catch on. 

What is a good age?

 

Try not to take everything personally.

While going about my business, working on a roundup of information about the Chinese Death Virus, the Communist Chinese party's little gift to the world, I was referred by a colleague to a pre-publication report on obesity and COVID-19 death rates. It's been known for some time that the obese have higher rates of death from infection with the stupid virus; during New York City's siege it was found in a different study that obesity was the main underlying condition (not counting age) that complicated treatment. No surprise there. 

The surprise came from the comments section. This being a pre-pub study, the comments were not reserved to serious medical personnel. But there was this, which was retweeted five times:

Our commenter here is a "suicidologist" who seems to have the intention of helping people, especially those who have suffered from the suicide of a loved one. I don't think that's an official title, as her main avocation seems to be art, photography, and other nonmedical areas of study. But I'm not sure I understand why she seems so upset. Is she mad at the scientists for even studying this because it is fat-shaming? That's my best guess, because it seems from her Web site that she, like your humble author, may have excess adipose tissue. But if that's the case, I have to say: Relax. Don't take everything so personally. 

I feel hectored as well by the medical world, which seems like it won't be happy until we're surviving on kale and lemon water and bicycling everywhere, even in the snow. There's a lot of humblenag going on. At the same time, I know I would feel and likely be healthier if I were to drop some weight. I believe them when they say obesity is a major contributor to illness, and I don't think the scientists attached to the study under discussion are doing anything but passing on observed data. It may make me feel sad for myself and others who struggle to lose weight, and those whose lives were lost in the battle against the Jinping Pneumonia, but just because it makes me feel bad doesn't mean it isn't accurate. The truth is the truth no matter how I feel about it.

And this is where we are now. It seems that many of the same people who claimed to be all about the science want to cancel science when they don't like where it leads (science being a method, not a creed). There's a lot of things we might find useful to know that we likely never will, because to even ask the questions brings down the fury of the mob. 

It's up to me how I decide to act on the information presented. It is often questionable, the field of science being as subject to corruption as any other human endeavor. But I will tell you this: If a study comes out that promises I will live to 102 if I adopt the kale and lemon water diet, I'll say that's all right, I'll be happy to make it to 95.

Presidential punching.

Naturally there was much written yesterday about the rowdy debate between Trump and Biden on Tuesday night. I didn't see it, but I gather it was not a pleasant event. Normally three men with a combined age of more than 220 years fighting like that would mean a bad day at the home. But these are the times in which we live.

In my faraway youth, I recall elderly relatives who bemoaned the ugliness in politics, often harking back to the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The celebrated FDR pulled us all together in the Depression and then especially the war, uniting Americans with his beloved fireside chats. They knew that he and we were all pulling at the oars together to move the great ship of state in the same direction. Not like now, when [insert recent president] was always sniping at someone. 

The Beloved FDR

But here's the thing. I have been called on to work as an editor on many historical books, about Lincoln and Eisenhower and the presidency in general, and one germane to today's topic -- a compendium of Roosevelt's speeches. And let me tell you, from what I read, Franklin Roosevelt, with the exception of the famous Pearl Harbor speech, never missed a chance to sling vile accusations against his opponents. 

As here, from FDR's first inaugural, after winning in a landslide. Having vanquished his opponents, he takes the high road by dumping a load of crap on them: 

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

And his message to Congress, 1936:

We have earned the hatred of entrenched greed. The very nature of the problem that we faced made it necessary to drive some people from power and strictly to regulate others. I made that plain when I took the oath of office in March 1933. I spoke of the practices of the unscrupulous money-changers who stood indicted in the court of public opinion. I spoke of the rulers of the exchanges of mankind’s goods, who failed through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence. I said that they had admitted their failure and had abdicated.

     Abdicated? Yes, in 1933, but now with the passing of danger they forget their damaging admissions and withdraw their abdication.

And again at his second inaugural, where Republicans lost support in Congress and Alf Landon was sent packing: 

When four years ago we met to inaugurate a president, the Republic, single-minded in anxiety, stood in spirit here. We dedicated ourselves to the fulfillment of a vision—to speed the time when there would be for all the people that security and peace essential to the pursuit of happiness. We of the Republic pledged ourselves to drive from the temple of our ancient faith those who had profaned it; to end by action, tireless and unafraid, the stagnation and despair of that day. We did those first things first.

Remember, everyone is a beloved citizen in this country, except those unnamed ones who have no faith in our new direction, and they must be cast into the outer darkness. 

Here's Mr. Unity's "Arsenal of Democracy" fireside chat on December 29, 1940, a time when many well-meaning Americans wanted to get involved in overseas butchery as much as other Americans wanted to be in Vietnam in 1968:

Let us no longer blind ourselves to the undeniable fact that the evil forces which have crushed and undermined and corrupted so many others are already within our own gates. Your government knows much about them and every day is ferreting them out.... There are also American citizens, many of them in high places, who, unwittingly in most cases, are aiding and abetting the work of these agents. I do not charge these American citizens with being foreign agents. But I do charge them with doing exactly the kind of work that the dictators want done in the United States.

See, he's not charging these Americans with actually colluding with the Axis powers, he's just noting that the ones who don't want to do what he wants to do are unwitting suckers of the Nazis. 

And here's one of my favorites, from Mr. Unity's Economic Declaration of Rights, an attack on capitalists and promotion of government control of industry that could warm the blackened heart of any red-diaper baby:

A mere builder of more industrial plants, a creator of more railroad systems, an organizer of more corporations, is as likely to be a danger as a help. The day of the great promoter or the financial titan, to whom we granted anything if only he would build, or develop, is over. Our task now is not discovery or exploitation of natural resources, or necessarily producing more goods. It is the soberer, less dramatic business of administering resources and plants already in hand, of seeking to reestablish foreign markets for our surplus production, of meeting the problem of underconsumption, of adjusting production to consumption, of distributing wealth and products more equitably, of adapting existing economic organizations to the service of the people. The day of enlightened administration has come.

Move over, Rover, let Franky take over! 

In the 1943 State of the Union, when we are already mired in two wars:

Every normal American prays that neither he nor his sons nor his grandsons will be compelled to go through this horror again.

     Undoubtedly a few Americans, even now, think that this nation can end this war comfortably and then climb back into an American hole and pull the hole in after them.

Read any of his speeches and wait for the moment he slips the cosh on some pack of Americans. He's always got to prove that he's the man by whacking someone else, even when it's unnecessary. He may have put on a genial front, but there was little real grace in the man.

You are certainly entitled to think that FDR was right about everything he said, right about every target he aimed. I am glad he fought the Axis powers and encouraged desegregation. But don't tell me he united the country. Whatever unification he achieved was by stomping on the faces of some Americans for the applause of others.

Most of all, no one ought to believe that presidents lashing out is something new. FDR was as good at it as anyone, and better than most.

And P.S.: As I have noted before, St. Eleanor of 74th Street was no prize either. She was more than willing to steamroll other people in pursuit of her aims, even her own family.