Home » 2025 » July (Page 2)

Monthly Archives: July 2025

“People Who Do Things”

Posted on by

American Poet and Writer Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

Here is a funny poem from Dorothy Parker, whose work I have hereto ignored but now begin to see the light:

Bohemia

Authors and actors and artists and such
Never know nothing, and never know much.
Sculptors and singers and those of their kidney
Tell their affairs from Seattle to Sydney.
Playwrights and poets and such horses’ necks
Start off from anywhere, end up at sex.
Diarists, critics, and similar roe
Never say nothing, and never say no.
People Who Do Things exceed my endurance;
God, for a man that solicits insurance!

Fantasyland

Posted on by

Young American men lead a rich fantasy life. It is not enough to be a macho beast: One also has to look like one. In fact, the look is more important than the reality. All one has to do is get the appropriate tattoo, wear intimidating facial hair, drive a 4×4 pickup truck, and hang out with other macho wannabes at the appropriate meeting places.

I became ever more aware of this tendency when I reached an age which would make any macho pretense ridiculous.

As I drive the highways of Los Angeles, I see all around me vehicles for which the owners put up huge amounts of money—not for any realistic expectations, but to belong to a “fantasy league” of young men pretending to be tougher and more suave than they could ever be in real life. They want the street cred of a Danny Trejo while subsisting on Honey Nut Cheerios.

I don’t have any street cred. When I was young, however, I would love to have been thought of as a real dude—rather than a real dud. At least, living as I do is cheaper than trying to shore up a false image.

South Bay Greek Festival

Posted on by

Fountain at St. Katherine Greek Orthodox Church

Between Memorial Day Weekend and early October, there are several Greek festivals in Southern California. Typically, Martine and I visit the following Greek Orthodox churches during festival time:

  • St. Nicholas in the San Fernando Valley
  • St. Katherine in Redondo Beach
  • The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Long Beach
  • Saint Sophia Cathedral near downtown L.A.

The best things about these festivals are the Greek food, usually cooked by very competent Greek housewives—accompanied by some excellent pastries. The other thing is that the clergy at these festivals do an excellent job of proselytizing the visiting crowds.

Today, for instance, the Protopresbyter of St, Katherine’s, Father Michael Courey, is an expert on icons and gave an excellent slide presentation entitled “Byzantine Iconography” in the church sanctuary.

Although I was brought up as a Roman Catholic, I find myself drawn to the Greek Orthodox church for a number of reasons, not least among which is the excellent food. I even used to attend the Greek cooking demonstrations at St. Katherine and Santa Sophia conducted by Pitsa Captain and the late Akrevoe Emmanouilides.

Waiting in Line for Greek Goodies

I know that ethnic-oriented churches have their difficulties staying afloat these days, but St. Katherine’s seems to have found the right formula: good food, interesting music and dance, and very competent marketing. It also helps that the Greek Orthodox church allows for married clergy (but, interestingly enough, only unmarried bishops).

Game

Posted on by
Daily writing prompt
What’s your favorite game (card, board, video, etc.)? Why?
View all responses

To me. there is only one game; and that is chess. I have been playing it for 71 years. It has brought me countless hours of fun, whether I am doing chess problems; studying famous games from the past; playing computers and live opponents.

A Writer Like No Other

Posted on by

Uruguayan Writer Felisberto Hernández (1902-1964)

I have just begun reading Piano Stories by the late Uruguayan writer Felisberto Hernández. It is very clearly unlike anything else I have ever read. He was an author admired by Italo Calvino, Julio Cortázar, and Francine Prose. According to Italo Calvino:

Hernández’s most typical stories are those that are centered on a rather complicated mise-en-scène, a spectacular ritual that unfolds within the depths of an elegant house: a flooded patio in which lighted candles float; a little theatre of dolls large as real women striking enigmatic poses; a dark gallery in which one is supposed to recognize by touch objects that elicit associations of images and thoughts.

His translator, Luis Harss, provides some rather odd biographical details:

He married four times; was a great eater and raconteur at literary soirees; had a passion for fat women; loved to improvise on the piano in the styles of various classical composers; once toured Argentina with his own trio, other times with a flamboyantly bearded impresario called Venus González. He preferred to write in shuttered rooms or basements; suffered a life-long emotional dependence on his mother; was haunted by morbid vanity and a sense of failure; became ill-humored and reactionary in middle age; and died of leukemia, his body so bloated it had to be removed through the window of the funeral home in a box as large as a piano.