Daily Office: Monday
¶ Matins: In a foreseeable development that few wanted to think about very much, the downside inequalities of European Union constituents threatens to pull the EU apart. Steven Erlanger and Stephen Castle report.
While Western European countries are reluctant, with their own problems both at home and among the countries using the euro, there is a deep interconnectedness in any case. Much of the debt at risk in Eastern Europe is on the books of euro zone banks — especially in Austria and Italy. The same is true for the problems farther afield, in Ukraine.
Having watched the Soviet Union collapse, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe embraced the liberal, capitalist model as the price of integration with Europe. That model is now badly tarnished, and the newer members feel adrift.
¶ Lauds: In the Chicago Tribune, Mike Boehm asks, “Will the Obamas’ interest in the arts create an inflation of appreciation?” The prospect of presidential interest in theatre and dance is so dizzying that he doesn’t stop to ask why it would be a good thing.
¶ Prime: Perhaps you’ve already discovered Look At Me, the Web site of found photographs, but it’s new to me, and I’m checking it out every day. (I’ve linked to a recent posting that shows what has to be an old Howard Johnson’s — looking not so old.)
¶ Tierce: As usual on Monday mornings, I begin with the Times’s Business section, because that’s where the interesting stories are, even if they would fit just as comfortably in the first section, alongside the “regular” news. Two stories today that generate a certain twinned-snakes synergy:
- “In Obama, Labor Finds the Support It Expected” by Steven Greenhouse, and
- Â “India Maintains Sense of Optimism and Growth,” by Heather Timmons.
¶ Sext: A party who signs himself “MDL Welder” seeks advice about a romantic “att[achment].” The Non-Expert replies in an odd demotic.
You are very att. To each other. Man we all know that, we can all see it. When you two are passing yes there will be kiss in return, geddit? So obv. Most people wish they were with someone who was so att. To each other. So you say “Do you think she is falling for me?†and all of us here are LOAO because YES YES YES she’s falling for you and she’s already falling so far down you have to reach down and catch up. You need to jump that diving board and triple flip and angle downwards for minimum air resist. She att. You att. To each other. It’s the best way to be, it’s the best way to start. And we say aww.
This drollery has me imagining a novel yet to be written, set, like Then We Came to the End and Personal Days, in the workplace — but not in a very literate workplace.
¶ Nones: I’ll be watching to see how the US press in general and the New York Times in particular cover this story (from the BBC): “Israel ‘plans settlement growth’.”
¶ Vespers: Charles McGrath paves the way for a revival of interest in John Cheever, soon to appear in the Library of America.
¶ Compline: The Infrastructurist lists the top ten hot infrastructure jobs, complete with tips about getting one. For example (“Smart Meter Installer”):
There are 150 million electric meters in the US. About 90 percent of them are “dumb.†Obama has offered a plan to upgrade 40 million of the meters, but eventually they will probably all be replaced. Some utilities are well under way: PG&E in California is putting in 10.3 million smart meters, while Oncor in Texas is planning to install 3 million in the next four years.
Oremus…
§ Matins. The lack of strong popular leadership is now the big difference between Europe and the United States. What’s shared on both sides of the Atlantic is a culture of grossly irresponsible — call it surreal, if you like — banking.
§ Lauds. President Obama’s interest in cultural affairs will be unlike that of his predecessors, such as it was — and especially unlike the Kennedys’. The change is something that I’ve noticed in the past fifteen years. When I was young, most Americans who turned to the arts did so for edification or self-improvement; or, more cynically, for a patina of “refinement.”
The idea that the arts make you better has, however, little appeal for audiences whose hair hasn’t turned gray. People like the president turn to the arts because the arts are interesting, engaging, and, ultimately, satisfying. Broccoli is not on the menu.
§ Prime. Frederic Bonn, the Parisian who owns the site, is the designer responsible for the sharp looks of a site that I’m finding extremely useful, now that The Daily Blague devotes so much space to curated links, The Morning News.
§ Tierce. These stories might not appear to have much in the way of overlap, but both concern state-sponsored economic protections, and together they suggest that neither the United States nor India is bedazzled by the allure of free market ideology.
The India story, moreover, intensifies my belief that banking ought to be centralized and nationalized, permanently.
§ Sext. Or why not a remake of Heckle and Jeckle? Jeckle could still be English, but Heckle’s Brooklyn patois would be replaced by Giles Turnbull’s perforated syntax.
§ Nones. And here’s another BBC story that has appeared on the Times site as a squib from the wires: “Cuban shake-up claims key figures.”
§ Vespers. I don’t think that there’s any question that the short story was the form in which Cheever excelled.
Cheever was pudgy, poorly coordinated and an indifferent student, who later claimed to have been kicked out of Thayer Academy, a private day school, for smoking.More likely he just dropped out. But he wrote a short story based on his Thayer experience, “Expelled From Prep School,†which The New Republic published in 1930, when Cheever was just 18, and which is one of the most assured and precocious debuts in all of American fiction — a signal, or it should have been, that the author was worth paying attention to. Cheever had found, as Bellow said, that he had a gift for transforming himself on the page.
§ Compline. This reminds me that I’ve promised myself to write an essay: “Built to Last” is yesterday’s boast. “Built to Update” has got to be tomorrow’s.