Posted on by rjonakait

First Sentences

“Ever since my mom died, I cry in H Mart.” Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart.

“Thomas Wazhashk removed his thermos from his armpit and set it on the steel desk alongside his scuffed briefcase.” Louise Erdrich, The Night Watchman.

“The dead would be moved for Disneyland.” Erich Schwartzell, Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy.

“She can feel hope, like the Christmas lights on fade in Pound Saver.” Susie Steiner, Missing, Presumed.

“On 18 December 1912 Arthur Smith Woodward and Charles Dawson announced to a great and expectant scientific audience the epoch-making discovery of a remote ancestral form of man—The Dawn Man of Piltdown.” J.S. Weiner, The Piltdown Forgery.

“Between what matters and what seems to matter, how should the world we know judge wisely?” E.C. Bentley, Trent’s Last Case.

“When you imagine the founder of home economics, who do you see?” Danielle Dreilinger, The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live.

“Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch-hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage. . . .” Jane Austen, Persuasion.

“As a young woman with modest means and few prospects, Ruth Middleton transformed her life by moving north.” Tiya Miles, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake.

“On a Tuesday I came home from school to an empty house, watched the evening news, and then took two Equanil caplets lifted from my mother.” Rosalie Knecht, Who is Vera Kelly? (A Vera Kelly Story).

“Louis Bean spent eighteen months in Vietnam.” Kathleen Belew, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America.

“She was born peculiar, or so she thought.” Jim Harrison, The Farmer’s Daughter.

“For ten thousand years, a cave on the northern tip of Prince of Wales Island in Alaska served a resting place for the remains of an ancient man.” Jennifer Raff, Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas.

“I would like to say a few things about my first husband, William.” Elizabeth Strout, Oh William!

“Right now, in a classroom somewhere in the world, a student is mouthing off to her math teacher.” Jordan Ellenberg, How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking.

Posted on by rjonakait

Snippets

After watching Okja, did you become a vegan?

Sodom and Gomorrah on the Hudson. That is how many characterize New York City, but this ignores that a large group of New Yorkers, including me, are devout followers of religion because we park our cars on New York City streets. New York rules prevent us from parking at particular places during particular times of the week so that street sweepers can clean to the curb. (I know that tourists find it amazing that our litter-filled streets are swept, but they are.) Thus, in front of my house, I cannot park on one side of the street from 11:30 A.M. to 1 P.M. on Mondays, and on Tuesdays I can’t park during those hours on the other side of the street. If I park on the wrong side of the street at those times, I WILL get a ticket. It’s irritating, but the streets do get swept. However, there are many regularly-scheduled suspensions of these “alternate-side-of-the-street- parking restrictions”—about forty per year. (Emergencies such as snowstorms also bring additional suspensions.) Many of the scheduled suspensions are for secular holidays—Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, etc.—but the majority are for religious observances. As certain religions gain more adherents in New York, and hence more political power, alternate-side suspensions increase to recognize their religious holidays and festivals. (Politics gets played out in all sorts of ways in New York City.) Jewish and Christian holidays have been recognized for years, but not too long ago some Hindu and Islamic holy days were added thereby increasing the number of days on which I do not have to worry about being illegally parked. It may sound odd, but I don’t believe that I am the only car parker who says, “Thank all the gods for religion!”

Could this story be true? When Marilyn Monroe was married to Arthur Miller, his mother regularly made matzo ball soup for the couple. After the tenth time, Marilyn said, “Gee, Arthur, these matzo balls are pretty nice, but isn’t there any other part of the matzo you can eat?”

Is Jules Feiffer’s thought appropriate for Easter? He said, “Christ died for our sins. Dare we make his martyrdom meaningless by not committing them?”

“To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them.” Lichtenberg.

“It is much easier to repent of sins that we have committed than to repent of those we intend to commit.” Josh Billings.

March 14 has now become pi day. Some people learn hundreds or thousands of the numerals of pi, but as Jordan Ellenberg points out in How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking, while pi itself is interesting, knowing more of those digits does not make it more interesting. He continues that knowing the coordinates of the Eiffel Tower with increasing exactitude does not tell you anything valuable about the Eiffel Tower.

As St. Patrick’s Day approaches, I wonder if the old joke, with some truth in it, is now politically incorrect: What’s the Irish version of a queer? Answer: Someone who prefers women to liquor.