An oxymoron for practicing

   Before there may be
   a Trump Administra-
   tion there is like-
   ly to be the office
   Christmas party. It
   can smooth the way. 

The refuge

I wonder if the concept of
'species' doesn't sometimes
get in the way of understand-
ing the effect humans are hav-
ing on the natural world.

After all, a species endures
even as the individuals that
make it up come and go. But
sometimes the word implies
that the collective whole -
the generality of goldfinches,
say - matters more than the in-
dividual. Only when a species
dwindles to its final numbers
do the individuals seem to be-
come, well, individual.

Reviewing a new and stimulat-

ing work of natural history

this week, our outstanding es-

sayist on the rural life has

written movingly of defending

the natural world through joy

in its autonomous qualities,

in "nature's right to itself."

At the same time, exultation

in restraint is unanswerably

exemplary resistance. Human-

ism is restored to the agenda.

To be despised for being fit,

will not be anything new; the

spectacle must always antagon-

ize a destroyer of species. To

be readier for their governance

than they are, is joy enough.

Verlyn Klinkenborg

What's Happening to the

  Bees and Butterflies?

Michael McCarthy

The Moth Snowstorm:

  Nature and Joy

New York Review Books, 2016

The New York Review

  of Books

December 22, 2016© 

i  Damon Winter, photography
   The New York Times, 2016©




   

Revenons à nos moutons

  

   Have you tried
   it with cumin,
   aperol, and an
   organic spritz
   of cherry bark

    No, really, I 
    just couldn't

    It's almost awkward even to

    try to mean well, in coming

    to grips with our era's de-

    bauches of vanity over cock-

    tails and other nourishment.

    A man used to be able to go

    home, dress for dinner, and

    get an honest apéritif with-

    out sipping it alone. Times

    speak for themselves. Where

    is Peter Arno, as we drown?

François Chartier

Papilles et Molécules

Levi Reiss

  translator

Taste Buds and 

  Molecules: The Art

  and Science of Food,

  Wine, and Flavor

Les Éditions la Presse, 2009©

John Wiley & Sons, 2012©

Peter Arno

Harriet Follansbee!

  In the flesh!

The New Yorker

Condé Nast©

The electoral college will meet in two weeks

      

      Anybody want to

      volunteer to be

      a witness? Take

      down the names?

Philippe Proust

Alexander Beck

Steven Meisel
  photography
Vogue Italia, 1996©

Zorro of the rust belt

   We half anticipated these episodes

   of munificence, a dilettante drop-

   in by the ascending hero of policy 

   disdain, in this ostentatious res-

   cue of a factory by such impulsive

   favoritism, with fascist flourish;

   this WTO-busting subsidy of extor-

   tion-sucking rapture. Half, it ap-

   pears, is never bold enough. He'll

   be the whole butt of his gestures.

   So daring it is, to make us watch.

Breakfast strategy

     Between the breadbox

     and the pepper mill,

     it's hard to figure.

     That's not a dilemma

     or even alternative.

Thomas Isermann

Annals of remove i: December as we know it

In the desk drawer to my right
there is the Book of Common 
Prayer given to my father as a
young man by his fiduciary at
school. It is inscribed to him
personally, to a resonantly
historic name Dad never used,
and signed in the embracing
third person, His headmaster.

To this day, December marks

the breaking up of families

improvised in the rough and

tumble of experience in com-

petition, away. Young people

dutifully disperse, asking

each other only, how long be-

fore you might be near?

I suggest a refutation of the

fiction that this is immature.

These families, let us not ig-

nore. They are the ones which

conserve Horace. They are a-

ware of every crab we caught

in crew, every shirt that can

be borrowed, every note that

made us sing the thing again.

Why should we notice this, as

families are obliterated every

day, by repression, famine,

war, the divinity of walls?

Yes, intimate family frailty.

The essential answer stumbles

from the teeth of astonishment:

because this is also true, and

because they are right here.

December is parting, and this

is experience to draw upon, as

January looms to abrogate its

promise of reunion. We have no

precedent to resort to, not e-

ven a Commencement apprehension

of working for money, for that

repeal of learning, skill, wit

and poise, that separating tak-

ing of our heart, we never did

imagine, and have voted into

power.

  

South Arm of Compounce Loop

After traversing a picnic area
in a pine grove it follows an
old road southward, passing a
huge boulder at .13 m. At .3 
m it crosses a brook and turns
right up a very steep slope.

              The steepest climb on the Southern Tunxis.
              At .5 m the trail climbs gradually along 
              a shelf, crossing another small brook. At
              .75 m it turns right into an old road and
              thereafter is less steep.  

Shelton B. Hicock
  editor
Connecticut Walk Book
  Eighth Edition
Connecticut Forest and Park
  Association, Inc., 1970©