7.13.2026 – permitting over

permitting over
accumulation of books
in the premises

Adapted from the article, Too Many Books? and sub headed, Mendel Uminer faced a crisis when his landlord objected to the 10,000 volumes in his New York studio apartment by Alex Vadukul, a features writer for the Styles section of The New York Times, specializing in stories about New York City.

Mr. Vadukul quotes Mr. Uminer as saying, ““I’m always reading,” Uminer, 31, said. “I’m reading to extract knowledge. Every book I own, I need. My library is my manual for life.”

Mr. Vadukul writes about Mr. Uminer, “that He worked as a freelance Hebrew translator and used the apartment as the headquarters for his fledgling literary journal, Notarikon Review, hosting parties that gained a reputation among quarters of New York’s literary underclass. Striving writers drank beer among the teetering stacks while arguing over foreign affairs and Greek poetry.

The stacks kept rising as Uminer added his hauls from thrift shops, book dealers and eBay deliveries. “I don’t think of myself as a hoarder,” he said, “but I guess my building did.”

This past winter, he received a notice from building management. “You are violating a substantial obligation of your tenancy,” it began. “You are maintaining the Premises in a severely overcluttered condition; permitting the over-accumulation of books in the Premises; creating a fire hazard by over-accumulating combustible books in the Premises.”

Mr. Vadukul quotes a friend of Mr. Uminer, “I think it’s possible his landlord might have their priorities misplaced, or might not understand him. If you’re not steeped in his culture, maybe his library does look chaotic. But I’d argue it only looks like a mess. I’ll bet he can tell you where every single book is in his apartment.”

I did not know that maintaining the Premises in a severely overcluttered condition by permitting the over-accumulation of books in the Premises; creating a fire hazard by over-accumulating combustible books in the Premises, was a crime.

I sure knew books burned.

Think of the stories of the burning of the Library of Alexandria by Julius Caesar and the stories of the great Los Angeles Public Library Fire of 1986.

But that you could be cited for the over-accumulation of books in the premises?

Just something wrong there.

I think of the self graded quiz prepared by writer Paul Fussell so that readers could look over their homes and come up a rating for the ‘class’ radiated by said home.

The higher the score, the more ‘class’ inherent in the home.

These questions were part of the quiz.

Bookcase(s) partially filled with books – add 5
Any old leather bindings more than 75 years old – add 6
Bookcase(s) filled with books – add 7
Overflow books stacked on floor, chairs, ETC – add 6

Today, maintaining the Premises in a severely overcluttered condition by permitting the over-accumulation of books in the Premises; creating a fire hazard by over-accumulating combustible books in the Premises, is a violation.

Just one more sign of the approaching apocalypse.

7.12.2026 – count your own blessings

count your own blessings
and let your neighbor count theirs –
secure as a vault …

Based on the James Thurber Further Fable for Our Time, The Philosopher and the Oyster.

By the sea on a lovely morning strolled a philosopher — one who seeks a magnificent explanation for his insignificance — and there he came upon an oyster lying in its shell upon the sand.

“It has no mind to be burdened by doubt,” mused the philosopher, “no fingers to work to the bone.

It can never say, ‘My feet are killing me.’

It hears no evil, sees no television, speaks no folly. It has no buttons to come off, no zipper to get caught, no hair or teeth to fall out.”

The philosopher sighed a deep sigh of envy.

“It produces a highly lustrous concretion, of great price or priceless,” he said, “when a morbid condition obtains in its anatomy, if you could call such an antic, anomalous amorphousness anatomy.”

The philosopher sighed again and said, “Would that I could wake from delirium with a circlet of diamonds upon my fevered brow.

Would, moreover, that my house were my sanctuary, as sound and secure as a safe-deposit vault.”

Just then a screaming sea gull swooped out of the sky, picked up the oyster in its claws, carried it high in the air, and let it drop upon a great wet rock, shattering the shell and splattering its occupant.

There was no lustrous concretion, of any price whatever, among the debris, for the late oyster had been a very healthy oyster, and, anyway, no oyster ever profited from its pearl.

MORALS: Count your own blessings, and let your neighbor count his.

Where there is no television, the people also perish.

I quote from Mr. Thurber today because, if you subscribed to the New Yorker Magazine in the year 1956, and on this day in 1956, you got your copy of the New Yorker from your mailbox and read later that night after dinner, on page 19, you would have read The Philosopher and the Oyster as that was when the story was first published.

Seventy years ago today or as Mr. Lincoln might say, Three Score and Ten.

The Further Fables, according to one biography were all written in a Columbus, Ohio hotel where Thurber was staying as he visited with his family for a month in 1955.

According the biography, James Thurber : his life and times by Harrison Kinney (Holt: New York, 1995), Thurber began a new series of fables. Thirty-seven of them ran in the New Yorker from May 12 to October 13, 1956. Katharine White had obtained permission from Harper & Bros, to run certain illustrations from the 1940 Fables for Our Time with the new fables, and, beyond her official call of duty, obtained additional permission for their use in both the American and British editions of Further Fables for Our Time. Most of the other illustrations in the books are composites of Thurber’s cartoons and spots over the years.

Mr. Kinney continues: Further Fables for Our Time, complete with the New Yorker rejects, was published October 31, 1956, with a first printing of thirty thousand copies. The Book Find Club accounted for another fifteen thousand, and the New Yorker s business department had five thousand complimentary copies bound to send to advertising space buyers. S. J. Perelman let it be known that the fables contained “the finest writing of our time,” but Thurber was upset to be told that one reviewer had called them “the tired writing of a tired man.” That another critic had said, “He writes with the verve of a young man” didn’t compensate him for the put-down.

In a letter to a Miss Carolyn Wilson, dated West Cornwall, Connecticut, May 2, 1960, Mr. Thurber writes: 

Our mutual friend Libba Thayer has given me your address and reminded me that you and I were great friends of Elmer Davis,’ so I felt like writing to you. 

Elmer Davis was my favorite American of this century, as I have said in private and in print, and I was happy that he lived to read my dedication to him of Further Fables for Our Time. He wrote me a brief, painful, but bright note about it, saying that it made him feel like a cross between Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Schweitzer. I know a great many other admirers of Elmer, including Edward P. Morgan, who broadcasts for WABC, and many newspapermen. (Selected letters of James Thurber by James Thurber (London : Hamish Hamilton, 1982)).

Mr. Kinney commented: The dedication page of Further Fables for Our Time reads: “To Elmer Davis, whose comprehension of people and persons has lighted our time, so that we can see where we are going, these fables are dedicated with admiration, affection and thankfulness.” Thurber had been a faithful listener to Davis, whose defiant radio broadcasts against McCarthyism had somehow stayed on the air despite warnings to the ABC network from Vincent Hartnett, editor of Red Channels. Davis was in the hospital with an illness that would prove fatal. He was moved by Thurber’s compassionate efforts to cheer him, and wrote Thurber that given his years of blindness, Thurber surely had too many He was moved by Thurber’s compassionate efforts to cheer him, and wrote Thurber that given his years of blindness, Thurber surely had too many of his own travails to worry about Davis’s.

According to Wikipedia, Elmer Holmes Davis (January 13, 1890 – May 18, 1958) was an American news reporter, author, the Director of the United States Office of War Information during World War II and a Peabody Award recipient. Beginning on January 3, 1954, he had a program on ABC Radio on Sundays from 10:15 to 10:30 Eastern Time. Davis used the platform to criticize Senator Joseph McCarthy for his anti-communist investigations.

To repeat, Thurber had been a faithful listener to Davis, whose defiant radio broadcasts against McCarthyism had somehow stayed on the air despite warnings to the ABC network from Vincent Hartnett, editor of Red Channels.

And again, His defiant radio broadcasts against McCarthyism had somehow stayed on the air despite warnings to the ABC network.

Ripples from little stones dropped in the pool.

You can see all of the Thurber images online that I have collected at For Muggs and Rex.

7.11.2026 – big disappointment

big disappointment
small, forgettable and short
on chocolate chips

Over the holiday we got together as a family as most families do and as most families do, we got together over a lot of food.

My daughter Alexis brought a bag of her homemade chocolate chip cookies.

Pretty much the basic chocolate chip cookie but with added chunks of milk chocolate that had family members urging family members to try one who then urged family members to try one, mostly saying, you have got to try one!

Maybe the best chocolate chip cookies I ever had.

Crunchy enough to crunch but soft enough to not crumble and the double hit of chocolate, but boy howdy, yessir, I am telling you, I had to sit down.

According to AI, The chocolate chip cookie is undeniably the most American cookie. Invented in the 1930s by Ruth Wakefield at the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, this iconic combination of buttery dough and semi-sweet chocolate morsels is now baked in over half of American households and remains the undisputed favorite nationwide.

According to Wikipedia, There is no official cookie for the entire United States. However, the beloved chocolate chip cookie is America’s unofficial national favorite and serves as the official state cookie for both Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

My home state, Michigan, in an act of near apostasy, as named the CHERRY chocolate chip cookie as its official State Cookie while my current state of South Carolina made something called the Benne Wafer as its state cookie. It is made, I understand as I have never had one, benne seeds also known as Sesame Seeds. I think that is about all you need to know about South Carolina to understand South Carolina.

Who else would make a cookie out of sesame seeds when chocolate chips are available?

I found somehow, irresistibly satisfying and appropriate that in the Washington Post article, The best and worst bites at the Great American State Fair by WP Food Critic Warren Rojas and editorial aide Jade Tran, who set out to eat at the food booths at the Great American State Fair [sic] in Washington, DC over the 4th of July that:

The $4 dollar chocolate chips cookies was one of the biggest disappointments: small, forgettable, and short on chocolate chips.

The Great American State Fair.

One thing to do.

Sell the food that made America Great.

And start with the Chocolate Chip Cookie.

Simple when you get right down to it.

What was delivered?

Something small.

Something forgettable.

Something short on Chocolate Chips.

Kind sums it all up for me.

And when I say all I mean ALL!

7.10.2026 – where we gather to

where we gather to
serve our community, there
is America

Adapted from the line, Wherever men and women of good will gather together to serve their community, there is America in a Radio Address for the Mobilization for Human Need, October 13, 1940 by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

President also said:

… in this critical moment of our history, we must be more than ever conscious of the true meaning of the “community spirit” which it expresses. It is a spirit which comes from our community of interests, our community of faith in the democratic ideal, our community of devotion to God.

Wherever men and women of good will gather together to serve their community, there is America. It was true in the first little town meetings in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, when the good folk assembled to decide measures of defense against the Indians, and how to build their first school, and how to care for their aged and sick. It is still true in this great national drive, all the way across our continent, for the Community Chest Funds.

When we join together in serving our local community, we add strength to our national community, we help to fortify the structure of our whole Union. That form of fortification—that spiritual fortification is not to be dismissed lightly by those in other lands who believe that nations can live by force alone.

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel in order to be tough. The vigorous expression of our American community spirit is truly important.

The ancient injunction to love thy neighbor as thyself is still the force that animates our faith—a faith that we are determined shall live and conquer in a world poisoned by hatred and ravaged by war.

Sad to say this we need to repeat:

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel in order to be tough.

Wherever men and women of good will gather together to serve their community, there is America.

7.9.2026 – we are all to blame …

we are all to blame …
sometimes is wiser not to
look over the hill

Been thinking a lot of the next 10 years.

The years when that current man in office is no longer in office and those folks who supported that current man in office will have to explain their support for that current man in office.

Let me be clear, I am confident that the current state of affairs of this ship of state will not last, cannot be sustained and in the words of Longfellow will:

Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock,
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee.
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o’er our fears,
Are all with thee, – are all with thee!

But of those who support this current man in office?

Those who support this administration that wraps itself in the Bible without bothering to read the words that say so simply:

… the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law (Galatians 5:22-23 KJV).

Love.

Joy.

Peace.

Longsuffering.

Gentleness.

Goodness.

Faith.

Meekness.

Temperance.

Against such there is no law!

I mean, come on, what does anyone have to tell themself to bend the meaning of these simple words so that they can be applied to that man currently in office?

Last night I was reading On my own : the years since the White House by Eleanor Roosevelt (Harper: New York, 1958), and Mrs. Roosevelt wrote about visiting Germany when she had been appointed as a member of the US Delegation to the United Nations meetings in 1946.

She wrote:

I remembered my friend, Carola von Schaeffer-Bernstein, born Passavant, as a very lovely blonde girl when we were at school together at Allenswood. She had a soft pink and white complexion, and she had been a very earnest kind of person. In the First World War, her husband was a general on the Eastern or Russian front and I remembered that following that war she had written me a rather sad letter in which she expressed sorrow about the war but said that “we are all to blame” because we have not lived by the teachings of Christ.

Now, in American headquarters at Frankfurt, I expected to find a greatly changed person but, in fact, she was no more changed by the passage of years and the long years of war than I, perhaps less. She was still lovely, and it was only when you looked the second time that you noticed that she was tired and worn by the strain of life in an occupied country. She was dressed plainly but well and her attitude toward me, while a bit reserved, was much as it had always been. I suppose, too, that our conversation was not much different than it had been when we met in earlier days. They were living in straitened circumstances but they were not destitute. If I had originally felt that she might be in difficulties and that I might in some way help her, it became obvious that she was not.

We said nothing — I suppose we avoided saying anything — in particular about the war until she was almost ready to leave, when I made some remark about the tragedy of Germany. She answered promptly.

“It was everybody’s fault.” Then, echoing what she had written me a quarter of a century earlier. “We are all to blame. None of us has lived up to the teachings of Christ.”

I thought to myself that this was perhaps an easy way of not facing the problem, particularly for a German woman with education and social standing. But in my reply I pursued another thought.

“You have always been a very religious person,” I said. “How is it possible that one can be so devoted to the principles of the church yet not protest the mistreatment of the Jews?”

“Sometimes,” she replied, “it is wiser not to look over the hill.”

Soon afterward she left to return home. I never did ask her whether she or her family had been Nazis, but then, after the war practically no one had ever been a Nazi!

I think about the next 10 years.

I think about those responsible, those to blame.

We are all to blame when you get right down to it.

Sometimes, it is wiser not to look over the hill.