1.22.2023 – prodigious number

prodigious number
people hanged by no means bad
time for criminals

Inspired by:

In spite of the prodigious number of people who managed to get hanged, the fifteenth century was by no means a bad time for criminals.

A great confusion of parties and great dust of fighting favoured the escape of private housebreakers and quiet fellows who stole ducks in Paris Moat.

Prisons were leaky; and as we shall see, a man with a few crowns in his pocket and perhaps some acquaintance among the officials, could easily slip out and become once more a free marauder.

As it appears in the 1926 title, The Book of The Rogue by Joseph Lewis French.

According to the Wikipedia, Joseph Lewis French. (1858–1936) was a novelist, editor, poet and newspaper man. The New York Times noted in 1925 that he may be “the most industrious anthologist of his time.”[2] He is known for his popular themed collections, and published more than twenty-five books between 1918 and his death in 1936. He initiated two magazines, The New West (c. 1887) and The Wave (c. 1890). Afterward he worked for newspapers “across the country” contributing poetry and articles. He struggled financially, and during 1927 the New York Graphic, a daily tabloid, published an autobiographical article they convinced him to write, entitled “I’m Starving – Yet I’m in Who’s Who as the Author of 27 Famous Books.”

The New York Times reports in his obit that Mr. French “insisted that the actual rewards of authorship were few.”

I have reproduced his obit here.

In his book of collected stories on pirates, Great Pirate Stories, Mr. French wrote:

It was a bold hardy world—this of ours—up to the advent of our giant-servant, Steam,—every foot of which was won by fierce conquest of one sort or another.

Out of this past the pirate emerges as a romantic, even at times heroic, figure.

This final niche, despite his crimes, cannot altogether be denied him.

A hero he is and will remain so long as tales of the sea are told.

So, have at him, in these pages!

A hero he is and will remain so long as tales of the sea are told

1.21.2023 – see taste touch smell hear

see taste touch smell hear
Saturday morning traveling
magic world wide web

I traveled to the town of Market Harborough, near Great Oxendon, this morning and fell for a place named The George.

The George bills itself as A former 16th century inn set in the beautiful surroundings of South Leicestershire.

The George features a traditional village bar and a large patio area to while away your days in the rolling Northamptonshire countryside.

It is, they say, “A place to eat, drink and sleep.“

The George offers an Auberge Supper, which I think means supper in the style of an inn or small hotel in France where three days a week, lunchtime and evening, we will surprise you with a different tempting 3 course meal. The Auberge Supper is always full of flavours and at a fantastic price.

The George offers afternoon tea where you can “Treat yourself and your friends to afternoon tea at The George. Homemade sandwiches, scones and cakes are served on the patio or in the dining room overlooking the garden. Indulge in a selection of teas or a glass of champagne.“

The bar at the George lets you, “Enjoy a handcrafted real ale or a chilled white wine in our cosy bar. An extensive drinks menu hand-picked from around the world, there is no excuse not to stop in and relax.”

The Sunday Lunch at the George is “Served midday till 3pm every Sunday, you will always find the finest Roast Sirloin of Beef.”

I clicked on an online link for the place and managed to spend a half hour on their website.

I looked at the all the pictures.

I read all the menus.

I could see it.

The photos showed a clean, well lighted place (to steal from Mr. Hemingway).

I could taste it.

Scones, cakes, a glass of champagne, finest roast sirloin of beef.

I could feel it.

I could sense the polished wood and the weight of the crockery.

I could smell it.

The smell of an old bar, of whisky’s and beers and the smell of the kitchen and again the roast meats.

I could hear it.

The clack of crockery and china. Chairs sliding on a wood floor.

It all looked so … civilized.

Far from the maddening crowd.

It is where a warm welcome will always await you.

There was a jingle when I was kid that went, “Let you fingers do the walking in the Yellow Pages.”

I let my mind do my traveling on the world wide web.

I had never heard of Market Harborough or Great Oxendon.

Not quite sure I know where they are.

I feel like I have been there, at the least to The George.

I never left my chair.

Sometimes, better than being there.

1.20.2023 – inefficiencies

inefficiencies
stress fatigue impossible
unsustainable

As you knew, today’s haiku is based on an a newspaper article about the restaurant industry.

In the guest opinion essay, “Foodie Fever Dreams Can’t Keep Restaurants Afloat” by Vivian Howard, a chef and restaurateur, is the author of two cookbooks and the host of the PBS series “A Chef’s Life” and “Somewhere South.”

Ms. Howard writes:

Even so, Chef & the Farmer closed, in large part because the inefficiencies, stress and fatigue brought by an unsustainable business model became impossible to ignore. Our industry needs to evolve or else more full-service, cuisine-driven restaurants like mine will languish their way to extinction.

About being in the restaurant business, she write: “…perhaps why you so rarely hear a parent say: “You should get into the restaurant business. It looks like a nice life.“

As Anthony Bourdain once said, “I mean, I admire anyone who wants to cook and knowingly enters the field.

It’s a hard thing.

But, you know, look before you leap.

Because I’ve seen that so many times, kids coming out of cooking school and working in my kitchens, and literally two weeks in, you see it.

You look behind the line, and you can just see the dream die.

This terrible information sinking in, like, “Oh my God, this is nothing like they told me it was going to be.”

And I am thinking of going out to dinner tonight.

At least, as of right now.

I think I need a job that pays you to be on the beach.

Maybe the one I have that lets me on the beach at lunchtime is good enough.

But consider the beach.

Twice a day the tide comes in and wipes it clean.

Completely and efficiently.

No fatugue.

No stress.

Though I am sure that if I had the job to clean sweep the beach twice a day, I would make a mess of it and I would languish on my way to extinction.

1.19.2023 – extremely online

extremely online
insulted as efficiently
as is possible

Extremely Online.

A condition where social media compels us to read thinly, strip out all context and get to the part where we can be insulted as efficiently as possible.

So writes New York Times Opinion Columnist, Tressie McMillan Cottom, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science, in her piece, The Enduring, Invisible Power of Blond.

The line in question reads, “I knew a lot of the anger had to do with my critics being Extremely Online, a condition where social media compels us to read thinly, strip out all context and get to the part where we can be insulted as efficiently as possible.“

The ability, no, the desire of some folks to read thinly and strip out all context and get to the part where we can be insulted as efficiently as possible.

I come back to that old saying, why going looking for trouble.

Besides, if you go looking for trouble, trouble will find you.

Which in a way I think is really funny when I try to put that into context with news and social media and trouble.

Back in the news business we had endless discussions that folks no longer had to seek out news, they did not have watch TV news, listen to radio news or buy a newspaper.

With social media, the news someone wanted to hear, the paradigm went, now found them.

News, like trouble, finds you.

And the part of the news that interest us the most is the part that we are insulted.

And being extremely online compels us to read thinly, strip out all context and get to the part where we can be insulted as efficiently as possible

OH the wonderful power of social media,

1.18.2023 – sun shone, salt glittered

sun shone salt glittered
like tinsel the wind tousled
the sea prettily

Adapted from:

Prepared for a slice of heroic adventure, they found themselves in the middle of a floating vicarage garden fete .

The sun shone.

The salt in the air glittered like tinsel In the enclosed water of the Solent, the stiffish southerly wind did no more than prettily tousle the sea.

Though I had made an important fuss of laying compass courses on the chart and calculating tidal streams, there was no navigation, since everyone could see exactly where everywhere was.

There was no solitude, either.

There was hardly any room at all in which to move.

From the book Coasting by Jonathan Raban

Jonathan Raban, the British travel writer, critic and novelist known for his candid accounts of travelling the world in books such as Passage to Juneau and Coasting, has died aged 80, his agent has confirmed.