Word: evenings
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...France, the De Gaulle government's equivalent of the Small Business Administration works hard to modernize the small shops, sweep away the prejudices against middle-sized and big entrepreneurs. Says France's Economic Planner Jacques Rueff: "I want to open the windows and let in some air." Even the bankers are loosening up: medium-term credits for business are on the rise, consumer credit is climbing fast. Britain removed its credit restrictions in late 1958 and watched consumer debt jump 50% in 1959; France had no credit to speak of ten years ago, now counts more than...
...Lawrence once carped that Franklin "made himself a list of virtues, which he trotted inside like a gray nag in a paddock." Lawrence was not the first or the last to be infuriated by Franklin's middle-class prudence; yet Franklin's maxims-many taken from even earlier sages-are no less true for having become truisms. Who can deny that "He that lies down with Dogs, shall rise up with fleas"? Or that "Light purse, heavy heart" are still keeping company? What confounds Franklin's critics is that he was so confoundedly right...
...smoothest cup of brine is The New Yorker's John Cheever. With his oft-repeated visions of suburbia under a lowering sky, the author is obviously following Faulkner's lead by creating a kind of Yoknapatawpha, Conn. The fact that there are no Snopeses and not even very much crab grass in the commuters' heaven adds wry emphasis to Cheever's reiterated question. "Is this all there is?" ask his characters, who have everything. In The Country Husband, the author's answer (yes) is given with great irony to a prosperous executive who lusts...
Race & Diet. Dr. Jarvis' explanation of the near-magical powers of vinegar is that it is unusually rich in potassium, and he rates this as the element most important in stimulating growth. In cold fact, even apple-cider vinegar (in the amounts he prescribes) is decidedly poor in potassium. And although this element is essential to life, its relationship to growth is unknown...
Goldilocks the Victim. But even the present volume has its moments. With great glee, Miller lampoons the shock of the American tourist upon first encountering a Paris pissoir, adding: "I do not find it so strange that America placed a urinal in the center of the Paris exhibit at Chicago. I think it belongs there, and I think it a tribute which the French should appreciate. True, there was no need to fly the Tricolor above it." Oddly enough, the best piece is Miller's account of how, a little squiffed from cognac, he told the story of Goldilocks...