A Caricature

Daily Dose

From A New Life, by Bernard Malamud

HABIT

"'Why speak of regrets? I have none.'
'Your eyes seem sad.'
'The fix of habit. I'm happy.'"

From page 200 this edition

Momofuku Clerihewhew

DAVID CHANG

David Chang
Made a bang
With each brand new
Momofuku.

Daily Dose

From Song of Myself, by Walt Whitman

WALT

"Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos,
Disorderly fleshy and sensual... eating drinking and breeding,
No sentimentalist... no stander above men and women or apart from them...
 no more modest than immodest."

From page 40, this edition

A Caricature

Daily Dose

From The Samurai, by Shusaku Endo, translated by Van C. Gessel

ALL

"We were all disheartened. We were like a wandering tribe that trails day after day across the desert in search of an illusive spring of flowing water."

From Chapter 8

Clerihew for the molecular Gastronome

GRANT ACHATZ

Grant Achatz
Uses powders and packets,
Balloons, bubbles, and spheres
To smoke his peers.
.

Daily Dose

From Erosion: Essays of Undoing, by Terry Tempest Williams

AS

"As a writer, must I write a hopeful story? Or an evolving one?"

From The Tellurian

Clerihew con tapas

JOSE ANDRES

Jose Andres
Earned his place
Bringing small plates
To the States.

Clerihew for a Mad Food Scientist

WYLIE DUFRESNE

Given free rein
Wylie Dufresne
crashed molecular gastronomy
Into the market economy.

Daily Dose

From On the Move: A Life, by Oliver Sacks

TABLE

"Our table had a paper tablecloth, and when points were obscure, we drew diagrams on it until their meaning was fully explored."

From A New Vision of the Mind

Clerihew for a Literary Arsonist

DALE PECK

Dale Peck
Sticks out his neck
Every time he takes up his pen
And then he does it over again.

A Caricature

Daily Dose

From Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius, translated by Maxwell Staniforth

ASIDE

"Philosophy aside, an effectual help towards disregarding death is to think of those who clung greedily to their lives."

From 50

Clerihew for an English Master

V. S. PRITCHETT

To reclaim its glory,
The English short story
Needed a champ which it
Found in Victor Sawdon Pritchett.

A Caricture

Daily Dose

From Lucky Jim, by Kingsley Amis

CHANCE

"If he's had that chance, things would be very different for him now. For a moment he thought he couldn't think what things; then he found he could conceive the things exactly, and exactly how they'd differ from the things he'd got, too."

From Chapter 18

The Joy of Clerihew

IRMA S. ROMBAUER

Irma S. Rombauer
Loved that whole flour,
Canned soup and fruit cocktail,
And recipes from retail.

Daily Dose

From I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman, by Nora Ephron

FACT

"The fact that I am not currently in pain and cannot simulate the pain of labor does not mean I don't remember it. I am currently not eating a wonderful piece of grilled chicken I once had in Asolo, Italy, in 1982, but I remember it well. It was delicious."

From On Maintenance

A Caricature

Daily Dose

From Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: A Sortabiography, by Eric Idle

ENDED UP

"We ended up with dancing men in top hats and tails, a full Welsh choir, and a British regimental band playing along loudly."

From Chapter 18, Bright Side Returns

A Caricature

Daily Dose

From The Atheist in the Attic, by Samuel R. Delany

REALLY

"Really, had this been necessary? But that, I thought, was my old friend."

From Chapter 3.

A Caricature

Daily Dose

From Collected Novels and Plays, by James Merrill

PLANT

"Within her range of vision stood a plant that had stalks covered with pink bristles, and big triangular leaves, greeny brown, each of which seemed to have split open to reveal a jagged form, membranous and pink. It wasn't a plant she would have chosen for display in a hospital. Now I'll be sick, she thought."

From The Seraglio, Chapter 15

A Caricature

Daily Dose

From The Changing Light at Sandover, by James Merrill

SUNDAY

"A Sunday hush. Table uncleared. Grandmother
About to take her pill in trembling water
Cocks her head: 'An angel's passing over...'
Seeing nothing, each looks at the other."

From Mirabell: Book 9, 9-5

Breakfast at the Bookstore with Brad and Nick #173

Daily Dose

From The Tanners, by Robert Walser, translated by Susan Bernofsky

HABIT

"'I was always in the habit,' Hedwig said to Simon in the course of the day, 'of treating you somehow as my subordinate. In their dealings with you, perhaps others do, too --you hardly give an impression of intelligence -- what people are more likely to see in you is love, and you know pretty well how that's received.'"

From Chapter 10

Clerihew for a Lyonnais

JACQUES PEPIN

When Jacques Pepin
At Le Pélican began, 
There it was, so to speak,
He first learned La Technique.

Daily Dose

From The Assistant, by Robert Walser, translated by Susan Bernofsky

OTHER

"In some other place and at some other hour, all this would perhaps have struck him as agreeable, instructive, nice, fine, amusing, even enchanting."

from page 143, this edition

A Caricature

Daily Dose

From No Spare Time: Thinking About What Matters, by Ursula K. Le Guin

SILENCE

"Silence. Affable presence. Mystery."

From Pard and the Time Machine, May 2014

A Caricature

Daily Dose

From Seven Men and Two Others, by Max Beerbohm

PRESENTLY

"I presently felt that this landscape was not, after all, doing itself full justice."

From James Pethel

Breakfast at the Bookstore with Brad and Nick #172

Daily Dose

From The Birds, by Tarjei Vesaas, translated by Torbjorn Stoverud and Michael Barnes

THEY

"They raised themselves on their elbows, compelled by the earnestness of his voice and the gleam in his eye.
'Yes? We're listening,' they said, expectantly."

From Chapter 21

A Caricature

Daily Dose

From Dr. Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak, translated by Manya Harari and Max Hayward

ONLY

"Only the superfluous is sordid."

From Chapter 2, 4

A Caricature

Doughy Clerihew

JAMES BEARD

What endeared
James Beard?
He always said,
"I'll bring the bread."

Daily Dose

From Sea of Poppies, by Amitav Ghosh

REFUSED

"She refused to discuss the subject, and he could not blame her for this, since he could scarcely bear to think of it himself."

From Chapter Fourteen

Clerihew for the Boston Cooking School

FANNIE MERRITT FARMER

Fannie Farmer
Strapped on the armor
Of proper terms and careful measures
And produced an American treasure.

Clerihew de cuisine

AUGUSTE ESCOFFIER

If today
Escoffier
Wrote Ma Cuisine
There would be much less gelatine.

Clerihew in a Tall Toque

PAUL BOCUSE

Paul Bocuse
Paid his dues
Long before nouvelle cuisine
Ever really made the scene.

Daily Dose

From Joseph Anton: A Memoir, by Salman Rushdie

THANKS

"Thanks to Zafar, he had grown fond of Mario the plumber and his brother Luigi, and sometimes Super Mario World felt like a happy alternative to the one he lived in the rest of the time. 'Read a good book,' his wife told him scornfully. 'Give it up.' He lost his temper. 'Don't tell me how to live my life,' he exploded, and she made a grand exit."

From Chapter IV, The Trap of Wanting to Be Loved

A Caricature

Daily Dose

From New York Stories, edited by Diana Secker Tesdell

CHARM

"Her supreme charm was the simplicity that comes of taking it for granted that people are born with carriages and country places: it never occurred to her that such congenital attributes could be matter for self-consciousness, and she had none of the nouveau riche prudery which classes poverty with the nude in art and is not sure how to behave in the presence of either."

From A Cup of Cold Water, by Edith Wharton

A Caricature

Daily Dose

From Russian Stories, edited by Christoph Keller

!!!

"'We're done for!' I hollered, seized by the exhilaration of disaster. 'We're finished!'"

From Dolgushov's Death, by Isaac Babel, translated by Peter Constantine

Breakfast at the Bookstore with Brad and Nick #171

Daily Dose

From Russian Stories, edited by Christoph Keller

NONE THE LESS

"None the less, December was not a success for Naples."

From The Gentleman from San Francisco, by Ivan Bunin, translated by S. S. Koteliansky, D. H. Lawrence, and Leonard Woolf

It's That Time of Year Again

First proof of the new 2020 Calendar.