The Old Dutch Masters and a Mexican Restaurant

A little lagniappe from my quote journal. Doesn't this paint a wonderful picture?

The old Dutch masters would have loved to perpetuate the interior of a Mexican restaurant, its patrons showing the cosmopolitan nature of the population of the State. A long, low-roofed room, with bare floor, an uncovered pine table, and hard bench, on which sit three noted politicians taking an evening lunch. ... Each has a steaming platter of chile con carne before him, and a plate of tamales in their hot moist wrappings of shuck. Behind them stands the Mexican host, tall, dark, dignified, and grave, yet watchful. ... Over them flicker the dim rays cast by an oil lamp, deepening the shadows, throwing half-lights into the obscurity of the corners. A tiny hairless Mexican dog sits motionless on the doorstep, while the sign—written in both English and Spanish—swings creakingly above his head. ... Only in the cities of Texas can be found that peculiar fusion of American civilization with Mexican life. ...

Lee C. Harby, "Texan Types and Contrast,"
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, July 1890

via Robb Walsh, Texas Eats

Sinking as a hedonist into novels

My mother read secondarily for information; she sank as a hedonist into novels. She read Dickens in the spirit in which she would have eloped with him.

Eudora Welty

Yes. Also Tolkien. And Dante. And Agatha Christie.

Clearly I've got a problem.

Lovecraftian School Board Member Wants Madness Added To Curriculum

"Our schools are orderly, sanitary places where students dwell in blissful ignorance of the chaos that awaits," West said. "Should our facilities be repaired? No, they must be razed to the ground and rebuilt in the image of the Cyclopean dwellings of the Elder Gods, the very geometry of which will drive them to be possessed by visions of the realms beyond." ...

"Charles sure likes to bang on that madness drum," fellow school board member Danielle Kolker said. "I'm not totally sold on his plan to let gibbering, half-formed creatures dripping with ichor feed off the flesh and fear of our students. But he is always on time to help set up for our spaghetti suppers, and his bake sale goods are among the most popular."

"I must admit, he's very convincing," Kolker added.

This excerpt is from one of my favorite of The Onion's pieces. I enjoy rereading it every year. Do go read it all.

Inhuman, Gelatinous, and Disembodied

Shall I say that the voice was deep, hollow, gelatinous, remote, unearthly, inhuman, disembodied?

H.P. Lovecraft, the Statement of Randolph Carter

Wow. And somehow I feel I know just how it sounded.

What a queer thing Life is!

What a queer thing Life is! So unlike anything else, don't you know, if you see what I mean.

P.G. Wodehouse

This is just one of those inspired bits of incoherence that makes Wodehouse fans laugh and want more. Also, it's true.

Lagniappe: The Underground and the Death Star

The Underground works all day and all evening, which means the brave men and women in high-visibility orange who keep it running have to work all night. The depot is so full of people banging bits of metal together and scraping things to make sparks that if you squinted you'd swear they were about to launch a last desperate attack against the Death Star.

Ben Aaronovitch, The Furthest Station

I just love his turn of phrase and ability to evoke a mental image. Plus, he makes me laugh.

Lagniappe: Finishing What the Luftwaffe Started

In the 1960s the planning department of the London County Council, whose unofficial motto was Finishing What the Luftwaffe Started, decided that what London really needed was a series of orbital motorways driven through its heart.

Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

I've been rereading this series and especially enjoying the architectural comments and the details about police work that the author includes.

One of the most unexpected elements of P.C. Grant's character in the Rivers of London series is his continual disapproval of a lot of modern architecture. There's a reason that comes to light eventually but it is funny. And pretty accurate as far as I can tell.

Lagniappe: Never record anything ...

I rang her and left a message identifying myself and giving an impression of urgency without actually saying anything concrete. Never record anything you wouldn't want turning up on YouTube is my motto.

Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

If only more of us remembered this, the world would be a calmer place. More boring, sure. But definitely calmer.

Lagniappe: Planned Improvisation

She glanced back at where my dad ... was having a technical discussion with the rest of the band. Lots of hand gestures as he indicated where he wanted solos to come in during the set because, as my dad always says, while improvisation and spontaneity may be the hallmarks of great jazz, the hallmark of being a great player is ensuring the rest of the band is spontaneously improvising the way you want them to.

Ben Aaronovitch, Broken Homes

Aha! I always suspected as much!

Lagniappe: A Copper Who Is a Wizard

"You're so boring," she said. "You'd think a copper who was a wizard would be more interesting. Harry Potter wasn't this boring. I bet Gandalf could drink you under the table."

Probably true, but I don't remember the bit where Hermione gets so wickedly drunk that Harry has to pull the broomstick over on Buckingham Palace Road just so she can be sick in the gutter.

Ben Aaronovitch, Whispers Under Ground

It goes on like that for a bit, but you get the point. Makes me laugh and that's it. Nothing deeper here to see. Move along now.

Lagniappe: Many Shades of Green

Her eyes were green, although Stallings couldn't decide whether they were sea green or emerald green. But since she looked expensive, he finally settled on dollar green.

Ross Thomas, Out on the Rim

Ross Thomas's books have some of the twistiest plots you've ever encountered. He keeps you hooked until the end. He often works in a kind of code that is funny while conveying information. I love his Artie Wu and Quincy Durant books, of which this is the first I ever read.

Lagniappe: Mixed Signals

We approached the porch. A cockeyed "Welcome" sign hung from the center of the dirty, white door. The sign was hand-painted in blue and silver pain and had a star at the bottom, indicating the previous owners had been Dallas Cowboys fans. The doormat had a picture of a pistol and said, "We don't dial 911."

"I'm getting mixed signals," said Donut.

Matt Dinniman, The Gate of the Feral Gods

Matt Dinniman's books are fun, but fluff. Part of that fun is the sort of thing you just read. They make perfect vacation reading.

Lagniappe: Great curved scrolls of feet

Then the carpenters return to making more tables—tables on which to spread our pottery, a drawing-table for Mac, a table off which to dine, a table for my typewriter. ...

Mac draws out a towel-horse and the carpenters start upon it. The old man brings it proudly to my room on completion. It looks different from Mac's drawing, and when the carpenter sets it down I see why. It has colossal feet, great curved scrolls of feet. They stick out so that, wherever you put it, you invariable trip over them.

Ask him, I say to Max, why he has made these feet instead of sticking to the design he was given?

The old man looks at us with dignity.

"I made them this way," he says, "so that they should be beautiful. I wanted this that I have made to be a thing of beauty!"

To this cry of the artist there could be no response. I bow my head, and resign myself to tripping up over those hideous feet for the rest of the season!

Agatha Christie, Come Tell Me How You Live

Lagniappe: A Very Pleasant Thought

I woke up thinking a very pleasant thought. There is lots left in the world to read.

Nicholson Baker, The Anthologist: A Novel

That is how I feel when I think of how much Dickens I have left to read. It is a very pleasant thought.

Lagniappe: The Patron Saint of TV Dinners

When I asked my friend’s mother why there was a little statue of The Virgin Mary on top of their Sylvania, she corrected me in a tone which faintly suggested that her family were better Catholics than mine would ever be. “Oh, Honey, that isn’t the Virgin Mary. That’s St. Clare of Assisi– she’s the patron saint of television.”

I approached the plastic idol with what I hoped was a reverential pace to examine her more closely. She held one hand upward in a gesture of blessing and her face looked up to the heavens. Or perhaps she was simply keeping an eye on the antenna which was fastened to the roof directly above. It was impossible to tell. I tried to pick her up, but discovered that she wouldn’t budge from her place.

I’d heard of people having their eyes glued to their television sets, but never their feet. It was a day of firsts.

When I came home, I took my usual place at dinner – the seat farthest from my mom. It was the lowest position in the family pecking order, but it also happened to be the only chair at the table which afforded a clear view of the family room and the television in it, which was always miraculously turned on and which I always (just as miraculously) got away with watching. I could now tune out the conversation of my older siblings and tune in to early evening network programming knowing there was a new saint in my life who was watching over me as I ate in silence, just like (as I would learn many years later) the sisters of the Franciscan Order founded by her, The Poor Clares.

Michael Procopio, Food for the Thoughtless

This is an old entry and it looks as if the blog is not around. But the quote remains amusing no matter what. 

Lagniappe: Faithful even in their infidelity

... according to the characteristic modesty of a Frenchman, Albert had quitted Paris with the full conviction that he had only to show himself in Italy to carry all before him, and that upon his return he should astonish the Parisian world with the recital of his numerous love-affairs. Alas, poor Albert! none of those interesting adventures fell in his way; the lovely Genoese, Florentines, and Neapolitans were all faithful, if not to their husbands, at least to their lovers, and thought not of changing even for the splendid appearance of Albert de Morcerf; and all he gained was the painful conviction that the ladies of Italy have this advantage over those of France, that they are faithful even in their infidelity.

Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

I'd forgotten that Dumas has a sly humor like this. He made me laugh twice in this brief bit.

Lagniappe: The minister's bride and lunch

The minister's bride set her luncheon casserole down with a flourish, and waited for grace. "It seems to me," murmured her husband, "that I have blessed a good deal of this material before.

Irma Rombauer, The Joy of Cooking

It made me laugh to think of leftovers as twice blessed, especially with a father who frowned upon leftovers. Perhaps from contrariness, perhaps just because I like the flavor that comes to many dishes from settling for a day, I love leftovers. Luckily my husband does too!

Lagniappe: "The old sweet song," said Holmes.

"If it takes me all my life I shall get level with you!"

"The old sweet song," said Holmes. "How often I have heard it in days gone by. It was a favourite ditty of the late lamented Professor Moriarty. Colonel Sebastian Moran has also been known to warble it. And yet I live and keep bees upon the South Downs."

Arthur Conan Doyle, The Last Bow

Just because it is delightful. Which is how lagniappe works!

Lagniappe: Trees and Mordor

A construction project on my campus once destroyed some grass and trees near the library building, perhaps a necessary but certainly regrettable preliminary to expansion of the library. On the board fence surrounding the project, a number of slogans were painted. One near the entrance said simply, "The Gates of Mordor." Unfair, perhaps, but Tolkien — who was moved to write "Leaf by Niggle" when a tree near his home was cut down — would have understood.

Richard L. Purtill, Lord of the Elves and Eldils

I still remember sobbing when a utility truck cut off the tops of a long line of majestic trees one summer when I was young. My mother tried to comfort me and I knew it was a practical action, considering the frequency of ice storms in rural Kansas. However, I still felt for those trees.

Lagniappe: The gentleman's smile and the shine on his boots

And if the observer chanced to be ill-natured, as well as acute and susceptible, he would probably suspect that the smile on the gentleman's face was a good deal akin to the shine on his boots, and that each must have cost him and his boot-black, respectively, a good deal of hard labor to bring out and preserve them.

Nathaniel Hawthorne,
The House of the Seven Gables

We all know what to think of Judge Pyncheon now ... watch out! That sentence was so perfect I just had to share it.