Arturo, JMN.
Arturo Rodríguez, Mexican immigrant, master mason, arch builder, craftsman, sweet tenor, husband, friend. Told one of the best jokes I know. Its punchline: … No le hagas caso a ese caballo, no sabe nada de mecánica.
Copyright (c) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.
Tagg’s Island, Sir Alfred Munnings, 1919. Philip Wilson Publishers, 1978.
Cressida’s fiancé Rupert plays midfield for the Tottenham Hotspurs. Her friend Hermione, only daughter of Sir Hubert Dalgleish, fancies Orlando, an enigmatic striker for the Northampton Avengers. Tut tut. Le coeur a ses raisons, etc., wouldn’t you say, if only you knew French?
A soupçon of tension thus invades the heiresses’ amity; they cheer respectively for bitter rivals on the football pitch.
Cressida learns from Rupert, quite casually, that Orlando is the subject of certain rumours involving the daughter of Archibald McClackmannanham, whose company will build the new bridge over the Firth of Forth. Rupert has reported Sir Alistair Chichester to have muttered audibly to Sir Hubert over a tot of Sheep Dip in the Thane of Thoth that McClackmannanham was a “bloody arriviste” egged on by “his cohort of toadies.” Such is the disdain of old wealth for new wealth.
Cressida imparts this intelligence with delicate reluctance to Hermione, who receives it with a sharp intake of breath and a prolonged glance through the French doors giving out upon the manicured grounds of Pelfe Chase, her family’s ancestral manor.
Your assignment is as follows: Pretend you have the sensibilities of gentlefolk. On a scale of One (“Undetectable”) to Ten (“Seismic”), where must Cressida’s sympathy for her friend register? On the same scale, how horrid must poor Hermione now feel?
(Social Math — UK, Copyright (c) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)
Mother Pensive With Huge Glasses, JMN, photo. (C) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.
I missed my last weekend’s letter because of Andrew’s illness. It was not serious, but required that he be in the hospital for four days. A virus that produces nausea, diarrhea and fever has hit the little ones hard in this area, and they are hospitalized and put on IV’s to prevent dehydration… I stayed with him during the days and Elaine stayed nights, except for Sunday night, when I relieved her and stayed overnight. There were heart-wrenching scenes when he would be strapped or subjected by various devices for x-rays, IV’s and so forth. His temperature was taken rectally every several hours round the clock, and for most of the time he wasn’t eating or drinking, so was receiving the liquids via the IV, which required that his arm be strapped to a board and be heavily taped, so the needle and tubing would not come out. He was precious, and tried to take it all with good humor, but was frightened a lot as any baby would be and needed much comforting. Until Sunday he was tired most of the time and either dozed or lay fairly listlessly in bed. He had toys, balloons, etc. and we would play with him when he was in the mood. It’s so sad to see a toddler down, and it’s so good to see him back to normal… I think he’s still recovering, seems to need more rest than usual, but he’s eating and drinking normally and seems to have most of his energy back. I hope he never has to go through that again. I experience such deep empathy with him that it’s an ordeal to see him suffer in any way. His IV went bad on Sunday and I watched the nurses try four times to start the new one before they were successful. He was crying and saying, “Get down, pees, get down, pees” over and over. Several of the nurses were touched by how he says “pees” whenever he asks for something. I was up almost all night Sunday while he slept, then was up for several hours. I got a good piece of my translation of “The Drunken Boat” done that night. I lack about 8 stanzas to finish.
[JMN, Correspondence, 1987, Copyright (c) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.]
Mother Pensive With Huge Glasses, JMN, photo. (C) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.
“I’m continuing to read Jacques Barzun’s “Teacher in America,” written in the forties. He has a lot to say about what education really consists of (a lifelong endeavor), and I imagine a lot of his ideas would be sympathetic to the Grammarian. The current chapter is about the “classics.” He recommends that Shakespeare not be read until college, and says that more of the plays (not two, but six or eight) should be read at a faster pace, focusing on ideas and not dwelling on niceties of versification and the historical trivia that make the plays seem so foreign and “difficult” to the young modern reader. He doesn’t deny that such works, the “best sellers” of their time, are difficult when read centuries later, but justifies the effort. I haven’t finished the chapter, so can’t really summarize the whole argument.”
[JMN, Correspondence, 1987]
(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)
Leonardo caricature2
Madame Declines
She revels in how much she couldn’t eat,
And favors guests with bite-by-bite accounts
Of steaks foregone and casseroles’ defeat,
Sweets unsavored, succulence renounced,
Salads, fruits, and relishes galore
Spurned with a disdainful “Nevermore!”
She weighs in mightily on hearty eaters:
“My God, look how much food that man choked down!”
A simple piece of pie gives her the jitters.
She glares at it and sternly says, “Be gone!”
Fair Madame goes religiously to church,
But leaves religious suppers in the lurch.
If you are smart you’ll keep her portion spare.
“I’ll have a tiny bit of that,” she’ll quibble.
“No, no, you’ve given me too much by far!”
She’ll suck her fork and venture not a nibble.
She’d rather push a pea around her plate
Than deign to do right by a piece of meat.
Suppose she scored supper in Paradise,
A smorgasbord from the divine menu?
Looking around, she’d purse her lips and grouse,
“There’s too much pigging out in this venue.”
No doubt she’d up and leave with haughty grace,
And take her business to the Other Place.
Copyright (c) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.
Pit Cooked, JMN, photo. (c) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.
If you’re gonna put this in the newspaper, hon, I want you to get it right. My name is Garnet Belle — Belle with an ‘e.’ I was a Brumbacher before I married Montgomery Clyde Hatch. My granddaddy Willibald Urqhardt Brumbacher was mayor of the town when they built the railroad.
Monty and I had thirty-two years of bliss before his accident. Our children are Longhorn Clyde Hatch, Juneau Clyde Hatch, and Trojan Clyde Hatch. Yes, people ask about the names. “Clyde” was a family name, you see. Declan Clyde, Monty’s granddad, came from Humpty Doo, Australia with his brother Maynard. It’s on the road to Darwin from the Cackadoodle Park. Declan and Maynard bought land between here and Calvin for sorghum and hogs.
Longhorn, Juneau, and Trojan are donating seven acres to Stag City to honor their Daddy on the tenth anniversary of his passing. They want a piece of the Hatch Estate to be made into a recreational facility for our youth. It’ll be named the Montgomery Clyde Hatch Antique Playtime Palisade. The thinking is, our children need exposure to the pastimes of the past.
Sure, they’ve got their football and baseball and softball and basketball and volleyball and weightlifting and track-and-field and cross-country and wrestling and tennis and golf and what have you. But what are they supposed to do in their spare time? An idle body is Cupid’s playground. We want the MCHAPP to show our youth how their ancestors distracted themselves with innocent pastimes like mud pies and whittlin’ and rock-skippin’ and mumblety-peg and fart-lightin’….
Repeat what, darlin’?
(Stag Country, Copyright (c) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)
Mother Pensive With Huge Glasses, JMN, photo. (C) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.
By the way, I meant to mention that Charles and I have had it round about “regional” writers. The introduction to the book he gave me starts by making a big point that the three writers featured are “Texas writers.” I told him that this approach reminds me of courses devoted to 19th-century “regional” Spanish writers whose writings reeked of nostalgic, loving evocations of local “customs” and “traditions” full of picturesqueness and sentimental narratives incorporating local turns of speech, utensils and paraphernalia of local trades, place names of areas within a 12-mile radius of the author’s birthplace, and so forth. This genre of writing was called “costumbrismo,” which translates as something like “customism.” I know that every writer has to write about what he knows, and that someone like William Faulkner could qualify as a “regional” writer; but I’m not aware that he ever pursued the label of “Mississippi writer” or that Flannery O’Connor wanted to be remembered as a “Georgia writer.” It may be that the urge to write something of interest to a broad number of readers gets confused with the impulse to “celebrate” a locale and to “record” how people act and talk in a particular environment.
[JMN, Correspondence, 1987]
(C) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.
Walking Stick, JMN, photo. (C) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.
You sweet bastard. Just two days ago I transferred you from the risky environs of the patio to the security of the Jatropha bush. Now I find you again on the patio inert, apparently expiring. What has hurt you? Or is it old age? You’re fairly large, that’s true. Have you reached the end of your cycle, and if so, did you leave lots of progeny behind? I hope so. You’re one of the most fragile-looking and beautiful critters I’ve stumbled upon. I may have seen three of your kind in my whole life thus far. I’ll monitor you on my work table here in the cool indoors. Make a globule of water available. Maybe you’ll revive. I doubt it. I’ll mourn your passing. If I have anything else to say to people like you, it’s this: If you’re going to come to my attention, be prepared to stick around a little longer. These partings are painful.
(C) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.
King, an unassuming Soho restaurant owned by (from Left) Jess Shadbolt, Clare de Boer and Annie Shi, has won wide acclaim for its small menu, which changes every day — twice. Credit Sasha Arutyunova for the New York Times
“The menu should read like a poem,” Ms. de Boer said. “You should seduce the diner. People don’t know they want to eat deep-fried mackerel with aioli, so you’ve got to tell a story and get them on your wavelength.”
(Tejal Rao, “It Takes a Lot of Skill to Make a Restaurant Seem So Casual,” NYTimes)
(C) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.
EthicalDative 
Shed Down by the River
Fireplace, JMN, photo. (c) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.
From the street it’s nondescript: long and low, homely brickwork giving way to corrugated metal, no windows. Flat, pedestrian, a second-rate, seedy, industrial-looking structure on a humble side of town.
Patio and doorways are on the opposite side facing inward to a landscaped city block. Walled and fenced. Graveled islands pocked with blooming sage and firebush. You pass through a high brick arch that Arturo Rodriguez built. He and wife Andrea were the first residents of the original cabin that‘s a rectangular ramble now. Andy would dandle my infant son on her jolly lap: “Let me see that fat baby!”
Inside, it’s a crepuscular cocoon, a Bohemian man-cave — rustic opulence, high ceilings, tile floors, monumental fireplace, a skylight over the easel.
A river runs nearby. I call it the Mighty Wadi Loopy.
I was the only foreigner in my class at the University of Barcelona. Three things there impressed me:
(1) Well-off Spaniards lived modestly compared to their U.S. counterparts. Their apartments nestled in old buildings that gave no external hint of luxury. Men wore the same blazer all week long. The Catalan haute bourgeoisie eschewed conspicuous consumption.
I’ll mention (2) and (3) another time.
My shed has a shoddy, disreputable face. You wouldn’t know it harbors a recluse of proud, lower-middle-class rank.
(C) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.