Paging slowly, almost reverently, I felt more than the curiosity “Affinities” does such a good job of provoking. I felt, to my surprise, peaceful. We have all been asking the same questions, living with the same flaws and troubles and joys, for centuries.
Enter the famously cocky French journalist and author Emmanuel Carrère. He is not stupid, though he can be full of himself, and he always notices what is going on. He pushes back in an essay called “The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm.”
Yellow traffic lights urge caution; yellow bellies nickname cowardice. Ships fly the Yellow Jack flag under quarantine. Perhaps because of the yellow tinge of jaundice, yellow is often used to suggest physical or mental illness.The dualism is ancient, but weirdly, as Sabine Doran points out in "The Culture of Yellow," fresh symbolism bloomed in the 1890s.
Cherries are about desire, not chastity. We pick them carefully, cherry pick them. Tasting and choosing, we graft our hunger to their reality.
Nineteen sixty-six was the last year of the family outings to Atlantic City. Things were changing. The world was changing. My family was changing. A moment may feel endless but never is. I was a teenager; everything was sharp and awkward.
When medieval monks felt bored (which was not yet a concept), they called it a sin: acedia. A spiritual deadness. There was no one to blame but themselves (or Satan), so they confessed and prayed back their liveliness. We, on the other hand, are connoisseurs, curators of happiness rather than holiness.
Sand itself is sterile; nothing grew on that beach. It was littered with driftwood and shells and odd marine creatures who had washed up there, like old men on park benches. But yes, it held a world.
I wriggle at “childless,” hating the suggestion that I am too selfish to bother, but I am just as uncomfortable with the cold, scathing label of parents as “breeders.” It is tiresome to be asked, “You’ve got kids?” as a precondition to understanding what the speaker is about to say. It also stings to hear people say that “you just don’t know the meaning of love until you’ve had kids.” There are a million ways to love.
Beneath all the grumbling, nervous questions, and smug, tsking disapproval runs an undercurrent of love. Grammar’s fans know that following (or thoughtfully breaking) certain rules of usage can add meaning, edge, emphasis, beauty.
Neither The Lyrics nor The Beatles Illustrated explains the mystery of the Beatles—how did these four guys from Liverpool create so many remarkable songs in such a short period of time?—but both books, but especially The Lyrics, allow us to once again marvel at the work itself and gain a bit of insight into the imagination that helped create it.