Earlier this week I had loads of fun mocking former economist—now fulltime Democratic Party armchair activist—Paul Krugman for his slavish devotion to Joe Biden in a recent New York Times column. The 71-year-old Krugman has displaced op-ed colleague Thomas Friedman (perhaps they’ve met, perhaps not) as the silliest and begging-for-ridicule pundit at the daily. On occasion, I wonder why we still subscribe to the Times (it’s not cheap), but my wife’s morning routine includes the paper’s Crossword Puzzle, and All The News That’s Printed With No Regard To the Truth, does tickle my wiggle-waggle ears. I wasn’t so cavalier in “Pinch” Sulzberger’s appalling regime, but he’s passed the baton, so taking Elvis Costello out of context, I’m Not Annoyed Anymore.
And the proof’s in the crusty butterscotch pudding: I read Times columnist Pamela Paul, a benign liberal—although she advocates internet censorship—and she’s not always hysterical. Her recent essay, “It’s Too Late For Summer Now,” was odd, but not atypical for an upper-middle-class commentator, describing how she’s let summer pass her by. Give Paul credit: unlike every baseball play-by-play announcer and “color” wingman who, around this time of year, like clockwork, fill airtime with an innocuous “Can you believe it’s August already? Where did the time go?” that wasn’t her shtick.
She writes: “Maybe seasonal shape shifting [cliché alert] has knocked me off my pegs. Winter is snowless, spring is short, summer seems to have stretched outward, its oppressive heat hovers over the full calendar year like a threat. Now—who knew?—August is here and I haven’t begun to make the most of the season.” Her Weber grill is covered with leaves, there were no family trips and she hasn’t worn a “floppy hat.” I did find it hypocritical when she groused about the 1% who “summer” in “summer homes,” raising the inequality flag, when unlike city kids she doesn’t need to hover by an open fire hydrant to cool off.
I like summer, easily my favorite season; but like Paul the months have passed by without a lot of activity. As a kid, I went to sleepaway camp for five years, three at Camp Mohawk (nominally church-oriented) in Connecticut, two with the Boy Scouts in Gloversville, New York, and going back to the 1980s, I visited one of my brothers in Southampton for long weekends, and our family did spend a month in three years in Water Mill, Bridgehampton and Nantucket.
I don’t express befuddlement that summer’s whizzing by—a stupid and pointless observation—but like always, I don’t like the decreasing minutes of sunlight, mostly because it means winter (after an always glorious Baltimore autumn) is around the corner. (And, come October, I have to worry that the Yankees might win the World Series. Since the Red Sox are out of gas, I’m pulling for the Guardians.) Another common carp, Paul included, is the fact that Halloween candy and decorations are on store shelves (maybe under lock and key), as if that hasn’t been the case since 1974. One gripe about Summer 2024: my wife’s carefully orchestrated vegetable and herb garden was decimated by the June/July heat waves. If it’s not the squirrels (none this year), it’s a one-out-of-five-years steamy skein of days, which is just luck of the draw. I’m not a climate change researcher—and have no doubt that conditions have changed; less snow is a plus in my book—but it’s not like HEAT was just invented. I missed the fireflies and bumble bees this summer, but they’ll return in 2025; at least that’s my Hope and Change and Joy.
The picture above, on the roof of a New York Press colleague’s rental hard by the Brooklyn Bridge, is of a typical summer day when “climate change” was still called “global warming.” As you can see by the trash and attire of those assembled it was boiling; all the more since the lot of us were setting off illegal fireworks (procured by a couple of bar buddies who had Chinatown connections) that were loud, rude and potentially hazardous. It was a splendid late-afternoon, no one on the streets complained, and there were no injuries. Luck of the Irish, Jewish, Italian, Australian and British, I guess.
Look at the clues to figure out the year: France prohibits British beef and live cattle imports; London’s Carlton Club is bombed by the IRA; The Iron Lady calls for a “new” Magna Carta; Die Hard 2 is rushed into production and makes even more money than the first one; Dev Patel is born and Rex Harrison dies; Francis Ford Coppola fumbles the final entry in the Godfather trilogy; Peter Medak’s excellent but forgotten The Krays is released in London; Michael Bolton’s Soul Provider is a best-seller in the UK; Ian McEwan’s The Innocent and Elmore Leonard’s Get Shorty are published; August Wilson wins the Drama Pulitzer Prize; Greg LeMond wins the Tour de France; the United States takes the Davis Cup; the Motion Picture Association replaces “X” rating with “NC: 17”; and Lamar Alexander is named Education Secretary.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023