Another grueling weekend in the Middle East, but some relief here at the Dish. Six posts worth revisiting: the perils of auto-correct; the dirty mouths of babes; Edmund White’s brilliant appreciation of friendship; visualizing Debussy; a religious history of the Great War; and an adorable nine-day-old white lion.
The most popular post of the weekend – by a mile – was The Worrying Vacuity Of Hillary Clinton; followed by Why Am I Moving Left?
19 more readers became subscribers this weekend. You can join them here – and get access to all the read-ons and Deep Dish – for a little as $1.99 month. Gift subscriptions are available here. One subscriber writes:
Celebrity is confusing. While your public persona seems so confessional, it’s easy to forget that I don’t actually know you. That what I think about you includes an enormous amount of projection. And that you certainly don’t know me. It’s the asymmetry, I think, that is so strange. Your persona speaks to me most days, through your writing, while you have received perhaps 10 emails from me, among god knows how many emails from 30,000 others.
Is it strange for you? It must be. How do you handle it? I hope that people respect your privacy and personal space, but you must have your share of unwanted encounters. Or are you one of the lucky few who is energized by such encounters?
The issue came up last weekend, when my girlfriend introduced me to Provincetown. She knows that I am a Dishhead, and that you are a Provincetownhead. On the ferry from Boston, she teased me about you. Asked me what I would say if we bumped into you. I said that of course we wouldn’t bump into you.
We got off the boat, and you were EVERYWHERE! Turns out it was bear week. Ten million beards, many resembling yours. Made me unreasonably happy to see your gathered tribe. And I see why you love the place itself. We spent all weekend walking, unmolested by celebrity, passing among the dunes from one unexpected oasis to the next, our souls sipping the serenity in each.
Beardless, both of us, yet happy.
May your private oases be safe and bright. May you and your husband take moments to be happy, despite all the troubles of the world.
See you in the morning.
(Photo by Mikael Colville-Anderson. See the poems it illustrated here.)
The Dish 