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Weekend Butler: The month the world…stopped. Do you walk 6,000 steps a day more than you need to? The best documentary. The best tweet. The best NYC summer song. The most chill desert.
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Published: Aug 10, 2023
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Weekend
AUGUST: THE MONTH THE WORLD…. STOPS
Henry Miller, on his ideal day: “To be silent the whole day, see no newspaper, hear no radio, listen to no gossip, be thoroughly and completely lazy, thoroughly and completely indifferent to the fate of the world is the finest medicine a man can give himself.” Sounds great… if you choose it. But as a screenwriter in 2023, I’m on strike, and the producer of my movie about the woman who beat the Klan is also constrained. Publishing takes all of August off, it seems, so my novel about the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama and my secret collaboration with the gent who has the untold story of the biggest media event of the last few years will languish until September.
What to do? First priority: do not feel sorry for myself, for I’m among the luckiest humans who’s ever lived. Be kind in situations that used to trigger my snark. Give money to all homeless people with dogs. Tell my best friend she’s my best friend without needing to hear her affirm that I am her best friend. Pray at bedtime. Walk the track on cool mornings. Yes, the headline news is wretched, Greenland will float into New York Harbor any week now, but I have no ability to do anything about any of that… whereas the woman I saw sleeping in a doorway with her purse on the street, I can move the purse so it’s next to her head, and safe. I can finish the abridged “Black Beauty” I created with Paige Peterson, and send it off to the printer, stunned at how lovely it is. I can write 500-800 words a day of my new book.
And yet I worry. I think I’m the only one who feels I have so much more than I deserve, that it will all be taken away. And then, a hand-of-God moment: I stumble on a poem titled “I worried,” by Mary Oliver:
“I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers flow in the right direction, will the earth turn as it was taught, and if not, how shall I correct it?
Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven, can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows can do it and I am, well, hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it, am I going to get rheumatism, lockjaw, dementia?
Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body and went out into the morning, and sang.”
ROBBIE ROBERTSON (1943 – 2025)
The leader of The Band — and so much more — died today at 80. Here’s the Times obit. My experience of Robbie Robertson: We had lunch to talk about his book, which he thought needed a collaborator. Many knew the music; I got bonus points for having driven from Western Massachusetts to attend the 1969 concert at Symphony Hall in Boston, when Van Morrison was a listless opening act and The Band had the audience screaming. Robbie sent me the pages he’d written. They were flawless, like Band songs: stories completely told. Others said the same. I believe he wrote all 500 pages of “Testimony” himself.
I WALK 10,000 STEPS A DAY — 6,000 MORE THAN I NEED TO
from NBC News: New research challenges the common idea that people need to reach a threshold of 10,000 steps per day to improve their health. Walking just 4,000 steps per day is associated with a lower risk of death, according to the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
The research pooled the results of 17 studies that looked at the health benefits associated with step counts across six countries. The least active people in the studies took around 4,000 steps per day and still saw a reduced risk of death from any cause. The more steps people took, the lower their risk of dying. Each extra 1,000 steps per day was associated with a 15% reduction in a person’s overall risk of death, according to the research. The study suggested that for people under age 60, walking between 7,000 and 13,000 steps per day lowered the overall risk of death by 49%. For those ages 60 and older, walking 6,000 to 10,000 daily steps lowered the risk by 42%.
THE WEEKEND MOVIE
“Revealing Mr. Maugham,” the best documentary I’ve seen in years, was made in 2012 about a man who died in 1965. In 83 minutes, I learned a great deal I didn’t know about Somerset Maugham, one of my favorite writers. Especially this: how did a lonely boy with a stammer grow up to become the world’s richest and most successful writer, tossing off bestsellers that never repeated a theme or a plot? You’ll find the answers in “Revealing Mr. Maugham.” [To watch the trailer, click here. It’s streaming on Amazon Prime.]
CHARLES DICKENS: WRITING ABOUT AUGUST, IN “LITTLE DORRIT”
Thirty years ago, Marseilles lay burning in the sun.
A blazing sun upon a fierce August day was no greater rarity in southern France then, than at any other time, before or since. Everything in Marseilles, and about Marseilles, had stared at the fervid sky, and been stared at in return, until a staring habit had become universal there. Strangers were stared out of countenance by staring white houses, staring white walls, staring white streets, staring tracts of arid road, staring hills from which verdure was burnt away. The only things to be seen not fixedly staring and glaring were the vines drooping under their load of grapes. These did occasionally wink a little, as the hot air barely moved their faint leaves.
There was no wind to make a ripple on the foul water within the harbour, or on the beautiful sea without. The line of demarcation between the two colours, black and blue, showed the point which the pure sea would not pass; but it lay as quiet as the abominable pool, with which it never mixed. Boats without awnings were too hot to touch; ships blistered at their moorings; the stones of the quays had not cooled, night or day, for months. Hindoos, Russians, Chinese, Spaniards, Portuguese, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Genoese, Neapolitans, Venetians, Greeks, Turks, descendants from all the builders of Babel, come to trade at Marseilles, sought the shade alike—taking refuge in any hiding-place from a sea too intensely blue to be looked at, and a sky of purple, set with one great flaming jewel of fire.
The universal stare made the eyes ache.
TWEET OF THE WEEK
Timothy Snyder, Yale professor, author of On Tyranny and Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin: “That Trump will be tried for his coup attempt is not a violation of his rights. It is a fulfillment of his rights. It is the grace of the American republic. In other systems, when your coup attempt fails, what follows is not a trial.”
WEEKEND MUSIC
“Wild in the Streets,” by Garland Jeffreys. Quintessential NYC summer video, 1977.
WEEKEND POEM
“Fireflies in the Garden,” by Robert Frost
Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can’t sustain the part.
WEEKEND RECIPE
Frozen Melon With Crushed Raspberries and Lime
Inspired by packed cups of Italian ice, this frozen melon dessert is the best way to enjoy melon (besides eating it fresh). Be sure to season it with enough citrus juice to give some dimension to the melon. Frozen melon can be made two weeks ahead, either scraped or unscraped. (If scraped, store in a resealable plastic container and re-fluff before serving.)
6 servings
4 cups cut melon, such as cantaloupe, watermelon or a mixture (buy it precut, or remove the rind of a whole melon and cut into 2-inch chunks to get 4 cups)
½ cup fresh lime juice, plus more as needed
2 tablespoons granulated sugar, plus more as needed
6 ounces raspberries
1 tablespoon finely grated lime zest
Flaky sea salt (optional)
Blend melon in a food processor or blender until completely smooth; you should have about 4 cups purée. Transfer to a 9-by-4-inch loaf pan (or a shallow baking dish, if you have space for it in your freezer).
Add ½ cup lime juice and 2 tablespoons sugar and stir to blend; season with more lime juice and sugar, as needed. The mixture should be fairly tart and sweet. (The sweetness dulls once the mixture is frozen, so stay on the sweeter side now.) Place in freezer and let freeze until completely solid, anywhere from 2 to 4 hours, depending on your freezer.
Once the mixture is frozen, use a spoon or fork to scrape the frozen melon into a fluffy pile of ice. If it becomes soft or melty when scraping, place it in the freezer until it’s solid enough to scrape again.
If serving immediately, lightly pack some of the ice into serving glasses or bowls. (If not, transfer the ice to a resealable container and freeze until ready to serve. The frozen melon can be prepared up to 2 weeks ahead; if scraped, it might need a little re-fluffing before serving.) Top each serving with raspberries and use a spoon or fork to crush them into the ice. Top with more ice, followed by a bit of lime zest, and then a little flaky salt, if using.
