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Weekend Butler: Time accelerates: How many issues of The New Yorker did you get this week? Movies for a rainy weekend. Kids aren’t sure: Is the world round? Surprise: Goodhearted people are healthier. Roasted Salmon Glazed With Brown Sugar and Mustard. And more.

Published: Jun 22, 2023
Category: Weekend

GEORGE SANTOS (photo): An appointment in Great Neck.  Crossing the street, we noticed that George Santos, the disgraced first-term Congressman, has his office here. Naturally, this called for a photo op. Our visit was well-timed: Santos has declined to tell the court who posted his $183,000 bail. The day after our photo op, a federal court released their names.

HOW MANY ISSUES OF THE NEW YORKER DID YOU GET THIS WEEK?

Suddenly it feels like there’s a new issue every three days. I asked friends.  One said, laughing, every two days. Another said once every four days, but she stays current by reading it online. The point: we are inundated by media. It’s too much. No way to keep up. And why are spending our time gaming out politics we can do nothing about or reading about movies we have no intention of seeing? There’s a big sky. We can go out and walk under it. Why don’t we — because the way time is accelerating, it’s going to snow soon.

MOVIES FOR A RAINY WEEKEND

It’s going to be chilly and wet where I live. Here are two excellent movies.

SERIOUS DRAMA: “THE RAZOR’S EDGE” Maugham’s best novel. The issue is important: how you live in a world obsessed with money when you know we have a higher destiny. Maugham has smart things to say about that, but what is really remarkable is that you will read his musings without feeling he’s lecturing you. Just the opposite: you care. And then there is the relevance factor: We are currently watching the rich and their bought-and-paid-for politicians scrambling for every last dollar. We may feel we have failed because we’re not snuffling for truffles. Maugham would like you to know you’re blessed to remember a higher destiny. [Click to rent the stream or buy the book.]

GOOFBALL COMEDY: “NAPOLEON DYNAMITE”  Napoleon Dynamite is a nerd who lives in Preston, Idaho (population 4,682). He has frizzy red hair, big glasses, awful clothes, no social graces, no friends, no life, no “skills” that matter — he’s the disaster of his high school, the kid a principal would hide if Important Visitors came calling. Napoleon has a 32-year-old brother. Who lives at home. Napoleon finds a new kid to hang with. A Mexican immigrant named Pedro. Napoleon convinces him to run for Class President. That’s kind of the main plot. [Click to rent the stream from Amazon Prime.]

“THERE REMAINS SOME DOUBT THAT MARGARET THATCHER IS A WOMAN.”

Martin Amis is lethal — and really funny — on David Letterman.

SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AMONG THE YOUNG: THE WORLD MAY NOT BE ROUND

from the Times: “In a recent survey of young Americans who use TikTok for more than an hour a day, 17 percent “couldn’t say definitively that the Earth is round,” according to the Reboot Foundation, a Paris-based nonprofit that promotes media literacy and critical thinking.

GOODHEARTED PEOPLE ARE HEALTHIER (WHAT A SURPRISE!)

from Lama Zopa Rinpoche: “Scientists in America tested groups of people and found that those who are generally goodhearted have less health problems than those who are selfish. A generous person is less uptight and less likely to get worried about their own comfort or possessions, and of course, this means their life will be happier and easier. I sometimes suggest to students to try to live two days with the thought of bodhichitta, only thinking of others, and then two days only thinking of themselves, and then check which of the two days were happier and more fruitful. Generally, our health depends on our attitude to life. One way of thinking makes the body and mind sick; the other way of thinking, having a positive attitude, makes the body and mind healthy.”

WEEKEND MUSIC

Andy Palacio. Because you know nothing about him.

WEEKEND POEM

James Tate, “The Buddhists Have the Ball Field”

The Buddhists have the ball field. Then the teams arrive, nine on one, but only three on the other. The teams confront the Buddhists. The Buddhists present their permit. There is little point in arguing it, for the Buddhists clearly have the permit for the field. And the teams have nothing, not even two complete teams. It occurs to one team manager to interest the Buddhists in joining his team, but the Buddhists won’t hear of it. The teams walk away with their heads hung low. A gentle rain begins. It would have been called anyway, they think suddenly.

THE WEEKEND RECIPE

Roasted Salmon Glazed With Brown Sugar and Mustard

This is what we call around here a no-recipe recipe, the sort of meal you can cook once off a card and you’ll know it by heart: salmon glazed with brown sugar and mustard. The preparation could not be simpler. Heat your oven to 400. Make a mixture of Dijon mustard and brown sugar to the degree of spicy-sweetness that pleases you. Salt and pepper the salmon fillets. Place them skin-side down on a lightly oiled, foil-lined baking sheet, slather the tops with the mustard and brown sugar glaze and slide them into the top half of your oven. They ought to be done in 12 minutes or so.

Yield: Number of servings vary

Salmon fillets, preferably wild or farmed organically

Dijon mustard

Brown sugar

Salt and black pepper

Heat your oven to 400 degrees.

Make a mixture of Dijon mustard and brown sugar to the degree of spicy-sweetness that pleases you. Salt and pepper the salmon fillets.

Place the salmon fillets skin-side down on a lightly oiled, foil-lined baking sheet. Slather the tops of the fillets with the mustard and brown sugar glaze and slide them into the top half of your oven. Roast for about 12 minutes, then serve.