Spiritual Quote of the Day (Rev. Brian McLaren, on a ‘Vision of a Desired Future’)

“[The] vision of a desired future becomes a lure, it becomes a magnetic force that draws us forward, even when the world around us seems to be falling apart. A tradition without a vision of a desired future, a tradition without a vision that makes us yearn for and dream for something even better, leaves us stuck in the status quo. It feels like you found yourself in a parking lot with no exit.”— American author, public theologian, speaker, and activist Rev. Brian McLaren, quoted by Mary Lee Talbot, “Revelation Is Warning, Not Roadmap, Preaches Rev. Brian McLaren,” The Chautauquan Daily, Aug. 23-24, 2025

The image accompanying this post, of Rev. Brian McLaren at the lecture “Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha and Mohammed Cross the Road?,” in the 2012 Wild Goose Festival, was taken June 22, 2012, by James Willamor.

Flashback, August 1990: ‘Chinatown’ Sequel ‘The Two Jakes’ in Disappointing Release

The Two Jakes, the long-awaited but troubled follow-up to the detective film Chinatown, premiered 35 years ago this month. Unlike its Oscar-winning predecessor, it did not enjoy widespread critical acclaim, nor has it achieved cult-classic status since then. 

Worse, it committed a crime worse than murder in Hollywood: it lost money ($10 million in its theatrical run, even on a not-exorbitant $25 million budget).

What went wrong with the sequel to perhaps the greatest example of neo-noir, and by any standard one of the seminal movies of the Seventies?

To some extent, critics were poised to slam a production that had short-circuited five years before—and, though several actors were carried over from Chinatown, it was missing one crucial creative contributor: Roman Polanski. 

The director, who had fled to France to avoid a statutory-rape sentence, was in no position to take a firm hand, as he’d done before in editing screenwriter Robert Towne’s vivid, sprawling dissection of L.A. corruption in the 1930s from 180 pages (enough for a three-hour movie that would have tested audiences’ patience) into a form that won its eventual Best Original Screenplay Academy Award—and in insisting on its tragic denouement.

This time, Towne, hoping to avoid similar interference with his script, planned to fill the director’s chair himself. Though it was a given that Jack Nicholson would be back as J.J. “Jake” Gittes, Towne made the mistake of casting producer Robert Evans as the “other Jake,” charming mobster Jake Berman.

Then, days before production began, Towne—feeling jittery already, courtesy of his growing cocaine problem and lack of a finished script—got a look at Evans’ thinning hairline and awful plastic surgery. 

The director should have realized that Evans, not a good actor to begin with 30 years before, would not improve with no opportunity to practice the craft and time now working its inevitable ravages.

Evans, terrified that he would never regain his exalted Hollywood position after his recent Cotton Club disaster, refused Towne’s request that he withdraw from the project. The picture collapsed in a blizzard of threats and lawsuits.

By 1988, Nicholson was ready to revive the corpse of The Two Jakes, with conditions meant to forestall another catastrophe: Towne was obligated to submit a completed screenplay to Paramount Pictures, yielding effective control of the project, and Nicholson agreed to direct “for scale”—i.e., using techniques to make the film appear bigger than its financial resources would typically allow.

The new arrangements only solved some problems that had aborted the project before. Nicholson didn’t possess Polanski’s skill at tightening Towne’s vision, took on the additional responsibilities of producing while leaving Evans (after so many years, shorn of his self-confidence) the nominal title—and still had to act himself. 

Moreover, he had to find several actors to replace those who had accepted other roles in the interim, including Kelly McGillis, Cathy Moriarty, Joe Pesci, and Dennis Hopper.

Nicholson’s attempt to impose coherence on Towne’s first draft, through voice-over narration (a device suggested by Billy Wilder, who had used it effectively in one of the key early examples of film noir, Double Indemnity), only clarified the complicated plot to a limited extent.

The four-year delay in filming had one advantage, in a small way: it made more realistic the passage of time between Chinatown and The Two Jakes. The sequel was supposed to occur in the early postwar period, a decade after the original.  

The joke in Hollywood was that this would be the first sequel not requiring aging makeup, as the actors had done so naturally. (I was stunned, for instance, when I saw Perry Lopez reprising his role as Lou Escobar, but this time walking with a cane.)

Upon its release, The Two Jakes received criticism as convoluted and confusing. That is hardly a disqualification for film noir or neo-noir—when Howard Hawks, adapting The Big Sleep in the 1940s, asked Raymond Chandler who had killed one of the victims, the novelist replied that he didn’t know! But there were few memorable scenes, and no compelling villains like John Huston’s Noah Cross in Chinatown.

Nevertheless, though not as great as Chinatown, The Two Jakes is far from a terrible or even subpar movie. It is well-acted and stylishly filmed—well worth viewing again, if you can ever find it on TV or on DVDs in libraries.

(My blog post from 16 years ago lays out the case for the greatness of Chinatown. But if you want to read an eloquent defense of the sequel, read Jim Hemphill’s contention in Indiewire last year that it’s not only “better than its reputation, it’s better than the classic that inspired it — broader in its tonal range, subtler in its observations, and more adventurous in its narrative structure.” For a two-thumbs-up from its time of release, see this Siskel and Ebert segment.)

The Two Jakes would not be the only sequel that found it impossible to measure up to the expectations aroused by its 1974 predecessor. The Godfather Part III would suffer a similar fate by the end of 1990.

In both cases, negative pre-release reports of on-set difficulties (in the case of Godfather III, Winona Ryder’s exhaustion-induced departure led Francis Ford Coppola to replace her with his untested daughter Sofia) predisposed many to review and judge it by its turbulent backstory as much as its admittedly problematic product.

Nicholson would move on to other projects that kept him in the Hollywood stratosphere, even if he has never directed another film. But the damage to his personal life because of his involvement with The Two Jakes was more lasting.

His admission that he had impregnated Rebecca Broussard, the actress who played his secretary Gladys, led to the painful breakup of his 16-year relationship with Anjelica Huston, who had at last run out of patience with his constant infidelity.

(Nicholson gained so much weight for his role that my late friend Ann chuckled to me when we saw the film, “Looks to me like he’s the one who’s pregnant!”)

BTW: for the entire astonishing production history of Chinatown and The Two Jakes, I recommend that you read The Big Goodbye, by Sam Wasson—who makes this a very worthy successor to his prior accounts of Breakfast at Tiffany's and the lives of Bob Fosse, Paul Mazursky, and Blake Edwards.

Quote of the Day (Francis Fukuyama, on Anger, Inequality, and Disrespect)

“There are many people who are angry right now because they feel they’re not respected. They feel that people disregard them or look down on them. Capitalism is very good at fulfilling material desires, but it’s not so good as fulfilling the desire for others’ desires. It also produces a lot of inequality, and one of the problems with being poor is not only the lack of material resources but the problems it creates with regards to respect. If you’re poor, you’re not remarked upon. Politicians don’t pay attention.”—Stanford University political scientist Francis Fukuyama quoted by Cody Delistraty, “SOAPBOX: Rosamund Pike, Kaws and Francis Fukuyama on Desire,” WSJ. Magazine, Issue 126 (Spring 2021)

(The image accompanying this post, of Francis Fukuyama at Nexus Instituut, was taken Sept. 25, 2005, by Robert Goddyn.)

Quote of the Day (Larry David, Imagining Himself Hiding Immigrants)

“February 12, 2025. Today I heard something about an Alien Enemies Act. I don't know what that is, but it's over two hundred years old and sounds really scary. All of it put Mr. Larry in a terrible mood, which was made even worse when he couldn’t find the remote control to the TV. He came up to the attic and asked if anyone knew where it could be. He was very angry. ‘What is it with these remotes? Why are we always looking for them? I'm so sick of this!’ Mr. Larry said he liked it better when the only way to change the channel was to walk up to the TV and turn the dial and that those were the days. Papa told him to look between the couch cushions. Mr. Larry said he did. Papa said to dig deeper—it's always there. Of course, he was right. Not only did he find the remote. He also found an old phone called a BlackBerry, from 2002.”— American comedian, writer, actor, and television producer Larry David, “Shouts and Murmurs: The Diary of Anna Franco,” The New Yorker, July 21, 2025

“Anna Franco.” Oh, boy. An outrageous premise that could only come from the man who imagined a Seinfeld episode involving a date during the showing of Schindler’s List.

(This image of the creator of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm was taken at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival by David Shankbone.)

Song Lyric of the Day (Beth Orton, on Beautiful Weather)

“Almost makes me wanna cry
The weather′s so beautiful outside.” —British singer-songwriter Beth Orton, “Weather Alive," from the Weather Alive CD (2022)

As with all things in life, enjoy it while it lasts.

(I took the image accompanying this post three years ago this month in Pascack Brook County Park, roughly a half hour from where I live in Bergen County, NJ.)

Quote of the Day (William Shakespeare, Noticing How ‘Cruel Are the Times’)

“Cruel are the times when we are traitors
And do not know ourselves; when we hold rumor
From what we fear, yet know not what we fear,
But float upon a wild and violent sea
Each way and move.”—English playwright-poet William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Macbeth (1603)

Quote of the Day (Trevor Noah, on Books, the ‘Rocket Fuel’)

“If imagination is the rocket, then books are the rocket fuel. They supercharge the mind and help it see beyond what it can conceive on its own.”— South African actor, writer, producer, comedian, political commentator, and television host Trevor Noah, Into the Uncut Grass (2024)

The image accompanying this post, of Trevor Noah on Centre Stage during the opening night of Web Summit Qatar 2024 at the Doha Exhibition and Convention Center in Doha, Qatar, was taken Feb. 26, 2024, by Stephen McCarthy/Web Summit Qatar via Sportsfile.

TV Quote of the Day (‘Bewitched,’ As Sam and Endora Assess a Sleeping Darrin)

Endora [played by Agnes Moorehead]: [Darrin is sleeping on the couch] “What a lovely looking couple! [referring to Darrin] Except for him. Does his mouth always gape open like that?”

Samantha Stephens [played by Elizabeth Montgomery]: “Only when he's sleeping.”

Endora: “Oh, Samantha. I don't understand you at all. I mean, if you had to marry a mortal, at least you could have chosen a better-looking specimen.”

Samantha: “I like the way he looks. Besides, I didn't marry Darrin just for his looks.”

Endora: “What else, his vivacious personality?”

Samantha: “No one sparkles when they're asleep. Anyway, I think he's quite handsome.”

Endora: “You're joking.”

Samantha: “He's got very good features.”

Endora: “Name one.”

Samantha: “Well, he has a nice firm jaw.”

Endora: “You like lantern jaws?”

Samantha: “He's got a nice mouth.”

Endora: “'Slack' is a better word.”

Samantha: “How about his eyes?”

Endora: “Beady.”— Bewitched, Season 1, Episode 33, “A Change of Face,” original air date May 13, 1965, teleplay by Bernard Slade, directed by William Asher

Quote of the Day (Peter Tonguette, Viewing the Kennedy Center Honors a Decade Ago)

“In its first 20 or so years, the Kennedy Center Honors—annually allocated to performing artists of purported preeminence—there were more than enough leading lights still living to assure that the well of meritorious honorees would not quickly run dry….Since the new millennium, however, there have been ever-diminishing efforts to separate the chaff from the wheat and ever-increasing attempts to lasso ‘names’ readily identifiable to the television audience. This has made for some amusing sights in those box seats perched high in the Kennedy Center Opera House, where each year’s honorees are seated next to the president and first lady. In 2012, for example, prima ballerina Natalia Makarova was parked next to, among others, David Letterman. As Makarova listened to Tina Fey introducing Letterman, littering the talk-show host’s life story with one cliché after another (‘The guy who broke all the rules became the most decorated man in television’), the former Kirov Ballet dancer must have wondered to herself: Did I defect from the Soviet Union for this? To be honored in the company of the creator of Stupid Pet Tricks?”— American journalist and critic Peter Tonguette, “Slighting Downhill,” The Weekly Standard, Jan. 20, 2014

I came across Tonguette’s observation from 11 years ago by chance last night, after the news came out of this year’s Kennedy Center honorees.

I suppose it’s natural if, like Tonguette, you bemoaned the inability of more recent Kennedy Center honorees to match the inaugural set of honorees in 1978: Marian Anderson, Fred Astaire, George Balanchine, Richard Rodgers, and Arthur Rubinstein.

But were the 2013 recipients (actress Shirley MacLaine, soprano Martina Arroyo, and musicians Herbie Hancock, Carlos Santana, and Billy Joel), the last group before Tonguette wrote his piece, really that bad?

Tonguette lamented that rock ‘n’ roll honorees Tina Turner, Brian Wilson, Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, and Led Zeppelin were “storming the gates of the Opera House.” But if he thinks they were barbarians, what on earth must he think of the group Kiss on this year’s honor roll?

Well, maybe he’s fine with it—or, at least, fine with the abrupt process by which Kiss and fellow recipients George Strait, Sylvester Stallone, Gloria Gaynor, and Michael Crawford were chosen.

The selection process used to be long, with input from a bipartisan board at the Kennedy Center. Do I have to tell you that this process went out the window this year when Donald Trump sacked the institution’s management; that, according to NPR’s Elizabeth Blair and Jennifer Vanasco, the remaining staff were—er, “caught off guard” with the news that this year’s group had already been picked; or that President Trump copped to vetoing “a couple of wokesters” proposed by the remaining board?

(That begs a couple of questions: first, who were the “wokesters” that Trump rejected? And second, would he have approved the 1980 choice of Leonard Bernstein, who, for all his “radical chic” tendencies derided by conservatives in the 1970s, surely belonged to the “artists of purported preeminence” Tonguette craved a decade ago?)

I can’t say with 100% certainty that Tonguette approves of all this, but based on his recent views concerning the President, he either supports the choices or is staying mum. Unlike many of his fellow Weekly Standard contributors, he has never joined the “Never Trump” cause.

In fact, he has written a post for the American Conservative blog calling for the repeal of the 22^nd Amendment so that Trump can run for reelection in 2028.

And, to those who believe that Trump displays the very barbarian, sub-cultural tendencies that Tonguette once bemoaned, well, he’s okay with that, too.

After all, surveying Trump’s debate last year with Kamala Harris—you know, the one where he spoke of immigrants eating dogs and cats—Tonguette allowed that the candidate was “admittedly unruly and unfocused—but in his very distractedness and digressiveness, he arguably better reflected the tenor of the times than his glossy, vacuous fellow candidate."

I guess Tonguette won’t make a peep, either, if the “unruly and unfocused” President decides to drop all pretense and repeats Nazi Hermann Goering’s legendary sneer, “When I hear the word culture, I reach for my Browning!”

Quote of the Day (Vaclav Havel, on ‘The Moment of Most Profound Doubt’)

“Isn’t it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourished human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity.”— Czech President, dramatist and dissident Vaclav Havel (1936-2011), Speech at the Salzburg Festival, July 26, 1990 

Quote of the Day (Peggy Noonan, on the Fallout From the Growth of AI)

“My very human prediction: The spectacular costs associated with AI [i.e., unemployment, shifts in insurance and retirement income] will force a debate on the sharing of its profits. The wealthy and powerful who own the AI companies won’t like that. But those who wished and failed to see the social media companies declared a public utility 10 years ago, and who drew support from the populist left and populist right—they would like that a lot. This will become one of the great political battles of the late 2020s and beyond.”—Former Presidential speechwriter and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Peggy Noonan, “AI Is Here, and a Quiet Havoc Has Begun,” The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 9-10, 2025

Quote of the Day (P. G. Wodehouse, on a Still Summer Evening)

“It was one of those still evenings you get in the summer, when you can hear a snail clear its throat a mile away.” — British humorist P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975), Carry On, Jeeves (1925)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (St. John Henry Newman, on Reason and Faith)

“[I]t is our great misfortune here, and our trial…that, where power of intellect is, there need not be virtue; and that where right, and goodness, and moral greatness are, there need not be talent. It was not so in the beginning; not that our nature is essentially different from what it was when first created; but that the Creator, upon its creation, raised it above itself by a supernatural grace, which blended together all its faculties, and made them conspire into one whole, and act in common towards one end; so that, had the race continued in that blessed state of privilege, there never would have been distance, rivalry, hostility between one faculty and another. It is otherwise now; so much the worse for us;—the grace is gone; the soul cannot hold together; it falls to pieces; its elements strive with each other. And as, when a kingdom has long been in a state of tumult, sedition, or rebellion, certain portions break off from the whole and from the central government, and set up for themselves; so is it with the soul of man.” —English Roman Catholic convert, theologian, educator, and memoirist St. John Henry Newman (1801-1890), “Intellect, the Instrument of Religious Training” (Sermon on the Feast of St. Monica, Aug. 27, 1856)

It was welcome news late last month when Pope Leo XIV named St. John Henry Newman, an honor bestowed through a person’s writings, teachings, and research that have influenced Catholic doctrine. Only 38 saints in the Church’s long history have received this designation, including St. Thomas Aquinas, Jerome, Augustine of Hippo, Teresa of Avila, and Therese of Lisieux.

For a summary of how Newman “influenced the thought and magisterial teachings of the Church during and after his life,” please read this essay by Benedictine College theologian Matthew Muller.

Quote of the Day (Athol Fugard, on Rejecting Negativity)

“It came quite early in my life. I realised one day what is necessary is that you leave the destructive negative emotions…outside the door and close the door. The only emotion I sit with when I write is love.”—South African playwright Athol Fugard (1932-2025) quoted by Franklin Nelson, “Obituary: Chronicler of South Africa’s Painful Era of Apartheid,” The Financial Times, Mar. 15-16, 2025

TV Quote of the Day (‘WKRP in Cincinnati,’ As Jennifer Shows Which Opening Line Works Best)

Waiter [played by Jim Begg] [placing down the next round of drinks sent by strangers to Jennifer, who has been receiving such all night, the waiter stating from whom they were sent]: “Little Guy with Bowtie, Tall Black Man, Cowboy and Longshoreman.”

Jennifer Marlowe [played by Loni Anderson] [seeing that the waiter was referring to Les Nessman, Venus Flytrap, Andy Travis and Johnny Fever, who approach her table]: “Hi, guys!”

Andy Travis [played by Gary Sandy]: “Oh, what's your sign?”

Venus Flytrap [played by Tim Reid]: “You live around here, Mama?”

Dr. Johnny Fever [played by Howard Hesseman]: “Want a little action, sugar?”

Jennifer: “Well, Les, don't you have an opening line?”

Les Nessman [played by Richard Sanders] [looking uneasy, then sits down and picks up a drink]: “Hi, I'm extremely wealthy.”

Jennifer [as Jennifer and Les clink glasses together, cooing]: “Ooh!!!!”—WKRP in Cincinnati, Season 1, Episode 15, “Never Leave Me, Lucille,” original air date Mar. 5, 1979, teleplay by Bill Dial, directed by Asaad Kelada

If you don’t see an actor for years and then learn he or she is dead, the image you retain is still of them from the height of their celebrity. And so it was for Loni Anderson.

Her obituaries this past week said she’d died at age 79, just short of her 80th birthday, but in the mind’s eye of so many of us, she was still Jennifer Marlowe—glamorous, but smarter than all the besotted males at that struggling Midwestern radio station. 

“I’ve done six other series but I’ve stayed closest to my ‘WKRP’ family,” Ms. Anderson said of her castmates in a September 2018 interview on the “Baltimore Media Blog.” “If you’re lucky to have a family like that, cherish it.”

Quote of the Day (Sir Francis Bacon, on ‘The Good Things of the Mind’)

“Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.” ― English essayist, philosopher and statesman Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), “Translation of the ‘De Augmentis’” (“On the Dignity and Advancement of Learning”), in The Works of Francis Bacon, Volume V, edited by James Spedding (1858)

Quote of the Day (Martin Wolf, on How Economic Decline Made Liberal Democracies Fragile)

“Today's liberal democracies are the most successful societies in human history, in terms of prosperity, freedom and the welfare of their peoples. But they are fragile. Resting on consent, they require legitimacy. Among the most important sources of legitimacy is widely shared prosperity. A big part of the reason for the erosion of trust in elites has accordingly been a long-term relative economic decline of significant parts of the working and middle classes, worsened by economic shocks, notably the global financial crisis.⁠”—British journalist and economics commentator Martin Wolf, “In Defence of Democratic Capitalism,” The Financial Times, Jan. 21-22, 2023

The image of Martin Wolf that accompanies this post, from the 2015 Crawford Forum, was taken June 29, 2015, by AH1P1295.

Quote of the Day (Robert Francis, on the Pitcher’s Art: ‘Eccentricity’)

“His art is eccentricity, his aim
How not to hit the mark he seems to aim at,
 
His passion how to avoid the obvious,
His technique how to vary the avoidance.”—American poet Robert Francis (1901-1987), “The Pitcher,” from The Orb Weaver (1961)
 
When I read these lines, the pitcher that came to mind for me was Greg Maddux (pictured), a remarkably consistent pitcher who thrived despite not throwing a terribly hard fastball (ranging from the high 80s to low 90s in MPH). 

As a youngster, this future Baseball Hall of Famer recalled in a 2007 interview, his coach “worked with me when I was 15 years old, and he taught me that movement was more important than velocity. He helped me make the ball move and sink as opposed to seeing how hard I could throw it.”
 
His 78-pitch complete game in July 1997 was just one example of how he worked, using pinpoint control and an ability to outthink batters to hamstring the Chicago Cubs lineup that day.
 
His intelligence particularly impressed his peers on the mound, according to Ed Graney’s July 2007 article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal: “No one thought the game better than Maddux. No one understood how to take advantage of its perplexing components more than he did.”

Movie Quote of the Day (‘The Return of the Pink Panther,’ As Clouseau Drives His Boss Crazy…Yet Again)

[After a robbery that Inspector Clouseau, talking to a beggar, managed to miss.]

Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus [played by Herbert Lom, left]: “The beggar was the lookout man for the gang.”

Clouseau [played by Peter Sellers, right]: “That is impossible.”

Dreyfus: “Why?”

Clouseau: “He was blind. How can a blind man be a lookout?”

Dreyfus [insinuating Clouseau] “How can an idiot be a policeman? Answer me that!”

Clouseau: “It's very simple, all he has to do is enlist...”

Dreyfus: “Shut up!”— The Return of the Pink Panther (1975), screenplay by Frank Waldman and Blake Edwards, directed by Blake Edwards

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Helen Garner, on the Bible’s Repeated Water Imagery)

“Even now there are days, as I go about my business along certain streets, when my past cruelties, my foolishnesses, my harsh egotisms hang around me like a fog — or, rather, when they haunt me like a pack of cards which offer themselves to my consciousness one by one and with a clever appropriateness, as if a tormentor’s mind were actively choosing and shuffling them, so that their juxtapositions are forever fresh, always bright and with a honest, unbearable edge.  Because of this, I understand and treasure the Bible’s repeated imagery of water, of washing; and of the laying down or the handing over of burdens.  I like the story of the woman at the well.  First, she was a woman.  She belonged to the wrong race.  She had had five husbands and was living with a man she was not married to, but she was the one Jesus asked to draw water for him.  She bandied words with him, but he told her about the other kind of water — the sort that never runs out — the water that he was offering.”— Australian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist Helen Garner, “Sighs Too Deep for Words: On Being Bad at Reading the Bible,” originally published in Portland Magazine, Winter 2004, reprinted in The Best American Spiritual Writing 2005, edited by Philip Zaleski (2005)

The image accompanying this post, Christ and the Samaritan Woman, depicting the “woman at the well” with Jesus, was created between 1520 and 1530 by the Italian painter Vincenzo Catena (1470-1531).

Photo of the Day: Chess Pieces, Paramus Park Mall, Bergen County NJ

 

It had been a while since I had visited Paramus Park Mall, so I was surprised—pleasantly so—to see these giant chess pieces in the common area.

Not that I was a chess aficionado, mind you. But I enjoy seeing a bit of whimsy in public displays, and nowhere is this needed more than in the midst of a day fighting through snarled traffic to make it to a mall.

Anyway, I just had to take this photograph once I saw this scene.

Quote of the Day (P. J. O’Rourke, on Driving in India at the Turn of the Millennium)

“Jeeps bust scooters, scooters plow into bicycles, bicycles cover the hoods of jeeps. Cars run into trees. Buses run into ditches, rolling over on their old-fashioned rounded tops until they’re mashed into chapatis of carnage. And everyone runs into pedestrians. A speed bump is called a ‘sleeping policeman’ in England. I don’t know what it’s called in India. ‘Dead person lying in the road’ is a guess. There’s some of both in every village, but they don’t slow traffic much. The animals get clobbered, too, including the sacred cows, in accidents notable for the unswerving behavior of all participants. Late in our trip, in Bihar state, the car in front of us hit a cow — no change in speed or direction from the car, no change in posture or expression from the cow.”—American humorist P. J. O’Rourke (1947-2022), “Weird Karma,” originally published in Men’s Journal, January 1999, reprinted in The Best American Travel Writing 2000, edited by Bill Bryson (2000)

Well, I hope matters have improved since O’Rourke wrote this—not just for foreign travelers but also for the citizens of India.

Joke of the Day (Greg Davies, on a Local Swimming Pool)

“A man knocked on my door and asked for a donation toward the local swimming pool. So I gave him a glass of water.”—Welsh actor and comedian Greg Davies quoted in “Laughter the Best Medicine,” Reader’s Digest, August 2015

The image accompanying this post, of Greg Davies at the Taskmaster S17 World Premiere in NYC, 2024, was taken Mar. 26, 2024, by Philip Romano.