Quote of the Day (Russell Baker, on Summer’s Power ‘To Make Us Suffer and Like It’)

“What must the fish make of it as they pass the American coast with its banks packed with sunning carnivores? There they lie in the millions—their flesh broiling, their hides oiled, their hair stiff with salt, their blankets stained with mustard, their skins bitten by insects, the grit of sand between teeth and toes, their great masked eyes staring blankly into Proust, electric guitars throbbing into their earplugs, and the boredom as thick as crocodiles on the Zambesi. Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.”—Pulitzer Prize-winning American reporter, humorist, and memoirist Russell Baker (1925-2019), “Observer: The Strangest Shores,” The New York Times, June 27, 1965