Quote of the Day (Henry James, on a Beach in Summer)

“As you recline upon the beach, you may observe Mademoiselle X… the actress of the Palais Royal Theater, whom you have seen and applauded behind the footlights. She wears a bathing dress in which, as regards the trousers, even what I have called the minimum has been appreciably scanted; but she trips down, surveying her breezy nether limbs. ‘C'est convemable, j'espere, eh?’ says Mademoiselle, and trots up the springboard which projects over the waves with one end uppermost, like a great seesaw. She balances a moment, and then gives a great aerial dive, executing on the way the most graceful of somersaults. This performance Mademoiselle X repeats during the ensuing hour, at intervals of five minutes, and leaves you, as you lie tossing little stones into the water, to ponder the curious and delicate question why a lady may go so far as to put herself into a single scant, clinging garment and take a straight leap, head downward, before 300 spectators, without violation of propriety, leaving the impropriety to begin with her turning over in the air in such a way that for five seconds her head is upward. The logic of the matter is mysterious; white and black are divided by a hair. But the fact remains that virtue is on one side of the hair and vice on the other. There are some days here so still and radiant, however, that it seems as if vice itself, steeped in such an air and such a sea, might be diluted into innocence.” — American expatriate novelist-essayist Henry James (1843-1916), Parisian Sketches: Letters to the “New York Tribune,”1875-1876, edited by Leon Edel (1957)

Joke of the Day (Demetri Martin, on Why ‘Swimming is a Confusing Sport’)

“Swimming is a confusing sport, because sometimes you do it for fun, and other times you do it to not die. And when I’m swimming, sometimes I’m not sure which one it is.”—Stand-up comic Demetri Martin in Comedy Central Presents: Demetri Martin, Season 8, Episode 14, original air date Mar 19, 2004, written by Demetri Martin, directed by Paul Miller

I chose this quote for two reasons: 1) With Memorial Day coming up, pools are opening and swimming will be, for many people, “a confusing sport” again; and 2) today is Demetri Martin’s birthday.

Quote of the Day (Robert Penn Warren, on the Summer Love of One of ‘The King’s Men’)

“Anne was crazy about diving that summer. She would go up high … and stand up there in the sunlight poised at the very verge. Then, when she lifted her arms, I would feel that something was about to snap in me. Then down she would fly, a beautiful swan dive, with her arms wide to emphasize her trim breasts and her narrow back arched and her long legs close and sweet together. She would come flying down in the sunlight, and as I watched her it would be as if nobody else was there. I would hold my breath till whatever was going to snap inside me snapped. Then she would knife into the water, and her twin heels would draw through the wreath of ripple and the flicker of spray, and be gone.”—American poet and novelist Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989), All the King’s Men (1946)

The 1949 screen adaptation of Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer Prize-winning All the King’s Men understandably stressed its narrative thrust. But passages like the above demonstrate that there was far more to the novel than that—especially the manner in which Warren’s poetic bent fueled his sense of setting and characterization. 

You can understand all too well from this description why the narrator—the all-too-appropriately named Jack Burden—is besotted by Anne Stanton; why he is crushed when, dismayed by his youthful aimlessness and lack of ambition, she breaks off the relationship; and why, still unable to forget her, he is all the more devastated when he learns she is now the mistress of his boss and the man who runs the whole state, Gov. Willie Stark (a character inspired by the career of Louisiana’s Huey Long).

The languor of the season and the loveliness of the young woman at the heart of it blend inextricably in this brief but heartrending private interlude in what may still be the greatest American political novel.

I could not find a still from the film showing Anne swimming, let alone swan-diving, so I chose another image of the actress who portrayed her, Joanne Dru. In real life, she and the actor who played opposite her as Burden, John Ireland, fell in love during production of the movie and were married for eight years.)

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Big Bang Theory,’ on How and Why Sheldon’s Learning to Swim)

Leonard Hofstadter (played by Johnny Galecki): “What I'm trying to say is that maybe you can't approach this as a purely intellectual exercise.”

Sheldon Cooper (played by Jim Parsons): “What do you mean?”

Leonard: “Well, uh, remember when you tried to learn how to swim using the Internet?”

Sheldon (protesting): “I did learn how to swim.”

Leonard: “On the floor.”

Sheldon: “The skills are transferable. I just have no interest in going in the water.”

Leonard: “Then why learn how to swim?”

Sheldon: “The ice caps are melting, Leonard. In the future, swimming isn't going to be optional.”— The Big Bang Theory, Season 3, Episode 13, “The Friendship Algorithm,” original air date Jan. 19, 2009, teleplay by Chuck Lorre  and Steven Molaro, directed by Mark Cendrowski

Quote of the Day (Demetri Martin, on Why ‘Swimming is a Confusing Sport’)

“Swimming is a confusing sport, because sometimes you do it for fun, and other times you do it to not die. And when I'm swimming, sometimes I'm not sure which one it is.” —Stand-up comic Demetri Martin, in “Demetri Martin,” Comedy Central Presents, Season 8, Episode 14, original air date March 19, 2004

Photo of the Day: Day at the Pool

Temperatures weren’t even that hot this afternoon, but parents still brought their kids out to cool off at Graydon Pool in Ridgewood, N.J. I snapped this as I passed by, late in the afternoon. In a few weeks, the place will be positively jammed, I’m sure.