meant to post this ages ago, from christopher buckley’s obituary for christopher hitchens:
David Bradley, the owner of The AtlanticMonthly, to which Christopher contributed many sparkling essays, once took him out to lunch at the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown. It was—I think—February and the smoking ban had gone into effect. Christopher suggested that they eat outside, on the terrace. David Bradley is a game soul, but even he expressed trepidation about dining al fresco in forty-degree weather. Christopher merrily countered, “Why not? It will be bracing.”
yesterday after my mom’s court date, we went to ninfa’s to decompress. except ninfa’s is no more, and is now called “maggie rita’s.” when we drove up, my mom was like, “oh i guess it’s maggie rita’s now” and “let’s see if maggie rita’s is actually open” and then “i guess maggie rita’s is open!” i wanted her to keep saying it. MAGGIE RITA’S. maybe the friendliest restaurant name in the past 20 years.
none of these pictures do it justice. but every time i’d see a new patch, i’d be like, OH MY GOD LOOK AT THAT SEA OF WILDFLOWERS. coming from the desert to fields of color and green and blue…oh it makes you feel something.
R used to have bonsai trees when he was 10 and lived in germany. when he moved back to the states, he had to leave them all behind. the idea of 10-year-old R trimming bonsais in heidelberg (and then having to say goodbye to them) is basically too much to handle. yesterday he got this bonsai in alpine. text message from him: “gave it its first haircut last night.”
really awesome article about england’s dickens world by sam anderson in the new york times sunday magazine.
He also told me that he and his staff narrowed the pool with “American Idol”-style auditions. “We made the applicants demonstrate customer service,” he said. “What they’d do if somebody lost a child, or injured themselves. Or if there was a complaint, unfortunately. But then I said to them, ‘The twist is, you have to do it in a Victorian manner.’ ”
The visitor experience consisted mainly of listening to recorded speeches, many of which were either dull or unintelligible.
For a park that markets itself to children, Dickens World was surprisingly grisly. I saw at least two severed heads, and when the performers lip-synched their way through a dramatization of “Oliver Twist” in the courtyard, it ended as the novel ends: with Bill Sikes murdering Nancy by beating her head in with a club, then being chased by a mob until he accidentally hangs himself.
