Play ball!

Somebody named Zooey Deschanel sang the U.S. National Anthem before the fourth game of the World Series the other day. (Great Series, by the way.) Many people were angered that she went for a softer, dare I say gentler, version than the jingoistic bombastia usually presented at these moments. Zooey, according to her critics, must be deeply unpatriotic. (Her version, unfortunately and bizarrely, has been pulled from YouTube and every other source I can think of.)

The dispute reminded me of the greatest triumphalist performance of a National Anthem I’ve ever heard.



Of course, Mireille had much better material to work with. Truly blood-thirsty stuff. The real deal. And it was the 200th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, not the opening of a baseball game.

At the other end of the spectrum, I’ve always wished our anthem was “America the Beautiful.”

O beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea! 

It’s a tune a normal person can sing. (I’ve always especially loved “purple mountains majesty.”) But I suppose it is sort of unpatriotic in its emphasis on beauty and grace. No rockets. And that very suspicious brotherhood stuff. All the same, let’s hand it off to Keb’ Mo’.

When I was studying English and American Lit eons ago, we could trace over eras shifting tastes for Fielding v. Richardson. Or Fitzgerald v. Hemingway. Or name your two favorite natural rivals.

My own taste has lately shifted strongly toward Billie Holiday v. her only real competition. But Ta-Nehisi Coates posted this on his blog yesterday. Isn’t Ella, here with a Duke Ellington-led trio, about as good as it gets?

A truth fundamental

Sweet B, crunching away in the back seat as we drive along: “Out and about is good for apples.”

Here we go

New York Times:

Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal

Poster boy results

I forgot to note that this event, superbly organized by committed volunteers, went off like clockwork, and despite very heavy rains early in the morning, made a fair amount of money for its cause. I had been planning to do my duty and shuffle through it, but had managed to step in a hole dodging a car on a morning run. I strained a ligament or tendon or something having to do with my left great toe. (And it is a great toe—handsome, intelligent, good-humored, and almost always trustworthy. Not like that skiving,  paunchy and intellectually dishonest right one.) That got me on the gimp and off the hook. H and A, however, were in town, and they each won their age groups. Next year, with someone else’s phiz on the poster, maybe I can stay healthy we’ll attempt a trifecta.

We’ll try to remember, lovey

Sweet B, saying goodbye to grandparents Sunday afternoon: “Drive safely. And don’t spit in the car ... Ever!”

Le Chemin de la Mâture

Still thoroughly dysfunctional, I grabbed onto A’s ice-axe loop and he pulled me up the remarkable Chemin de la Mâture (usually translated “way of the masts,” though I think “mast path” or “mast road” is more idiomatic). This is a trail essentially blown and carved out of a cliff face so the 18th century French navy could roll masts for King Louis' navy down from high forests. That’s the Chemin, about a fifth of the way down from the top of the photo. Hardly looks like something you could walk across, does it? The chasm off to the right is known as les Gorges d’Enfer, (gorge or gorges of Hell).

It’s not quite so bad once you’re on it.
 

But, partly due to my whimpering and whining, we got a late start, and hit the cliff in full, direct sun. Dragging and moaning, I steamed my way slowly up. I don’t remember ever feeling so awful in the hills.





We were, in fact, about 90 percent of the way along the Chemin proper. Afterward, things got cooler and easier as we carried on to complete a loop back to the road.

This is a view of the ridge A had walked over the day before.

The Chemin de la Mâture is a famous and interesting walk and we enjoyed it—A thoroughly and I provisionally. As usual, and despite my turtle’s pace up, we were much faster than the books and signs suggested, so we were sitting in the local cafe when our chauffeur drove by on her way to collect us at the trailhead, and we waved her in for a beer. It was good.