7.8.2007

“The finest childlike faces have [a] consecrating power, and make us shudder anew at all the grossness and basely-wrought griefs of the world, lest they should enter here and defile.”

—George Eliot

“The second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward. You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the gloom I can see rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is worth more than all the means; that posterity will triumph in that day’s transaction, even though we may regret it, which I trust in God we shall not.”
—John Adams, 3 July 1776

[Ed. Note: Having neglected both to take any pictures this week and to post pictures from our trip to Ohio, we seek to remedy both failings by posting said photos here, though they have nothing to do whatsoever with the content.]

Dear Reader,

We greet you again at the close of a week that impressively witnessed both the anniversary of our national independence (though the quote from one of our editor’s favorite founding father confirms we’ve been getting the date wrong all these long years) and what the Vegas vulcans have deigned to call the luckiest day of the year—7/7/07. From our vantage, the latter date is but a feeble reminder of the epochal year 777 a.d., which witnessed Charlemagne’s decisive victory over the Saxons, as well as the birth of his daughter Hildegarde, reported to have been quite a beauty by a bevy of monks who shouldn’t have noticed. In any case, we move onward and upward with the latest installment of our illustrious Review.

Monday (July 2): In the morning Lia and the girls babysat Eli Kleinman. The affair was a successful one; with Ava at school Julia’s right to the enjoyment of all things princessorial in fee simple perpetual went unchallenged. Eli and Eli got along quite amicably, sharing a boisterous laugh when Eli the lady slapped Eli the gentleman on the shoulder and cried, “I say, old fellow, what do you make of my having a homonym for a homeboy?” This mixture of bright British manners and blasé American slang struck Julia as the unfathomable nadir of syncretism gone awry. She held her head erect and looked narrowly at the younger pair with the silence of piercing disdain. After work, Justin trudged daringly through the obstructive labyrinth of Indiana Jones filming, making his way to the Connecticut Financial Center where he recorded the first session of an oral history with the Honorable Guido Calabresi, Justice of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Justin’s erstwhile professor of torts. It was a fascinating hour, during which Guido regaled his young admirer with tales of his ancestry and of his father’s active opposition to the rise of Italian Fascism.

Tuesday (July 3): In the morning the ladies of the house mounted the bull and rode roughshod over to Eva Allen’s where they checked on the rise and progress of our fast-flowering garden. Lia’s one word prognosis of said rise and progress was: “Excellent!” Eli’s prognosis, less sanguine though equally fervent, was: “Dirt!” After inspecting our jardin sans pareil, the girls went to our ward playgroup, where they were joined by the mothers and children of the Turner, Sevy, and Lloyd families. A good time was had by all, though we’re told that Asher Sevy, hitherto the most ebullient of children, gave himself over to a fit of Byronic brooding. Crossed in young love, no doubt.

Wednesday (July 4): Justin talked himself into taking the day off for Independence Day (incidentally, isn’t it odd that we generally refer to this holiday by its date rather than by its proper title, as though giving vent to an irrepressible longing as dashing a periphrastic ditty as the one Britain uses to honor Guy Fawkes’ day?). We joined some members of our ward for a barbeque. Lia, in a moment of madness, momentarily surrendered the watch of our steaks [Ed.: our New Zealand, grass-fed, $12 steaks left to us by the Buehners] a-grilling to Justin. The predictable result was a pair of disagreeable steaks, their surfaces charred to the tint of unadulterated pitch. “You didn’t ask me to check them,” said a penitent husband to an unamused wife, as the latter chewed what remained edible of her bistecca carbonizzata with great difficulty and in a state of moderately high dudgeon.
We had hoped, some of us more ardently than others, to watch the fireworks at the Wharf this evening, but as it rained abysmally all through the afternoon and into the night—and as the City of New Haven postponed its officially-sanctioned, pyromaniacal orgy of enthusiastic nationalism in consequence—we were disappointed in our hope. We could only take solace in knowing that somewhere in the deserts of Utah the permissive safety standards of the American Indian reservations were being exploited by the modern devotees of Prometheus, who annually signal by their fiery recklessness that nothing screams love of country like perilous proximity to general conflagration. God bless America—though she hardly deserves it.

Thursday (July 5): Earlier in the week Lia had asked Lindsay Sevy to babysit for us later in the week. Lia remembered saying Friday; Lindsay remembered hearing Thursday. Thinking today was the day, Lindsay kept her quiet cherubs awake beyond their usual naptime so they’d not be interrupted by the arrival of our own silent angels. Learning of this misunderstanding, all parties sought to make the most of it, so Lia and the girls joined the Sevys for a rousing afternoon of camaraderie and the inevitable property disputes. Asher, clearly on the mend, seemed now beyond brooding.

Friday (July 6): This afternoon we all mounted the bull for a trip to the posh environs of Branford, Connecticut where Justin and his fellow researchers had been invited to a party at the elegant home of Bruce and Susan Ackerman, picaresquely situated on the Long Island sound. Julia, of course, refused to swim—and the heavens began intently to rain shortly after our arrival—so our fun on the beach was limited to a few abortive attempts at building sandcastles (Lia showed signs of figuring it out shortly before the inauguration of the celestial deluge). We then went inside where Julia and Eli made a mess of a house that showed few signs of having been so treated in recent memory. We ate hotdogs and hamburgers and drank grape juice while those around us drank a seemingly stronger vintage that had the aspect of grape juice. Eli, feted with meat and admirers, knew mighty contentment. Her father ate too much, and her mother had a hard time stomaching the liberal manifesto (a strident screed entitled, “We Answer to the Name of Liberals,” authored by the great B.A. himself) appended above the toilet. Julia baffled the company of dogmatic secular humanists by announcing that she knew how to pray by herself. She spoke as clearly as Demosthenes, but no one understood what she said. After dinner, the party went for a nature walk through the Ackermanian estates. Bruce and Susan generously loaned us a red wagon in which to haul the girls. Julia and Eli loved the wagon, but its wheels squeaked abominably in a cacophonous monotony that disturbed the dignity and repose of the party. It grew late in any case, and after a few minutes we made our exit as the party went forward without us.

Saturday (July 7): Today was ward temple day, and we determined to attend the Boston Temple come what might. Our first obstacle was that the Bull had lost a shoe—i.e. our back right tire was punctured by a small nail. Justin took the Bull to Firestone as soon as that establishment opened (7 a.m.; the Temple caravan was to leave at 8) and threw all the force, eloquence, and charm of oral advocacy into persuading the good man behind the counter to change the tire ASAP. Even so, we missed the party from the ward and struck out on our own. We did so, alas, without printing off directions to the Temple, an oversight which portended a navigational disaster. But we were determined—so much so that Justin took the rash step of stopping at a Wal-Mart to buy a map. We did get lost—or rather, we arrived at the Temple through an unconventional route—but we made it in the end. As it happened, the Sevys arrived not long after we did, so Julia and Mayah and Eli and Asher got to play together in the Belmont stake’s nursery room and cultural hall. When Julia and Mayah first saw one another, they screamed with delight and ran at each other with open arms. Alas, the anticipated hug was preceded by no gestures toward deceleration. The young friends greeted with a mighty collision that left Julia on her back and Mayah in tears. They quickly recovered and set about the high and important business of fighting over toys. Once in the gym, Julia and Mayah persuaded Lindsay Sevy to shoot a few baskets. When this lady missed her first three shots, Julia commented helpfully, “Lindsay, you’re not so good at baskets—not like Chari [Julia’s fourteen-year-old aunt].” She said the same thing when Justin missed his first shots, but he soon showed her, swishing a half dozen free throws in a row and doing so in slacks and a dress shirt. The real purpose of our trip was amply fulfilled by our experiences in the Temple itself. It was a sweet refuge from the world with all its pressing cares and from the academy with all its screaming secularism. We returned home rejuvenated, ready with redoubled striving to don the whole armor of God. Inspired as we were, Justin still missed an important exit, leaving us to take the scenic (i.e. longer) route back to New Haven. But as we went we sang joyfully, and our diminutive seraphs slept in the back seat—much as our faithful readers now nod before a flickering screen.