My Impromptus today starts in an unusual place: Papua New Guinea. This country is playing a role in the “superpower competition” between the United States and China. I then have a note on pronouns — always pronouns. Pronouns, pronouns, pronouns.
What else? Politics, economics, sports, art, music . . .
A reader of my music criticism writes,
Jay, are you the same or a different Jay Nordlinger from the Jay Nordlinger who works at National Review?
I wish I could share this note with Bill Buckley. In the 1990s, when I was leaving Washington for New York and National Review, I told a soprano friend of mine what I was doing. She did not know about National Review. I explained that it was a conservative magazine of politics and culture, founded by William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. She gave me a quizzical look and said, “Not the spy novelist.”
When I recounted this to Bill, he said that his audiences seldom overlapped.
An Impromptus of mine last week led with baseball, specifically cheating in. A reader writes,
Dear Jay,
My apologies if you’ve already been bombarded with e-mail from other Astros and Nordlinger fans. I just felt the need to point out that the type of cheating that the Astros got in trouble for (using strategically placed cameras to steal signs) was being used by other teams before the Astros even thought about trying it. . . .
And I should mention that not all Astros players (nor all players from other teams) participated in the cheating. As you said, there’s pretty much always been cheating in baseball. Probably always will be. Here’s hoping the Astros won’t be left holding the bag next time.
Another reader writes,
Jay, I am in awe that your great-grandfather sold merchandise to Walter Johnson. It reminds me of when my late wife and I moved into our house nearly 40 years ago and were invited across the street by an elderly couple (about the age I am now!) for a welcoming cookout. The host, upon learning that I was a baseball fan, told me that when he was a lad, his father took him to one of those traveling exhibition games in which major leaguers picked up off-season income. The featured player was Babe Ruth. . . .
P.S. Am I the only person who sees a resemblance between Walter Johnson and Robin Williams?
Just by the by, one of my closest friends, right today, met Babe Ruth when he was a teenager. (It was my friend, of course, who was the teenager.)
Hans Goeckner, the physicist-photographer in Chicagoland, has sent me two photos, utterly striking. Here is a Cooper’s hawk:
And here is a red-headed woodpecker:
My thanks to one and all readers and correspondents (and photographers).