Book Report: I See You've Called in Dead

16. John Kenney, I See You've Called in Dead (2025) (8/2/25)

After the last book—which continues to stick with me, so perhaps I liked it better than I thought (if "like" is the operative word)—I needed something light. A FB friend, in her daily status post, had mentioned this book, said it was delightful. Sold!

It's the story of a lost-his-way obituary writer who accidentally one drunken night publishes a mock obit—for himself: "Bud Stanley, forty-four, former Mr. Universe, failed porn star, and mediocre obituary writer, is dead." His employer, the largest wire service news organization in the world, is not amused.  

From there the story doesn't really do much, except meander through New York City with, mostly, Bud's landlord, a paraplegic named Tim, and Clara, a woman he encounters at his ex-mother-in-law's funeral and whom he starts meeting at other funerals, of strangers. He has conversations with his boss, Howard, and a young neighbor boy, Leo. And he waits for word on whether he will be fired—and if so, what then? He's hardly employable.

It's a bit of sentimental fluff, really—but it was just what I needed. Nothing heavy; on the contrary, Kenney (who writes regularly for the New Yorker's "Shouts & Murmurs" humor column) is very funny and gives the self-deprecating Bud some great lines. The other characters are mostly foils, helping Bud to find the joy in life again. (Clara, perhaps, especially: yes, they fall in love—though at the end of the book she's off to Bhutan for a year; still, you know they'll come together again. Love is love.)

The passages I flagged, though, weren't the funny bits, but the "Life is a gift" bits of wisdom. Schmaltzy, maybe. But no less important for all that. I flagged six. I'll just go ahead and quote them here, though I'll start with a one-liner, the last thing I flagged: "How many days do you experience something for the first time?" The occasion being a helicopter ride that Bud has gifted to Tim. "We banked right over the Bronx, over Yankee Stadium, to the East River. The city small and quiet below. We should be required to take flight from time to time, to see anew, to see how small and fragile we are."

But let's go back to the beginning—straight to the set-up for Bud's disaster:

I took down a bottle of sixteen-year-old Lagavulin from a shelf in the kitchen. My boss, Howard, gave it to me at our company Christmas party a few years ago.
     On occasion—a damp, cold evening, the house too quiet—I pour myself a glass, give it a gentle swirl, inhale the heady, fiery aroma, and imagine my ancestors in Ireland a long time ago, in a cottage, by a peat fire, rough hands, so tired, so much labor, wondering, perhaps, if there was something else out there, a better life, if they had the courage to find it, knowing they would, that they had to, that they owed it to themselves and their family, afraid, excited, eternally hopeful, dreaming of possibility for their children, their children's children, for me, this person sitting here now. Surely that was worth a toast.
     I sat on the couch with my computer and got lost, aimlessly clicking through cnn.com and tmz.com, nytimes.com. YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, the algorithms knowing my tastes, pulling me in deeper, mindlessly following every new link. A Nick Drake video, a Stephen Fry talk, a Fry & Laurie skit, The Two Ronnies' "Fork Handles" skit, great catches in baseball, vintage wristwatches, yoga women of Malibu, Bill Maher, news anchor bloopers, a garbage truck that bursts into flames, Norman Mailer drunk on The Dick Cavett Show, squirrels dancing.
     The videos—half watch, click, half watch, skip ad, click—alternatingly intrigued and annoyed me, engaged me, sucked life from me. It was after eleven. Go to sleep, Bud. But Bud wasn't listening. Bud had pushed past tired into numbness, the brain buzz of too little sleep, the mistake of topping off his drink. What's the worst that could happen?

See, nothing deep here, but also something most of us can perhaps identify with. Not these specific details, perhaps, but our bad habit of seeking to escape, to entertain ourselves to death, to avoid what's right in front of us. Next up: a bit about Howard and their relationship:

Something happened after his wife's death, me being there, that drive to the hospital. I saw behind a door normally closed to others, these things in our personal lives that coworkers never know about. How well do we know a colleague? The ebb and flow of workdays, weeks, years. We might notice a new suit, a haircut, a bit of weight put on. We talk of work, a bit about life, we have drinks at office parties. But something changed in a way I couldn't quite explain. We had inched closer. How can you not, standing in the doorway of a hospital room as this man I had known for so long—this man I barely knew at all—wailed and sobbed over the body of his dead wife?
     I wondered how I could ever put that in an obituary. 

And here Bud and Howard meet up after the disastrous obit:

"The world changed," Howard said to his glass. "Broke in a way. I see things, read things, watch things, and I think . . . I don't understand that. The inanity, the vulgarity, the cruelty." He turned to look at me. "Is it just me, getting older?"
     "I think something has changed."
     "Something fundamental, perhaps. And so we retreat. Sure, we do our jobs, provide for our families. But then we seek cover. I subscribe to a channel on YouTube called Relaxing Mowing. It's speeded-up footage of people mowing their lawns, trimming their hedges. The world made clean and perfect. They put classical music over it. If someone described that to me five months ago, I would say that person was insane. Now, I love it. I watch these in bed at night. I watch videos of Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse dancing. The elegance and grace. Where has that gone? Now we have twerking."

The book is full of details like this, of wisdom like this, of regret but also hope. Tim, too, is full of wisdom, earned from being in a wheelchair—a bit heavyhanded, okay, but still. Here, at their first meeting, when Bud comes to interview for an apartment to let in Tim's brownstone, Tim has just asked Bud if he's ever sat with someone as they died. Yeah, not your typical first encounter, and also heavyhanded, but still.

"It's quite something. Especially if they're ready . . . if  . . . if they lived. Do you know what I mean?"
     "Totally," I lied. "Sorry. I lied. I'm not sure I understand."
     He laughed. "I don't really know what I mean either. I guess I mean this. That at the end—and I've had the privilege to be in the room with a few people now, my parents, two friends—I think, and it's just a guess, but I think we let go of everything ad the true nature of experience falls over us. This . . . miracle that is existence. Which we layer with so much. With anxiety and fear and greed and smallness and what's next and hurry up and I've got a meeting and all the . . . stuff . . . that gets in the way. I'm not saying we should all go live like a monk. I'm saying that if you haven't lived the life you want, if you haven't loved life, then at the end, I think a deep and very sad regret comes over you. And if you have, if you've lived well . . . friends and family and . . . if you've lived . . . then just as true is the peace you feel. I've seen it. Does this make any sense or do I sound mad?"

No, not mad at all. And finally, here Tim and Bud are at the Frick Collection, looking at one of their two Vermeers, Officer and Laughing Girl. "Why is the girl laughing?" Tim asks. Bud says:

"It's a nervous laugh. He just made a bad joke, said something embarrassing."
     "Like what?"
     "He just showed her how he could burp the alphabet."
     "You don't deserve Vermeer. Look at the painting. Pretend you're not you. Let the picture speak to you. It wants to speak to you. It's speaking to you across hundreds of years. This is its power. It's trying to tell you something, a universal thing, a thing that has no boundary in time. Why is the girl laughing?"
     I stared at the painting. I waited. It seemed too obvious.
     "Because she's happy?" I said.
     Tim turned to me and smiled. "Yes."
     "That's it?"
     "What else is there?"

40. Another day

Another Friday, and another session with my English-learning friend. Today we worked on a dozen simple fill-in-the-blank exercises. Well, "simple" if you happen to already speak the language. One involved the words cope cop cup. The sentence: The _______ couldn't _______ with the bug he saw in his _______. I mean, if you speak English already, it's a no-brainer. But the more we worked on these sentences, the harder even I started to find them. 

So I was delighted when one of the fill-in words was am. There is only one context you will ever use am. I AM. Dammit. I am.

The last exercise included the word pen, which at first glance you would think would mean pluma, but in the case of this sentence, which also include pet and pep—a pet with too much pep needing to be put in a . . . —did not. I am a language person—I've studied, what, ten or more languages—and so I'm sure that if I were met with an exercise like this in any of those, I'd figure it out: it's a puzzle, a game. But my friend is not a language person. This is hard, it's challenging. And it's serious: she wants to stay in this country. She needs to speak the language.

But then she started laughing. She was having fun. It wasn't the sentences that she was finding fun, but our interaction, I think. Our connection, our friendship. As we parted she gave me a big hug. And out in the parking lot, she gave me an avocado. What more does a teacher need?

As I drove to our meeting, I noticed the parking lot near the local Russian Orthodox church filled with cars. As I drove home, I saw a hundred or more people spilling out onto the lawn, including a half dozen white-bearded men dressed in bright green chasubles wearing full-on crowns. All I find from googling is this: Престольный Праздник / Встреча Митрополита Николая: Parish Feast Day / Meeting Metropolitan Nikolai. This has nothing to do with my life, really, except that I noticed it: it's a part of the life of some of my neighbors, and that's meaningful. It was beautiful to see this crowd, and those bearded, crowned men in green.

In the afternoon, David and I headed to one of our favorite dog-walk spots, Carmel Meadows. We stopped awhile to watch the pelicans flomping their wings in the lagoon. (I took a short video, but it won't post, so here's a still shot.) The dog walks are getting shorter, but Milo, at almost 15, is still game. 

The way home ended up taking three times as long as it could/should have, but I'll spare the details. Road work; rush hour. Whatever. We got home.

And then had a lovely dinner at a new-to-us restaurant in the not-at-all-chic nextdoor town of Seaside, but the restaurant, Maligne, has made its way into the Michelin Guide, so we figured it was worth a try—and yeah. It was terrific. Halibut with corn and shishito peppers for me, pork belly and fancy rice for David, and a luscious peach and plum cobbler for dessert. The occasion: our 44th anniversary. 

We sure do hope to make it to 50. We'll see!

Finished the evening watching Tampopo. Delightful. 

What more can one ask of a day?  

 

39. Two and a half Instagram six-packs

Catching up here since my last IG post in May. I don't actually curate my Instagram feed. I just occasionally look at IG, then think, maybe it's time to post something. And I scroll back through my photos, find a shot or two, and there: posted. So, here: a recap of the latest posts.

My desk, my pens. A California buckeye blossom. Luna.
A wolf eel model. A Salinas mural. Milo.

A frog in Ontario. The view from our niece Jess's farm,
also in Ontario. July 4 on Monterey Bay. The cats.
The day we paid off our mortgage, huzzah! woohoo!
Luna again (the REAL tiger).

David and our friend Alastair, geocaching in Los Gatos.
David and a lovely little gopher snake.
Our nephew Aaron flinging the frisbee in Ontario.

A snapshot (or fifteen) of my life. So totally random it's silly. But silly is good. What would we do without silly?

Book Report: Night Watch

15. Jayne Anne Phillips, Night Watch (2023) (7/29/25)

That this book won the Pulitzer Prize surprises me—though maybe it just underscores the fact that the Pulitzer isn't a prize I should follow.* 

Why does it surprise me? Because the book is something of a mess. It begins in 1874 with a trio of characters arriving at a "lunatic asylum," introduces a few more, and then abruptly, on page 45, shifts scene and time, going back ten years and introducing several new characters—staying in those stories for another eighty pages. Wait, what happened to the asylum? What are we supposed to pay attention to here? When we finally return to 1874 (and ultimately 1883, in an epilogue), the story's threads gradually begin to weave together, though some remain dangling even at the end, and the climax, where (almost) all secrets are revealed, is breathtakingly abrupt.  

And the writing. Sometimes I enjoyed its lyricism, the rendering of habits of speech, but it often was just too much. Like this, which ends part IV:

He will leave here when time affords and feel no anguish but absence. A blank pulsing thud of heartbeat is the only key he possesses, and it fits no lock. But he's intensely relieved. He thinks of a kite, struggling along the ground, suddenly catching the wind, with the string let out very quickly. He can hear the whistle of air and feel a sensation of buoyancy, as though he gains height over raucous green hills that resound with pleas of mercy.

Huh? Especially toward the end of the book—when I started seeking out published reviews  (am I the only one who doesn't get what's going on?)—the gush of language was just too much. 

But what, you ask, is this book about? It takes place in West Virginia during and after the Civil War. The initial trio, a man, woman, and 12-year-old girl, are seen arriving at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum (which still exists as a National Historic Landmark, complete with ghost tours), and part I all takes place there as we learn about the asylum, its function, its personnel. The woman, Liza—now known as Miss Janet—and the girl, Liza's daughter but now known as her nurse, Liza Connolly, settle in, and Miss Janet begins to regain her strength. In part II we follow several characters, the grandmotherly Dearbhla, whose story takes us into her past, where we learn about Eliza and the boy Eliza fell in love with; the "Sharpshooter," who has taken the Union side and whom we see fighting in the war and getting gravely wounded, losing all memory of who he is; the backstory of the man in the initial trio, and how he entered the others' lives; and more. Part III brings us back to the asylum, as the story—all those threads—plays out. Or perhaps I should say, weave together. It's difficult to describe just what the plot is. The feeling I'm left with is more of having been smothered—or perhaps getting clobbered in the head and left for dead, like the Sharpshooter.

The chief physician of the asylum was a real person, and Phillips occasionally inserts a photo of the place that seems to be the basis for a surrounding description, and I appreciated that concreteness. 

All that said, there were some quite lovely passages, and the rather gothic nature of the story—a bad guy who is very bad, many potentially good actors who nevertheless remain ineffective, hidden gardens and stolen baubles, a fire and bloody murder, and in the last few pages, an interesting reveal—does draw you along. I guess I'm glad I read it. I also guess I wish it hadn't tried so hard.

*As opposed to what—the National Book Award (for which Night Watch was long-listed)? National Book Critics Circle Award? Booker Prize? Should I even care about book awards? Do they represent quality? I tend to think so, but as with so many awards, politics probably enters in as much as worthiness (not politics as in Washington politics, but... playing favorites, making up for past slights, celebrating the underdog, or diversity, etc.). (Here is a piece titled "Did the Pulitzer Prize Make a Mistake with Night Watch? A Pulitzer Prize Deep Dive," which addresses some of these issues.)

37. Plant families

Yesterday on FB, a friend posted this meme:

 To which he added, "There are many correct (& even more incorrect) answers."

He got a few responses:

Legumes and brassicas—or Fabaceae (Leguminosae, with 765 genera and nearly 20,000 species), aka beans, peas, chickpeas, and lentils, and Brassicaceae, the mustard family, including cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, bok choy, Napa cabbage, and even turnips and radishes, not to mention the plant that canola oil comes from. Alfalfa is a legume, as are beautiful lupines: food for cows, food for the eyes. According to Wikipedia, "Legumes are a significant source of protein, dietary fibre, carbohydrates, and dietary minerals; for example, a 100 gram serving of cooked chickpeas contains 18 percent of the Daily Value (DV) for protein, 30 percent DV for dietary fiber, 43 percent DV for folate, and 52 percent DV for manganese." As for the Brassicas, despite there being some 330 genera and 3,700 species, the most important genus for us is arguably Brassica, of which some 40 different species adorn our dinner tables on a regular basis. 

Others suggested one of those two families plus Poaceae (or Graminae): the grains and grasses, with 780 genera and 12,000 species. Wiki again: "The Poaceae are the most economically important plant family, including staple foods from domesticated cereal crops such as maize, wheat, rice, oats, barley, and millet for people and as feed for meat-producing animals. They provide, through direct human consumption, just over one-half (51%) of all dietary energy; rice provides 20%, wheat supplies 20%, maize (corn) 5.5%, and other grains 6%. Some members of the Poaceae are used as building materials (bamboo, thatch, and straw); others can provide a source of biofuel, primarily via the conversion of maize to ethanol."

And finally Solanaceae, the nightshade family, with 2,700 species—by which we generally mean tomatoes and eggplants, potatoes and peppers, as well as tobacco if you are so inclined, and even the cheery petunia. 

One person responded, "Definitely not Euphorbiaceae," which gives us cassava and castor oil (which in turn gives us ricin), as well as Christmas-time poinsettia and lots of ornamental plants. But yeah, not so good for sustenance.

Me, I responded simply, "No." Not gonna choose. To which my friend commented, "The best answer I’ve heard is 'Apiaceae & Ranunculaceae…because such a life is not worth living.'" Apiaceae—the Umbellifers, which includes carrots, celery, and fennel, caraway, cilantro, and dill; and Ranunculaceae—delphinium, ranunculus, nigella, columbine, anemone. I think this response may have been more about beauty than edibility. Because yes, beauty matters too. 

Some sort of Umbellifer

Pasqueflower (Pulsatilla alpina) achene

Nigella arvensis seed follicle

36. Generations

I'm just going to think out loud a little bit here. From my own very restricted brain-space. 

I saw a reference today to all the harm people of my generation are doing to the planet because we keep denying climate change. 

Well, okay. But people I personally know aren't denying climate change. People I know are installing solar panels and buying electric cars; they are deciding not to fly to farflung vacation spots because of carbon emissions; they're walking to the market to shop. No, no, of course not everybody I know. But enough people for me to say, seriously, is this a generational thing?

I see "boomers" attacked online for all the harm we've done to this country. I don't get it. For one thing, I'm not really seeing what GenXers and GenZers and Millennials, as a mass group, are doing for the country. I don't see young people out at the anti-Trump protests. (Not here in Monterey anyway. Maybe they're out en masse in bigger burgs. I hope so.)

All I really want to say here is, I really wonder how much of our woes are "generational." Yes, different people coming into the world are met with different challenges, and yes, perhaps the "boomers" had it relatively easy. I certainly had it easy compared to my parents, who were born before or during WWI, weathered the Great Depression, lived through WWII, and then got clobbered with the Vietnam War. 

And then there was the Civil Rights movement, which attempted to set things right in this country—and now we're seeing that it's not so easy... because of boomers? Or full-on bigotry.

What I mean to say here is, people are people. We, all of us, have various advantages and disadvantages as we enter the world. Yes, it seems to be harder to find good employment now than it did when I was coming up. But that's not "because of the boomers." It's economics—capitalism. It's the social milieu. It may be because of the billionaires, who knows? 

Workers have been devalued, owning things has been overvalued. Those that have, get more—and then leave it to their kids, who start out life entitled, privileged. 

Life is complicated. Centuries ago, most of us would have been living under some lord's domain. At least things are a bit better than that now. (I think?)

This "generations" thing is an invention of the late 20th century. It's another way of putting us into boxes. Race, check. Gender, check. Generation, check. We're all so different!

When really, shouldn't we be thinking of ourselves as all in this together? 

All human.

That said, "young people"—sure. "Old farts"—sure. Young people and old farts do see the world differently: it's a different world now than it was when I was young. It was a different world for my old-fart parents, too. Being young or old is itself objective: you can look at someone and it's obvious. It still doesn't mean that my take on how different the world is, or what that difference means, is the same as that of my 70-year-old neighbor down the street, who's as Republican as they come, listening to right-wing radio in his garage (we wave at each other in the afternoon, him sitting on his cushion-mediated hard wood chair, us walking our dog), flying his flag. We may be the same generation, but I identify more with our young-parent neighbors in the house behind us, who may be politically progressive, though I've never asked. 

As for climate change, whoever could be doing something to change our course—whatever generation—I don't see it happening. 

I don't see it happening.

Blame who you will.

Then again, maybe "blame" is not the best way forward.

P.S. I will say, maybe at least some of us "boomers" are in fact more outraged and traumatized by what the Trump administration is heaping on this country now than any other generation might be. Because we were educated to believe that this country was something great. Which it clearly is not anymore. And might I point out that those in Trump's inner circle are not, in fact, all boomers. Starting with Stephen Miller, who's all of 39. J. D. Vance is 40. What's wrong with that generation?

P.P.S. The cartoon here? It's definitely a fact that students today have it far, far harder than I did, so far as paying for an education goes. That should be addressed, and I hope one day very soon it will be. (Sure won't be during this administration, though.) As for Social Security, so far, since the 1930s, it's something most of us do: pay into a system, and trust we'll get to enjoy some of the benefits when our time comes. I wouldn't say anybody I know thinks that young people somehow owe it to us. If anything, the government owes it to us to keep the system running smoothly. Simply by lifting the cap on the SS tax, they could keep it solvent. The government—this government—just doesn't give a shit.

35. Ontario family reunion

Three years ago, many Canrights converged on a 100-some-acre farm in Ontario, Canada, up near Meaford on the shores of Georgian Bay, Lake Huron. Family reunion!

Last week, we did it again—a somewhat different assortment of people, but just as invigorating. Our superb hosts were Jess and John Zufferli—Jess being my husband's eldest brother's daughter (our niece), John her awesomely game husband. Hats off to the both of them for a wonderful time. 

We came from all over: two sets of us from central coast California; two sets from Washington state (Edmonds and Wenatchee); North Carolina; Atlanta; and Oslo, as in Norway (we are far-flung). Twenty-two of us in all, ranging in age from 13 to 78. Three generations.

The three remaining sibs:
David (the baby), Geoff, and Patty (the new eldest)

There should have been a couple from Cleveland, Ohio, but Jess's dad—David's big brother (formerly the eldest)—died in March, and his wife, Virge, wasn't up for the trip. We toasted them in their absence. There should also have been one or two from Texas—Jess's brother, David, and his wife, Jeannie—but they were traveled out from a recent trip to Japan. We missed them. 

I posted some photos on FB, which I link to here (click on the highlighted bits).  

Day 1 (Thursday): Arrival! We got to the farm around noon, after a red-eye flight, and had a delicious few hours on our own with Jess and John (and sweet Sadie the labradoodle). Also, a nap. Others started arriving in the evening, though the Washington contingent kept getting grounded in Cleveland—ironically enough. They finally reached us the next day.

The view from our window in the 165-year-old farm house

Day 2 (Friday): I took a morning walk on the loop through the fields and woods, which is where these pictures are from. Much of the day was spent hanging out, swimming, catching up, and waiting for the Cleveland folks to arrive. And when they did, David, Patty and I went for another loop walk!

Day 3 (Saturday): Today we all (but one) went on a hike through some lovely (if warm) woods, then for pizza, beer, and wine at Coffin Ridge Winery. After that we went various ways. David and I took the opportunity to do a little geocaching. We lost Kolya, Nicole, and Enon, who took off for Toronto to look around before heading in various directions.

And later on that evening, we played outdoors under a beautiful sky. Frisbee! Sparklers!

Day 4 (Sunday): Today’s hike took us through the woods to Inglis Falls, followed by a picnic and—for some (a couple of the Norwegians)—a visit to Walmart (not documented) while others ended the day with a visit to the lakeshore (Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay) (ditto). Beautiful day.

Yes, there was geocaching!

Day 5 (Monday): Departure day, beginning at 3 a.m. for the other central California contingent. The hubbub of connection and hugs, over and over, was beautiful. Our 7 p.m. flight was on time, and we were home to our Milo at just after midnight. 

What a great few days. I'm so glad to be part of this family.