Crank Calls

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.” 

—J.D. Salinger (1919-2010), author and recluse.

 

• Editorial Comment: I know I’ve always wanted to go out for a beer and a whine with Holden Caulfield.

CORRECTION: Yesterday’s WORD quotes the redoubtable Jessica Mitford on changing the world and embarrassing the guilty. Alert WORDster and Mitford expert Peter Y. Sussman, who edited a great collection, Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford (Knopf, 2006), sends this:

That's a great quote, Ted, and it certainly sounds like something Jessica Mitford would say. Sadly, however, she didn't say it.

I researched the question thoroughly while I was doing research for my book "Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford." I had been puzzled by the fact, though the quote was all over the internet (confirmation bias), I couldn't find it in any of Mitford's letters, books or articles. I finally traced it to my satisfaction to its apparent origins in a magazine article ABOUT Mitford, presented as the article writer's summary characterization, not Mitford's own words.

Sorry. I hate to rain on your parade.

Thanks, Peter. Good to have such folk backstopping the WORD.

PeezPix

Costco: Where Superheroes Shop
 

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Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard