Q: What did you do Christmas Day?
A: We went over to the Pink House and had Christmas dinner with Jennifer and Balder, Jennifer’s mother and sisters, and her father, Brad.
Then we came home and watched the first part of The Secret of the Grain, a French movie called La graine et le mulet, which I translate as A Grain of Couscous and a Mullet Fish. Possibly the Mullet Fish.
Q: Or the mullet fishery.
A: Or the mullet fishery.
The mullet population.
The mullet fishing industry.
As regulated by authorities.
Game wardens. Fish cops. International limits. Fines.
Q: You celebrated Christmas on Tuesday, didn’t you?
A: Yes. We
exchanged gifts on Tuesday. Because Owen
and Jean were there, with Ella and Eb.
They headed back to
Q: Did they give you a gift?
A: Yes, they did. They gave me a used copy of Carlos Baker’s biography of Ernest Hemingway.
I recently reread Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, the Restored Edition, but I hadn’t read Baker’s biography since it came out.
I look forward to reading that.
Q: Why?
A: Scholarly interest.
Q: I see.
You are interested in Hemingway.
A: No, I’m interested in belles-lettres.
As a writer.
Literature.
What is literature and how do you write it. Over a life.
What part do the fish cops play in restricting you. The bureaucrats of literature. The filing clerks.