Laconic is a favorite word right now. I came across it while reading Whereabouts (Jhumpa Lahiri) in the chapter titled At My Mother’s. The dictionaries say it means to use few words in speaking or writing or the minimum amount of words needed to the affect of sounding mysterious, rude, unfriendly, or casual.
“And yet she’s calm, everything’s calm, there are no more scenes, no drama, she no longer raises her voice. She talks about herself, she finds no fault with me. She’s turned laconic. But oh what rages she’d fly into, when she was my age!”1
Food on Youtube
I’m constantly amazed at Tish Wonders’ flavor palette and how simple, delicious sounding, visually appealing, and unfussy her recipes are. There are too many individual ones to name, but some of my recent favorite videos have been this one on lunches, this one on dinners, and this one that has recipes for a week that include tuna, chicken, eggs and more.
TV
In just a few weeks I made my way through all of Will Trent to its current third season. It’s different, even better, than a lot of police procedurals. Despite the name, it doesn’t focus on one character as the best, the smartest, and the one who always solves everything while everyone else fumbles around false leads. Ample drama is balanced with goofy humor. That and the show’s perpetual fall look make for good TV.
Interesting reads
This piece on the California fires was chilling to read. To think that so much loss and damage is due in part to the continuous need for profit (developers getting away with building in high fire-prone areas) and rebuilding housing in ways that only compounds the problem.
This piece by Janus Rose on falling into the trap of engaging with nonsense and how that only serves to perpetuate and legitimize it.
Poetry
A poem by Italian poet Petrarch (1304-1374) that I find myself coming back to often. Or maybe it’s that the previous owner of the book kept going to this page and that’s just where it opens now.
To Laura
I saw the tracks of angels in the earth,
The beauty of heaven walking by itself on the world.
Joke or sorrow now, it seems a dream
Shadow, or smoke.
I saw a kind of rain that made the sun ashamed,
And heard her, speaking sad words, make mountains
Shift, the rivers stop.
Love, wisdom, valor, pity, pain,
Made better harmony with weeping
Than any other likely to be heard in the world.
And the air and the wind were so filled with this deep music
No single leaf moved on its still branch.2
Books referred to in this post:
Mariam Sultan 
Enjoyed reading your choice of topics and views.
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Thank you!
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Loved Whereabouts. Interesting about words, I sometimes wondered with the expressions that the Italian original version equivalents were.
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Have you read her first Italian novel translated into English ‘In Other Words’? That one is non-fiction and in it she writes about the process of writing in Italian and of course other things that come with the experiences of language, home and place.
Thank you for stopping by!
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This was the first of her books written in Italy, but I’ve been reading reviews of them all and do like the sound of both Roman Stories and Other Words. I admire her courage jumping into publishing in a new language!
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