Welcome, I’m happy to see you back in the diner! This week I read “The Aunt and the Sluggard” by P.G. Wodehouse, the story where we finally meet Bertie’s American poet friend Rocky Todd, who is diametrically opposed to the concept of city living. He’d much rather spend his days pondering worms and occasionally publishing a poem for approximately $1000 in today’s money, truly the ideal life! It’s not going very well for him at the moment. You can read the story here, and see all the website I was using to check for Wodehouse’s references here! There’s one reference I noticed that they didn’t cover, but I’m not sure what it is either, so here it is:
“I suddenly thought of this yesterday after reading a beautiful poem in the Sunday paper about a young man who had longed all his life for a certain thing and won it in the end only when he was too old to enjoy it. It was very sad, and it touched me.”
“A thing,” interpolated Rocky bitterly, “that I’ve not been able to do in ten years.”
What has Rocky been unable to do in ten years? I’m sure Wodehouse expected me to understand, but unfortunately I do not.
The compare and contrast for this week was thematically appropriate: “Cities” by The Talking Heads and “City” by Thao & the Get Down Stay Down. You can find the article I referenced on the latter here.
I’ll see you next week to (hopefully) witness the conclusion of Rocky’s troubles!
Your DJ/Dinner Companion,
Drew
(P.S., I know I said I’d list all the references in this post but that seems a little redundant.)
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