Herb's simple pleasures:

1. A swim in a good, warm enough lap pool with my snorkel
2. A really well made, Italian Tiramisu
3. Finding, photocopying and printing the best works of cartoonists such as Arno, Price, Booth, Gluyas Williams, Mary Petty, etc., and especially good New Yorker covers in color. Then mounting them on my bathroom wall, and rotating them when one gets too old.
4. Biting into a big, ripe, juicy peach
5. A really fine glass of red wine (not sure that should be on the “small” things list)
6. The smell of pine needles, especially if in the North woods.
7. Watching seagulls glide and soar, barely moving their wings
8. Confusing a dog by whistling like a bird through my teeth (doesn’t always work)
9. Reading an especially well written, elegant sentence—or better yet, a cluster of same.
10. Great jokes, of late years mostly from you and Norm Hyman via e-mail
11. Writing a good chapter, letter or riposte (the latter, mostly to Dan Maguire).

July 28, 2008