a couple more

points about the funeral I attended yesterday.

1. The priest gave the Gospel reading out of a small white three-ring binder. It has more impact when it comes from a gigantic gilt-edged tome.

2. A daughter sang Schubert's Ave Maria. There's a difference between a vibrato and a warble.

3. The closing hymn was "When the Saints Go Marching In." Never heard that at a funeral before. Catholics do not sing with gusto.

Nora Ephron

Reports are coming across the series of tubes that Nora Ephron has died.

She was a good writer. She could make me enjoy reading about things I had no interest in, like her neck, or that I violently disagreed with. Virtually nothing that Harry says in When Harry Met Sally about The Way Men Are is true of me. But I enjoyed the movie anyway.

Nora Ephron also wrote the greatest concluding paragraph to an essay ever. I'd use this as my sig file, if I had the nerve, or if I had a sig file:

I have thought about their remarks, tried to put myself in their place, considered their point of view. I think they are full of shit.

ETA: Nora Ephron, stand-up comedian, in praise of Meryl Streep