When you have a really bad cold like the one I've had the last two days, you want to sleep a lot, and you want to read a book that is engaging but not too challenging, or at least I do. So between bouts of coughing, sneezing, and sleeping, I've been reading Brian Morton's A Window Across the River, which is a glib little New Yorky novel about dissatisfied artists. I wouldn't fall all over myself recommending it to anyone, but it was what I needed.
What made it worth it, though, is one paragraph. I actually giggled when I read it, and that doesn't happen very often.
So I've decided to share it - the paragraph, and hopefully the giggle, too.
It's nice to believe that each of us has one true love. This is a story we all enjoy. When Ingrid Bergman asks Dooley Wilson - Sam - to play "As Time Goes By," and Humphrey Bogart, hearing the song, turns pale, we know it's because the only woman he's ever loved has just come back into his life. We don't want to think that there might have been three or four other women who could have laid him even lower by strolling in after her and asking Sam to play something else - "Begin the Beguine," say, or "Struttin' with Some Barbecue."
The idea of Bogie clutching his head in his hands over "Struttin' with Some Barbecue," while some fabulous damsel shoots triumphant looks across the bar at a confused Ingrid Bergman, is - well, it's funny. In a glib, New Yorky way, I guess. But I'll take it!
Now more tea, and back to bed. After two days of fog, I can feel my various mental and physical systems slowly coming back online. Hurray!
