It makes them iron on their claws

I had the same sandwich for lunch and dinner tonight. This was not a failure of imagination. This was the fact that I did not realize when I ordered it that Veselka's Baczynski—"thinly sliced Polish ham, Ukrainian salami, podlaski cheese, pickled vegetable relish on pumpernickel bread"—would be roughly the size of Ukraine. I felt suddenly grateful that I had sadly decided against a side of borscht. Fortunately, it came in neatly cut halves and the second was just as delicious when eaten in the quiet car of a Boston-bound Amtrak. I didn't think cauliflower pickle was a thing I liked, but on top of ham and cheese, it tastes great. Unbelievably dark pumpernickel. Crust you could break earth with. And it's seven hours later and I still don't really want anything else.

I am pleased with last night's reading. rinue did an excellent intense, quiet job with "Three Young Men," which opens with a medically detailed description of the processes of burning alive. I didn't read any poems; I started a few pages into "Moving Nameless" and read to the nearest cliffhanger, which I hope encouraged at least one person with poor delayed gratification skills to purchase a copy from marlowe1. We were followed by a professor of Arabic literature who read selections from his debut mystery novel and a middle-school teacher who read primarily nature poems (though the one I liked best was about the subway) and had an enthusiastic audience of colleagues. My mother's friend Jimmy was in attendance, although he slipped out before we could speak. derspatchel made silent meows of affection over the heads of the audience between us.

(I said there was currywurst. I hadn't even been sure there was currywurst in this country. But we'd spotted Weschler's on our way over to Nancy's apartment on Monday afternoon and somehow it kept coming up in an inquisitive, speculative sort of way, so as soon as the reading was over—when both of us were starving—we made a beeline for the wood-paneled hole-in-the-wall and knew we were in good hands as soon as we saw the menu over the counter listing half a dozen kinds of sausage I didn't recognize. We got the currywurst, the wild boar brat, the merguez, and sides of hot pretzel and kale. Verdict: it is completely reasonable that currywurst is the national snack of Germany, because it is addictively savory and combines textures in a way that is nearly as appealing as the flavors. Rob bragged on Facebook. We over-ordered by exactly half a merguez, which I have just at this moment realized we left in Nancy's refrigerator. Here ends the food reportage for this post, except for the fact that we went to ChikaLicious for dessert afterward and I want a regular supplier of lychee marshmallows in this town, thank you very much.)

This afternoon was a little muted, but we spent most of it at the Strand where Rob had unbelievable book luck, landing two of his long-sought unicorns: George MacDonald Fraser's The Pyrates (1983) and Robert C. O'Brien's The Silver Crown (1968). I left with a Centipede Press paperback of Thomas Tryon's The Other (1971) and a windfall of Gertrude Lawrence's 1945 autobiography, A Star Danced. It's a slim hardcover with red-topped pages; the inner flap of the jacket tells me that "THIS BOOK HAS NOT BEEN CONDENSED. ITS BULK IS LESS BECAUSE GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS PROHIBIT USE OF HEAVIER PAPER" and below that, "Jacket portrait by Cecil Beaton." It's a nice portrait, like a fashion plate; the endpapers reprint photos of Lawrence in various stage shows, overlaid with staves of music. I have no idea if it will bear any resemblance to the truthful facts of Lawrence's life rather than the lively anecdotes, but that's really not what I bought it for. Rob surprised me with a present on the way out: Derek Jacobi's autobiography As Luck Would Have It (2013), which I hadn't even known existed. (I add it to the recently growing stack. I'm in the middle of reading Nigel Hawthorne's at the moment—I meant to write about it on the train down on Monday, before I promptly passed out.) We talked about going somewhere for drinks before catching the train, but instead we curled up on the guest bed at Nancy's and read in the last of the bright grey day. I can't really complain about that.

I am drastically sleep-deprived, and I have a lot to think about this week—I appreciate everyone who's commented on the previous post so far—but I am glad of this trip. It was whirlwind and it was good. We had an amazing place to stay and Amtrak even ran on time. There was food and books and walking. Just next time I'm sleeping later.