Welcome to Part Thirty-One of our latest audio entertainment: Burning Daylight, a grand novel by Jack London sweeping from the Klondike to California.
Following Club member Steve's consideration of the difference between the "toxic work environments" of Andrew Cuomo and Burning Daylight, I made some observations on the absence of courtship rituals in today's world. To which Jan Schiebout, a First Week Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club from Florida, responds:
Ah - the civilized mating dance of the human race, as old as humanity itself! My father, married to my mother for 63 years, used to joke, with a twinkle in his eye, that "he chased her until she caught him". This once-familiar familiar mating dance, as described by Mr. London (with his trademark mental and sexual tension), was reminiscent of yesteryear's anxious Monday night vigil by the telephone, hoping for a weekend movie-date invitation from a certain young man. Oh, how times have changed! Thank you for resurrecting this book, Mark.
Yesterday we were given a peek into Obama's unmasked birthday party, complete with Lori Lightfoot Beetlejuice makeup, barely-clad breasts and primal dance floor grinding to pulsating rock rhythms. The "Be Safe" fireworks undoubtedly referred to the condoms in the Swag party bags.
Indeed, Jan. It's almost as if some fancy jet-set party-planner consciously designed it to look like the debauched reveries of the decadent ruling class of a totalitarian dystopia.
Be that as it may, in tonight's episode of Burning Daylight, Daylight finds that love offers the additional benefit of reducing his alcoholic intake:
Among other good things resulting from his growing intimacy with Dede, was Daylight's not caring to drink so much as formerly. There was a lessening in desire for alcohol of which even he at last became aware. In a way she herself was the needed inhibition. The thought of her was like a cocktail. Or, at any rate, she substituted for a certain percentage of cocktails. From the strain of his unnatural city existence and of his intense gambling operations, he had drifted on to the cocktail route. A wall must forever be built to give him easement from the high pitch, and Dede became a part of this wall. Her personality, her laughter, the intonations of her voice, the impossible golden glow of her eyes, the light on her hair, her form, her dress, her actions on horseback, her merest physical mannerisms—all, pictured over and over in his mind and dwelt upon, served to take the place of many a cocktail or long Scotch and soda.
Scotch and soda was a newish drink at the time of our tale, but an instant hit that accounted for a substantial chunk of a bartender's profits 120 years ago. So Daylight's abstemiousness has economic implications.
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear Part Thirty-One of our tale simply by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier episodes can be found here.
We'll be back on Wednesday evening (after my midweek appearance with Tucker) with another instalment of Burning Daylight. If you're minded to join us in The Mark Steyn Club, you're more than welcome. You can find more information here. And, if you have a chum you think might enjoy Tales for Our Time (so far, we've covered Conan Doyle, H G Wells, Dickens, Conrad, Kipling, Kafka, Gogol, George Orwell, Baroness Orczy, Victor Hugo, O Henry, John Buchan, Scott Fitzgerald and more), we have a special Gift Membership that makes for a super-sultry mid-August birthday present way cooler than anything Obama got.
