Liebling

[bob le flâneur]

>
>Long dead, Leibling [SIC] was a wonderful writer, affiliated
>with the New Yorker, where his beat was mostly what he
>called low-life.


Since I haven't gotten to the Huey Long book and started with "Back Where I
Came From" -- which basically fits into the "low-life" category -- I think
of Liebling as being the best example of "regular-guy" literature.

But the guaranteed-rain scam that gives "The Honest Rainmaker" its title is
nothing less than American 'pataphysics -- brilliant!  Furthermore, it's all
quite clever & delightful & whimsical until you recall that ENRON had
reached a point where they were dealing in weather futures.  And who knows,
maybe Wilhelm Reich read Liebling's piece before he devised his infamous
"cloudbusting" experiments:

Next on my list is Between Meals, where the author eats his way across
pre-WWII Paris.

But in closing I'd like to offer a Liebling bon mot appropriate to the
current season (unless you're in the Southern Hemisphere):

"'Well, Jim,' the Colonel said.  'In the words of the English poet
Hutchinson:  "If winter comes, spring must be moving up to a position of
contention."'"