My favorite?

I hesitate to use the word "favorite" in most circumstances, or else I water it down and change the literal meaning so that all I'm saying is I like whatever it is. When asked my favorite color, I say, "It depends on what's being colored." A wall favorite color is different from my car favorite color or a shirt favorite color. Same with food, movies, music; it all depends on my mood and the situation.

But I think I have a favorite writer. Reading James Thurber feels like sleeping in one's own bed, the smell of one's own home, something that sets things right, something comfortable but not in a complacent way. I feel so fully "me" when I'm reading him. I cannot put my finger on why.

We had a dry spell for a while, but a few days ago I started reading People Have More Fun than Anybody, a book of never-before-collected items to celebrate 100 years since Jim's birth (published in 1994). There's a cake recipe from him in it, which to me cries out for a party. And thus it is. I'm celebrating his birthday early because it's in December and no one wants an extra party then. Making the cake and giving everyone a chance to read their favorite things by him. I haven't had a party in a long time!

This particular book is all items that would otherwise be pretty much lost, things from magazines or papers that hadn't been put in book form ever before. And that may be why I'm so impressed: he wrote these things as little ephemera to make extra bucks, not to be literarily lasting or meaningful, but oh how he is! It's like if someone collected the articles I'm writing in 84 years, and they stood the test of time. One thing Michael J. Rosen's introduction points out is Thurber's ability to refer to his time--fads, celebrities we don't know about anymore, sundry pop culture items--and still be relevant today. He mentions these things, and they're confusing briefly or require an editor's note to explain them, but the way he talks about them and the things he says are still enjoyable to read. Basically, we don't have to know what he's talking about to get what he's talking about. That's pretty amazing to me.

Also, I may have known his eyesight failed as he aged, and I certainly knew he did sweet cartoons, but I never put the two together. Apparently he was drawing in the dark some of the time, which is not hard to believe when you look at the drawings but is nonetheless impressive. Oh, and Matisse called him the best artist in New York.