Victor Laszlo is on that plane! —Captain Renault, in “Casablanca.”
December 5, 10:15 P.M. Just took off from Morocco. If you’re wondering why I haven’t posted for a few weeks, it’s because I ran into some difficulties here. So great to be finally leaving! Also great to be on a plane with free Wi-Fi. It’s rare to get that on one of these old prop jobs. I won’t go into the long story of how Mrs. Laszlo and I were finally cleared to go, but, basically, an old friend of hers who happens to run a bar came up with some “letters of transit,” etc., etc. German bureaucracy plus French incompetence—the old story. I’ll be glad when we land at Lisbon.
December 6. So here we are in Portugal! I found a big stack of newspapers waiting in our (rather so-so) hotel room. This morning I sat right down and went through them to find out what jaw-dropping things Hitler said and/or did recently. Where do I even begin? The man has all the emotional depth of a coat of varnish. (That is actually something I thought of back when we were in Casablanca, but I haven’t had a chance to use it until now.)
This story is from the September 18,2017 edition of The New Yorker.
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This story is from the September 18,2017 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
ART OF STONE
\"The Brutalist.\"
MOMMA MIA
Audra McDonald triumphs in \"Gypsy\" on Broadway.
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
\"Black Doves,\" on Netflix.
NATURE STUDIES
Kyle Abraham's “Dear Lord, Make Me Beautiful.”
WHAT GOOD IS MORALITY?
Ask not just where it came from but what it does for us
THE SPOTIFY SYNDROME
What is the world's largest music-streaming platform really costing us?
THE LEPER - LEE CHANGDONG
. . . to survive, to hang on, waiting for the new world to dawn, what can you do but become a leper nobody in the world would deign to touch? - From \"Windy Evening,\" by Kim Seong-dong.
YOU WON'T GET FREE OF IT
Alice Munro's partner sexually abused her daughter. The harm ran through the work and the family.
TALK SENSE
How much sway does our language have over our thinking?
TO THE DETECTIVE INVESTIGATING MY MURDER
Dear Detective, I'm not dead, but a lot of people can't stand me. What I mean is that breathing is not an activity they want me to keep doing. What I mean is, they want to knock me off. My days are numbered.