PG Wodehouse Archives | Carol L. Douglas

By Carol L. Douglas

Since I was a young woman, people have debated whether there’s a connection between aluminum and Alzheimer’s disease. Aluminum in cookware and in antiperspirant were both singled out as possible triggers for dementia. Recently, a reader sent me a link to a story that screamed: “Doctors Now Have Warning: If You Use Aluminum Foil, Stop It or Face Deadly Consequences.”

I have no comment on the food safety of aluminum foil, although I doubt that Faithpanda.com is peer-reviewed. My Dear Reader sent it to me because she knows that when online political conversations get too stupid, I put on a virtual aluminum hat to block the signals.

This sometimes takes the form of a small still life I did several years ago, above. When I can’t make time to paint, I do these small paintings to keep my mind and hands limber. They never take more than an hour. They’re just intended for my personal amusement.

By Carol L. Douglas

This week, I can’t even paint still lives. The days are getting longer, which means it will soon be time to go outside to paint. But looming over every March day, like a great black blot on the landscape, is our income tax return.

“In bouillabaisse you are likely to find almost anything, from a nautical gentleman’s sea-boots to a small China mug engraved with the legend ‘un cadeau de Deauville,’” wrote PG Wodehouse, and the same is true of our tax code. And just like Bertie Wooster faced with that soup, we shrink from stirring it.

“Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” is a quote from Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. It came from a legal decision written in 1927, and it’s inscribed over the door of IRS headquarters. Holmes was born in 1841 and served in the Civil War. I doubt he’d recognize much about the modern tax code.

By Carol L. Douglas

I doubt he’d be able to even file it. About 56% of American taxpayers rely on paid preparers to do their return. Another 34% use tax preparation software, making a total of 90% of taxpayers who seek some form of help. Revenues for the tax preparation industry (the people, not the software) are around $10 billion a year. That’s because nobody who’s not a trained preparer can understand the tax code.

I do not mind paying my taxes, but I do mind the endless record-keeping necessary to keep from paying too much. I mind the occasional midyear summonses to explain myself, and I especially mind the fact that I get to pay income tax in more than one state.

At any rate, as you probably already suspect, there won’t be much painting done this week in my studio. If you want me, I’ll be at the dining room table, courting dementia.

The scene, on a warmer, brighter day.

“Lemme tell you something,” said Mr. Steptoe. “The moment I’ve got Duff’s dough in my jeans, this joint has seen the last of me. I’m going back to Hollywood; that’s what I’m going to do, and if you’ve a morsel of sense you’ll come with me. What you want wasting your time in this darned place beats me. Nobody but stiffs for miles around. And look what happens today. You give this lawn party, and what do you get? Cloudbursts and thunderstorms. Where’s the sense in sticking around in a climate like this? If you like being rained on come to Hollywood and stand under the shower bath.”

(From Quick Service, by PG Wodehouse, c. 1940, Doubleday Doran)

As far as I got on an earlier day, painting with my old pal Marilyn. This is a big field painting, 20X24.

I left Maine with a hankering for painting boats. (They’re really one of my favorite things.) As I had to be in Irondequoit anyway, today seemed like a great opportunity to run up to Genesee Yacht Club to finish a painting I started a few years ago. I don’t like to paint from photos—not because of some arbitrary rules about what constitutes plein air, but because I see better in real space. And this painting has been sitting around since Marilyn Feinberg moved to Florida and quit being my painting buddy.

The forecast was for intermittent light rain. That’s very doable with oil paints, so I packed my stuff and headed north. However, there’s a fine line between light rain and the kind of rain that works your paint into a solid emulsion. What we were getting this afternoon was on the wrong side of that line. We live in a naturally damp city that’s currently stuck in a heavy-rainfall pattern. There isn’t much one can do about it except move on to something else, like cleaning bookshelves.

Notice, however, that I’m not complaining. It may be dark, cool and rainy here too much of the time, but we don’t often have forest fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, or any of the other natural phenomena that plague other parts of the country. “Just throw your mind back to Hollywood, honey. Think of that old sun. Think of that old surf at Malibu,” said Mr. Steptoe. For my money he can keep it.

There is only one slot open for my July workshop at Lakewatch Manor in Rockland, ME, and August and September are sold out. Join us in July or October, but please hurry! Check here for more information.

Category: PG Wodehouse

Courting dementia

Heavy Weather