It’s high summer here in Colorado, with the mercury at 93 – possibly the coolest day we’ve logged all week. Our car thermometer registered 108 yesterday, but surely this was a mistake?   You don’t hear many complaints, though, probably because the humidity is so low hereabouts.  In the winter, with the heat cranked up on a cold day, we’ve seen the humidity fall below 10 percent inside the house – practically as dry as the Gobi Desert. On the comfort index, a 93-degree summer day in Colorado feels like maybe 77 degrees in Baltimore.  When we moved here from San Francisco in 1999, many of the things we brought with us that were made of laminated wood dried out and cracked after a few years: cutting boards, a coffee table, dining room chairs.  Anyone planning on moving to this region of the country with a Bösendorfer should consider selling it and buying another piano when you get here, since the climate change is bound to play havoc with the instrument’s soundboard.

At this time of year, newspapers seem to suffer heat stroke before the rest of us.  We searched in vain for the obligatory boy-in-the-well story, but perhaps the editors are saving it for August. The big news over the weekend was that BP’s oil cap appeared to be holding, and that pressure levels were sufficient to suggest the well-bore is intact. Unfortunately, good news is no news as far as the tabloids are concerned, and so this very encouraging development in the Gulf didn’t even rate a mention in the “Editor’s Picks” of the New York Daily News. As of late Sunday afternoon, here are some of the stories that did make the list: 1) Biden Defends Tea Party Against Racist Claims; 2)  Neo-Nazi Groups Patrol Arizona-Mexico Border; and, 3)  These Leading Ladies Don’t Mind Baring All for Magazines.

Ladies Bare All

Concerning that last story, Mel Gibson in particular should be grateful that there are leading ladies willing to bare it all (in this case, one of the stars of television’s “Mad Men” has given it up for Playboy).  Not that Gibson was entirely forgotten over the weekend. In fact, the New York Times’ Frank Rich, of all people, took up “The Good News About Mel Gibson.” A summary of this essay wouldn’t do it justice, since, as you can well imagine, it’s quite a trick to extract good news from the Gibson saga. Anyone familiar with Rich’s work will already know, however, that he did not try to excuplate Gibson by arguing that the actor/producer was driven over the edge by the one thing that can drive just about any man over the edge – i.e., a woman – in this case, one with a vendetta and a recording device. We’re not going to say that our heart goes out to poor old Mel, but we wouldn’t begrudge him the chance to tell his side of the story on Larry King.  If he does, consider it summer entertainment for a few days — until some kid falls in a well and the media spotlight gives him his 15 minutes of fame.

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