deny), and that it is settled that a man is to learn from the bee (which I also deny), the question still remains, what is he to learn?. . . They work; but don’t you think they overdo it?. . . And are human labourers to have no holidays, because of the bees?. . . And am I never to have a change of air, because the bees don’t?’ The guy’s a genius!” Bee said. “The only good thing about being here is that Dickens spent a lot of time in Kent.”
“I’ll beat him from top to bottomus,” I said, trying to cheer her up with our old Bert Lahr game.
“Who, Dickens?”
“No, your hippopotamus of a patron ,” I said. “They commissioned you, right? And now they’re making trouble about it.”
“Yeah, I know. If you don’t like my peaches, don’t shake my tree! . . . But their minion’s more like a crocodile.”
“I’d add him to the woodpile!”
“Or maybe a gnu.”
“I’d show ’im the ol’ one-two!”
“Canterbury’s such a dump.”
“I’d give it a big red lump!”
“Did I ever tell you about the water?”
“I’d take it to the slaughter!”
“No, Harry, listen! It’s full of white stuff. It leaves white rings on all your glassware. Scum forms on the top of my tea that looks like tectonic plates!”
“Try a cup.”
Bee finally attended to my dilemma and came up with an idea: look in the phonebook, maybe I could find an evening class in public speaking or something. This was quite a concession on her part, since I’d driven her nuts as a teenager by reading phonebooks for pleasure (sometimes out loud!). But once again she was right. There were millions of people in the Yellow Pages who claimed to be experts in public speaking, after-dinner talks, wedding speeches, PowerPoint pontification and corporate presentations: a whole hierarchy of coaches, consultants, professors, presentation maestri and mentors, trainers, gurus, shamans, and lamas were gathered there, all pretty eager to present themselves if nothing else. But I finally settled on a guy called M. Z. Fortune, because he held seminars in New York (everybody likes a “seminar”) and had a sideline teaching firemen how to give presentations. (What did they give speeches about? Dalmatian care? Maybe they were much in demand at arsonists’ conferences.) I’d always had a soft spot for firemen (and their vehicles ). Firemen seemed much superior to cops. Firemen are noble—and so tidy! All they do is rescue cats and people, comfort them, and establish order out of chaos. They make nice . Even without the 9/11 massacre, you can’t beat firemen for heroism. I think I now felt that even being indirectly connected to firemen might somehow help me with my speech, so I emailed this M. Z. Fortune for an appointment.
Then I sat down to play the piano. Lately I’d been playing Smetana, Ligeti and Scriabin, but now I tried Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s “Collage-Montage,” a piece that reminded me maybe too much of Gertrude : it’s a medley of explosions, confusions, disagreements, rifts, sulks, and slammed doors, all of which Aimard (like Berlioz!) seems to have a terrible time bringing to an end ( just as I did with Gertrude). I worked my way toward the finish now with all due vigor and determination.
Fortune soon replied. We arranged to meet for lunch at Kelley & Ping (my choice) on Groundhog Day, which was only a couple of weeks away. He suggested I read his book in the meantime, The People’s Guide to Presentations , and bring it to the restaurant so he’d recognize me. I was in deep now: reading a self-help manual? Dickens, I imagined, it was not.
Actually, Bee doesn’t always know everything in the Ant and Bee books. In Ant and Bee and the Rainbow , it’s Bee who gets all bent out of shape. . . He can’t keep up with Ant in this one at all. They agree on how to paint the old tire to look (a bit) like a rainbow (“So Ant and Bee happily began to paint the rubber tyre with the colour called. . . RED”, etc.), but
“I’ll beat him from top to bottomus,” I said, trying to cheer her up with our old Bert Lahr game.
“Who, Dickens?”
“No, your hippopotamus of a patron ,” I said. “They commissioned you, right? And now they’re making trouble about it.”
“Yeah, I know. If you don’t like my peaches, don’t shake my tree! . . . But their minion’s more like a crocodile.”
“I’d add him to the woodpile!”
“Or maybe a gnu.”
“I’d show ’im the ol’ one-two!”
“Canterbury’s such a dump.”
“I’d give it a big red lump!”
“Did I ever tell you about the water?”
“I’d take it to the slaughter!”
“No, Harry, listen! It’s full of white stuff. It leaves white rings on all your glassware. Scum forms on the top of my tea that looks like tectonic plates!”
“Try a cup.”
Bee finally attended to my dilemma and came up with an idea: look in the phonebook, maybe I could find an evening class in public speaking or something. This was quite a concession on her part, since I’d driven her nuts as a teenager by reading phonebooks for pleasure (sometimes out loud!). But once again she was right. There were millions of people in the Yellow Pages who claimed to be experts in public speaking, after-dinner talks, wedding speeches, PowerPoint pontification and corporate presentations: a whole hierarchy of coaches, consultants, professors, presentation maestri and mentors, trainers, gurus, shamans, and lamas were gathered there, all pretty eager to present themselves if nothing else. But I finally settled on a guy called M. Z. Fortune, because he held seminars in New York (everybody likes a “seminar”) and had a sideline teaching firemen how to give presentations. (What did they give speeches about? Dalmatian care? Maybe they were much in demand at arsonists’ conferences.) I’d always had a soft spot for firemen (and their vehicles ). Firemen seemed much superior to cops. Firemen are noble—and so tidy! All they do is rescue cats and people, comfort them, and establish order out of chaos. They make nice . Even without the 9/11 massacre, you can’t beat firemen for heroism. I think I now felt that even being indirectly connected to firemen might somehow help me with my speech, so I emailed this M. Z. Fortune for an appointment.
Then I sat down to play the piano. Lately I’d been playing Smetana, Ligeti and Scriabin, but now I tried Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s “Collage-Montage,” a piece that reminded me maybe too much of Gertrude : it’s a medley of explosions, confusions, disagreements, rifts, sulks, and slammed doors, all of which Aimard (like Berlioz!) seems to have a terrible time bringing to an end ( just as I did with Gertrude). I worked my way toward the finish now with all due vigor and determination.
Fortune soon replied. We arranged to meet for lunch at Kelley & Ping (my choice) on Groundhog Day, which was only a couple of weeks away. He suggested I read his book in the meantime, The People’s Guide to Presentations , and bring it to the restaurant so he’d recognize me. I was in deep now: reading a self-help manual? Dickens, I imagined, it was not.
Actually, Bee doesn’t always know everything in the Ant and Bee books. In Ant and Bee and the Rainbow , it’s Bee who gets all bent out of shape. . . He can’t keep up with Ant in this one at all. They agree on how to paint the old tire to look (a bit) like a rainbow (“So Ant and Bee happily began to paint the rubber tyre with the colour called. . . RED”, etc.), but
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