Earlier in the evening we heard the peal of a burglar alarm going off nearby and, per established practice, ventured outside to investigate. It was the home of one of our neighbors, Art Weller, a fellow of my age. As I ventured up the front steps I could see two or three people, also mid-sixtyish, standing about. Turns out they're Art's relatives, there to start going through his papers, as Art pegged out unexpectedly of an aortal aneurysm on the last day of 2016. He was a good guy, and a leftist who very much lived his principles. He was a regular at our "Italian film nights," and probably made four dozen of them over the years.

The alarm is still going off—ten minutes of clamor alternating with ten minutes of silence—and the service provider professes itself helpless to correct it. "Alarm code goes into 'in the event of my death' instructions" gets added to my estate planning to-do list.

It's not a case for "sorry for your loss," because we were never tight buds, but I admired the guy, he was an interesting conversationalist, and we used to do one another neighborly favors (watering plants, retrieving mail) to cover our out-of-towns. When he was mugged the other year, the robber taking off with a pack containing his wallet and his keys, Lina dug into her bag of specialized tools and found one that allowed us to take the security bars off his bedroom window to get in, and we advanced him the scratch for an emergency locksmith. We particularly appreciated the fact that, having given up car ownership, he used to let us park in front of his driveway.

Also, as I say, he and I are contemporaries, and I hate to see these being taken down.

cordially,