A Cartoon I Wrote with My Wife

Me: Have you ever read Pliny the Elder?

She: Ha Ha…I’ve never read Pliny the Elder or Pliny the Younger for that matter--why do you ask?

Me: Because Italo Calvino says Pliny the Elder is “indispensable” in his book, Why Read the Classics.

She: O! I just thought you were trying to make me laugh again…but you’re serious, aren’t you?

Me: Italo Calvino is a serious writer and serious writers are serious men! Plus, Pliny the Elder died in the eruption of Vesuvius and this makes him a real writer of interest to me.

She: Well then, you better read Pliny the Elder pretty soon…you’re not getting any younger.

Gena Rowlands, screenshot from the movie “Faces”, 1968, a film made by John Cassavetes, her husband.