Act I Scene I best for Jerry Nachman

When former Chronicle critic Jerry Nachman died Saturday, April 14, he was 80, not a young man any more. His decline had been slow and painful, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t still looking ahead.

A few days before, I had seen the proposed cover of a book he was planning to publish. “I’d Like Two Tickets to Yesterday” is a collection of his columns, and he’d wanted me to take a look at it, with its image of Jimmy Durante. While I was doing that, I also took a look at the picture of the author, chosen by himself to go along with the book’s introduction. It was Jerry as he always perceived himself: boyish, friendly, an image of the supposedly shy-ish guy who’d make a wisecrack, who was always ready to get dressed up for a night on the town.

This was fitting for someone who wrote so much about show business. His reviews — whether heaping lavish praise or scowling disapproval — were always written from the point of view of a man who liked being out on the town, particularly to be with, and be seen with, a woman he was at the time adoring.

He loved a date and he loved dating, and when I once asked him if he didn’t ever crave the point in a relationship when all pretense had been discarded, he looked at me as though I were nuts. “For me,” he said, “the best part is when I ring the doorbell for the first date, and there she is, all dressed up.” Ta-da, it seems that’s not unlike the moment at a play that the curtain goes up, or the spotlight shoots its rays onto a singer standing in the middle of the stage.

When Jerry was hired as a cultural critic at The Chronicle, I was still an editorial assistant, and clipping and filing his columns was part of my job description. During the 40 years of our friendship, I was often exasperated by the self-imposed limitations he was so proud of: He slammed his mental door on cultural developments after 1980 or so; he prided himself on being picky, a description that extended to every aspect of his life, including his eating habits.

Toward the end, composer/musicalwriter Rita Abrams created a group email to inform friends of his dwindling condition. He’d never been a health food eater, and he wasn’t going to start now. Jerry would like not one but two chocolate milkshakes, apple spice doughnuts, bread pudding, she wrote in one letter. By that time, he was eating very little, and I’m not sure whether Jerry meant “or” or “and” in those requests. But he never gave up looking for the magic.

Having read magazine articles about how to be popular, you, the adult reader, have learned to read other people’s moods. It may not be your fault, but you know when your spouse is distressed, your brother is angry, your kid is disappointed. But now that’s not enough.

News report from Washington last week: “Mr. Trump’s mood had begun to sour even before the raids on his lawyer. People close to the White House said that over the weekend, the president engaged in few activities other than dinner at the Trump International Hotel. He tuned into Fox News, they said, watched reports about the so-called Deep State looking to sink his presidency and became unglued.”

This seems to represent a whole new area of mandatory sensitivity: What color is the president’s mood ring? Is he happy today or sad? When he walks out into the Rose Garden and you notice a telltale furrow between his brows, his lips pressed together, you are advised to stay out of his way. Quick, hide in the bushes, as Sean Spicer did. Watch out, or you’re going to get it.

Abraham Lincoln may have had the blues, but at least his sense of humor lightened up the atmosphere around him. The need for Americans to cope with this president’s moods is like the need for parents to plan when taking a toddler to a grocery store. Is he overtired? Did he eat too much chocolate cake? Have a fight with his friend Stormy Daniels? There, there, Donald. Put him in the crib, close the door, and let him cry it out.

“He eventually calmed down and the anger abated,” reported the New York Times.

First woman: “I’m an empiricist, just so you know.” Second woman: “I’m a Pisces.”

Conversation between two women walking dogs, overheard at Point Isabel by Nancy Barrett