In memory of Julia Child,
born on this date:

Elements of Style

“Born Julia McWilliams in 1912, she was the product of the best American genetic engineering, bouncing out of an old-money, privileged Pasadena childhood like a kind of WASP merry prankster….”

— Dorothy Kalins in Newsweek, issue dated Aug. 23, 2004

When I read this, admiring the style of both Julia Child and Dorothy Kalins, I thought of a  blurb I’d seen yesterday in aldaily.com:

“If only academics had the wit and nerve to honor style… more»”

I didn’t click on the blurb then, but the spirit of Julia prompted me to click just now.  This is what I found, in an essay written while Child was still alive, as examples of style:

“Think of Michael Jordan and Jerry West each making a 20-foot jump shot, of Charlie Parker and Ben Webster playing a chorus of ‘All the Things You Are,’ of Julia Child and Paul Prudhomme fixing a duck à l’orange, or of Pieter Brueghel and Vincent van Gogh painting the same farmhouse.”

— Ben Yagoda in Chronicle of Higher Education, issue dated Aug. 13, 2004