Last night on the radio, a thoughtful newslady explained to us what she said were “warning signs of frostbite.” This is a subject of more than theoretical interest just here and just now.

“The first sign of frostbite,” she said, “is a tingling sensation in the face or extremities.”

Oh yeah?

A tingling sensation in the face or extremities is not the first sign of frostbite for me. For me, a tingling sensation is the first sign of being outside in the winter. Even when it’s a whole lot warmer than it is right now.

The stages that follow are numbness and aching.

All these stages occur within the first thirty seconds of exposure.

God bless the U.S. Air Force, which invented the arctic snorkel parka that’s the only thing that makes it possible for me to actually leave the house between November and April.

The January Smithsonian Magazine includes an article on Norman Mailer by Lance Morrow.

Here’s a paragraph that struck me:

In Mailer’s work, one feels more in the presence of energy and virtuosity than of truth… Except for some journalistic bull’s-eyes in the reportage (riffs on politicians like Nixon and Hubert Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy), Mailer simply does not feel true. Reading some of his more strenuous cosmic exertions is a little like watching an actor onstage who picks up a suitcase that is supposedly full, but is, in fact, empty: the actor by body English tries to make the bag look heavy, as Mailer tries to make the sentences profound. But the audience knows.

I get the impression that when Morrow speaks of “truth” he’s writing about something he probably can’t define and doesn’t really believe in. But even for intellectuals, the heart knows. The heart can tell.