Good morning. Charles Portis has died. He was 86.

Cooking for Churchill during the Second World War was no easy task, but Georgina Landemare “eked out the rations into seven-course meals and accommodated both Churchill’s gluttony and his fussiness. There seem to have been plovers’ eggs in abundance.”

In praise of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s The Leopard: “The Leopard, E.M. Forster observed, is one of ‘the great lonely books’. If the prestigious protagonist felt lonely, then how much more isolated his real-life grandson, diminished representative of a discredited class, heir to almost worthless estates. His redolent title derived from the desolate island of Lampedusa south of Sicily, which more cat-like Tomasi ancestors (their heraldic device was a leopard) had pounced on in the seventeenth century . . . His eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ancestors sometimes seemed not to take their sublunary responsibilities seriously, almost becoming extinct several times by dedicating themselves to celibate and visionary religion. By the 1950s, the nominal overlord of this Ruritanian rock was constrained to live in Palermo, a city he disliked, in a crumbling palazzo, childless, knowing he was dying of emphysema.”

Is Wikipedia one of the Internet’s biggest successes? Richard Cooke argues it is: “Remember when Wikipedia was a joke? In its first decade of life, the website appeared in as many punch lines as headlines. The Office’s Michael Scott called it ‘the best thing ever,’ because ‘anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject—so you know you are getting the best possible information.’ Praising Wikipedia, by restating its mission, meant self-identifying as an idiot. That was in 2007. Today, Wikipedia is the eighth-most-visited site in the world.”

California’s “anti-gig-worker” law—or AB5—has been terrible for artists. “Since AB5 took effect on January 1, hundreds of thousands of Californians are finding their businesses in tatters. Musicians can’t join bands for a one-night gig, chefs can’t join forces with caterers, nurses can’t work at various hospitals, and writers must cap their submissions per media outlet to 35 per year. Under the law, these freelancers can no longer conduct the same business-to-business transactions they have for years or even decades. Clients with whom they fostered valuable relationships are gone.”

Condé Nast starts “multiple studios” for its major brands: “The New York-based media and publishing company is launching studios initially for five magazine titles: The New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Wired and GQ. With the move, CNE plans to hire a studio head at each title who will work alongside the editorial teams — with the goal of better identifying and developing projects for film, TV and podcasts.”

Essay of the Day:

“Derek Murphy investigates runners whose times seem suspicious, which is what brought him to a 70-year-old doctor named Frank Meza.” More in Wired:

“On a warm Saturday evening in late May, Derek Murphy, wearing cargo shorts and a polo shirt, sat on his living room floor, his back against the couch, his legs stretched out, his computer on his lap. A baseball game was on the television, but Murphy, 49, wasn’t paying much attention to it. He was too busy scrolling through hundreds of photos and combing over data on his computer. Occasionally he’d stop to sip from a can of diet soda. During the week, Murphy, who lives outside of Cincinnati, worked as a data analyst for a health insurance company. But in his free time, he pursued an unusual hobby: exposing cheaters in endurance races.

“Four years earlier, Murphy had started a website called Marathon Investigation, and recently he’d been looking at the results of the 2019 Los Angeles Marathon, which had taken place on March 24. With more than 24,000 runners competing, the LA Marathon is one of the largest 26.2-mile races in the country. It’s also a qualifying race for the Boston Marathon, the most prestigious in the United States. Murphy had been particularly interested in the results for a runner named Frank Meza.

“Meza, a prominent 70-year-old doctor from South Pasadena, California, hadn’t just qualified for the Boston Marathon, he’d run an exceptional time of 2 hours, 53 minutes that day, setting a record for the fastest marathon ever run by a man his age. This stood out to Murphy; over the years, he’d analyzed race results for thousands of amateur athletes and written about dozens who had cheated in various competitions. He typically starts his probing by looking at race splits—the time it takes a runner to cover a particular segment of a course. During many races, especially big ones like the LA Marathon, radio-frequency identification chips are embedded in runners’ bibs and record when the racers run over an RFID-enabled mat. Meza’s splits were consistent, showing that for the entire race, he ran six-and-a-half-minute miles. Still, several commenters on a popular message board for running enthusiasts, LetsRun.com, doubted Meza’s result. They had posted photos in which it appeared that Meza entered the run from a sidewalk during the middle of the race, suggesting the possibility that he cut part of the course and then reentered.”

Read the whole sad affair.

Photo: Hohensalzburg Castle

Poem: James Pollock, “Crossing the Seine” (HT: A. M. Juster)

Receive Prufrock in your inbox every weekday morning. Subscribe here.