For him, it started 12 years ago when Adam fed his ill tropical fish a prequel supplement that Arthur developed from the studies of Dr. Murray Maynard.
Hatcheries were tried once, with the result that a lot of ill-bred fish got into the gene pool.
It was, as Irving Howe wrote in "World of Our Fathers," his classic study of Jewish immigrant life, "pushcart territory," a narrow lane teeming with vendors of "shawls, bananas, oilcloth, garlic, trousers, ill-favored fish, ready-to-wear spectacles".
The second was a virtuoso performance by both the kitchen and service staffs during Saturday dim sum brunch, with prospective diners packed as tightly as the ill-fated fish in the tanks nearby, and an endless parade of trolleys and trays, all laden with dishes that invited prolonged discussion.
It's not just that an ill-tempered fish could bite him in an embarrassing spot, or even that his boss may happen by and see that he is not in fact "brainstorming with clients over a power lunch," as he wrote on his time sheet.
The ill-tempered fish, which has been known to bite the fingers of divers who approach its territory, nibbles incessantly on the coral not to eat it but to kill the living tissue so that algae, the fish's favorite food, can grow on the dead coral skeletons.
Three persons with suspected infection became ill after fishing in the Sea of Galilee, and 1 with laboratory-confirmed V. vulnificus biotype 3 infection reported immersion in a natural spring near Jerusalem with an open wound.
More successful are the portraits of Uncle Dart, a brash transplant from Texas, and Shane, a friend with whom Nathan gets into varying degrees of mischief, from a failed attempt to get high smoking banana peels to a violently ill-fated fishing trip.
