With this guide to health, there is...

With this guide to health, there is no guarantee for life or liberty--only the pursuit of ecstasy

Don’t worry, my friend Duke Russell and I are at work on our book, “The Jack and Duke Way to Ecstasy (Including Ray Bradbury’s Recipe for Canned Tomato Soup: Or What Jane Fonda Didn’t Tell You.”

I was afraid Duke would think my recent heart failure had scotched the deal, but it didn’t bother him; he just kept on sending me ideas for the project, as if nothing had happened.

Actually, my experience should improve the book. I have survived heart failure and am now rehabilitating myself with a regimen of diet and exercise that should lengthen anyone’s life.

I was hoping we could get Jane Fonda to let us put her picture on the book, but I don’t think we need her now. I’m down to 137 1/2 pounds, and since I’m nearly 5 feet 11, that makes me thinner per inch of height than Jane is, and a better example.

Of course I am not shaped as well as Jane, if you care for the sylph-like female type; and also I have a scar down the center of my chest, from the by-pass. But, all things considered, I think I look rather exemplary for a man of my age.

Duke is just naturally lean, with a good beak of a nose and hawk eyes and high cheekbones, as if he might have a bit of Indian blood. He is into early middle-age, I’d say, having a couple of grown children, and reminds me of an old-time Western hero, like Randolph Scott or Buck Jones. He would be great modeling clothes for the mature man.

Nothing that’s happened to me should change the tone or theme of our book at all. It will still tell you how to get thin and stay thin, and how to pursue ecstasy. We are both still in pursuit of it and I think I have come as close to the real thing as anyone.

If you read our book you aren’t going to have to jog or play raquetball or engage in any other sweaty exercises, and you aren’t going to have to become a vegetarian either. You will be able to drink plenty of cheap wine and beer as long as you aren’t driving.

While I was in the hospital I thought of something new for it. We’re going to include a list of the 100 books any civilized person of our times ought to read. Don’t worry--it won’t be the same old stuff. It will include a condensed version of the Bible’s literary masterpieces (especially the Songs of Solomon, speaking of ecstasy); Mark Twain’s “ A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” (funnier than “Huckleberry Finn”); “Let Your Mind Alone,” by James Thurber, and one or two of my books.

As for the complaint that a man in my dubious physical condition ought not to write a book about fitness, I refer you to a comment by the British journalist, cynic and wit, Cyril Connolly, which was called to my attention by Noel Corngold of San Marino.

“The health of a writer,” Connolly wrote, “should not be too good, and perfect only in those periods of convalescence when he is not writing. Rude health, as the name implies, is averse to culture and demands either physical relief or direct action for its bursting energy.

“Action to the healthy man seems so desirable that literary creation is felt to be shaming and is postponed till action has engendered fatigue which is then transmitted to the reader . . . . Except on holiday a writer should not be fitter than his public or too well for reading and meditation . . . . “

By the way, Connolly lived to be 71, though he lived in London, breathing its unhealthful vapors and, I presume, disdaining exercise and a low-cholesterol diet.

I am at present taking a cardiac rehabilitation class at Huntington Memorial Hospital, along with a group of jolly people of various ages who have suffered one sort of cardiac setback or another. We are made to ride stationary bicycles and walk on treadmills while our instructors, a team of buoyantly healthy young women, monitor our pulses and cheer us on with lively conversation, trivia questions and a recorded medley of choral highlights from Gilbert & Sullivan, “Il Trovatore,” Beethoven’s Ninth, Handel’s “Messiah” and other stirring favorites, sung by a mixed chorus that changes gears like a Porsche driver on a mountain road.

Meanwhile, I have restored our little television set to my den, so I can watch it while I ride my stationary bicycle. The other day I caught a “Get Smart” rerun and the next day a part of an old “Superman” show in black and white.

I am wondering whether any good that comes of my bicycling in my den may be undone by the deterioration of my mental sensitivity from watching daytime TV. I will treat of this in our book.

You remember that we promised Ray Bradbury’s recipe for canned tomato soup? Well, we actually didn’t have it lined up yet, but now we’ve heard from Bradbury, as follows:

“Since you’ve mentioned it several times recently, here’s the recipe for Bradbury’s canned tomato soup: 1 can Campbell’s tomato soup. One quart of milk. One pound of crackers. Heat soup, keep adding milk. Crunch crackers constantly into mix until you get what looks like a liquid pizza. One pound of crackers just about does it for one can of soup plus the milk . . . . “

Doesn’t that sound yummy?

That’s just a sample of what you’re going to get in the “Jack and Duke Way to Ecstasy.”