Overheard

Unbelievable but real:

"...watched a documentary about the Holocaust.  She said it was sad..."

A correspondent forwards:

Did you feel it?

Similar to old Ben "Obi-Wan" Kenobi mentioning he felt a disturbance in the Force when whatever planet blows up, did you feel a psychic shudder - a feeling of unease, or maybe a dislocating of your soul - when, on Saturday, I was inflicted with the sheer bottomless anguish of knowing that the National have a lyric in their new single that says "if you want to see me cry/play Let It Be or Nevermind"? Ordinarily I would never believe this sense of disarray would somehow transmit to outside of my pained cranium and spirit, but you never know.  Apologies if I ruined your day or even your life.

What the hell show was this?

Was at my mother-in-law's on Sunday and this 70's sci-fi show was on...what the hell was it (never mind the obvious "why was this on?")?  My parents never divorced so who knows what else I missed.  Anyway:

This girl was always showing up in the 70's, such as on Brady Bunch
and I think she was one of the earliest (if not the first) to voice-act
Lucy in Peanuts specials.

2 Dogs

BONUS MUG!

Like a shittier "Survivor"

Um, yay

Also, Chicago show.  September 28. A Saturday, no less.

Good morning!

Ask me

about Neutral Milk Hotel touring.  No, ask me.  I dare you.

Or don't.  I don't give a fuck whether you ask or not, frankly.

Damn.

Did not know

(Judy Dench at right!)

that the way-trad "Wedding March" was from Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Popular with Tom Ripley!

Li'l Tom Buchanan w/ riding crop

Ladies from 1965 Spain, apparently:

Two La Croix things:

Have been trying to contact my friend Cory, who likes the coconut because his kids won't/don't drink it:

And here are some Black Flag bars:

In other words, MEAT

What the hell?

"#1 NYT bestseller?"  What?  Bring back
John Jakes!

Spring flora down SPUG way

Heaven is a tee shirt

WAY tired of hearing from various parties about just how soft a tee shirt can be.  In this post-American Apparel world it is, apparently, a matter of grave importance.

Weekend

Uh...calm down, Thom

Overheard:

"The cole slaw was terrible...there was a giant leaf in it and I can't stand leafs..."

Brill!:

No one thought to have Avery Schreiber play this guy?  FTW!

"The bonds of wedlock are so heavy that it takes two to carry them - sometimes three." - Alexandre Dumas

Am told this is crucial; must find time

Like the Grateful Dead, I don't care all that much for Mr. Ant's
music, but I find the story fascinating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo1Zm2O4yek

Sorry, wouldn't embed!

Overheard:

"uh...it's a beautiful language..."

Speaking of Georges

Clip 'n' Save George Jones Facebook post

Wait!  Are you an annoying pot-bellied pud, around 55 years old, but you are just too busy to make your obligatory appreciative post on Yay!book about George Jones dying?  I've got you covered!  Just copy and paste this:

George Jones RIP one of "the greats." He Stopped loving her Today allways reminds me alot of "good times" with my first wife! lol

You're set!

Jimmy Carter says yes

Yep

Also don't forget:

REMINDER!

Overheard:

"...then it's kickass, and win win win win..."

More great news!

This should win a Nobel

Good news at last

The Byronic Man

No shit, George

There is a tide in the affairs of women,
Which, when taken at the flood, leads - God
knows where.
-Lord Bryon

Scan From a Book I'm Pitching II

From cover of Modern Manners by PJ O'Rourke, 1989.  Sigh.

Not blaming you, exactly

No one told me that there was an exhibition in the UK in 2011 of the library book covers that Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell defaced in the early sixties, before Orton got famous and Halliwell murdered him with a hammer?  What's wrong with everybody?

Scan From a Book I'm Pitching

What a demoralizing nickname! [from The Catholic Fact Book, 1986]

Oh, Evan

Trucker w/ sucker

Bees?

Me, forty minutes from now

Now there is all sorts of talk around of me doing a bee hive here at work.  Oh, well, you only die once.  Actually, I'd love to become a bee dude, show up all crusty in some surprisingly expensive flannel shirt and be the guy who just puts his hand into 30,000 bees and either doesn't get stung or, better, gets stung ten times but is more tough than mule hide and is thus unfazed.

That this product exists blows my trapped-in-'89 mind

Right in the middle of the aisle at Walmart, natch, where I had gone for a gasoline can.  "Precise application!"

Hollyhocks!

Crotchety Al gave me enough hollyhock seeds to fill up a third of a venti Starbucks cup.  I'ma plant them, add some color around the yard and perhaps in the abandoned tractor tire that someone donated to SPUG.

AREN'T YOU THRILLED ABOUT THIS?

And I yawned when I first read this:

Perrys, currently

We were beaten to the second-child punch by this bunch.  Again: write your no-good senator demanding world peace so these characters can come home from Germany, please.  Thanks!

Sweet relief

Just threw away 1200 emails, felt great!

Scary

Anyone who has read this blog regularly may start to feel that they "know" me.  While I put up lots and lots
and lots of crucial information, I'm a much more complicated and wonderful entity than ever be gleaned from my profound verbiage.  For instance, did you know that when I was a little kid I spent a couple of days being scared of this album cover?  I would look at it, in my brothers' collection [I can't remember which brother this belonged to].  Then I would put it back.  Then I was drawn back to it.  Then I'd get spooked and move away.  And I can remember, with a full force stronger than the love that you feel for the person who has been the most important to you in your life, a sensation of "What's with the magic marker?  Did [brother] Phil write that?  Huh?"

So, it was a pretty wild time, obviously.

And here is a painting by John Updike's daughter Miranda