Spider, short-order cook
I went looking for short-order cooks and found Spider, a short film by Gary Anderson.
Orange Crate Art
Dark Passage streetcar
At the intersection of Powell and Market.
Larry Taylor (1942–2019)
“Now in order to have a good boogie, you gotta have a bottom. And on that bottom, babies, we got Mister Larry Taylor, alias ‘The Mole’”: thus spake Bob “The Bear” Hite, on the 1968 Canned Heat recording “Fried Hockey Boogie.” Larry’s death is a major loss to music.
The present King of Greenland
This reality-television show, now in its third season, is going off the rails.
Word of the day: Nowheresville
Excuse me: Peoria is the second largest city in central Illinois (after Springfield). Nowheresville my eye.
Harry’s Wagon
A San Francisco diner, as seen in Dark Passage.
An EXchange name sighting
From Dark Passage: GReystone.
Shelby Lyman (1936–2019)
PBS’s coverage of the Fischer-Spassky match was a wonder.
Recently updated
A Mac app made better.
Twelve movies
Philomena and others.
Mike Pompeo, heat-seeking missile
“He’s like a heat-seeking missile for Trump’s ass.”
Domestic comedy
“My knowledge of Star Trek is pretty limited.”
“A kind of foreshortening”
From Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities.
Start sharpening
It’s National #2 Pencil Day.
The one that got away
J.D. Lowe has discovered an overlooked murder in an episode of Perry Mason.
Today’s Saturday Stumper
I am never exactly “Brimming with confidence.” That’s 2-D, nine letters.
To “have seen”
Wide-ranging surveys always make me think of the experience of going to a museum to “have seen” the paintings, moving from one to another at a brisk pace as if the point is to cross things off a list.
Homer and Cain
But first Fred MacMurray came up to talk to me. He wouldn’t be in my next class today because he had to study for a grammar test, after which he wanted to talk to me about his dissertation.
Books as armor
I was accumulating books as armor, as protection, as certification that I belonged in the academic world I aspired to enter. I didn’t wear my armor: it just sat on shelves at home, where it could come in handy as needed.
Waving realism
Earlier in the strip, a bottle of Hair Waving Lotion (For an Instant Wave) stood close to the edge of a living-room table. The bottle crashed and splashed when the cat’s tail hit it. In this final panel, we see the result. I like the realism.
“A night in October”
A night in October is a blanket is a night in October.
Branding amok
The Ohio State University has filed a trademark application for the word “the.”
Doublethink
So China pays tariffs, but tariffs need to be delayed because to impose them would raise prices for American consumers. So who’s paying tariffs?
Fifty blog-description lines
“To cause passers to stop in wonder”
Dozer
Dozer, a free app for macOS, hides one or more or nearly all menu bar icons.
Nick Walusko (1960–2019)
Nick Walusko, aka Nicky Wonder, cofounder of the Wondermints and longtime guitarist with Brian Wilson, has died at the age of fifty-nine. Too soon. Too soon.
New Proust
Nine unpublished stories, coming this fall.
e-Salinger
Salinger e-books.
Word of the day: flea-bane
Flea-bane, bane of fleas!
Imaginary Bedminster
“I’ve given him something that will help him sleep.”