Archive for April, 2015

Define marriage

April 30, 2015

The most recent Scenes from a Multiverse (available on-line here) tackles the task of the U.S. Supreme Court:

The legal issues here are genuinely complex, but apparently SCOTUS isn’t contemplating undoing the same-sex marriages that have already happened as a result of judicial actions (as opposed to legislation or popular vote), though it could conceivably let stand existing bans in some states.

Then there’s the question of extending protections against discrimination based on sexuality to those jurisdictions that don’t now have them — or not.

And there’s more.

Feuilleton: Allan Kayser

April 30, 2015

In a discussion of The Gospel Four (I Won’t Walk Without Jesus) on Facebook, things veered — don’t ask — onto the tv show Mama’s Family, which brought us to Allan Kayser from the show and led me to some excellent shirtlessness.

(more…)

Feuilleton: Simon & Simon

April 30, 2015

Caught in passing, in a NYT obit for Don Mankiewicz, a reference to his writing scripts for many tv shows, including Simon & Simon, which was a great favorite of my guy Jacques.

(more…)

Feuilleton: red-flannel hash

April 30, 2015

Noticed in passing: a recipe in the NYT for red-flannel hash: a colorfully named dish.

(more…)

It never ends

April 29, 2015

Today’s One Big Happy:

Always upping the ante.

Note the (widespread) opinion that school teachers make big bucks — an idea that Joe certainly didn’t come to on his own.

Ignaz Pleyel

April 29, 2015

Ignaz Pleyel’s Symphony in G Major (Benton 130) went by me on WQXR (classical music in NYC) yesterday, and I was reminded what a fascinating character Pleyel is. This will lead us to shapenote singing and then, via the composer’s personal name, to the Jesuits and Krazy Kat.

(more…)

A sense of place

April 28, 2015

As Baltimore rages, I’m moved to polish up a piece that’s been sitting on my computer for some months, about how the city has been represented over the years, in print, in film, and on television. The city about which F. Scott Fitzgerald (who lived there for five years in the 1930s) said, “I belong here, where everything is civilized and gay and rotted and polite.”

(more…)

Morning: Jerry van Amerongen

April 28, 2015

An excellent Dutch name this morning: the cartoonist Jerry van Amerongen. From Wikipedia:

Jerry Van Amerongen is a cartoonist based in the United States. His work includes the comic panel Ballard Street, which has run since 1991. Before 1991 he drew a comic panel entitled The Neighborhood for ten years.

(more…)

Unconventional lives

April 28, 2015

Following up on my posting on Elsa Lanchester, some remarks on her unconventional family and her relationship with Charles Laughton. And then notes on the spectacularly unconventional lives of Lord Berners and Robert Heber-Percy.

(more…)

Grimmy rides with Snoopy

April 28, 2015

Today’s Mother Goose and Grimm does a crossover with Peanuts:

(#1)

That’s Snoopy, who imagines himself as a World War I flying ace, while imagining his doghouse as a Sopwith Camel.

(#2)

(more…)