A P.C. Vey cartoon in the latest (Sept. 5th) New Yorker:
Three things: the parallel between a steak on the grill and a book in progress; authorial anxiety over writing on something and completing it; and the pragmatics of the idioms in how’s it going? and how’s it coming?
Today’s Zippy takes us to Minneapolis MN, where people are flinging bowling balls, flinging them down Memory Lanes:
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In the New York Times yesterday, an obituary, “Jon Polito, a Favorite in Coen Brothers Films, Dies at 65” by Daniel E. Slotnik. Beginning:
Jon Polito, a character actor who often played law enforcement figures and gangsters and had memorable turns in many films by Joel and Ethan Coen, died on Thursday in Los Angeles. He was 65.
The cause was complications of multiple myeloma, his husband, Darryl Armbruster, said.
A mustached, balding, husky and burlap-voiced presence onscreen, Mr. Polito appeared in more than 200 films and television series, often as the heavy. He could convey the swagger and haplessness of a two-bit crook, the authority of a hardened homicide detective, the unctuous ingratiations of a yes man — as well as a sense of vulnerability, desperation and weakness.
… He met Mr. Armbruster, an actor, on Oct. 16, 1999, and they married on that day last year.
Polito in a characteristic role:
A holiday comes around — this is Labor Day weekend in the U.S. — and everybody has sales, on every damn thing. Gay porn is no exception, but certain holidays lend themselves especially to the interests of the porn industry: all patriotic holidays, since you can flog videos of military men; Fathers Day, when you can offer Daddy-Boy videos; and of course Labor Day, when blue-collar guys can go on sale.
One company is offering a large inventory of videos at (groan) “cock-bottom prices” and another is selling videos with blue-collar men who will “fill you up” for Labor Day. Similar things turn up every year. This year I’ll report, not on the porn sales, but on a Labor Day story from the gay press and some other racy specials for the holiday.
Two recent One Big Happy strips, one with Joe updating a nursery rhyme (with Ruthie’s help), one with Ruthie once again in the Land of Ambiguity:
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In today’s NYT Business news on-line, in hard copy tomorrow (Sunday): “A Warrior Against Junk Mail at Yahoo Looks Out for Mom, Too” (as told to Patricia R. Olsen), on Elizabeth Zwicky, 51, an anti-spam architect at Yahoo in Sunnyvale, Calif.
A very brief interview. Best quote:
Do you think your job will be obsolete one day?
No. Criminals have gotten better and better at designing spam. It may mutate, but it’s not going to stop. Spam is where evil meets advertising, and no one has ever gotten rid of either one.
From my sister-in-law Virginia Transue on Facebook, a comment on this Peter de Sève New Yorker cover of 7/28/08, “Summer Getaway”:
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Spot the error. Which Virginia’s grandson Owen (not yet 12) caught this summer, after the cover had been posted on the fridge for eight years (significant fact: the family has summered in Maine, way Down East, for many years).
Back to Tuesday morning, on patrol for my feet, with food diversions. Previous posting: shoes, Sushirrito, and Umami Burger. This one: pedicures and mangosteens.
… at the Pilsner Inn (in San Francisco):
(Hat tip to Aric Olnes.)
Not only a penguin with a Pride flag, but a nicely alliterative tetrameter line:
Penguin Pride at the Pilsner Inn
(mostly trochaic). Or pentameter:
Penguin Pride on the Pilsner Inn Patio
(clearly dactylic).
