Mitch's Blog
Cory defends lifehacking, which “is in pretty bad odor these days, and with good reason: a once-useful catch-all for describing how to make things easier has become a pit of productivity porn, grifter hustling, and anodyne advice wreathed in superlatives and transformed into SEO-compliant listicles.” But at its core, lifehacking is just a collection of little tricks that help people be more productive.
Your Local Epidemiologist: How to (and not to) boost your immune system
Works: “A balanced, nutrient-dense diet,” sleep and hydration.
Doesn’t work: Getting re-infected; dietary supplements (for most people) including Vitamin C, Vitamin D and probiotics; cold plunges; nasal breathing; saunas.
How Cory Doctorow cured his writer’s block:
… the key turned out to be the realization that while there were days when (in retrospect) I wrote well and days when I wrote poorly, and days when I _felt _like I was writing well and days when I felt like I was writing poorly, they weren’t the same days. I could write great material even when I felt like I was writing shit. I could write shit when I felt like I was doing the best writing of my life.
Helpful for any kind of skilled work.
On the futility of blocking spammers on social media
People who spend a lot of time posting to social media often spend time going through their follower list and getting rid of the spammers and bots. I’ve never seen the point of that. As long as the bots aren’t interacting with my account, or otherwise getting in my face, I say let ‘em be. I have other things to do with my time.
No doubt many or perhaps most of my social media followers are bots. Doesn’t bother me. As long as I know real people are following my posts and enjoying them, that’s sufficient to keep me going.
I also distribute these posts via a newsletter. One day I checked the stats there and saw the newsletter had thousands of subscribers, and was growing fast. I was quite pleased.
Then a while after that I looked at the subscriber list and saw that many of those subscribers were bots. So I figured out how to prune the bots, and found that the actual number of human subscribers I had was 24.
Twenty four. Not 24,000 or 2,400. Two dozen.
Sad-face emoji.
The newsletter is up to about 26 subscribers now. But at least a few of those 26 subscribers seem to enjoy the newsletter, and it’s set-and-forget for me—runs automatically—so I’m happy to keep it going.
By the way, if you want to subscribe to the newsletter, you can do that here. Just think—your action alone can increase the subscriber base by nearly 4% and that’s quite an accomplishment!
“Brand New Key” is actually a song about sex! Holy shit!
The word of the day is “pharmacovigilance.”
Penn Jillette Wants to Talk It All Out
I was going to move to France with my girlfriend and be a beatnik existential writer — she broke up with me, I was very upset, I said, “Fuck you,” and went to Clown College.
On the importance of agreeing on consensus reality:
We can argue forever about gun control — whether that’s a good idea or a bad idea, including what the framers thought — but if we can’t agree that the shootings happened, then we can’t talk.
Also:
As a good friend of mine said, “I don’t mind being called an asshole — I don’t want to be an asshole.”
He talks about renouncing libertarianism; Bob Dylan; the Smothers Brothers; the risk of monetizing hate, aggression and outrage; Jewish identity; why he doesn’t speak out about Israel and Hamas (pretty much the same reason I don’t); the Three Stooges; fame; ambition; Donald Trump; and why, despite numerous problems, the world is better off today than it has been.
Today’s ephemera: Weiner Bar Mitzvah
Downworthy: A browser plugin to turn hyperbolic viral headlines into what they really mean:
- “Literally” becomes “Figuratively”
- “Will Blow Your Mind” becomes “Might Perhaps Mildly Entertain You For a Moment”
- “One Weird Trick” becomes “One Piece of Completely Anecdotal Horseshit”
- “Go Viral” becomes “Be Overused So Much That You’ll Silently Pray for the Sweet Release of Death to Make it Stop”
- “Can’t Even Handle” becomes “Can Totally Handle Without Any Significant Issue”
- “Incredible” becomes “Painfully Ordinary”
- “You Won’t Believe” becomes “In All Likelihood, You’ll Believe”
The lost ancient practice of communal sleep. “Until the mid-19th Century, it was completely normal to share a bed with friends, colleagues and even total strangers. How did people cope? And why did we stop?”
Powerful and disturbing: My grandpa was a Nazi, by Bastian Allgeier.
I canceled my ChatGPT subscription. I’m just not using it enough to justify the $20/mo.
I had in mind creating my own GPT—my own individual AI assistant—but I haven’t prioritized doing so, and I don’t see that changing in the near future.
I thought that ChatGPT might make a good writing assistant. But ChatGPT’s first drafts are hopeless. It’s easier and faster for me to write from scratch.
This is not a forever decision. I expect I’ll give it another try soon enough.
Is anyone else having a problem with micro.blog posts propagating out over ActivityPub? Maybe “propagating” isn’t the right word here—I mean that when I go to mastodon.social/@mitchw@mitchw.blog, the newest post I see is from Saturday. @help
Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic@mamot.fr):
The most amazing things about monopolies is how the contempt just oozes out of them. It’s like these guys can’t even pretend to give a shit. You want guillotines? Because that’s how you get guillotines.
Big Pharma jacks up the price on Ozempic and other powerful meds because these companies are monopolies, and they can do that. Apple pulls “a malicious compliance stunt that could shame the surly drunks my great-aunt Lisa used to boss in the Soviet electrical engineering firm she ran.” Ello, “the ‘indie’ social media startup that literally promised – on the sacred honor of its founders – that it would never sell out its users,” goes ahead and sells out its users. Also: The Trolley Problem—solved (in the same way that James Kirk solved the Kobayashi Maru).
For a moment there, Lotus Notes appeared to do everything.
The program was a weird combination of email, databases, and workflow that allowed companies to stand up custom applications and deploy them to relevant groups of workers inside Notes.
Also:
… It provided not just your email, but an internal telephone directory, contact database, booking system for time off, company handbook, and more, all accessible via a single application and a single set of credentials, long before single sign-on became a thing.
Nowadays, it is common for most if not all of these functions to be delivered via separate web-based applications, each requiring a different login so you need to have dozens of different credentials, and each one sporting a different user interface. So I guess you could regard the web browser as an app runtime that is the ultimate successor to Notes?
Also:
Eventually, IBM, which had acquired Lotus in 1995, announced in 2012 that it would be discontinuing the Lotus brand altogether, before offloading Notes to Indian software outfit HCL Technologies in 2018.
The platform still survives, with HCL releasing Domino 14.0 last year, which, as The Register commented at the time, speaks to the “stickiness” of the custom workflows built on the platform.
Also:
But Notes is nowhere near holding the record for the oldest piece of software still being used. The US Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA), which takes care of contracts for the Department of Defense (DoD), is said to have a program called Mechanization of Contract Administration Services (MOCAS), which was introduced in 1958, making it nearly twice as old.
A tale of two cities: one real, one virtual.
Digital city-building has become a legitimate part of urban planning, helping to mirror the present — and map the future.
“Digital twins” are transforming urban planning in Barcelona, Ukraine(!), Helsinki, and Singapore and advancing archeology in Pompeii.
A digital twin is a digital model of a real-world object, using sensors to measure changes in real time. Used in urban planning, a digital twin of the city can predict how changes will affect the city over time: For example, how adding a traffic signal would affect traffic patterns.
The goal is “‘to build an oracle,’ says Jordi Cirera Gonzalez, director of the Knowledge Society at Barcelona City Council, and a man not short on ambition. ‘Like the ancient Greeks’: a place where you can ask anything you can imagine and it’s possible to find some answer.’”
Barcelona’s digital twin project “lives within the deconsecrated Torre Girona chapel, on the campus of the Barcelona Polytechnic. Where once one might have prayed to God for an answer, now one goes to a computer.”
I wrote about digital twins for cities for Oracle in 2021: The smart city gets even smarter
Today’s ephemera: What’s all this then?
The Price of Netanyahu’s Ambition.
Amid war with Hamas, a hostage crisis, the devastation of Gaza, and Israel’s splintering identity, the Prime Minister seems unable to distinguish between his own interests and his country’s.
For liberal, secular Israelis, Netanyahu has always been an object of scorn on a range of social and political issues, but now, across the ideological landscape, he stands accused of failing utterly on his promise of vigilance and security.
A deep and thoroughly researched article on the current state of Israel, by David Remmick at The New Yorker.
The preceding article made me curious whether Lindy was as big an anti-Semite and Nazi sympathizer as all that. Hell yeah, he was.
… for more than 200 years, the American people have elected a buffoon’s gallery of rogues, incompetents, empty suits, abysmal spellers, degenerate golfers and corrupt Marylanders to the Vice Presidency with barely a passing consideration that they might one day have to assume the highest office in the land.
From the book “Veeps: Profiles in Insignificance,” by Bill Kelter and Wayne Shellabarger, which is definitely going on my to-be-read list. Reviewed by Cory Doctorow @pluralistic@mamot.fr. Thanks, Cory!
Forget 10,000 steps: 7 tips for step counters.
The notion to take 10,000 daily steps stems from a marketing ploy: As the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics approached, a Japanese researcher decided to nudge his nation to be more active by offering pedometers with a name that loosely translated as “10,000-step meter.” (The Japanese character for the number 10,000 looks a little like a person walking.)
For “men and women younger than age 60, the greatest relative reductions in the risk of dying prematurely came with step counts of between about 8,000 and 10,000 per day,” according to a 2022 study pooling results from 47,457 adults of all ages.
For people older than 60, the threshold was a little lower. For them, the sweet spot for reduced mortality risk was 6,000 to 8,000 steps per day.
The New Yorker: How Ten Middle East Conflicts Are Converging Into One Big War
Ten conflicts among diverse rivals or in different arenas over disparate flash points and divergent goals are now converging. For all the recent punditry warning about a widening war, the trajectory has long been obvious. And for all the American warships, troops, and diplomats deployed in the Middle East over the past hundred days, the U.S. has produced little, if anything, beyond greater vulnerabilities. “The U.S. appears pretty disconnected from regional realities, which may have been an intentional approach to enable withdrawal,” Julien Barnes-Dacey, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told me. “But now that Washington has been sucked back in by the Israel war, it’s looking pretty lost.”
Also:
U.S. intelligence has warned of growing Arab and Muslim support for Hamas, which is designated a terrorist group by the U.S. and Europe. At the Doha Forum last month, I heard from dozens of Arabs who condemned Hamas tactics and disagreed with its ideology, even as they admired or envied its determined resistance to Israel and defiance of U.S influence. “In this kind of a fight, the center of gravity is the civilian population,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledged in December. “And if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat.” He noted, “It would compound this tragedy if all that awaited Israelis and Palestinians at the end of this awful war was more insecurity, more rage, and more despair.”
And:
In 2002, the Houthis' founding slogan was “God is the greatest, death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, victory to Islam.”
The Reason the Office Isn’t Fun Anymore. Employees are hiding out in privacy booths and empty conference rooms, turning workplaces into quiet zones.
Did offices used to be “fun”? I must have missed it.
A company backed by Silicon Valley billionaires is seeking local voter approval to build a walkable city from scratch for 50,000 people on farmland in Solano County, located in northern California between Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Backers include LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. “Eventually, the city could grow to 400,000 people, the group says, but only if it can create at least 15,000 jobs that pay above-average wages.”
I love the spirit behind this idea. California is in a housing crisis. It’s a disaster, like an earthquake or wildfire, and we need bold solutions.
This has been bugging me for more than a year. Now I have the answer and can relax and move on.
The three-decade saga that led to the Crown Heights Tunnels: A group of anti-establishment yeshiva students from Israel took control of the Chabad-Lubavitch synagogue in Brooklyn and started digging.
Underground tunnels were discovered last week near the synagogue, and the rowdy yeshiva students rioted to block repairs.
The students, who come from the Israeli city Tzfat and are called Tzfatim, are “extreme Meshichists.”
Meshichists – or Messianists – are Chabad Hasidim who believe that their late leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, is the Messiah, and despite his death in 1994, is still meant to reappear. Tzfatim are perceived to be, even by Meshichist standards, unusually fervent in their beliefs and have been involved in numerous incidents of violence and mayhem for nearly three decades.
…
When Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson assumed the leadership of the Chabad-Lubavitch community in 1951, he delivered a seminal public address, which set the movement’s guiding principle for the next seven decades: “We are the last generation. It is our job to bring Moshiach” – the Hebrew term for the Messiah.
…
His followers heard something else too: their leader, in their view, was declaring himself the Messiah. What exactly he said and what he meant and how he meant it would be hotly debated over the years, but in a broad sense, Chabad Messianism became established Chabad doctrine.
David French: Disqualify Trump (or else).
There’s no doubt that knocking Trump off the ballot would send shock waves through the American body politic, but why would anyone believe that it’s inherently less destabilizing if Trump runs?
We already know what he does when he loses. For him, counting the votes is only the beginning of the battle. If he loses, he’ll challenge the results, conspire to overturn the election and incite political violence.
And if he wins? Then you have an insurrectionist in command of the most powerful military in the world, who is hellbent on seeking vengeance on his political enemies. Does anything at all sound stabilizing about that?
Bobi, the “oldest ever dog,” has lost his title as Guinness World Records launches an investigation into claims he lived to 31. “Sceptics have asked why photos purportedly of Bobi in his youth would show him with white paws when they were brown in his later years.”
Winter storms brought big pieces of a a 112-year-old shipwreck to a beach in Maine, where visitors could get a look at history. “The two-masted schooner Tay ran aground on Mount Desert Island in July 1911, resulting in the death of the ship’s cook."
Office vacancies plague San Diego as companies embrace remote work. Thousands of people get to enjoy working from home, benefiting the environment and even their employers. But this is bad for real-estate investors–so it’s a “plague.”
The secret history of Napoleon Bonaparte: Watching “The Emperor’s New Clothes” (2002) starring Ian Holm
We saw “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” an idiosyncratic and charming historical romantic-comedy that starred Ian Holm and came out in 2002.
I liked the movie a lot. It exceeded my expectations. I thought it would be more broad and farcical than it actually was. It had a big heart, which I did not expect.
The premise: Napoleon, in exile on the island of St. Helena after his defeat at Waterloo, executes a scheme to escape and be replaced on the island by a double, a common seaman who looks exactly like Napoleon, whose name is Eugene Lenormand. Napoleon will settle in Paris incognito, and the false Napoleon will reveal his true identity, as will the true Napoleon. France will rally and the empire will be restored.
But the plan goes wrong, and Napoleon needs to survive in Paris as Lenormand.
Fortunately for Napoleon, he’s taken in by a pretty widow.
But Napoleon never loses hope, and never stops planning to resume his rightful place as emperor.
Meawhile, he and the widow fall in love. She thinks he’s just Lenormand, a commoner like her, maybe someone who once did prison time.
Holm plays both Napoleon and the sailor Lenormand. He gives two great performances. As Napoleon, Holm is commanding, striding about erect with his hands clasped behind him. And he’s also sad and brave as he adjusts to life without the trappings and luxury of power.
In an early scene, Napoleon, disguised as Lenornmand, commands his ship’s captain to change course immediately and head for France. Holm’s performance is appropriately imperious, and you can easily imagine that underlings would be terrified to receive a command like that from the emperor. But now Napoleon is living the life of a common deckhand, and the ship’s captain just laughs at him.
Later, Napoleon marshals the same charisma to inspire rather than intimidate, and succeeds in rallying a band of struggling street vendors to sell fresh fruit.
Meanwhile, on St. Helena, the false Napoleon is enjoying his captivity. It’s a prison, but it’s posh and luxurious, with fine food, beautiful art and clothing, and servants to tend to Lenormand’s needs. In character as Lenormand, Holm is boorish, gluttonous, drunk and loud. His scenes are played for low comedy.
Iben Hjejle plays the widow, whom everybody calls “Pumpkin.” She’s a Danish actor, probably best known to American audiences for appearing as John Cusack’s girlfriend in “High Fidelity.” Pumpkin is your basic romantic-comedy woman’s role; she’s an auxiliary to the man. Her job is to look beautiful and adore Napoleon (whom she knows as Lenormand). Hjeile does the job. I’d like to see her in a real role sometime.
The magic of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” is that it commits to the bit. It takes its premise seriously.
As Roger Ebert noted in a 2002 review, you can easily imagine the movie going in a broad, Monty Python direction, but instead, “The Emperor’s New Clothes” is “a surprisingly sweet and gentle comedy.”
The dialogue and acting are first-rate, and the costumes and settings are up to the standards of any historical drama.
I was intrigued by “The Emperor’s New Clothes” because of a mention the movie got on the Age of Napoleon podcast, an extremely detailed history of the life and world of Napoleon, which has been running for seven years and isn’t anywhere near done. I’ve been listening to the podcast for several years.
The host, Everett Rummage, said he thought “The Emperor’s New Clothes” was the only movie that he ever saw that truly captured Napoleon’s character. This was before the current Ridley Scott movie came out.
Having now seen “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” I can absolutely see Rummage’s point. Granted, pretty much everything I know about Napoleon comes from Rummage’s podcast. But we know that Napoleon started as a minor nobleman in Corsica, went to French military school and quickly soared through the ranks during the Revolution. Napoleon was arrogant, but he also had a common touch. He was a democrat with a small “d,” unimpressed by aristocracy and valuing talent, character, and loyalty over inherited titles. He slept on the ground with his men in battle, gave them personal attention, and they loved him. We see all these qualities in “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” When the fictional Napoleon is required to scrub decks, sleep in a barn and rub elbows with street vendors, well, we can imagine that Napoleon had experience with that kind of thing.
In reality, Napoleon was a genius. He was an enlightened ruler who swept aside the old order and instituted more egalitarian forms of government that are influential to this day. He nurtured science, scholarship and the arts.
And Napoleon was also a bloodthirsty murderer, tyrant and monster who bathed Europe in blood and re-instituted a regime of brutal slavery that Haiti still has not recovered from more than two centuries later.
We only see the good side of Napoleon in “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” His evil is dealt with in a single line of dialogue. Which is as it should be in this particular movie.
The movie is loosely based on a novel by Simon Ley, “The Death of Napoleon.” Writer Peter Hicks compares the two. Hicks says the book is “a sustained elegy on the wisdom of recognising the important things in life, such as love, happiness, modest success,” which are far more important than the “chimaeras of power and military glory.” The movie has the same theme. As Ebert says, Napoleon gradually realizes that “the best of all worlds may involve selling melons and embracing Pumpkin.”
In an afterword to a 2006 edition of the book, Leys said the movie “was both sad and funny: sad, because Napoleon was interpreted to perfection by an actor (Ian Holm) whose performance made me dream of what could have been achieved had the producer and director bothered to read the book."
Based on Hicks’s description, I think I would prefer the movie and I am not tempted to read the book.
P.S. Hugh Bonneville, who stars “Downton Abbey” as Robert Crawley, plays a supporting role in “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” I didn’t recognize him.
At 93, he’s as fit as a 40-year-old. His body offers lessons on aging. Champion rower Richard Morgan started his exercise routine at age 73.
Cory Doctorow @pluralistic@mamot.fr is kickstarting the audiobook of his new novel, “The Bezzle,” second in a trilogy about two-fisted forensic accountant Marty Hench. The first volume, last year’s “Red Team Blues,” is a white-knuckle ride and I’m looking forward to the latest. Wil Wheaton is the narrator. The print book is due in a month.
This morning I looked at a “this day in history” calendar and saw that Martin Luther King was born on this day.
What a coincidence! I said to myself.
Some days I think I’m pretty smart. And then there are other days.
On Reddit, somebody asked how non-Americans identify Americans visiting their country. The top answer: Men wearing jeans, T-shirts, sneakers and ball caps.
I went to the supermarket later that day and can confirm.
Also, hoodies. And, this being San Diego, many of the men were wearing board shorts and flip-flops, even in January.
Allie Brosh at Hyperbole and a Half: Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving (2010). Hilarious.
Sympathy for the spammer. Cory Doctorow @pluralistic@mamot.fr posts a terrific essay about how scammers and spammers are often themselves victims of “passive income” and “rise and grind” hustlers, who prey on desperate people:
In any scam, any con, any hustle, the big winners are the people who supply the scammers – not the scammers themselves. The kids selling dope on the corner are making less than minimum wage, while the respectable crime-bosses who own the labs clean up. Desperate “retail investors” who buy shitcoins from Superbowl ads get skinned, while the MBA bros who issue the coins make millions (in real dollars, not crypto).
Also:
Con artists start by conning themselves, with the idea that “you can’t con an honest man.” But the factor that predicts whether someone is connable isn’t their honesty – it’s their desperation. The kid selling drugs on the corner, the mom desperately DMing her high-school friends to sell them leggings, the cousin who insists that you get in on their shitcoin – they’re all doing it because the system is rigged against them, and getting worse every day.
And:
… while we’re nowhere near a place where bots can steal your job, we’re certainly at the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job.”
While most big companies are only in the proof-of-concept stage with AI, Wells Fargo is moving fast. The bank’s assistant, powered by Google’s AI, has done 20 million transactions. The company put 4,000 employees through Stanford’s Human-centered AI program and has many generative AI projects in production, including projects to make back-office tasks more efficient.
AI models can be trained to deceive and the most commonly used AI safety techniques had little to no effect on the deceptive behaviors, according to researchers at Anthropic.
The Texas National Guard has seized control of Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, Texas, and is denying U.S. Border Patrol agents access to the area. Maybe they can rename the park Fort Sumter?
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also says he wants to shoot migrants dead, but he won’t do it because Biden would say it’s murder. That’s because it would be murder, Greg.
Haxby-Jones, a longtime San Diego resident and nurse-anesthetist was found in December in the home she’d lived in for many years.
… someone visiting the home opened an unlocked, plugged-in freezer. There, folded inside, was her body…. The frozen corpse was discovered Dec. 22 by out-of-town family members related to the current resident – not Haxby-Jones, police said.
Artifact, the social news app founded a year ago by Instagram’s co-founders, is shutting down..
I thought Artifact sounded intriguing and kept meaning to try it but I never got around to it. As it is, I see far more interesting links than I will ever have a chance to read. I have zero interest in an app that will show me more.
Apparently, many people felt the same way.
John Gruber says the reading experience on Artifact was not great.
OpenAI Quietly Deletes Ban on Using ChatGPT for “Military and Warfare”. Generative AI’s tendency to hallucinate makes it seem like a bad fit for military applications.
Your pacemaker and open source software. Using embedded medical technology, such as a pacemaker, defibrillator, or insulin pump? What’s running inside is a complete mystery.
Implanted medical devices running proprietary software present security vulnerabilities and lock up data where doctors can’t get to it when needed. That’s a problem open source advocate Karen Sandler knows about firsthand because she has an implanted pacemaker/defibrillator running proprietary software.
Why Google will waive egress fees for customers ditching GCP. The Register says Google is trying to placate regulators in the US and Europe even as Google tries to push those regulators to turn the screws on Microsoft.
Here is what puzzles me about “Bears Discover Fire:” There are at least three storylines in this super-short story: The protagonist, a 61-year-old man, dealing with his family. The protagonist’s mother is dying. And, of course, the bears discovering fire.
Why did Bisson choose these characters and their stories, bringing them together with the bears discovering fire?
RIP Terry Bisson. Here is one of his most famous stories, the excellent “Bears Discover Fire."
I just re-read the story. It’s very short and simple on the surface, with a lot going on underneath that I don’t quite understand. At some point, I might Google until I find an analysis—or, even better, try to figure it out on my own. But for now, I’ll just appreciate the story.
He also wrote the short story “They’re Made Out of Meat.” He wrote novels too, but he was a master of short fiction.
A client asked for a synopsis of each of five articles, and I think it makes sense to do them all as a single document.
When I need to locate the document again, I will find it by searching for its filename.
Will future-me remember that the plural of “synopsis” is “synopses?”
The Weirdest Advice From Vintage Entertaining Guides. “Here, written between 1880 and 1987, is a sampling of some of history’s most unhinged entertaining advice.”
Maybe I’m unhinged but most of these seem reasonable to me.
Oxiclean gets an insulated coffee carafe or Thermos clean as a whistle, without scrubbing
First, put the Oxiclean in the carafe. I used a partial scoop of Oxiclean, just above the line on the plastic scoop that comes with the product.
Fill the carafe halfway with hot water from the tap. Cover and shake.
Open and fill the rest of the way with hot water. Let it sit for a while. I let it sit for two hours; you can probably do it for less time.
The carafe is like new.
I’m passing this on because it does not seem to be widely known. Every time I Googled for how to clean a stained Thermos, I saw a lot of tips about denture tablets and dishwasher soap, which don’t work well at all in my experience. And the shape of the carafe makes scrubbing impractical.
Are whistles particularly clean, by the way?
I read the Robert B. Paker Spenser novels voraciously in the 80s. Spenser often eats food with Syrian bread. What the hell is “Syrian bread?” I wondered.
I’m currently listening to the audiobook of “Early Autumn,” which is not one I have re-read in more than 30 years. Spenser is eating Syrian bread again.
Google did not exist when I first read the books, but it does now. And now I know:
“Syrian bread” is another name for pita bread.
Katelyn Jetelina, Your Local Epidemiologist: Real-world data shows fall 2023 vaccines are effective. Vaccines help prevent against long covid and are safe and effective for children. Also, transmission takes hours. “Quick passersby at a grocery store are far less risky than staying in a house with someone infected.”
… AI isn’t going to replace you at work. But it’s already augmenting your shitty boss’s ability to rip you off, torment you, maim you and even kill you in order to eke out a few more basis points for the next shareholder report.
Cory Doctorow: The REAL AI automation threat to workers
Today’s fun fact: Rachel Bloom, who plays Elaine, Julia Child’s new director on “Julia,” became famous in 2010 with a viral music video: “Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury.”
The song is a banger, funny, clever, even dirtier than the title suggests, and — if Bloom is doing the singing and is not electronically augmented — she’s got a surprisingly good set of … pipes.
‘Julia’ Canceled After Two Seasons at Max. Disappointing. We just started watching the new season, and are enjoying it.
What ‘The Sopranos’ Iconic Filming Locations in N.J. Look Like Now. On the anniversary of the show’s premiere, its creator and location manager reflect on some of its iconic settings and why they were chosen.
Clarence Thomas and the bottomless self-pity of the upper classes. Poor bastard had to scrape by on a mere $285,400 per year.
Things I can’t be arsed to care about: Hunter Biden’s crimes, Lloyd Austin’s prostate, Taylor Swift, Claudine Gay, anything else having to do with Harvard University, sports, the golden globes, the Republican primary, Oppenheimer, the Barbie movie, Jonathan Majors, Pete Davidson and Selena Gomez.
Thousands of Software Engineers Say the Job Market Is Getting Much Worse. I did an article nearly a year ago talking about how there were plenty of IT jobs outside the tech sector. I wonder whether that is still the case?
Far too many software services are sending me 2023 year-in-review emails
I’m still getting 2023-in-review emails from my software subscriptions. I got one from Grammarly this morning. The subject line was “Reveal Your 2023 Communication Style.” The subject line could have been “Mitch, it’s 2024 and you still don’t know how to use commas.
Trakt.TV told me I watched 333 hours of TV in 2023 (thanks, Trakt.tv! I’m depressed now) and that we watched a lot of “Yellowstone,” “Succession” and “The Lincoln Lawyer.” I don’t need to be reminded of those; I remember watching them. I was there.
I see comments from residents pushing back on multi-family housing and ADUs, and it frustrates me a great deal. “Preserving neighborhood character” is a lost cause. San Diego as we’ve known it is gone—the question now is what will replace it? I don’t see a desirable alternative to multi-family housing and public transit—massive amounts of both.
We watched the first episode of 1923 tonight, after watching Yellowstone and 1883. I am not smart enough to figure out the Dutton family tree.
Journalist/comedian Jad Sleiman was fired by WHYY in Philadelphia.
“They cut off my health insurance same day, despite the fact that they know I have multiple sclerosis and rely on very expensive drugs to walk,” Sleiman told Motherboard on Wednesday. “They also went and deleted all my work from the site, every single possible clip I could try to use to get a job.”
In the news this weekend: Donald Trump referred to Jan. 6 defendants as “hostages;” refused to swear to not advocate for the overthrow the US government (a routine oath for Illinois Presidential candidates); claimed that Lincoln could have negotiated to avoid the Civil War but didn’t because of ego; and said magnets don’t work underwater.
OK grandpa let’s get you to bed.
There is no such thing as a good book.
Bookstore worker Kyle Frances Williams reads “The Art of Libromancy: Selling Books and Reading Books in the Twenty-First Century,” by Josh Cook, and finds it to be a lot of bull.
I get the sense that “bookseller” is Josh Cook’s dream job. It is for a lot of people; it’s an easy job to romanticize. For myself, I do not dream of labor.
Remember I said I wasn’t going to post links here? Forget it. I like posting links here. You can still follow me on all those other social media places if that’s your thing.
Vicki Greene is the current owner of Flossie, age 28, the world’s oldest living cat. “I think she’s lived so long primarily due to luck, and because she was loved by her previous owners.” Aww.
“You’ve got me? Who’s got you?!” Rewatching Christopher Reeve’s “Superman”
The 1978 “Superman,” starring Christopher Reeve, launched the superhero film genre as it exists today. We rewatched it recently, enjoyed it, and I recommend it.
However, the movie takes a painfully long time to get going.
”Superman” starts with pages turning on the 1938 Action Comics issue that launched the Superman character, narrated by a child’s voice-over. We did not remember this from seeing the movie previously. We wondered whether we had accidentally rented the wrong version of “Superman.” We had not. Onward.
Then we go to Krypton, where the movie creeps forward. We see Marlon Brando as Superman’s father, Jor-El, wearing white stunt hair and a turtleneck with the Superman logo in it.
I wish the phrase “phoning it in” was not a cliche so I could use to to describe Brando’s performance. He drones on and on, making one speech after another.
He’s concluding the prosecutor’s statement in the trial of three insurrectionists (ripped from the 2020s headlines!), who end up being sentenced to the Phantom Zone. I’m sure we won’t see these insurrectionists again—they won’t be any trouble and will not turn up in “Superman II.”
General Zod, played by Terence Stamp, is the leader of the trio, and his scenery-chewing is the only good part of this scene.
I saw “Superman” with friends in the theater during its first run in 1978, and I was very excited to tell them after the movie all about the Phantom Zone. I even guessed that the three villains would feature in the movie sequel. I was very proud of myself for this. Possibly related: It took me a long time to lose my virginity.
Jor-El warns the leadership council of Krypton that the whole planet is about to explode within a month. The leaders say this is fake news because they did their own research on YouTube. The council nopes out on evacuating the planet and tells Jor-El he can’t tell anybody about his beliefs or else he’ll be an insurrectionist (that word again). A sensible person would have told the council to fuck right off because the council was not going to have any clout after the ENTIRE FUCKING PLANET EXPLODES. But Jor-El just goes along with it.
Brando goes back home, where he and his wife (if her name is spoken, I didn’t hear it) put on matching glowy silver lamé jumpsuits. They put their baby in a spaceship. Before sending the baby off to Earth, Marlon Brando makes a very long speech, while his wife looks at him with an expression like she wants him to shut up because she needs to pee.
Then we’re off to Earth, to whip through young Clark Kent’s childhood. The costumes and cars and brilliant. The scenery from the Kent farm is beautiful, but there is way too much of it. Can we get this movie moving already?
Clark challenges his father to run from the end of their driveway to the barn. Pa Kent has a heart attack and dies. Clark never mentions his own role in Pa’s death. That seems odd.
Next stop: the North Pole, where young Clark spends 12 years being lectured by the holographic Marlon Brando, and we, in the audience watching the movie, get to experience every painful second of those 12 years.
All this time, Clark is played by an actor who is not Christopher Reeve and doesn’t even look much like Christopher Reeve. This guy:
But after 12 years at the North Pole, demonstrating powers of super-boredom-resistance, Clark becomes Christopher Reeve and emerges in his spiffy super-suit, which makes all the girls swoon. He is a hunka hunka burnin love. The suit is very flattering, but he really should be wearing something modest below the waist and above the knee to better cover his prominent super-johnson. Maybe bermuda shorts with a festive luau pattern?
Or maybe something like this:
And we’re off to Metropolis and the movie takes off and keeps going. Finally! Lois Lane is fast-talking and smart; Christopher Reeve transforms from a nebbishy Clark into a charismatic Supe through the power of acting. Gene Hackman, Ned Beatty, and Valerie Perrine are the villains, and they chew the scenery delightfully. The sets are gorgeous, particularly Lex Luthor’s lair in the underground lobby of Grand Central Station. Why is Grand Central Station abandoned and apparently nearly forgotten in this movie? Does it even matter? No, it does not.
Lois’s costumes are the height of 70s couture. The first thing we see her in is a nice skirt and blouse. And the skirt has pockets. And they look like BIG pockets. In some ways, technology has gone backward since 1978.
The Daily Planet newspaper takes up an entire skyscraper and has a helicopter to shuttle reporters around. I started work at a daily newspaper not long after “Superman” came out—we didn’t even have a budget to buy coffee for the staff. Employees had to pay for their own coffee.
Lois arranges an interview with Superman, which turns into a date. He flies her around the skies above Metropolis. She recites a love poem in her mind. The poem is painfully bad. It is like watching someone you like embarrass themselves in a talent competition.
We see a very neatly dressed and well-groomed mugger. Nice blazer, turtleneck sweater. He needs a closer shave, but we’re otherwise good.
It’s part of a whole sequence of Superman’s day’s work, as he stops a cat burglar heist, rescues Air Force One after it loses an engine, and rescues a little girl’s cat from a tree.
The ending of the movie, where Lois Lane dies (spoiler for a 45-year-old super-popular movie—don’t DM me!) is surprisingly dark. She’s smothered after being buried in an earthquake and we see all of it happening. But Superman quickly brings her back from the dead with his superpowers.
Superman’s flying SFX are every bit as good and dazzling now as they were in 1978. Oh, some of the matte shots with the New York City skyline in the background are a little fake, but Superman’s movements are brilliant. A one-second bit where Superman changes from his Clark street clothes into his superhero costume while in flight is just wonderful—nothing much today but brilliant in the pre-CGI era that this movie was made in. Some of the other special effects, like Hoover Dam disintegrating and a downstream town flooding, are a little obviously done with miniatures but they still look fine.
(Why do the sfx look fake now but not in 1978? I have a theory. In 1978, we saw these sfx on the big screen, where they looked great. They might still look great today on a big screen. Soon after, we saw the movie on smaller TVs, with lower quality screens than today, and the sfx still looked great. But today’s high-quality TVs make the sfx look fake—the screens aren’t big enough to compensate for the flaws revealed by the high definition.)
The movie can’t decide if it’s a camp superhero parody, or a serious superhero movie. It would have been better if it toned down the broad comedy and made Lex Luthor more scary.
Reeve’s acting carries the movie. There’s a scene that’s famous among fans where Lois Lane and Clark Kent are in the living room of her apartment. She leaves the room, and he decides to tell her he’s Superman. Until that moment, he’s a shlub, round-shouldered and with a goofy expression on his face. He stands up straight, squares his shoulders and jaw and takes off his glasses—and now he’s Superman. He starts to tell her. His voice as Clark is querulous and shaky, but Superman has a firm baritone. And he changes his mind, slumps his shoulders, puts on his glasses and now he’s Clark the shlemiel again. It all goes by in a few seconds, but it’s striking.
Even the special effects are carried by Reeve’s acting. “You will believe a man can fly,” was the marketing slogan for the movie when it was released. You believe it in large part because Reeve was hanging from wires, moving like a person flying. Acting.
I don’t have anything to say about John Williams’ musical score for the movie, except that it’s brilliant. I’m going to carry a Bluetooth speaker with me and play that score every time I enter a room.
Overall, well worth a watch. Maybe skip the first 48 minutes though. You don’t need to see it. You already know Superman’s original story.
Superman is my favorite superhero. He is optimistic and hopeful. He knows there is great evil in the world, but he knows that there is also great good, and he serves that good—“truth, justice and the American way." He knows some of what he says is corny and he says it anyway because he believes it. He is nearly all-powerful and invulnerable, but he is in awe of human beings because we are neither of those things, and yet we are capable of great kindness, nobility, and courage.
Sloppy Internet research
Four-year-old Clark Kent is played by an actor named Aaron Smolinski, who went on to a bit role in the 2013 Superman movie “Man of Steel” and also played Lex Luthor in a movie called “Superman: Solar,” which seems to be either an indy or fan-made Superman movie that got terrible reviews.
Larry Hagman has a cameo as an Army Major, making a joke that doesn’t age well.
John Ratzenberger plays an air traffic controller. He went on to play Cliff from “Cheers,” and do a lot of voice-overs for Pixar movies.
Kirk Allyn, who played Superman in 1940s Superman movies, has a cameo as Lois Lane’s father. When Clark is a boy in Smallville, little girl Lois sees Clark while passing through on a train, and Allyn appears in that scene. via
Noel Neill, who played Lois Lane in 1940s movies and the 1950s Superman TV series, also has a cameo. She’s Lois Lane’s mother in the same scene. via
“According to Sir Roger Moore’s autobiography, he witnessed Christopher Reeve walking through the canteen at Pinewood Studios in full Superman costume, oblivious to the swooning female admirers he left in his wake. When he did the same thing dressed as Clark Kent, no one paid any attention.” via
The Incomparable Mothership podcast did an episode about their “Superman” rewatch. They hated it. I don’t disagree with their criticisms, but for me, the virtues of the movie made up for its flaws. I enjoyed listening to the episode.
What happened to the actors
Marlon Brando continued working until his death in 2004. “Apocalypse Now” came out soon after “Superman.” His work in later life included two movies I quite enjoyed: “The Freshman” and “Don Juan DeMarco,” both of which are about charismatic rogues (though he only played the rogue in one of those movies). Brando also features in a delightful 2009 novel, “Chronic City,” by Jonathan Lethem, which explores the theme of whether we can believe anything or truly perceive reality. Brando isn’t a character in the novel. The characters can’t agree whether Brando is alive or dead, and the Internet is no help.
Margot Kidder struggled with mental health in later life. Her 2018 death was ruled a suicide. via
As of April 2023, Valerie Perrine, age 79, was suffering from advanced Parkinson’s and needed a hydraulic lift to get into and out of bed. The Hollywood Reporter did an excellent profile—recommended reading: Ailing ‘Superman’ Star Valerie Perrine Finally Finds Her Hero: “The Guy Should Be Sainted”:
Perrine insists she wants no pity and regrets nothing about her Technicolor life: not one affair (she’s been romantically linked to everyone from Jeff Bridges to Elliott Gould to Dodi Fayed); not one hit of acid (she’s taken LSD more than 400 times, by her estimation); not one career move (well, she probably should have said yes to 1981’s Body Heat and no to 1980’s Can’t Stop the Music, the Village People-starring megaflop she says killed her career, but you can’t win them all).
She sounds fantastic.
Gene Hackman has been retired for about 20 years. As of March, he was fit and healthy at age 93, spotted doing yardwork, buying and eating fast food, and pumping his own gas.
Christopher Reeve died in 2004, after being paralyzed in 1995 in a horse-riding accident.
Terence “General Zod” Stamp was one of the stars of “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.” He played a drag queen named Bernadette.
Sarah Douglas, who played Ursa, one of General Zod’s cronies, appeared in a lot of B science fiction movies and TV shows, including one called “Strippers vs. Werewolves.”
Which Superman II?
We want to watch Superman II, which I remember as being even better than the first Superman, which was itself great. But which version?
Richard Donner directed the original movie and started directing on Superman II, but was fired, and Richard Lester was hired as a replacement. Donner had already done a lot of work, and Lester reshot many scenes and shot more. The Lester version was the original theatrical release, which I saw in theaters. We saw a fan cut of the Donner version in the early 2000s and did not care for it. It was unfinished. Some of the scenes were audition scenes; I remember some other scenes had cheap SFX that looked like they’d been done on 1990s home PCs.
Soon after we saw the fan cut of the Donner version, an official—and presumably more polished—version was released. We haven’t seen that.
I think when we do a rewatch, we’ll go with the original, theatrical version, directed by Lester. According to Internet discussion—for example, here—the official Donner version, while more polished than the fan cut we watched, is still unpolished and unfinished. And the theatrical version is lighter than the Donner version, while still having some serious moments. Generally, I like my superhero movies light; when they get dramatic and heavy I start having difficulty suspending disbelief.
I’ve decided to take a break posting links here. By nature, they’re ephemeral. And they’re not by me. Also, many of the links I post are political, which sets the wrong tone for my blog.
If you like the links, you can find me on other social media:
Facebook.com (I don’t do politics there much)
Tumblr
Mastodon
Threads
Bluesky (invitation only—let me know if you need an invitation)
Newsletter
I post a lot of memes, vintage photos and other found media on those other platforms. You may enjoy them.
I also sometimes post about business matters on LinkedIn.
At some point in the future, I may change my mind about posting links here. I frequently try new things on blogging and social media.
I was just reminded of New Year’s 2000. I was an editor on a tech newspaper. We searched desperately for someone—anyone!—that got bit by the Y2K bug.
For years, our cat Lulu has pestered Julie at night and left me alone. I was OK with this situation. I did not feel neglected.
But recently, Lulu decided that my side of the bed makes an excellent staging area for pestering Julie.
Note the timestamp on this post.
I’m going to see if Lulu will let me get a little more sleep now.
Writing a datasheet for a networking product, I typoed “brogrammable” instead of “programmable” and now I’m visualizing a networking product that is programmable but only by dudes who smell like Axe body spray.
I walk Minnie every day for an hour and a half. We go 3.2 miles in that time. If we went at her pace, we would take the same amount of time to go 10 feet and every millimeter of that distance would be thoroughly sniffed.
I was going to get a tattoo on my 50th birthday, but I would’ve needed to decide what pattern to get, decide what part of my body to put it on, and research and find a good tattoo artist and that seemed like an awful lot of work.
An alternative would’ve been to join the Navy, get drunk, and get a tattoo in Manila done by a drunken tattoo artist with a dirty needle that would give me hepatitis. That is still an option.
The cashier asked me how I was doing and I said I’m good how are you and he said I’m good how are you and I said I’m good how are you and that was almost a Groundhog Day type situation.
“Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” is “Guardians of the Galaxy” meets “The Princess Bride.” It stars Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, and Hugh Grant. Fun.
Of all the great mysteries of the universe, I would like to know just one thing: When I’m walking the dog, how does she decide where the perfect spot to pee is?
It seems to be a rigorous selection process.
Thinking about a time I was sitting with a small group of people, and one of the women in that group invited us to a party at her house and said we would be free to use her backyard pool.
She added: “Swimsuits. Are. Not. Optional.”
And I thought, “But I do not want to go swimming.”
And that was when I realized that I had become a boring person.
My 15 minutes of badass literary scholarship
In another online community, somebody asked for the title and author of a story about humans encountering another race that seemes to live a simple agrarian life. When asked how they generate electricity, or other questions about advanced technology, the agrarian person responds that they don’t know.
Later, it becomes clear this other race is far advanced of humans, with great psychic powers. Asking them about electricity and such is like asking us about the best kind of wood to rub together to start a fire—something our distant ancestors knew but almost nobody today does.
Other people on the community had their guesses, even asking ChatGPT. But I said to myself, “That sounds like a story I read when I was a kid. The author was John Campbell.” And I did about 15 minutes of Googling and replied thus:
Sounds like “Forgetfulness” by John W. Campbell, writing as Don A. Stuart, in Astounding Stories, June 1937 https://archive.org/details/Astounding_v19n04_1937-06_-ibcbc_fiche-paper
I am feeling hugely badass about this successful act of Internet research.
The original questioner misremembered at least one key detail: The star travelers aren’t humans—they are aliens from a civilization in the distant future. They land on a planet called “Rhth” (get it?) and believe the simple agrarian folk to be the degenerate descendants of a once mighty high tech empire. They pity the simple agrarian folk, but then learn better.
The above link is worth following for the ads alone. The magazine has a gajillion small ads, and they are all like this:
I remember when I finally laid my hands on a reproduction of a 1939 Astounding Stories magazine. I had read so many essays by Isaac Asimov and others that talked about how the 1939-45 era of Astounding was the Golden Age of science fiction. At last! I thought. I have found a precious document!
And I opened the magazine, and my eye fell on the face of a shocked-looking, open-mouthed boy with the headline, “Did you say JOCK ITCH?!”
Also: Ads for anthropological studies of Polynesian sexual rituals. I suspect those studies did not appear in proper peer-reviewed scientific journals.
I’m beginning to think that carrying a distraction machine in my pocket might not be a great idea.
Eddie Murphy is making a fourth Beverly Hills Cop movie, with Judge Reinhold and John Ashton. Looks good! Here’s the trailer.
On a private community, someone said they’ve just started watching “Babylon 5” on Season 2, and they want to know whether the show stays good.
I replied:
My memory of B5 is that the first season was wooden but there was something about it that made me stay with it. Seasons two through four were excellent.
As for the fifth season: As I recall, the series was initially supposed to go five seasons, but the showrunner, J. Michael Straczynski, got the word that the show would be canceled after four seasons. So he rushed Season 5 to an ending a half-season early.
Then JMS was told whoops, never mind, you get another half-season.
And that’s the way it looked to me onscreen—the first half of the first season was rushed and talky, as JMS was telling viewers information he would have shown if he had the proper amount of time.
Then the second half was just padding and bloviation. A main storyline involved a beautiful woman telepath falling in love with a male cult leader. He had Fabio hair. It just didn’t work for me.
For me, a lot of the fun of Babylon 5 was going on the Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5 website the morning after each episode aired to see what little easter eggs and plot tricks were hidden in each episode. The website is still online, so somebody just watching the show can have the same fun.
We started a rewatch not long ago, but it didn’t work for either of us. Maybe if we’d started with the second season we would have liked it more?
A spinoff series, “Crusade,” had Gary Cole, which is a plus in any TV show or movie. He played a heroic starship captain. It would have been EVEN BETTER if he’d done the whole thing as Lundberg, his character from “Office Space,” with the contrasting-collar shirt, suspenders, coffee cup, glasses and “Yeah, I’m going to need you to go ahead and… “
I did not love the series but I liked the mix of epic fantasy and space opera. Which I guess is a common trope but not one I’ve encountered before or since.
I do remember one gag I quite liked from that series: a character is a member of the secret Thieves Guild, and this becomes important to the story. Gary Cole confronts her and demands to know why she never told him this. And she rolls her eyes and says, “What’s the point of being a member of secret society if you go around TELLING people about it?” As I recall, the character who was a member of the thieves guild wore a sexy catsuit but her manner was pure Gen X slacker, like Daria Morgendorffer in spaaaaaaace.
‘The Gilded Age’ Shows the Virtues of Inauthenticity: John McWhorter discusses how the characters in “The Gilded Age” would have really sounded and why it’s better that they talk like modern, 21st-century people.
Every so often I like to get inspired by reading about the writer Robert B. Parker
Parker died in 2010. Here’s what Sarah Weinman wrote about him at the LA Times:
Robert B. Parker, who died Monday in his Cambridge, Mass., home at age 77, spent his final moments doing exactly what he’d done for almost four decades: sitting at his desk, working on his next novel. He didn’t concern himself with looking back. Instead, he wrote, and in the process irrevocably altered American detective fiction, forging a link between classic depictions and more contemporary approaches to the form.
Parker taught me to appreciate scotch and soda, stand up to bullies and finish the extra set of sit-ups. He taught me how to make a fast meal and break into a window by chipping out the glazing. He taught me that solving a case has more to do with poking at a situation waiting for things to happen than finding clues. He made Boston appealing (even without a GPS). More than that, he made adulthood appealing, for three generations of my family – my brilliant, alcoholic father, my hesitant pre-adolescent son, and me. Someone once remarked that I was always in search of father figures. Maybe it’s true. I know I lost another one on Monday morning.
He died at his desk, writing. That’s the way any writer would want to go. The police said there was no sign of foul play. That was oddly disappointing, a brackish dousing of reality. A writer found dead at his desk in a Parker novel would spark another fascinating case for Spenser and Hawk. Susan would chime in with the psychiatric angle: an angry editor? A pathological fan? A jealous mystery writer? They would track it down, between runs along the Charles and workouts at Henry Cimoli’s regrettably gentrified gym. (It has potted plants now.)
“He died at his desk, writing. That’s the way any writer would want to go.” Respectfully, that’s romantic nonsense. Parker himself—who thought of writing primarily as a job—might roll his eyes at it. Still, Parker died doing something he loved, and that’s not a bad way to go. Too young, though. We should have had 20 more years of books from him.
Parker, who would publish up to three books a year, said he would write 10 pages a day, often not knowing “who did it” until near the end of the book. “I don’t rewrite, I don’t write a second draft,” he said in a 2005 interview. “When I am finished, I don’t reread it. Joan [his wife] reads it to make sure I haven’t committed a public disgrace, and, if I haven’t, I send it in. Then I begin the next book.”
Weinman again, writing about the final Spenser novels, which were not Parker’s best work.
… spending time in Parker’s company these last several years was akin to attending a concert by Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald late in their careers: There was just enough juice to revisit the standards, and it hardly mattered if the tone warbled into an echo of former melodious glory.
Politico: John Fetterman isn’t the politician you thought he’d be — and he doesn’t care. Fetterman gives a hell of an interview.
Demand for Abortion Increased Under Florida’s Ban. Anti-Abortion Activists Think Another Ban Will Fix This. Keep digging, Republicans.
After crime writer Robert B. Parker died in 2010, his estate hired several writers to continue the multiple series Parker wrote in his lifetime.
I’ve read six of the Spenser novels by Ace Atkins. They’re enjoyable but frustrating, like seeing a cover band of your favorite group. Beatlemania rather than the Beatles.
A good writer will occasionally surprise you—write something completely unlike them. But a writer hired to write like someone else will, if they do a good job, never surprise you. They always write just like the writer they’ve been hired to write like.
I don’t mean to be harsh on Atkins. He was hired to do a job and he did it well. And I’ve put one of his original books on my to-be-read list.
I’m going to set this as my virtual background for Zoom calls. It will create the right professional impression.
On the Fresh Air podcast: Barry Manilow reflects on writing songs — and making the whole world sing.
Before becoming a hit singer-songwriter, Manilow composed jingles for TV commercials. He wrote, “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there” and “I Am Stuck On Band-Aids, And A Band-Aid’s Stuck On Me.”
He also played the accordion as a boy.
I think every Jewish and Italian boy cannot get out of Brooklyn, N.Y., unless he learns how to play the accordion. There’s a guard at the Brooklyn Bridge…. And you have to play “Lady Of Spain” before you can go over the bridge. Everybody I knew played the accordion - badly. I happened to - you know, because I was more musical than the rest of my friends, I kind of got through “Hava Nagila” and “Lady Of Spain.”
… there are people who play the accordion and actually make it sound good. I was not one of those people.
They Spend Thousands Decorating Homes No One Will Ever Go Inside.
Sarah E. Needleman at The Wall Street Journal:
Newcomers are upending the once-fusty dollhouse scene—decking out wee abodes that could belong in the (mini) Hamptons
So far this year, Michael Hogan has spent more than $5,000 on metal bar stools, a curved sofa and other modern décor to furnish a newly built home he’ll never live in. That is because the dwelling is so small it is better suited for a resident the size of a mouse.
Hogan is among a new cohort of dollhouse devotees who are shaking up how grown-ups indulge in the classic children’s hobby. Instead of outfitting old-timey homes with old-timey décor, they are assembling contemporary miniature abodes packed with tiny versions of trendy trappings sold in stores such as IKEA and West Elm.
Some enthusiasts are “shaking up tradition by embracing artisans who use 3-D printers, design software and laser cutters.… Others prefer to stick with only classic tools such as tweezers, razorblades and glue.”
Emily Brouilette, 46, grew up in a four-floor Victorian built in the 1800s. When she got into dollhouse collecting a few years ago, she invested in an ultra-industrial domicile resembling stacked shipping containers…. Her most prized miniature purchase to date is a framed poster of her favorite band, the Rolling Stones, that measures a little more than an inch in height and width. A tiny copy of her husband’s favorite book, “Moby-Dick,” rests on a tiny night stand. “I wanted my mini house to very much reflect me and my husband living there, though mini versions of us would be kind of weird,” she says.
The photos accompanying the article are wonderful.
The Rest Is History podcast: Victorian Britain’s Maddest Mystery . Roger Tichborne, a 25-year-old aristocrat and heir to a fortune, died in a shipwreck in 1854. “His mother, certain of her son’s survival, advertised extensively with a tantalising reward for her son’s return. Twenty years later a rough, corpulent butcher from Australia named Arthur Orton arrived in Europe and declared himself to be the long lost heir. The trial that ensued captivated the public…. " Writer Zadie Smith discusses the case, which is the basis of her new historical novel, “The Fraud.”