‘My songs spread like herpes.’ Why did satirical genius Tom Lehrer swap worldwide fame for obscurity?
Francis Beckett profiles the caustic singer/songwriter, who is still alive at 96. Beckett never gets an answer to the question, but concludes:
Tom Lehrer is a prodigiously talented man who has no interest at all in money for its own sake, or in money to wield power. He wants enough to be comfortable and to do the few things he wants to do, and he has that. I suspect too that, despite his protestations to the contrary, there is a serious man underneath the caustic, cynical front. He once said that you cannot be funny if you are angry. He could just about stay detached enough to be funny about Eisenhower’s America. Trying to be funny about a nation that can elect a President Trump might tear him apart.
Gilbert Gottfried talks with Roger Corman
An enjoyable podcast, but a little sobering to consider two of the three men in this recent episode are now dead.
The possibility of remaking Ron Howard’s debut directorial movie, “Eat My Dust,” with a bigger budget. The Sharknado franchise. Working with Jack Nicholson on “The Crybaby Killer” and “The Trip.” Casting Peter Fonda and Nicholson. Charles Bronson, legit tough guy with a sensitive character. Boris Karloff, Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone in Edgar Allen Poe movies. Peter Lorre improvises lines, creating problems with Karloff. Making a movie on a whim, when golf plans rained out. The cult classic “Little Shop of Horrors” and its unexpected success. William Shatner’s first movie, “The Intruder,” a low-budget drama about racial integration in the South, shot in southern Missouri in the face of death threats from the Ku Klux Klan. Shooting “WIld Angels” with actual Hell’s Angels, resulting in death threats from the motorcycle club after the movie became successful. And more.
Yes, I will absolutely follow @worldof.farts. Instagram algorithm, you get me.
The Valley of the Dolls — On the Last Archive podcast, historian Jill Lepore reads her essay on the tangled history of Barbie, followed by discussion with podcast host Ben Naddaff-Hafrey about the doll and “intellectual property, IP theft, and the relationship between corporations and feminism.”
Holly Hunter will appear in a main role in the upcoming “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy” series. variety.com — Nice!
📷 🐕 💩I’m happy to report that Minnie is a healthy dog, she got her shots, she was very glad to be done with all that, and we did not break the vet’s office’s poop-free lobby streak.
I need to take the dog to the vet later today. So much drama! Whimpering and trembling and splooting flat on the ground and refusing to move.
The dog doesn’t like it either.
What We Lose When ChatGPT Sounds Like Scarlett Johansson — In making ChatGPT sound like Samantha in “Her,” OpenAI misses the point of the movie, which is about relationships. By Alissa Wilkinson at the New York Times.
The Clue of the Blue Bottle — On the Last Archive podcast, historian Jill Lepore attempts to solve a century-old murder in Barre, Vermont and explores the history of criminal investigations and trials, evidence, facts, clues and more.
Boat shoes are supposedly high fashion now.
I boggled because I’ve been wearing the same shabby pair of boat shoes in warm weather for 14 years. The opposite of high fashion.
Writer Jacob Gallagher had a similar thought.
Throughout college, I owned a pair of boat shoes that were, in a word, vile. I wore them until the soles were as thin as a Pringle and they stank like an elephant. By sophomore year, they were drenched in a Pollock-ian mélange of beer, mud, coffee, ketchup and other substances best left forgotten. They were a reliable, battered pair of shoes. They were also eventually a fungal science experiment. What they were absolutely not was stylish.
No, I am not addicted to exercise
I go for long walks every day with the dog—a little more than 90 minutes a day on average. I do it every day when I’m well and at home, sometimes arranging my day around it. I don’t do it when my body is saying NO NO NO. When I had covid two years ago, I just parked my ass in bed for a week until I felt up to walking, then took a few days to get back into the full 90-minute walk.
I don’t run, and I certainly don’t run until I puke.
Still, I am definitely compulsive about my exercise routine. And I’m OK with that.
Also, I have to watch what I eat ALL THE TIME. I can’t just eat when I’m hungry like many people do. I have to weigh and measure nearly everything.
Fifteen years ago, I was 100 pounds overweight and sedentary. Now, even though I’m 62 years old, I firmly believe I have the body of a healthy 35-year-old, and exercise and good eating are the credit for that. (Well, also the luck to be born healthy and middle-class—those are hugely important too. But not sufficient.)
Whereas if I had kept up the bad habits I had 15 years ago, I would be a physical wreck today, and there’s a good chance I’d be dead.