Forty-five years ago today:
Finishing his prepared remarks, he seemed ready to sit down, when Mahalia Jackson called out from behind him, "Tell them about your dream, Martin! Tell them about the dream!"If you've never read or heard it, now's the time:
James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 483
This is a little bit genius. One of the new features of FriendFeed (a Twitter-like thingie) is "fake following." That means you can friend someone but you don't see their updates. That way, it appears that you're paying attention to them when you're really not. Just like everyone does all the time in real life to maintain their sanity. Rex calls it "most important feature in the history of social networks" and I'm inclined to agree. It's one of the few new social features I've seen that makes being online buddies with someone manageable and doesn't just make being social a game or competition.I read this paragraph from kottke.org three times yesterday, trying to decide whether "a little bit genius" and the final sentence were meant ironically. An update seems to answer my question.
They're not solar panels, oddly placed: the client's reply — "Now show me something I can afford to heat!" — rules them out. What then are those things? (And how many floors does this house have? And where's the front door?!)
Your speculations are welcome in the comments.
[Hi and Lois, August 26, 2008.]
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Forty years ago today: the American release of the Beatles' "Hey Jude" (b/w "Revolution"). The promotional clips are still exciting to watch:
"Hey Jude" (YouTube)
"Revolution" (YouTube)
Wikipedia has helpful background on both songs.
That's my 45 above (mono!). It still works.
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I remember Sgt. Pepper
I was surprised to receive today a reply from Penguin to my question about the availability of the third series of Great Ideas paperbacks in the United States. Says Penguin, "We do not have plans at the moment to publish the Penguin Great Ideas series in the USA."
Chicago's Seminary Co-op (God's bookstore, as I called it the other day) thinks that it can get the books through a distributor, without undue shipping costs (1-800-777-1456). (If, by the way, you've thought of ordering from Amazon.ca, the cost of shipping from Canada to the States doubles the price of a Great Ideas volume, to about $20.)
If you'd like to encourage Penguin to bring the third series of Great Ideas to the States, you might want to leave a message on the publisher's Ask a Question page.
[Orange notebook art. Click for a larger, orange-ier view.]
4" x 6 7/8", 96 sheets, 27 lines per page
6 1/4" x 9 1/4", 80 sheets, 25 lines per page
When Quo Vadis offered interested parties the chance to evaluate its Habana notebooks, I promptly raised my hand. As a regular reader of Orange Crate Art already knows, I love "supplies," a primal love that goes back to my childhood interest in my dad's art materials.
My acquaintance with Quo Vadis products goes back to my grad school days, when a Quo Vadis page-a-day planner became my tool of choice in the neverending battle to stay organized. ("That's what all the yuppies use," a saleswoman in a Boston stationery store told me when I looked at a Quo Vadis. I bought one anyway.) Quo Vadis planners have always been well made, with superior paper sewn in signatures and flexible but sturdy covers. So it's not surprising that these Habana notebooks are beautifully designed and made (in the U.S.). Their soft, leather-like, scuff-resistant covers (black, orange, red) are a wonder. (Any further description will have to sound like adspeak: buttery, rich, sumptuous.) The Habana's paper is by Clairefontaine, what Quo Vadis confidently calls "the best paper in the world for writing." Writing on Clairefontaine with a fountain pen is a pleasure: the paper takes ink without feathering or bleeding through. The Habana stays flat when open, so that one can write and ponder and ponder and write. The elastic band that keeps the notebook closed leaves no bumps beneath the back cover — a very nice trick. And there's a secret compartment — well, an envelope — on the inside back cover, to hold a spare bill, receipts, tickets, and a sentimental paper item or two. My review notebooks are without placemarking ribbons, though online descriptions of the Habana mention a ribbon.
Anyone who cares enough about notebooks to be reading this post is likely wondering how the Habana compares to the "legendary notebook of Hemingway, Picasso, and Chatwin" (none of whom used the notebooks made by Moleskine Srl). The Habana is not a Moleskine knockoff. The notebooks differ in size from Moleskines; the covers extend beyond the paper's edges; and there's that unmistakable Quo Vadis insignia (front cover, bottom right). Anyone who buys a notebook for its mythology ("Here I am, in a café, just like Hemingway") will be disappointed. (Imagine buying a typewriter to be like Kerouac, or a pencil to be like Nabokov!) But anyone who regards a notebook as a handy tool of thought will be delighted by the Habana. It's built for thinking and writing.
In Hiandloisville, offshore drilling has begun.
What is happening to this comic strip?
[Hi and Lois, August 24, 2008.]
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7:30 a.m. Leave the house. Buy water, an extra umbrella, fruit and oatmeal bars.
8:00 a.m. Drive to Springfield. Get lost (briefly) — a back road is involved. There is no simple and direct route to Springfield.
10:00 a.m. Arrive in Springfield. An instant parking space in a downtown lot! It's open to the public today, courtesy of Horace Mann Insurance. Why are there easy-to-find spaces? Where are all the people?
10:05 a.m. An answer to the first question never materializes, but the people — many, many people — are already waiting in line, an astonishing line that already wraps around a city block and snakes back and down several other streets. (NPR later reports a crowd of 35,000.)
10:05 a.m.–11:00 a.m. Elaine and I stand in line. We talk with people around us, some from Chicago, some from Springfield. One of our cohort is a blues fan from way back. He and I begin to talk about Canned Heat and the Incident at Kickapoo Creek. The line is getting longer and longer. It moves a little now and then, into and away from shade. Vendors move past selling buttons, shirts, and towels (towels?) with Obama's likeness. None of these items are official campaign merchandise, which is available at a handful of white tents. (Hint: look for the union label.)
11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. Things move more quickly. We round two corners, cross a street, walk another block or so, and present ourselves for security checks. No bottles, umbrellas, or folding chairs. We are glad that we left our umbrellas in the car. We sip a little water before surrendering our bottles. Everything comes out of pockets for inspection. My compact Zebra pen arouses some interest. "It's a pen," I say, and demonstrate by uncapping it. It's okay.
12:00 p.m.–1:40 p.m. Waiting outside the Old State Capitol, in the street beyond the Capitol grounds. We talk to people around us, with pauses to endure the sun now and then. National Guardsman on rooftops watch the crowd through binoculars. A woman from St. Louis wonders whether Bruce Springsteen will be a surprise guest (he's playing in St. Louis tonight). We decide that his presence would add too great an entertainment element and undercut Joe Biden. A student who worked for Biden during the primaries is especially happy to be here. Elaine and I talk at length with a lovely couple from Bogotá, Colombia. They came to Springfield in the 1950s, planning to stay for a year, and never left. They offer remarkable stories about the city's history, its better days and worse.
[Things abandoned on the way to the security check. Why an Altoids tin? Click for a larger view, though doing so won't answer the question.]
When the speeches were over (circa 3:00 p.m., I think) and the Obamas and Bidens began to greet people close to the speaking platform, Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours" came over the loudspeakers. Then some sort of rock and roll, and then the song I'd been waiting for, Jackie Wilson's "Higher and Higher." And then it was okay to leave.
[The people, yes. Click for a larger view.]
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[Barack and Michelle Obama and Joe and Jill Biden wave to the crowd. Click for a larger view.]
From a review of Penguin's Great Ideas, third series:
These books are too beautiful. If I'm going to read a book, I want to be able to tote it around in a jacket pocket, to leave it in the bathroom to get warped by steam, or in the kitchen to get stained with ketchup.Heinz, I hope.
