Veronica Lake’s hair has been acclaimed by men, copied by girls, cursed by their mothers and viewed with alarm by moralists. It is called the “strip-tease style,” “the sheep-dog style” and the “bad-girl style” (though few except nice girls wear it), but to most moviegoers it is simply “the Veronica Lake style.”
Vanderbilt University has sold off its radio station, and former DJ Freddie O’Connell objects:
The sale added Vanderbilt to a growing list of colleges and universities, including Rice University in Houston and the University of San Francisco, where college radio licenses are being sold off, backed by the assertion that today’s well-wired students no longer tune in to the medium. But that misses the point: college radio is not only a vital part of the communities it serves, but it is even more essential in the Internet era.O’Connell’s characterization of WRVU as “one of the only places people could hear traditional bluegrass, world music and electronica, to name just a few genres,” made me remember a once-great radio station of my acquaintance.
Preserving College Radio (New York Times)
From an appropriately clever New York Times obituary:
Leonard B. Stern, an Emmy-winning writer, producer and director for television whose frantic search for an adjective one day led him and a colleague to create Mad Libs, the game that asks players to fill in blanks with designated parts of speech to yield comically ________[adj.] stories, died on Tuesday at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 88.Among his other accomplishments, Leonard Stern co-wrote seventeen of the thirty-nine “classic” episodes of The Honeymooners.
On Thursday, Ben had Elaine and me fill in a Mad Lib he had made for his co-workers. He recorded our answers on a napkin during lunch. We didn’t know then that Mr. Stern had died. His Mad Libs lives on.From the New York Times:
Patrick Leigh Fermor, the British writer whose erudite, high-spirited accounts of his adventures in prewar Europe, southern Greece and the Caribbean are widely regarded as classics of travel literature, died on Friday at his home in Worcestershire, England. He was 96.I read his work for the first time earlier this month.
“Eating out” is like “eating in” when your favorite counter serves your favorite soup — by Heinz! For every bowlful of hale and hearty Heinz Home-style Soup is brimming with irresistible, homemade flavor Heinz chefs capture by careful, small-batch cooking. Soda fountains, luncheonettes and tea rooms from coast to coast are equipped with the Heinz Electric Soup Kitchen that facilitates prompt, speedy service of these delectable dishes. An electric soup cup heats them in two minutes!The premise of this ad — that “eating out” should taste like “eating in” — bugs me in its appeal to the preference for what’s already familiar. If I were the man in the hat, I’d feel a bit demeaned when a customer ordered Heinz soup and not one of my delicious hamburg or liverwurst sandwiches. Sure, it’s not like I make the meat myself, but it takes a heck of a lot more skill to make a good sandwich plate than to heat up a can o’ soup. But if your idea of “eating out” is the same can you could’ve had at home, I’ll get it for you right now. Heinz soup —it’s grand! Would you like crackers with that?
A certain CBS Evening News anchorperson looks an awful lot like another CBS Evening News anchorperson. IMHO.
[Scott Pelley and Bob Schieffer.]
John Waters tells a story:
Johnny Mathis admits he does go to private events, and we both recall happily those wonderfully insane dinner party salons that the late Roddy McDowall used to give for the most bizarrely mixed guest list ever. “He included everybody,” Johnny says, laughing, and boy, did he! I remember being lucky enough to be invited there and meeting George Axelrod, and how happy I was to gush to him in person about the brilliance of his screenplay and his direction of the movie Lord Love a Duck. Then I turned around and there was an elderly couple dressed in full fringed cowboy outfits with holsters and guns. “Oh, John,” Roddy asked casually, “do you know Roy Rogers and Dale Evans?” “No,” I stammered, almost speechless. How could I? I live in Baltimore!Other Lord Love a Duck posts
Role Models (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2010)
Behold, a tag cloud with the top twenty tags for Orange Crate Art posts. This cloud may also be found in a more subdued form in the sidebar.
Pinboard is, in the words of its makers, “a bookmarking website for introverted people in a hurry.” I’ve been using Pinboard since December 2010 and recommend it with enthusiasm.
