Background of backgrounds

[The 11th Hour, May 20, 2020. Click for a much larger view.]

Obelisk? Check. Statuary? Check? Skulls? Rocket? Skeleton? Check, check, and check. Dr. William Haseltine has the background of backgrounds. Looking at other recent interviews makes me think that this background is an image, of a room to be found somewhere, to be sure, just not right behind Dr. Haseltine.

Schwan’s Dinners

 
[Click either image for a larger view.]

That logo for Mike Pompeo’s so-called Madison Dinners: where had I seen something like it? A walk brought the answer: on the side of a Schwan’s truck. Schwan’s: meals on wheels. Pompeo’s: meals for wheels, big ones.

I think Schwan’s wears it better. Stay classy, Mister Secretary.

Old and new bookmarks

Elaine has posted photographs of her old and new bookmarks. The old one, a DO-NOT-USE-AS-BOOKMARK bookmark, made it through five years of the Four Seasons Reading Club. The new one is a legit bookmark, from Three Lives & Company.

Other bookmarks
Gotham Book Mart : Paint samples : Paperback Booksmith : Strand Bookstore

[The Four Seasons Reading Club: the two of us, reading the same book.]

A notebook sighting

[Sleeping Car to Trieste (dir. John Paddy Carstairs, 1948). Click for a larger view.]

This notebook’s name? MacGuffin.

More notebook sightings
All the King’s Men : Angels with Dirty Faces : Ball of Fire : The Big Clock : Bombshell : The Brasher Doubloon : Cat People : City Girl : Crossing Delancey : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Dead End : Dragnet : Extras : Eyes in the Night : The Face Behind the Mask : Foreign Correspondent : Fury : Homicide : The Honeymooners : The House on 92nd Street : Journal d’un curé de campagne : Kid Glove Killer : The Last Laugh : Le Million : The Lodger : Ministry of Fear : Mr. Holmes : Murder at the Vanities : Murder by Contract : Murder, Inc. : The Mystery of the Wax Museum : Naked City : The Naked Edge : The Palm Beach Story : Perry Mason : Pickpocket : Pickup on South Street : Pushover : Quai des Orfèvres : The Racket : Railroaded! : Red-Headed Woman : Rififi : La roue : Route 66 : The Scarlet Claw : The Small Back Room : The Sopranos : Spellbound : Stage Fright : State Fair : A Stranger in Town : Stranger Things : Time Table : T-Men : 20th Century Women : Union Station : Walk East on Beacon! : Where the Sidewalk Ends : The Woman in the Window : You Only Live Once

Never too early, never too late

From Sleeping Car to Trieste (dir. John Paddy Carstairs, 1948). In the dining car, Tom Bishop (David Tomlinson) to Zurta (Albert Lieven):

“Won’t you join me in a Scotch?”

“No, thank you, it’s rather early in the day for me.”

“It’s never too early for a Scotch. Never too late either.”

No, it is too early. Ask me in another fourteen hours, before it’s too late.

It’s neither too early nor too late to board Sleeping Car to Trieste, which is waiting at the station right now.

Sunshine Hydrox

[Serving suggestion. Life, May 5, 1961. Click for larger desserts.]

I went in search of a lost cookie. Readers of a certain age will remember Hydrox (far superior, I always thought, to the Oreo). An added bonus: Hydrox was made by Sunshine Bakers, delivering “light inside the body” with every delicious bite.

Milk, bleach, and azithromycin sold separately.

[Here, from Atlas Obscura, is some Hydrox history.]

Internet rising

Yesterday Elaine wrote a post about making bread with a tiny amount of yeast. And a helpful person left a comment with a link to an Italian-imports store in Pittsburgh that sells instant yeast — “works twice as fast.” The same product is sold by King Arthur Flour — so it must be good, no? It’s temporarily unavailable from King Arthur, but it is available, right now, from the store in Pittsburgh. Elaine’s post has the info.

Drugs and their effects

From The New Yorker:

A new test of the drug hydroxychloroquine suggests that it may cause delusions, Dr. Anthony Fauci warned on Monday.

In a conference call with reporters, Fauci indicated that his findings were based on a preliminary test involving one white male subject in his seventies.

“It’s too early to be definitive about this, but the evidence suggests that, if you are already prone to delusions, paranoid fantasies, and a generalized detachment from reality, taking hydroxychloroquine may only make those symptoms worse,” he said.

See also the brilliant Sarah Cooper.

But also, for real, concerning chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin:

These drugs cause a wide spectrum of neuropsychiatric manifestations, including agitation, insomnia, confusion, mania, hallucinations, paranoia, depression, catatonia, psychosis, and suicidal ideation. Stopping the drug could lead to resolution, but symptoms may not quickly resolve.

No indication of whether the drugs exacerbate those conditions when they’re already present.

Ken Osmond (1943–2020)

AKA Eddie Haskell. The New York Times has an obituary.

Another “Molambo”

We have both kinds of music: fast and slow. Here’s another “Molambo” (Jaime Florence–Augusto Mesquita). Enjoy. The purple theme is accidental.



[Disclaimer: Though it looks as if I’m staring into the camera at the start, I wasn‘t, honest. I was staring into space.]