The Last Republican

The story behind The Last Republican, a documentary about Adam Kinzinger: “‘Do you have contempt for my views?’ How a leftwing film-maker and a Republican came together” (The Guardian ).

Irony alert

J.D. Vance:

“We admire Taylor Swift's music, but I don't think most Americans, whether they like her music, are fans of hers or not, are gonna be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who I think is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and the problems of most Americans.”

See also a previous J.D. Vance irony alert.

Some field

[Photograph by Elaine Fine.]

Just some field. Whatever you do, do not click for a larger view. Move along, folks. Nothing to see here.

About last night

In the lastest installment of Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson offers an astute analysis of last night’s debate:

The question for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in tonight’s presidential debate was not how to answer policy questions, but how to counter Trump’s dominance displays while also appealing to the American people.

She and her team figured it out, and today they played the former president brilliantly. He took the bait, and tonight he self-destructed. In a live debate, on national television.

Swift FTW

As just reported on MSNBC: Taylor Swift has endorsed Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

Here it is, on Instagram.

Cleanup on aisle 45

Kamala Harris: “What we have done is clean up Donald Trump’s mess.”

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Donald Trump: “They’re eating the pets.”

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Kamala Harris: “World leaders are laughing at Donald Trump.”

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Donald Trump, about offering an alternative to the Affordable Care Act: “I have concepts of a plan.”

The New Grown-Ups: “Cumberland Gap”

Our son Ben Leddy is a member of The New Grown-Ups, who just took first in a new-band showcase at the Thomas Point Beach Bluegrass Festival in Brunswick, Maine. That’s a sample above.

Notice the New Grown-Ups logo, top left. Ben is a clever guy. He’s on mandolin. All said and done.

A related post
The New Grown-Ups at Bandcamp

EXchange names sighting

The Great Bernzini (Joe Pesci), a photographer loosely based on Weegee, wants to capture a mob hit as it happens. To do so, he must figure out which Italian restaurant is hosting the private party where the hit is to take place. So he starts calling around for a reservation to find out who’ll be closed to the public tonight. From The Public Eye (dir. Howard Franklin, 1992). Click any image for a larger view.


The EXchange names and street names are real. I looked up enough of the restaurant names in the 1940 Manhattan directory to feel pretty sure that they’re all fictional. And the pages are, of course, fictional. Look closely and you can see the paste-up.

Related reading
All OCA EXchange name posts (Pinboard)

Typo alerts

From the podcast Mac Power Users, episode 760. Stephen Hackett is talking with David Sparks about readers calling attention to typos:

“Nine times out of ten that comes with an apology attached, like ‘Oh, hey, I’m sorry, I found this.‘ Thank you for sending them in. We didn’t catch it, we want to be accurate and correct, and there’s nothing worse — I’m sure you’ve had this experience too — where you come across a blog post from eight years ago and there’s a typo in it. That’s been on the Internet for almost a decade, and no one told you. It’s the worst feeling, so thank you for sending those in.”

That’s my attitude too.

James Earl Jones (1931–2024)

James Earl Jones has died at the age of ninety-three. The Guardian has an obituary.

Darth Vader? Mufasa? Sure. But I always think of him as Lear.