As always, click to enlarge. For more Doonesbury, Tom Toles, Ben Sargeant, and Zippy the Pinhead, go here, here, here, and here...
Happy Birthday, Editilla!...
Happy Birthday, Editilla!...
Happy songs...
Last night, Premium T. and I celebrated Valentine's Day at Cafe Juanita, where we got married. Here's the menu:
First Course
Maine Lobster with Green Apple Sorbetto and Lobter Butter Powder
Chiavennasca '07 Pietro Nera, La Novella
Second Course
Raviolo of Dog Mountain* Duck Egg and Full Circle Farms Sunchokes with Smoked Sea Salt
Barbera d'Alba '07 Bricco del Tempo
Third Course
Filet of John Dory with Winter Citrus
Rosso di Montalcino '05 Agostina Pieri
Fourth Course**
Loin of Veal and Crisp Sweetbreads with Brussels Sprouts, Truffled Potato Crema, Porcini Sauce and Pickled Quince
Montepulciano d'Abruzzo '04 Masciarelli, Marina Cvetic
Dessert
Pralus Chocolate Souffle
Porto '01 Dow's LBV
* A local organic farm
** I substituted Wagyu steak
So a big Texan stops at a local restaurant following a day roaming around Mexico. While sipping tequila, he notices a sizzling, delicious-looking platter being served at the next table. Not only did it look good, the smell was wonderful. So he asks the waiter, "What is that you just served?""Ah senor," the waiter replies, "you have excellent taste! Those are called Cojones de Toro: bull testicles from the bull fight this morning. A delicacy!"
The Texan hears that and says, "By God, bring me an order.""I am so sorry senor," the waiter apologizes. "There is only one serving per day because there is only one bull fight each morning. If you come early and place your order, we will be sure to save you this delicacy."
The next morning, the Texan returns and places his order. Sure enough, that evening he is served the one and only special delicacy of the day. After a few bites, inspecting his platter, he called to the waiter and said, "These are fantastico, but they are a hell of a lot smaller than the ones I saw you serve yesterday."
The waiter shrugged and replied, "Si, Senor. Sometimes the the bull wins."
Speaking in Tongues: Novelist Zadie Smith (White Teeth, On Beauty) explores the links between George Bernard Shaw, Cary Grant, John and William Shakespeare, Lord Halifax, herself, Frank O'Hara, and L'il Wayne to Barack Obama in this tour de force:
It's my audacious hope that a man born and raised between opposing dogmas, between cultures, between voices, could not help but be aware of the extreme contingency of culture. I further audaciously hope that such a man will not mistake the happy accident of his own cultural sensibilities for a set of natural laws, suitable for general application. I even hope that he will find himself in agreement with George Bernard Shaw when he declared, "Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it." But that may be an audacious hope too far. We'll see if Obama's lifelong vocal flexibility will enable him to say proudly with one voice "I love my country" while saying with another voice "It is a country, like other countries." I hope so. He seems just the man to demonstrate that between those two voices there exists no contradiction and no equivocation but rather a proper and decent human harmony.
Citizen K. has begun following angels and people / life in New Orleans, a photographic witness of everyday happenings in the Crescent City...
Anthony Suau wins the World Press Photo of the Year Award for 2008...
Molly the Dog looks out at a dingy waiting room filled with discouraged people:
They look sad and tired. Most have been waiting there for hours. Some of them have appointments and some don't. For a few moments I think I'm working in a clinic in a third world country. Then I remember I'm looking at the poor in a major US city.
Sunday Gospel Hour: Aretha Franklin leads the Georgetown University choir in "Battle Hymn of the Republic":
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9 comments:
Amen on #2 (Toles) and #6 (Sargent). As a further comment on the Sargent - yes that one man kept it whole. And look what it cost him. And in reference to Toles' comment on bipartisanship, did you read Frank Schaeffer's open letter to President Obama in the Huffington Post? Great advice, and a great piece of political essay writing.
Is it me, or is Aretha looking and sounding tired? She had a lot less energy in that video than I'm used to seeing from her. She needs to get back into performing form! *sigh* I'm getting depressed by all the people who formed the musical soundtrack to my youth aging and passing away!
I thought Aretha sounded good, fwiw; & who knew about RB Hayes-- wasn't he a product of the electoral college?
It was freezing up there. And she wasn't lip synching -- unlike, the way YoYoMa & Co. bow synched, for instance.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
This performance looks to have been indoors.
Here's the way I look at it: Ted Williams at 40 was not the hitter he was at 28. But in his prime, he was arguably the greatest hitter who ever played baseball. Even as his skills faded, they were still superior to almost everyone else's.
That's how I see Aretha: if your benchmark is Aretha at 25, she's not there. However, no one else of any age is there either: IMHO, that's the gold standard and she set it. If your benchmark is the general population of vocalists, Aretha is still in the top echelon.
Everyone ages; some have a luckier set of genes than others. By the end, Frank Sinatra was a shadow of his former self. Tony Bennett, though, keeps rolling right along.
John: Hayes actually tied in electoral votes with James Blaine (The Man From Maine). Ironically, the contested electoral votes were Florida's. A special commission awarded Florida's votes to Hayes after he agreed to end Reconstruction -- the first sell-out of African-Americans by the Republican party.
Grant mentions Hayes favorably in the Memoirs as an able and brave political general.
Thanks for the info, K. I knew there were some things about his administration that were at least problematic. The Florida connection is just about uncanny.
Love your cartoons. This is fabulous
There's only one Aretha. She's one of the few performers whose prime really was in a class of its own. Which is all the more remarkable when you consider the great Africa-American vocalists who were her peers.
Scroll down to this video that I posted last month.
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