DC Tap Water

Hot days make you want to stay inside, where the air moves artificially. Crumbs on a plate. Audio is my favorite. Newspapers pile up during the week. A giant pot of beans benefits from the addition of corn. End tables can be moved easily. A sandwich in a box reminds me of you last night at dinner. An undefeated person should think about not playing anymore.

Pictures of Success

Colonel Truex brought me the order today. We are to decamp in a fortnight. Impending doom and damnation. And all of the whiskey is gone.

The adjutant had received word that few men could be spared from the siege of Petersburg. I would be relying on Ricketts' division, the thousand or so hundred-days' men that remained to me, and whatever of my wits I could muster. The whiskey was gone and not coming back.

Early would have his ransom.

cars as brogues

I surveyed the lot. 5:30 on a Wednesday, there was no doubt that R— would still be lurking in the office. Her car must be amongst the last picked-over remnants in the stew pot parking lot. Which one?

Consider the source. Micromanager, another one of those people who seems to have a work face they put on every morning, giving you the eerie feeling of talking to the face, not the person. There must be a car for her here, one that fits.

I saw it clear, like icy water in a steel sink: the Honda Accord nestled in a corner spot.

Moderate luxury without ostentation.
Modernity without hipness.
Practicality without ugliness.
Comfortably, tenaciously situated right in the middle.

That it was beige went without saying.

Notes on Roth; meaningless to most anyone except for me

-Isn't so much associating with Nazis a little over the edge, even for Lindbergh?
-Indictment of Americans for how easily they are tricked by the false modesty of a Lindbergh. Some have claimed this is a roman a clef against the Bush Administration. Parallels my dears?
-225 - His portrayal of the honest, striving, protective parents working together to keep their families safe is moving
-227 - Sandy: "You Jews"
-228 - Homestead 42 sinister because it is so unnecessary. How in the world can Bengelsdorf and Evelyn et al. not see through this? It is transparent as a thinly sliced cucumber.
-230 - Sandy is in throes of rebellious young adult period but, this is to an extreme level. Again, how can he justify saying "you people"? Who does he think he is?
-Communal news-watching/listening. Is this completely gone? Exception of Super Bowl and election night. Any others?
-Does Winchell not fear for his own safety?
-What do we make of Herman's assertion that there are still good men in this country? Is he right? Are the good men (Roosevelt, Ickes, et al.) being swept away in the wave of Lindberghism?
-226 - "This is our country!" Realization that Bess is right, though, and it's always better safe than sorry in these matters, as European Jews learned in the worst possible way
-Symbolism in Alvin's absence?
-241 - "historical fears of a persecuted people" They are historical fears for a reason! Is Bengelsdorf naive or perverse? Both?

Second-grade fresh

The inaugural meeting of the International All-Russia Skype Book Club is tomorrow. I'm excited.

Рукописи не горят

the seedy underbelly of the pizza business in Ipswich

This is too funny. I was looking for the phone number of a local pizza place, Theo's, tonight, and I stumbled upon what appears to be their website. The front page looks like it's about the place in Ipswich, has a little information specific to Theo's, a correct address, you know, the usual. But click on over to the reviews page, or 'About Us', and it's a whole different story. There you'll find that this site isn't about Theo's at all, but rather about Vinnie's Pizza, in good old Anytown, USA.

That's right. Someone out there thought it would be a good idea to create a form template on which to make a website for a local pizza place. Any local pizza place. Furthermore, someone at Theo's who was responsible for their web site forgot to finish filling out the template! This gives us gems like "Soon after graduating high school, Vincent began making pizzas at The Corner Pizza Place, in Northern Anytown." The story doesn't end there, though. "Although he had an affinity for The Corner Pizza Place, Vincent knew that greater challenges and opportunities awaited him in the heart of Anytown." Look you can take the fictional pizza maker out of Anytown, but you can't take Anytown out of the fictional pizza maker.

Sure the front page is up to date and includes some Theo's-specific information. But how am I supposed to believe anything Theo's says about their pizza when elsewhere on their site Gomer Pyle of the Anytown Gazette raves that they have "Simply the best pizza in Anystate. If you are looking for a delicious pizza, quickly make a trip to Vinnie's Pizza."?

Would it be too simplistic to say that this encapsulates everything that's wrong with American culture today? Instead of taking the time to jot down a few sentences for a web site, people expect that someone will have already created a template for them where they can just fill in the blanks, and presto, there's your web site. Basically it's Mad Libs for small businesses. No thanks.