Barack Obama's summer vacation reading list:

"The Way Home" by George Pelecanos
"Hot, Flat, and Crowded" by Thomas Friedman
"Lush Life" by Richard Price
"Plainsong" by Kent Haruf
"John Adams" by David McCullough

Two teenagers talking

Girl: You should take up knitting.

Girl 2: No, crocheting is way cooler. Crocheting is the new knitting. You obviously don't speak to any old people.

A little personal analysis

Among the LibraryThing Unsuggester unsuggests for me (on the basis of the books I read, and reverse statistical correlations, the Unsuggester tells me what I shouldn't read) are pretty much any book by Sophie Kinsella (about Shopaholics) and

The Good Marriage: How and Why Love Lasts by Judith Wallerstein.

This is based not on a knowledge of me, but because I have read: a Henning Mankel book (whatever), an early Joseph Conrad novel (?), a biography of Shelley (well, no one who reads a biography of Shelley will ever get married, at least not to Shelley or anyone he knew), the Vintage Book of Amnesia (hard to stay married if you don't remember that you are, or where you live) and, clearly most importantly, The Magic Pudding.

It was The Magic Pudding that gave me away.

Best use of the word "basically"

A typical sentence from "Inherent Vice," typlifying the pleasures of that book:

Next morning -- ocean smell, fresh coffee, a cool edge -- Doc was in Wavos, going through the Sunday Times to see if there was anything new about the Wolfmann case, which there wasn't -- though of course with twenty or thirty different sections you never knew what might be hiding among the real estate ads -- and was about to dig in to a specialty of the house known as Shoot The Pier, basically avocados, sprouts, jalapenos, pickled artichoke hearts, Monterey jack cheese, and Green Goddess dressing on a sourdough loaf that had first been sliced lengthwise, spread with garlic butter, and toasted, seventy-nine cents and a bargain at half the price, when who should stroll in, who else, but Shasta Fay.

Nice work By AP Writer

By WAYNE PARRY, Associated Press Writer Wayne Parry, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 1 min ago

Rock legend Bob Dylan was treated like a complete unknown by police in a New Jersey shore community when a resident called to report someone wandering around the neighborhood.

Dylan was in Long Branch, about a two-hour drive south of New York City, on July 23 as part of a tour with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp that was to play at a baseball stadium.

A 24-year-old police officer apparently was unaware of who Dylan is and asked him for identification, Long Branch business administrator Howard Woolley said Friday.

"I don't think she was familiar with his entire body of work," Woolley said.

The incident began at 5 p.m. (2100 GMT) when a resident said a man was wandering around a low-income, predominantly minority neighborhood several blocks from the oceanfront looking at houses.

The police officer drove up to Dylan, who was wearing a blue jacket, and asked him his name.

According to Woolley, the following exchange ensued:

"What is your name, sir?" the officer asked.
"Bob Dylan," Dylan said.
"OK, what are you doing here?" the officer asked.
"I'm on tour," the singer replied.

A second officer, also in his 20s, responded to assist the first officer. He, too, apparently was unfamiliar with Dylan, Woolley said.

The officers asked Dylan for identification. The singer of such classics as "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Blowin' in the Wind" said that he didn't have any ID with him, that he was just walking around looking at houses to pass some time before that night's show.

The officers asked Dylan, 68, to accompany them back to the Ocean Place Resort and Spa, where the performers were staying. Once there, tour staff vouched for Dylan.

The officers thanked him for his cooperation.

"He couldn't have been any nicer to them," Woolley added.

How did it feel? A Dylan publicist did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment Friday.

Inherent Vice

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjWKPdDk0_U

I like the trailer -- narrated by the unseen author.

Party talk

Friend, to me: I'm so glad you came.

Me: I'm glad I'm here.

Friend: I would have been lonely otherwise. If you hadn't come, everyone here would have been civilized.

We are such stuff as hot dogs are made of

"Now, of course, we're all mustard."

-- Dr. Seuss, "Happy Birthday To You."

from Lolita, the movie

Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters):

You touch me and I go limp as a noodle. It drives me crazy.

Humbert Humbert (James Mason):

I know what you mean.

If your birthday is some other day

You become more loving this year. With the help of a mentor or healer, you clear away old resentments, make a plan for living life your way and stay on track. The next seven weeks bring new friends and influences into your world. You'll make money with a creative endeavor and you'll make people happy, too. Libra and Virgo adore you. Your lucky numbers are 30, 25, 39, 15 and 2.

New friends, whoo hoo! And only ten more zodiac signs left to convince to adore me!

Cleveland -- If not for . . .

I'd heard it said that if not for the city of New Orleans, with its chicory-roasted coffee, plates of sausage, and beignets, and also for San Francisco, with its hot croissants, organic fruit jam, and fresh-ground coffee, and possibly New York, with its hot bialys and bowls of steamed prunes, Cleveland would have been considered the "City of Breakfasts." Accordingly, I was not disappointed by the Muffin Pit, by my two eggs, over easy with a side of bacon, or by my couple of pieces of wheat toast and two of those puffy donuts on the side, all prepared by a balding, unshaven, foreign-looking, yet somehow curiously at home counterman in a grease-spattered apron. Our orders were delivered, along with a handsome square container of grape preserves, two glasses of orange juice, and two cups of coffee, by a grandmotherly waitress wearing a yellowed doily crown atop her stringy gray hair. I had been keyed up for the meeeting, but, needless to say, I suddenly found my appetite.

from Erased by Jim Krusoe