PIcture of Two Pictures in a bathroom

Another View of Disney Hall

Bar Talk

22 year old female bartender on why seeing her ex-boyfriend when back in Pittsburgh is creepy:

"He's super chill. Which is cool. But beyond chill. He comes across as gay.

What was I thinking?"


Male Hollywood agent of indeterminate age describing the phenomenon of waking up with someone asleep on your arm, about whom you think "What was I thinking?":

"They call it coyote ugly. You just want to chew your own arm off so you can sneak out without waking her."


Different bar:

Woman of about 40 who has just that minute finished taking her optician exam:

I know a joke. Do you want a Hertz donut?

She is met with silence. She punches the guy next to her.

Woman [to guy]: Hertz, donut?

Me: Ow.

Woman: I got that from Family Guy.

The War of Northern Aggression

The two halves of Beverly Park, the exclusive gated community tucked between Beverly Hills and Mulholland Drive, have gone to court against each other over blocked access and unpaid fees. The tensions escalated last year when residents of North Beverly Park — the part that includes Sumner Redstone and Haim Saban — stopped allowing the nannies, gardeners and other visitors to South BP — the side where Magic Johnson and Richard Zanuck live — from entering off Mulholland.


(From L.A. Observed)
http://www.laobserved.com/

Facebook is scary.

2008 Bulwer-Lytton Contest Winners

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/scott.rice/blfc2008.htm

The Occupational Hazard of the Fictional P.I.

"[Holmes does not even consider that a death narrated in The Hound of the Baskervilles could be an accident] because [that theory] does not jibe with his vision of the world and his desire to find murderers. It is just too commonplace for a man who dreams of grandiose crimes committed on deep, dark night under tragic circumstances."

-- from the chapter "Murder By Literature" in Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong.

Song of the Day

Hank Williams, singing a surprising, serious version of "On Top Of Old Smoky" in, he says, the way his grandmother used to.

Heroic Fact Checking

John Hodgman, about his books of made-up facts, answering the question about fact-checking his book:

In book publishing, we have no fact checkers, so this rarely comes into play. They are happy to let the author lie and withstand the consequences. But the proofreader can be tricky. On my first book, my poor proofreader had no idea that my book was all made up, and she heroically attempted to correct the record on, say, U.S. Presidents who had hooks for hands, until about page 100, when she got it. By the second book, she had become an invaluable resource and aid in helping me fabricate a world. Her name is Rachelle Mandik, and I am grateful.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2008/11/the-exchange-jo.html#entry-more

Pogo

http://www.pogopossum.com/index.htm

Current chapter: http://www.pogopossum.com/gofizzicklepogo/go15.htm

"A novelist is always born atop the demolished homestead of his own lyricism." -- Milan Kundera, cited in "Agnes's Final Afternoon," as a way into the contrast Ricard finds in Kundera's work between the young man's lyricism and that way of life of the libertine.

Impressive 13 year old

Scene: middle school debate. Summation has just been delivered by the daughter of a man in the stands. Daughter gives a mighty impressive summation in favor of the proposition Resolved: That John McCain Is The Best Choice For Commander In Chief. Man overhears a(n adult) man behind him.

Man in back row: Glad I'm not married to her.

Favorite photo of gay rights protestor's sign

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4hfeiYr3Zq4/SRaVZbI1rhI/AAAAAAAAEWg/xontu_v4pgg/s1600-h/g.jpg

John Leonard

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-Obit-Leonard.html?hp

http://www.slate.com/id/2204095/

http://www.edrants.com/john-leonard-dead/

California Election Report

There goes my plan to move to San Francisco and legally marry a male prostitute.

Black voter

A black male voter, interviewed on NPR:

"My friends and I used to say, 'A black man in American can be anything he wants except a white man or President.' But Michael Jackson has proved the first one wrong and now it seems Obama is about to disprove the second one too."