Sage words

Not everything can be about everything -- Gertrude Stein

Selections from "The Southpaw" by Mark Harris

"It will do them much good," said Krazy. "It will buck up their spirits and give them the idea that folks back home are thinking about them. There is nothing like the sight of baseball to make them think they are home."

"I see baseball every day," I said, "And never get the idea I am home."

*

I thought to myself that what was wrong with the club was they was thinking too much.

*

I must say that you have got to admire anybody like Sid that is willing to give up his milk for his religion.

*

I guess all I was saying was they could go their way and I would go mine, and some folks is born to play ball and the rest is born to watch, some folks born to clap and shriek and holler and some folks born to do the doing.

This week's band

The Low Anthem -- e.g., "To Ohio"

Annals of Hollywood crime

Those who play prosecutors must watch how they play.


The alibi: "We just stopped into a friend's house for a drink -- and suddenly we find ourselves in the middle of a rumble."

2010 Tournament of Books

http://www.themorningnews.org/tob/let-the-great-world-spin-v-miles-from-nowhere.php

R.I.P. Sparklehorse

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2010/03/mark-linkous-aka-sparklehorse-takes-own-life.html

Woof

"No! You don't bark in an office!"

-- Woman in the office next to mine, to her two little dogs who have been wandering among my papers and legs much of the day, and right now.

Song of the Day

"No Easy Way Down" -- Dusty Springfield (prompted by Mark Eitzel's live version)

-- and while we are at it, you and I, listen to the rest of the album too (Dusty in Memphis)

Dream

Fitful night, but must have slept, unless this really happened:

Sitting in the stands, some stands, two women maybe 23 years old sit next to me, one of whom is wearing some kind of YALE t-shirt. I comment on it to her: "I don't see that many of those out here, and yet there are a couple of other people in the stands wearing YALE t-shirts."

Then walking around some plaze among tall buildings, I notice more people wearing YALE shirts, and then sitting in different stands, many people with such shirts, some of which seem like a uniform -- either a sporting team or YALE laundry workers.

Suddenly green paint drips on me from the sky, and huge cannon bursts of green paint globules are launched from cannons behind us, to splatter against the tall buildings around us. Now it becomes clear: the Yale graduates are hear to watch the YALE sneak attack on these buildings, hoping to besmirch the honor of Princeton. (Neither institution is anywhere near, nor do the buildings seem to have anything to do with Princeton.)

That's why. Why'd you think?

Lyric of the day:

Oh please don't you rock my boat
'Cause I don't want my boat to be rockin'.

"Satisfy My Soul" -- Bob Marley

Faith and food

"Father . . . what are we to do?" . . .

"Sleep!" cried Father Brown ". . . Do you know what sleep is? Do you know that every man who sleeps believes in God? . . . it is an act of faith and it is a food."

from The Innocence of Father Brown

Overheard near the elevator

"Well, she's not a woman, let's put it that way."

Dream: Malibu Wildlife Search

Walking in sand dunes along the beach near Malibu, California, though out of sight of the water. I reach the top of a small rise. To the east at the bottom of the little hill is a large animal that I decide is a tapir. I become aware that I am looking for one of the largest animals in the world and that it is around here. I am narrating my journey, as if in a nature documentary, though there seems to be no point in doing so: no camera, no recorder, no phone. The "tapir" is not much like a tapir, and there seem to be two of them. It is the size of a hippo, and hippo-like, but where the nose flap is on a tapir, it has a foot long truck like an elephant's.

The tapir are not the large animal I am looking for.

Turning around at the base of the hill, where I have to return, a very large alligator has buried itself into the sand, like it would were the sand water, floating at or just below the surface. The alligator is dangerous.

I am aware that none of these animals are native to Malibu.

The hill seems to get steeper, and I am having a hard time not slipping down the sand towards the alligator. It seems inevitable that I will.

Pick Up Lines At The Gym Of Questionable Utility

1.

Woman exercising. Man standing next to her.

Man: [inaudible]
Woman: What's your name?
Man: [inaudible]
Woman: Rambo?
Man: [inaudible]
Woman: Well, nice to meet you Rambo.


2.

Man and woman enter steam room. Man, very large, very loud voice.

Man: I believed that for 48 years, but it only took 2 hours for me to learn the truth. All that stuff they say about Jesus Christ, it isn't true. But most people don't want to learn the truth. That's okay. Whatever floats your boat. I'm interested in the truth.

Woman: How did you learn the truth?

Man: Oh, lots of scholars who had done studies and stuff. You probably believed in Santa Claus too. I believed in Santa Claus when I was a kid. A large white man with a beard and flying reindeer. You can believe in Jesus Christ too.

Woman gets up to leave.

Man: ?

Woman: Oh, I was in here before, and it is too hot to stay longer. Have a nice day.

Him and George Plimpton

A memoir written with Google Maps (pretty cool):

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&gl=us&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=117518500794242822937.00046c27922ecb66b6fca&ll=40.438586,-76.970215&spn=3.787431,7.064209&z=7

Hazards of the life of international intrigue

from the story "The Beach Murders" by J.G. Ballard:

"The meeting at the nudist colony on the Isle du Levant had not been entirely fortuitous."