Tuesday, November 30, 2021

We are monsters

 
Lobsters, crabs and octopuses are sentient beings that feel pain, which serves as a step towards protecting the welfare of these species, sez a new study. Britain includes them in a new animal welfare law.

 

After thought


 

Show and tell


 

Sunday, November 28, 2021

"Sunday" in New York

 

Duffy Square, NYC this afternoon

Lin Manuel Miranda, Josh Groban and theatre kids



Saturday, November 27, 2021

Stephen Sondheim (1930 - 2021)

 

Sondheim: I Remember Sky

 


I remember sky … it was blue as ink
Or at least I think  I remember sky

I remember snow …
soft as feathers
sharp as thumbtacks
coming down like lint

and it made you squint
when the wind would blow ….

cold as silver, white as sheets
rain like strings and changing things
like leaves

i remember leaves
green as spearmint, crisp as paper
i remember trees
bare as coat racks,
spread like broken umbrellas

and parks and bridges, ponds and zoos
ruddy faces, muddy shoes
light and noise
and bees and boys
and … days

i remember days
or at least i try
but as years go by
they're a sort of haze

and the blue as ink
isn't really sky
and at times i think
i would gladly die
for a day of sky

                       *   *   *

Sondheim lyric, I Remember 

(Evening Primrose)

Sondheim - Good Thing Going (Going Gone)

Sondheim - "Old Friends"

Thursday, November 25, 2021

And there's gonna be trouble

 

                            My Girlfriend's back....


She's back, bien peasants!


DAILY MAIL:  "She's back with a blast! 

BARBARA AMIEL endured humiliation after her media tycoon husband was jailed and then wrote a memoir skewering her enemies... now she charts a triumphant return from social Siberia..."

         LINK: Bab's back (Daily Mail complete)

                              *   *   *

O happy day!

Barbara Amiel, the Black Queen of King Street breaks her silence of three years! 

The Daily Mail exposes the terrible times she's had, hiding in Toronto thru covid. She writes...

" The culture has become something like the bland Muzak one used to hear on lifts. Covid bylaws regulate the decibel count of music in beauty salons (don’t ask what that has to do with Covid), everyone masks up everywhere and contact tracing at restaurants before entry is mandatory. Which, in my case, is pointless ... the week before I was Margo Fonteyn."

Toronto. Sweat pants. Bien peasants. Yech.

But on a trip to London, Amiel  (former Sun editor and mon amour perdue) whips many  hands and leaves marks. Oh Cruella Deville. I miss my bleeds.

Highlights:

Covid in Canada ... In Canada, the population has been beaten down to a mass of compliant Covid regulation freaks... Perhaps the shuffling uniformity of Covid-panicked Canadians is the enervating result of life under PM Justin Trudeau."

Justin Trudeau ... Handsome Justin is blessed with his mother Margaret’s youthful good looks — but, unfortunately, her flower-child brains as well. Words fail in describing how desperately boring life in Canada under Trudeau has become..."

Packing for travel .... a ‘classic coat, transitional blazer, a few well cut basics’ all spiffed up by the ‘timeless accessory’ which I’ve always thought was a good facelift or your basic capsule billionaire."

The labels. The black cab drivers. Oh Lord.

Amiel's social commentary is a hoot.

Je t'aime Reine Noire.

Check out the Daily Mail link above! 
 

Got any more of that turkey?

"I think I'm ready for pie now .... "

 

Bird watch

 Happy Thanksgiving to US buds...


 

Day of eating


 

Frosting

--sharon gardiner / facebook

 

Cat burglars


 

Monday, November 22, 2021

Yo Monday!


 

Pass the sausage rolls

 

 
"I was talking to a woman in Ruskin Court, and she said she's on a diet!" says Joyce, finishing her glass of wine.
"She's 82! Why diet at 82? What's a sausage roll going to do? Kill you?"


If you haven't discovered Richard Osman's Thursday Murder Club mysteries, you're missing tales that would keep you amused while Louise Penny types her next Inspector Gamache.

Osmond's debut novel about murder-chasing oldsters got raves. His newest is superior to the first. Stephen Spielberg optioned both. Osmond's snappy dialogue is addicting.

“Stop repeating what I said last, Elizabeth. It’s a terrible habit of yours. That and adultery.”

Delightful.

 


Easy to find in a crash


 

Yanks' Thanksgiving this week


 

Sunday, November 21, 2021

George Booth's cartoons

 


George Booth's cartoon dogs and pussycats have been a New Yorker staple since the 1970s.

Celebrated this week with a new documentary and his 95th birthday, Booth has long been firmly in the mag's cartoon stratosphere with Thurber, Arno and Addams.

Cartoons of five decades birthed dozens of Booth books, starting in 1975 with ...

 

 A few of his classics appear below.

Booth's bulldog

George Booth's first New Yorker cover

 

Threesome

"Go to work, I'll find out why Mom is agitated."
 
"From the top--Watermelon Man.
"Let's rock it out and give Mrs.  Ritterhouse a chance to really cook." 
 
 
"And whose little mole is this?"


Something different 京都観光 旅行 龍安寺 銀閣寺 智積院 永...

_

If you live on the 23rd floor, are as gray as the sky outside or mourn as the hours tick down to another November Monday ...

Go somewhere else. Go here... 

Turkey lurkey

--axios 
 
Turkey and stuffing ice cream.
Kinda vanilla.
Kinda meaty.
Chunky bits of stuffing.
 
They must be very bored at that Des Moines ice cream store. 

Saturday, November 20, 2021

When it's hip to be hep, we get hep

 

Okay, I know what SMH and FTW mean in a text or e-mail.

(Shaking My Head, For The Win.)

Why you would use either is beyond me.

But I had to Google-check ICYMI yesterday. 

I think I knew what it meant once.

But seeing ICYMI in three places, including a CNN news letter, made me blink, then blank.

To save you the trouble, the acronym is for In Case You Missed It.

I think the CNN newsletter was trying to convey HHII.

You know: How Hip It Is

During a gold rush ...


During a gold rush, sell shovels.

              --Old saying 

                          

During a pandemic, sell shit ...

--actual book page via axios

 Trump Drops $230 Picture Book to Fleece Dumbasses for Xmas

No bigly words.

The former president's website proudly states he wrote some of the captions himself 

                --TheDailyBeast item 

Dr John, the JuJu Man

It's blues legend Dr. John's birthday... 

 

Color blind

 
Can only dogs see the appropriate colors?

 

Thursday, November 18, 2021

LOST SONGS: My Attorney Bernie, Dave Frishberg

A lot of Canadian media folk know Dave Frishberg's tune.

If you never had a Bernie in your life, you probably were sued, audited and missed a lot of laughs.

I miss Gelgoot.

AOL is 31 years old

_

Back in the old log cabin, Abe would do his lessons by firelight, while the rest of us huddled in a corner and watched this ....

Inventory of the crap closet

 

Postscript: Can someone tell me if the Fax Machine is officially dead?

Can I toss my rolls of Thermofax paper?

They're too crinkly to use in the bathroom.

Pre-historic coasters?

Crap found in dinosaur poop.

 

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Recognize this young buck?

Happy birthday, Gord ... 

 

Dinner in the Moonlight

_

Erik Normark listens to waves and watches the moon come up.

Wilderness hiker Erik's nature videos are exceptional sound and sight postcards from northern Sweden.

His sun sets at 2.30 in the afternoon ... but the moon comes up at the 5.00 mark in this new short.

You can now step on a puddle and crack fresh ice in Ontario cottage country.

Tuesday, November 16, 2021

Rotten egg?

What is Ryan Reynolds doing on Antiques Roadshow? 

Flogging his very expensive art theft  movie with The Rock?

The stolen egg caper described seems a way familiar plot ... the very plot of Red Notice.

That's the turkey that cost Netflix $100 million.

Same as the egg.  

Less than a week after its debut, the  flick is trending at #6, behind Everybody Loves Raymond, You and The Office.

I lasted to the 90 minute mark--where the rivals-turned-buds ride in a boxcar and attempt some Serious Acting.

New Netflix rule: if one actor (The Rock) has charisma and the other actor (Reynolds) has charisma, they cancel each other out, leaving a black hole of chemistry that makes for a long, exhaustive slog to the credits.

 


Two guys Zoomin'

"Hello?"
"I can't hear him."
"Do you have your mute button on?"
"His lips are moving."
"My lips are moving too."
"What's mute button in Chinese?"
"Are you there?"
"Is your Jìngyīn ànniǔ on?"
"Jingy what?"
"Did he just say Scranton?"

 

Diana Krall's birthday

It's Diana Krall's birthday.

She rarely appears as vulnerable as above.

But then, Larry Hart's bittersweet lyric has cut deep for 79 years... music in the night ... sweet symbols in the moonlight... isn't this romance?

Nope.

Fair warning


 

Baby not on board


 

Monday, November 15, 2021

Not easy with no ears


 

Robots should look like toasters

Why should a robot have eyes, arms, legs, hands?
 
A new study makes the case against anthropomorphizing robots.

If they didn't look like us, would we sleep better at night? They're appliances. Duty-driven.

Why do they need to look like us?

And what do Siri, Alexa, the Google lady and most phone systems all have in common?

The same voice?

You know: like human secretaries, hostesses, housewives, receptionists, mommy, grandma, girl friends, guy enablers.

Don't get me started on the robot dog.

Does the dog have a guy's voice?

As if. 

"Pick up that can, kid."