A LAWRENCE SCHILLER FOR TODAY
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HOLLYWOOD HOTEL
1950s . . .
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TRUE BROTHERS
Eric Cantor admitted sheepishly today what Washington insiders have long known — he and Paul Ryan exchange their used underwear each week before washing. “It’s no big deal,” Ryan commented. “We just like to smell each other’s used underwear.”
Cantor says that sniffing “a real man’s underwear” each week gives him the inspiration to stick to his plan of destroying the American economy if the majority of Americans refuse to accept the policies of the Republican minority without modification.
WHEN THE GRASS GROWS OVER ME
ESTHER AGAIN
SHE MUST BE
A COOL PLACE TO HANG OUT
. . . in Austin, Texas. SXSW has been erased from the sign, but the Halcyon café abides.
Photo courtesy of my friend Hilmar, who first introduced me to the Halcyon.
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WE LOVED IT AWAY
I have never had sex with a woman who had hair this big, which begs the question — “Have I truly lived?”
A PARADOXICAL KILLING
Juan Martinez, prosecutor in the Jodi Arias trial, spoke fateful words today — “The state rests.” Tomorrow final arguments will begin and then the case will go to the jury.
The case presents bewildering paradoxes. The savagery of the killing of Travis Alexander by Jodi Arias suggests a crime of passion, of overwhelming momentary impulse. Premeditated murder is usually neater and more efficient.
At the same time there is persuasive circumstantial evidence that Arias traveled to Alexander’s home hoping that her visit there would never be traceable, and also that she took with her a gun, probably stolen from her grandparents’ home, though there has been no evidence presented which would prove this beyond a reasonable doubt.
It doesn’t add up, but the jury will have to decide between facts which, in sum, contradict each other and contradict common sense.
BOOKS FROM ICELAND!
I’d never before gotten any books from Iceland but today a package arrived from Reykjavik containing a set of The Complete Sagas Of Icelanders — the first more or less complete English translation of all the Icelandic Sagas along with forty-nine related short stories.
There are five volumes in this set, bound in leather dark-blue like the sea, stamped in dragon-hoarded gold and smythe-sewn.
I only ordered them about a week ago, which just goes to show that those longships can still make time.
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A WESTERN STORY
A drummer, selling books on the fringes of civilization, stumbles upon a cabin in a fierce snowstorm, occupied by a lone woman with insatiable appetites — one of the tales in Fourteen Western Stories, available on Amazon for the Kindle and for free Kindle reading apps, which work on almost all computers and portable devices. Free to borrow for Kindle owners enrolled in Amazon Prime.
Also available in a toasty-warm paperback edition:
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A STEVAN DOHANOS FOR TODAY
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THE EXHAUSTION OF THE WORLD
My friend Paul Zahl introduces this talk by a guy named Tullian Tchividjian about the exhaustion of the world. It’s nominally a Christian message but you’d do better not to think of it that way because it’s a message you won’t hear preached by very many Christians these days — it’s too radical . . .
BEOWULF
Thanks to a friend’s recommendation and some excerpts he posted online, I decided to take a look at Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf. It turned out to be astonishing — I couldn’t put it down. The narrative skills of the original (anonymous) poet and Heaney’s dynamic modern-English verse combine to make for a thrilling read. The work is well over a thousand years old and it’s still a page-turner.