If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. I understand that much of this material –such as it is– falls under the category of inscrutable. Some have gone so far as to call it impenetrable. At any rate, I’m willing to acknowledge that the bulk of what I have to say is more … Read more
Tom Turkey Tim Turkey It was amusing to hear Governor Pawlenty’s State of the State message today start off with a discussion of turkey droppings and end with the biggest gobbler gunk of all: “And let’s make sure that courts can’t throw out our defense of marriage laws in Minnesota, like they have in other … Read more
A retired railroad brakeman named Eliot Show was cleaning his barbecue grill one afternoon when he inadvertently spilled a bucket of ashes and loosed a swarm of jinns on the neighborhood. A cleric who was later summoned for advice on dealing with the infestation informed the neighborhood council that jinns had long been disposed to … Read more
Puck was a man of huge appetites. I don’t mean the ones that made him prone to stroke, but the ones that made him figuratively larger than life. I knew Kirby, not well, but some. I helped report a little about the Twins when I was at City Pages. I played in his pool tournament … Read more
I’ve spent all night trying to find the words to describe the way I felt when I heard that Kirby Puckett was dead, and to describe what his life –primarily as a baseball player, but also as a complex, larger-than-life character– meant to me. Because he did mean something to me. He meant more to … Read more
Sad to hear about Kirby Puckett’s stroke yesterday. I happened to be building a fire yesterday afternoon, and had last week’s Times ready to crumple up into tinder. It was the sports section, which I have to admit I rarely read. Which is a shame because it’s lately gotten just as good and entertaining as … Read more
An actor for president? No way Americans would ever do that. Our old friend David Carr did a nice job of blogging from the Oscars yesterday. But perhaps his best observation was to simply quote George Clooney’s acceptance speech. In case you were watching a basketball game or something, here it is: “You know, we … Read more
He’d be assassinated today, too. I wasn’t sure whether I should laugh or cry yesterday when I heard that Michele Bachmann had “scolded” the God Hates Fags protesters at the funeral of the Minnesota soldier who had been killed in Iraq. As Bachmann explained, it’s not that God doesn’t hate fags, it’s just that he … Read more
—Michael Thompson —Michael Hernandez De Luna Bad Press Books, The Stamp Art And Postal History Of Michael Thompson And Michael Hernandez De Luna The Museum of Bad Art Soviet Children’s Picture Books From the Twenties and Thirties The Golden Age of Iron Men Dictionary of Hobo Slang Vintage Drug Ads Thump Queen: Meryl Truett Photography … Read more
“Ok, Cheney, just you and me. Shotguns at 10 paces.” I just couldn’t let this go, but it popped onto my computer a few minutes ago when I used Yahoo for the first time in months. The headline that jumped at me was this: Bush Confident Bin Laden Will Be Captured. Big talk from a … Read more