Afterwards I read the F. Scott Fitzgerald story with the same title, and it seemed to me that we ourselves are living backwards, because the old story is crisp and unsentimental, and the new movie long, slow-moving, and nearly a…
"Since they have several giant tortoises on St Helena, they simply named the next largest one Jonathan. The date of 175 years old is being assumed because the Jonathan in the photograph of 1901 looks like the Jonathan of tod…
The Economist asks: Other appetites... have been sated even to excess by modern business. Food far beyond the simple needs of stomachs, and sex (or at least images of it) far beyond the needs of reproduction, bombard the modern m…
"'He looks like he's in college and everybody calls him Favs, so you're like, "This guy can't be for real, right?"' said Ben Rhodes, another Obama speechwriter. 'But it doesn't take long…
I've been reading and listening to people talk for over a half century, so it's really weird to have to look up 2 words in 2 hours. First, MadisonMan, he of the bird's-eye view of the Michelle Obama rally-ette, said :…
A sentence that was just deleted from Barack Obama's website page about Social Security. Noted by Peter Bray, who asks: "Is he trying to stoke anxiety about his position on Social Security?" My thoughts: 1. Raising…
So if I have nothing to say then I wasted 148 minutes. To try to salvage my lost time, I'll go with a numbered list: 1. Why is a comedy 148 minutes long? Especially a comedy based on a half-hour sitcom. It was like 5 TV episo…
Reading about Charlton Heston this morning, I started thinking about what I would do if I learned I had Alzheimer's disease. One thing is, I would keep blogging. That got me wondering how many people are already blogging with…
Goodbye to one of the all-time great movie stars, Charlton Heston, who has died at the age of 83. When I read "remembered chiefly for his monumental, jut-jawed portrayals of Moses, Ben-Hur and Michelangelo," I wondered…
... wrinkle assessment. AND: Make sure to click through to the story about the "fresh-faced" men. The original photos might be funnier that the caricatures at the first link. Did you know Kirk Douglas looks "years…
... of a 62-year-old man with his 37-year-old wife. UPDATE: They seem to have taken down the picture, but you can see a tiny thumbnail of it here . It's Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas.