Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Insatiable deformity






The Speaker of the House has described
the proposal of a "wall" sealing the
Mexican border as an "immorality." To
be fair, she has also gone on, to ob-
serve its inevitable futility, never
going so far as to describe it as the
monument to cynicism many say it is.

Or is it. Is it, rather, only the most
grotesque expression politically feas-
ible today, of an insatiable compulsion
to inflict humiliation and pain, already
market-tested in two years in power and
another in purloining it. The pretended
constituency was never satisfied by the
rape of the Treasury or even of the land.
It wants a final solution, though, in a
gold standard all its own. Human life.

If there is anyone who believes that the
achievement of a showy, wasted erection
is where this manipulation will end, he

















Tuesday, January 8, 2019

A voter's guide to the evening's farce


The police chief of Sycamore Springs
sidles up to an open hamburger joint
at the town rail station:

Give me a cup of coffee and 2 aspirins.

The wondrous Nora Charles, in full up-
per East Side couture, approaches him:

Hello, Mr MacGregor. I'm so glad you're
here!

Always glad to see a member of the
Charles Family ...

There's a man here. I want you to
arrest him.

But what for?

Does it have to be for something?

Oh, ho, no! No, you just pick out
anybody at all, and I just put him
in jail for life.

But he's trying to leave town . . !

Look, Mrs Charles. I can't arrest
anybody unless they do something,
to get arrested! Get that? They
gotta do something!

I think you're being very tech-
nical, Mr MacGregor!

Nora Charles stalks off, stage right.

Make that 4 aspirins.





One resists raising hopes for any
resemblance between a Presidential
address on the greatest crisis to
affront a Christian nation since a
slave discovered the underground
railway, and a miracle of wartime
scripting from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
but there we are. The Fates have
summoned our Buchanan, nay, our
Andrew Johnson, to guide us toward
the great panic they knew would


















Richard Thorpe
  director
Robert Riskin
Dwight Taylor
  screenplay
The Thin Man Goes Home
MGM, 1945©






Monday, January 7, 2019

Much agit, no prop




 It was Gérard, someone reminded us last evening, 
 who advanced a notion so captivating to our lit-
 tle band, as to engage even the Republicans' be-
 loved general population. Oxford and Cambridge 
 have their dueling wine tasting teams, Laurel 
 and Hardy their slapstick slaps, Jekyll and Hyde 
 their Susan Collins. Why shouldn't we have a twit-
 ting society, for contestants who get up from the 
 wrong side of the bed, to spend the day refuting 
 themselves? It could only elevate our name for wit, 
 and make us all illustrious. Alas, an unknown de- 
 fect in this fad, was that it had already worn out.

 Gérard then proposed a game of chance, but with
 the twit still at large, nobody was taking any.













































Sunday, January 6, 2019

Sunday nibbled sleeve





   Why, of course, Martin, I believe
   you, I suppose. But, what strikes
   one as uncanny, even for him, is
   how he could have known that some
   speak Russian in Ukraine. My dear,
   this would explain so many things.















Jaguar E-Type
  Eagle Speedster