I wanna go.

Moebius.

Steven Brooks’ America…found at Kateoplis.

Somewhere along the line I lost a taste for roasted peppers. Same with sundried tomatoes and even balsamic vinegar. Well, I didn’t cool on the balsamic for long (I was just tired of it being overused) while I’ve never regained a desire to eat sundried tomatoes. But roasted peppers really are delicious and it was the long break away from them that made me realize how much I enjoy them.

Who better than the Goddess Alexandra to bring it all back home?

“Soft Pressure” by “Wassily Kandinsky” (1931)

Django!

[Painting by Thomas Demand]

Pictures by Joseph Szabo over at Gas Station.

Over at the New York Review of Books here’s Gary Wills on Robert Caro’s The Passage of Power:

Robert Caro’s epic biography of Lyndon Johnson—this is the fourth volume of a planned five—was originally conceived and has been largely executed as a study of power. But this volume has been overtaken by a more pressing theme. It is a study in hate. The book’s impressive architectonics come from the way everything is structured around two poles or pillars—Lyndon Johnson and Robert Kennedy, radiating reciprocal hostilities at every step of the story. Caro calls it “perhaps the greatest blood feud of American politics in the twentieth century.” With some reservations about the word “blood,” one has to concede that Caro makes good his claim for this dynamic in the tale he has to tell.

There are many dramatic events, throughout the volume, that illustrate Caro’s theme. I begin with one that could seem insignificant to those not knowing the background on both sides, because it shows that even the slightest brush between these two triggered rancorous inner explosions. Johnson, newly sworn in as president, had just come back to Washington on Air Force One from the terrible death of John Kennedy in Dallas. Robert Kennedy sped up the steps to the plane and rushed fiercely down the length of the cabin through everyone standing in his way (including the new president) to reach Jacqueline Kennedy. Understandable that he would first of all want to comfort the widow? Yes, but. This was the first of many ways Bobby (called that throughout) tried in the first days to ignore the man who had ignominiously, in his eyes, supplanted his brother by a murder in the man’s own Texas.

Caro understands that Bobby was determined not to see Johnson, even if he saw him—so he did not see him. But Johnson saw him not seeing, and hated him the more. That is how hate narrows one—narrows what one wants to see, or is able to see, in order to keep one’s hatred tended and hard.

Don’t get it twisted…

[Picture by Todd Webb (1955)]

Say Good Mornin’, Gracie.

Saturdazed Dreams of…

Via Kottke, here’s the annotated wit and wisdom of Louis C. K. over at Splitsider.

“Bill Cosby, George Carlin and Richard Pryor are my favorite stand-ups.” 

I’m with him there.

[Photo Credit: Chris Buck]

“Still Life” by Giorgio Morandi (1948)

Because you can’t get enough of a good thing. Thank you, Noel Barnhurst.

Cool Out.

[Photo Credit: Nabil Likes You]

Creature Comforts: the Oscar-winning short. I know I’ve posted it before but hell, it’s still wonderful.

From The Laughing Squid…

Smitten Kitchen gives us a simple apple tart.

[Man]: “I heard you quit your job?”

Isaac: “Yeah, a real self-destructive impulse. You know, I want
to write a book, so I, so I … Has anybody read that
nazis are going to march in New Jersey, you know? I
read this in the newspaper, we should go down there, get
some guys together, you know, get some bricks and
baseball bats and really explain things to them.”

[Man]: “There was this devastating satirical piece on that on the op-ed
page of the Times. It is devastating.”

Isaac: “Well, well, a satirical piece in the Times is one thing, but
bricks and baseball bats really gets right to the
point.”

[Woman]: “Oh, but really biting satire is always better than physical
force.”

Isaac: “No, physical force is always better with nazis. Cos
it’s hard to satirize a guy with shiny boots.”

[Woman]: “Well, you get emotional, I know…”

Dennis: “Excuse me, we were talking about orgasms.”

Mary: “Oh no, no, please, give me a break. I’m from Philadelphia, we
never talk about things like that in public.”

Isaac: “Yeah, you said that the other day, I didn’t know what
the hell it meant then either.”

Dennis: “I’m just about to direct a film, of my own script, and the
premise is this guy screws so great …”

Isaac: “… screws so great?”

Dennis: “… screws so great that when he brings a woman to orgasm she’s
so fulfilled that she dies. Right, now this one,
excuse me, finds this hostile.”

Mary: “God, it’s worst than hostile, it’s aggressive-homicidal.
You have to forgive Dennis, he’s Harvard direct from
Beverley Hills. It’s Theodore Reich with a touch of
Charles Manson.”

[Younger Woman]: “I finally had an orgasm and my doctor told me
it was the wrong kind.”

Isaac: “Did you had the wrong kind, really? I never had the wrong
kind, never. My worst one was right on the money.”

[Picture by Andy Helms]