Well this is just silly fun.

Monday bounce babe.

In the New Yorker, here’s David Remnick on a new Malcolm X biography:

For nearly twenty years, Manning Marable, a historian at Columbia, labored on what he hoped would be a definitive scholarly work on Malcolm X. During this period, Marable struggled with sarcoidosis, a pulmonary disease, and even underwent a double lung transplant. Recently, he completed his rigorous and evenhanded biography, “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention” (Viking; $30), but, in an echo of his subject’s fate, he died on the eve of publication. One of his goals was to grapple with Malcolm’s autobiography, and although he finds much to admire about Malcolm, he makes it clear that the book’s drama sometimes comes at the expense of fact. Haley wanted to write a “potboiler that would sell,” Marable observes, and Malcolm was accustomed to exaggerating his exploits—“the number of his burglaries, the amount of marijuana he sold to musicians, and the like.” Malcolm, like St. Augustine, embellished his sins in order to heighten the drama of his reform.

The literary urge outran the knowable facts even in the most crucial episode in Malcolm’s childhood. One evening, in 1931, in Lansing, Michigan, when Malcolm was six, his father, Earl Little, a part-time Garveyite teacher, went to collect “chicken money” from families who bought poultry from him. That night, he was found bleeding to death on the streetcar tracks. The authorities ruled his death an accident, but Malcolm’s mother, Louise, was sure he had been beaten by the Black Legion and laid on the tracks to be run over and killed. Perhaps he had been, but, as Marable notes, nobody knew for sure. The autobiography (and Lee’s film) presents the ostensible murder as established fact, and yet Malcolm himself, in a 1963 speech at Michigan State University, referred to the death as accidental.

[Photograph by Ricard Avedon]

Yanks look to get greedy today against the O’s.

Hope the egg hunt treated you well.

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Printresting via This Isn’t Happiness]

Happy Easter, Peoples.

[Photograph: Bogdan Cristel/Reuters]

The Yanks scored three runs in the first inning and Russell Martin added a three-run homer a little while later as C.C. Sabathia cruised through the Orioles hitters. The big lefty was in fine form, throwing hard, until the seventh when he gave up a three-run homer of his own. Just as I started to grumble about the possibility of Soriano and Rivera being needed, however, the Yanks got those runs back in the eighth when Jorge “Dinger or Bust” Posada went deep and Russell Martin hit his second home run.

On Martin: A good friend of mine who roots for the Dodgers tells me that Martin’s good run won’t last. If he’s correct I suspect that Martin will spontaneously combust like a Spinal Tap drummer come August 1st. In the meantime, it’s been a pleasure to watch the dude hit and field.

Oh, before the inning was over, Alex Rodriguez hit a grand slam, putting him one behind the Iron Horse for the most all-time. Yeah, and with six RBI tonight, he’s now 12th on the all-time RBI list.

In the 9th, Josh Rupe hit Martin in the upper back with a pitch. Dirty pool. Fortunately, Martin did not lose his cool though his teammates were riled plenty. And then sweet karma, Brett Gardner, the very definition of a banjo-hitter these days, cranked a two-run homer. It was retribution enough as the Yanks didn’t throw at Orioles in the bottom of the inning.

Love and happiness for the Yanks and their fans…

Final Score: Yanks 15, Orioles 3.

[Picture by Susumu Fujimoto]

Yanks-O’s, Take Two…

Grab a slice, settle in, stay warm and…

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

The New York Times Book Review has a good piece on Alexandra Styron’s family memoir:

Rose Styron [William’s wife] emerges from this memoir as a good and heroic presence, erring only on the side of excessive tolerance. There is something touching in the picture of her following her husband to Martha’s Vineyard, having been “forbidden to show up before June,” with “a mountain of summer Martha’s Vineyard dresses poised on their hangers for another season’s whirl of festivities.” Before long, deprived not only of his temper but of all self-esteem, Styron would be pleading like a child to be spared the ordeal of appearing before guests at the dinner table.

“Avoiding my father’s wrath was a complicated business,” Alexandra writes. Her memoir is part of that process. William Styron’s illness may have prevented his making an appropriate response to her novel, “All the Finest Girls” (2001). Before then, however, she wrote some stories that he did read. “Dear Al,” he told her in a fax, “you really are a very good writer. More! More!” He got more — this is it — and he was right.

[Photograph by Saul Leiter]

Yup, it’s still raining this morning. Yanks sent a pitcher down and called another up.

Listen to this…and spot the samples…

[Picture found at that most amazing spot–This Isn’t Happiness]

Here’s a lovely piece by Colum McCann, winner of the National Book Award in 2009 for his novel, “Let the Great World Spin”:

A London nursing home. The shape of a figure beneath the sheets. My grandfather could just about whisper. He wanted a cigarette and a glass of whiskey. “Come up on the bed here, young fella,” he said, gruffly. It was 1975 and I was 10 years old and it would be the first — and probably last — time I’d ever see him. Gangrene was taking him away. He reached for the bottle and managed to light a cigarette. Spittle collected at the edge of his mouth. He began talking, but most of the details of his life had already begun slipping away.

Long wars, short memories.

Later that afternoon my father and I bid goodbye to my grandfather, boarded a train, then took a night boat back home to Dublin. Nothing but ferry-whistle and stars and waves. Three years later, my grandfather died. He had been, for all intents and purposes, an old drunk who had abandoned his family and lived in exile. I did not go to the funeral. I still, to this day, don’t even know what country my grandfather is buried in, England or Ireland.

Sometimes one story can be enough for anyone: it suffices for a family, or a generation, or even a whole culture — but on occasion there are enormous holes in our histories, and we don’t know how to fill them.

[Photo Credit: Grant Howard]

Coolin’ out…

Lord have Mercy. Somebody help me say it ain’t so.

[photo credit: Polarn Per via This Isn’t Happiness]

Dough! Oh My…DOUGH!

DOUGH Donuts: A Far Cry From The Old Fashioned from SkeeterNYC on Vimeo.

Betty Bacall…morning, Sunshine!

Tan Tan

[Picture Credit: Tropical Toxic]

Next Thursday, the National Geographic Channel will air, “Break it Down: Yankee Stadium,” an exclusive look at the demolition of the Stadium.

Looks like a must-watch for us.

Dag…

Serious Eats offers 30 simple ways to upgrade your ramen noodles.

True, indeed.

Home on the range.

Photographs by William Albert Allard