Thor by Jack Kirby.

Via the great Tumblr site, Comic Book Artwork.

This is exactly what I would do if I was an astronaut.

[Photo via fffound.com]

Sources say…

Remember this? Thirty years ago…Thanks to our man Cliff for sending the link.

Happy Thanksgiving you guys!

p.s. Looks as if the Yanks want Fab Five Freddy back in 2012.

[Photo Credit: Vickisee]

Kick the Bobo.

[Photo Credit: Daniela Nobili]

When I’m trying to get to sleep, I solve little puzzles to wind down my brain. Lately, I’ve been working on how the Yankees could acquire the best player at every position. Quickly, it becomes logistically impossible. There’s no way to pry Tulowitski or Longoria or Kemp or Braun away from their current teams.

However, changing the criteria slightly to acquiring the best available players at every position, things become doable. Absurdly expensive, but doable.

At first base, Albert Pujols, that’s easy. Keep the rest of the infield. Cano is the best second baseman for me over the last two years anyway, and close enough to the best overall that there’s no reason to upgrade. Jeter is required to maintain the idea that this is indeed the Yankees we’re talking about. And Arod, even that close to dreaming I can’t imagine some other team wanting to deal with him.

In the outfield, Granderson and Gardner might be the best outfielders available for their spots. For the other outfield spot, I’d gamble on the Cuban star, Yoenis Cespedes, though I guess Beltran is the best established player available. For DH, sign Prince Fielder. Note, every acquisition at this point is just a matter of money.

Now the hard part. Catcher. Perhaps this is the result of a midnight haze, but I think the Yankees could get Joe Mauer with Montero and others (Nova, Banuelos, etc). Mauer is now ridiculously expensive, has never been an Iron Horse, and has, for the first, time, turned in a stinker of a season. I think that the Twins could be persuaded that his contract is no longer in their best interests.

So that lineup is now something like Granderson, Mauer, Pujols, Fielder, Arod, Cano, Cespedes, Jeter, Gardner. Teixeira will DH against lefties and have to learn how to play 3B again to back up Arod. Russell Martin will be the back up catcher. Swisher is the fourth outfielder. To back up Jeter and Cano, and eventually replace Jeter, sign Jose Reyes.

The rotation is even easier. Sabathia is back. Send the rest of the Yankees staff to the pen (figure Nova is headed to Minnesota in the Mauer deal) and sign Wilson, Darvish, Buerhle and Oswalt, or the four best pitchers according to you.

We already have the best closer and possibly the best set-up man in Robertson. At times, Soriano is among the top relievers in the game. Add in Heath Bell, I guess, if he’s any good. I am always asleep before I get to the bullpen, so this is not as well considered. The demoted starters will pitch in where they can. Too bad Pabelbon signed elsewhere.

The 2012 Yankees would cost around, what, $350 million? Why not? It’s not my money so I won’t lose any sleep over it.

[Picture via Onion Sports Network]

A new Muppets movie is here. Here’s a scene from their original flick:

And dig this, too:

Every day is a good day for Madeleine’s. Man, check out the beautiful site: Three to One.

No matter what you are cooking, as our man, Jacques Pepin likes to say: Happy Cooking.

“Still Life with Quince, Apples, and Pears,” By Paul Cezanne (1885-87)

Lots of people getting out of town today. I’m glad that I’m not one of them. Hope that no matter where you are, you have a decent time of it tomorrow.

[Photo Credit: Thig Nat]

My grandmother on my mother’s side had dementia and spent the last years of her life in a home. I was told that she liked to bite people. I never saw her during that time–she was in Belgium, I was here in New York–but hers is the only experience I have with Alzheimer’s. I got to thinking about her as I read Charlie Pierce’s beautiful memoir about the disease, his family curse, which claimed his father and four uncles, and which may eventually claim  him, as well.

Here is an excerpt:

The waking dream is of a dead city.

There was a great fire and the city died in it. I am sure of that. I can see the smoldering skyline, smoke rising from faceless buildings, flattening into dark and lowering clouds. I can hear the sharp keening of the scavenger birds. I can smell fire on damp wood, far away. I can feel the gritty wind in my eyes. I can taste the sour rain.

The waking dream comes upon me when I forget where the car is parked, or when I buy milk but forget the bread, or when I call my son by my daughter’s name. Wide awake but dreaming still, I walk through the ruined city.

When it happens, I remember. I remember everything. I remember anything. For years, I have been a walking trove of random knowledge, but I’ve come not to believe in the concept of trivia. I do not believe that anything you remember can be truly useless because I have seen memory go cold and dead.

“Why do you know stuff like that? people ask.

I smile and shrug. I do not tell them about the relief I find in remembering that Leon Czolgosz shot President McKinley. Not to remember Leon Czolgosz is to realize that one day you may not remember your son.  Leon Czolgosz goes first, and then your children. Not to remember is to realize that the day will come when you cannot find your way back home, that the day will come when you cannot find the way back to yourself. Not to remember is to begin to die, piecemeal, one fact at a time. It is to drift, aimlessly, deep into the ruined city, and never return.

…There’s a game I play now, when the waking dream comes. I make a deal with the disease. All right, I say. I will allow you to have some of my memories. You can have my first polio shot, all the lyrics to “American Woman,” two votes for Bill Clinton, and both Reagan administrations.

Leave me my children’s names.

Let me know them, and you can have all four Marx Brothers.

This is not clinical. I know the disease does not work this way. But sometimes, when the waking dream comes and I can feel the wind all gritty on my skin, I play this game anyway, and I am very good at it. I was born to play it. I was raised to believe that truth is malleable, and that you can bend it so that even its darkest part can be shaped into the familiar and the commonplace. I can play this game. I can play it well.

Makes you appreciate the moment, this moment, for what we have.

You can order Hard to Forget: An Alzheimer’s Story, here.

[Photo Credit: Best of Rally Live and  Jason Langer]

It’s Ryan Braun over Matt Kemp for NL MVP. Don’t agree with this one, but there you have it.

Oh, yeah, Craig Calcaterra weighs in on the new CBA.

Check out these collages by handi edan.

The Yankees announce ticket plans for 2012.

[Photo Credit: Vernacular Typography]

Check “Address is Approximate,” by The Theory:

Address Is Approximate from The Theory on Vimeo.

[Photo Credit: Mudpig]

Serious Eats serves it up (better) than Stove Top Stuffin’.

NYCmovie

Seen on Broadway last night.

[Photo Credit: NY Bits]

Bobby V and the Red Sox? Oh, man, it’s just too good not to happen. Sensitive, bright, smug, insufferable, and just this side of self-parody–they are made for each other. Bobby V will make it even easier to despise the Sox.

Imagine Buck Showalter vs. Bobby? Then add dd Joe Girardi’s tight ass? Never mind Joe Maddon. That’s a lot of gamesmanship from the top step of the dugout in the AL East. Oh, man, for pure entertainment value, this will be rich if it happens. And it looks like it will.

For more on Bobby V, check out Chris Ballard’s 2007 SI profile.

[Photo Credit: Greenwich Time.com]

Why, our old pal Jay Jaffe, of course. Oh yeah, here’s the rest of Baseball Prospectus’ 2011 Internet Baseball Awards.