George Orwell on how to make a proper cup of tea. 

[Photo Credit: I Ate My Way Through]

Okay, random question of the day: Who were the most Internationally famous athletes of the 20th Century? I’ve got Ruth, Ali, Pele and Jordan.

It doesn’t matter if people around the world knew or cared about baseball or boxing or basketball. Just that these guys were recognized as being famous.

Who else? Tiger, Lance? I don’t know anything about cricket and little about soccer–Maradona, perhaps?

Pre-WWII is harder to figure: Jesse Owens, Jack Johnson, Joe Louis? DiMaggio because of Marilyn–and even Hemingway? There’s no right answer, I’m just throwing it out there.

Whadda ya hear, whadda ya say?

Master Class. 

I know it’s not the weekend. Hell, it’s not even the morning. But still, Grandma Bercher’s Cinnamon Rolls look slammin’.

Food 52 wins again (and so do we).

Michael Daly’s got a story to tell. 

[Photo Credit: NYC Subway Rider]

Picture by Juan Eduardo Salas via MPD.

Shake Your Rump.

[Photo Via: Retrogasm]

“There is a certain embarrassment about being a storyteller in these times when stories are considered not quite as satisfying as statements, and statements not quite as satisfying as statistics, but in the long run, a people is known, not by its statements or its statistics, but by the stories it tells.”–Flannery O’Connor

Our man Ken Arneson has a thoughtful and intriguing post over at his site. It’s involved and absolutely rewarding.

[Image Via: Toile in the Family]

I’ll never forget the number. Sports Phone. Man, I used to sneak calls as much as I could in the early-mid-Eighties. I had to sneak them because the calls were expensive and if too many showed up on the phone bill my ass was new mown grass. But still, in those days I’d do whatever I could to get an up-to-date score so the risk was worth it.

For a good time, head on over to Grantland and check out this history of Sports Phone by the talented Joe Delessio.

[Photo Via: No Mas]

Painting by Lee Price. 

Yeah, I know I’m repeating myself but can’t say it enough–I love how Bags captures our city. 

Rosemary Butter Beans with Maple Roast Roots.

You guys know all about the great Lo Hud Yankee blog. Pete Abraham started it and Chad Jennings keeps it purring along. For all the latest spring training whatnot, look no further than your one-stop shop for Yankeeness. 

[Picture by Lucy Eldridge via It’s a Long Season]

C.C. weighs in.

The sun is out. Roll along.

Picture by Bags.

“Sip” by Graham Dean (1999)

Simple pleasures are the best. 

Pitchers n catchers and dreams of someplace warm. 

[Photo Credit: Francis Miller via It’s a Long Season]

Okay, so this is from the movie, but how you gonna complain about Cyd Charisse? Still, check out Terry Teachout’s review of The Library Of America’s 2-volume tribute to the golden age of the American musical:

What is America’s greatest contribution to the arts? Time was when many, perhaps most, people would have pointed to the Broadway musical as the likeliest candidate for admission to the pantheon. Theatergoers around the world have long rejoiced in the delights of the genre, including some whom one might well have thought too snobbish to admit its excellence. (Evelyn Waugh, who had next to no use for anything made in America, saw the London production of Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate a half-dozen times, pronouncing it, according to one biographer, “ingenious and admirable.”) But big-budget musical comedy has been in increasingly steep decline since the 1970s, and 10 long years have gone by since The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, the last homegrown musical to be wholeheartedly embraced by audiences and critics alike, made it to Broadway.

…That’s what makes the publication of American Musicals so timely. These two volumes contain the unabridged scripts of 16 “classic” shows written between 1927 and 1969, the period now usually regarded as the “golden age” of the Broadway musical. The table of contents is itself a capsule history of the genre at its peak: Show Boat (1927), As Thousands Cheer (1933), Pal Joey (1940), Oklahoma! (1943), On the Town (1944), Finian’s Rainbow (1947), Kiss Me, Kate (1948), South Pacific (1949), Guys and Dolls (1950), The Pajama Game (1954), My Fair Lady (1956), Gypsy (1959), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), Fiddler on the Roof (1964), Cabaret (1966), and 1776 (1969). Unlike their successors, these shows have retained their popularity. Twelve have returned to Broadway in the past decade, and two are playing there as I write. If there is a core musical-comedy repertory, this is it.

This is goodness.