Check out this photo gallery of small town America over at a most remarkable site, Pictory.

[Photo Credit:  Ethan Bodnar and James Besser]

I have not tried this, but dag, does it ever look tasty. Seriously. You can pick up a bottle in Snootsville Williams-Sonoma.

Two for Tuesday: Elmer Bischoff.

Here’s ten sports books from 2011 to keep in mind as you tackle that holiday shopping list:

1. “The Whore of Akron”

Scott Raab’s hugely entertaining memoir. I didn’t know what to expect, I thought it could just be a gonzo stunt. Then, after enjoying the first thirty pages, I wondered if Raab would be able to sustain the goodness for an entire book. Would he bang away on one note the whole time? Would the joke wear thin? Hardly. The book gets deeper as it goes along, without losing it’s light touch. A deeply moral, funny, and often moving work.

2. “At the Fights”

The wonderful boxing compilation edited by George Kimball and John Schulian.

3. “21: The Story of Roberto Clemente”

A fine graphic novel portrait of the great Clemente.

4. “Fenway 1912”

Glenn Stout’s definitive history of the making of Fenway Park. Not just for Red Sox Nation.

5. “Evel: The High-Flying Life of Evel Knievel”

Leigh Montville+ Evel=and a good time had by all.

6. “Sometimes They Even Shook Your Hand”

A terrific collection of our man Schulian’s best sports writing. A must-have.

7. “The Extra 2%”

Jonah Keri astute take on how the Tampa Bay Rays compete against the monsters of the American League East.

8. “Flip Flop Fly Ball”

The picture book of the year from the one and only Craig Robinson.

9. “Sweetness”

Jeff Pearlman’s best book yet.

10. “The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training”

Josh Wilker goes deeper into movies.

Where’s that bus? I don’t want to miss the train show.

Where’s that bus? There’s a cold rain falling.

I might fall asleep and miss my stop.

I’m thirsty and the water bottle is empty.

CC will throw the first pitch soon.

I need to make dinner for the boys.

I don’t want my wife to walk home in the dark.

He’s already held it in for so long.

I’m gonna end up in the first fucking row and my neck’s gonna be sore for a week.

Where’s that damn bus?

Technology exists underground, for most of New York, that tracks the trains along their route. Screens display the time of the next arriving train. And then the next one after that. No such service on the A Train. Nothing doing at the bus stops. You wait unknowing or you walk.

I guess the Blue Line doesn’t utilize that technology for the same reason that A and C Trains are the oldest, crappiest trains in the system. Nobody wants to spend any money on the A and the C. And I’m sure there is some preposterous reason why the MTA can’t develop an app that will track a bus as it inches through traffic as the frozen darkness descends upon your stop.

But c’mon, man. In this day and age, there’s no way we should be helplessly wondering where’s that bus.

Two for Tuesday.

Broadway and 116th street, Columbia University.

Charlie Pierce on the stupidity and sexism of baseball’s media dress codes:

MLB and the BBWAA have decided to step in with both feet to address a problem I never really noticed. Have there been battalions of reporters walking into clubhouses wearing flip-flops? (Except in spring training, I mean, where everyone dresses like a German tourist at Disneyland.) Have there been legions of my colleagues showing up for a three-game set between the Cubs and the Cardinals having packed nothing but ripped jeans and muscle shirts? God, I sincerely hope not.

“We just thought it was time to get a little organized, to put it in place before there was an incident,” committee member Phyllis Merhige, an MLB senior vice president, told the AP. “There’s no one who expects reporters to wear a suit and tie. But with the advent of different media, there are now individuals who are not part of a bigger organization that may have a dress code.”

In other words, OMIGOD, BLOGGERS! RUN AND HIDE! THEY COULD BE NAKED!

It is an exercise of control, of course. The baseball press box is an odd beast. It is owned by the team, but regulated by the local BBWAA, which is why you get that announcement before every game to the effect that “This is a working press box. No laughing or cheering, etc.” Which is good as far as it goes, which is occasionally too far. (I was once nearly removed from the press box at Fenway for the capital offense of laughing too loudly at the Cleveland Indians.) Occasionally, MLB feels compelled to yank the leash so the BBWAA knows who’s really in charge. Generally, the BBWAA comes to heel. This is one of those times.

Here is a digitized recording of the great Flannery O’Connor reading her story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”

Here’s the text.

[Drawing by David Levine]

“View of Oakland,” By Richard Diebenkorn (1962)

Serious Eats gives us 11 burgers around the country that are worth the hype. This simple-looking burger from JG Melon looks good enough to troop over to the East Side, don’t it?

For years, I’ve heard about “The Wire.” That is was not only good, the best thing on TV, but the greatest show of all-time. I finally got around to watching it, the entire series in just under a month. I don’t know enough about other dramas to know how to rate it, exactly, but I was not disappointed. Did I like it?

I loved it. The writing, the acting, all so memorable. When it ended I wanted to go back tot he beginning and start over again.

It’s one of those shows where it is hard to pick a favorite character. Once you are locked in on one guy–Omar, Bunk, Lester–someone else pops up. Here are some, though not all, of my favorites:

Talk about a debut…

Family time on the 1 train.

The intrepid Chad Jennings gives us this wonderful nugget from Brian Cashman:

“I do think that we have a pretty strong pro scouting department. Our scouts know a lot of these players individually, live near them or around them or played with them or what have you. We get pretty good information. There are certain guys currently in this free agent market who I know have no interest in playing in New York because they flat out told our personnel sometime in the summer. Now they probably wish they didn’t, but that’s good information to know.

“When we start going through our pro scouting meetings, we’ll start going through the player and (a scout will say) ‘This guy does not want to play here. He told me this in this city and he says he’d never play there, doesn’t want to play there.’ Ok, let’s move on. We don’t even cover him any further than that.”

As an example, here’s the story Cashman told:

“I won’t tell you the name, but there was a guy that was on vacation, and there happened to be a Yankee fan that we knew that was on vacation with him in Mexico,” he said. “All he did was badmouth this place, but I can’t tell you how many times he called trying to get a job here when things didn’t go well in free agency for him, and he was desperate to come here, (saying) ‘Oh, I want to be a Yankee.’

“And I wouldn’t even take the call. I was like, you’re so full of it. I even told his agent, ‘Look, tell your client, our people were right there with him drinking those pina coladas when he was badmouthing us. He doesn’t want to play here. He just wants our money.”

Jennings had a great year at the Lo-Hud, continuing the fine tradition established by Pete Abraham.

Mr. Wunnerful.

[Photo Credit: Peter Martin]

According to ESPN, NL MVP Ryan Braun has tested positive for PEDs. The article also says that according to a source, Braun was tested a second time–after learning of the initial positive result–and that result was negative.

More to come for sure.

Ah, yes. Morning y’all.

[Photo Credit: Beau Davis]

A very funny fellow.

The latest installment of Grantland’s “Director’s Cut” series gives Johnette Howard’s first story for The National: “The Making of a Goon,” about hockey enforcer, Joe Kocur:

“See, hockey fighting is different than boxing,” says Kocur, who once visited the training camp of Detroit’s Thomas Hearns — courtesy of Red Wings owner Mike Illitch — to pick up a few tips. “In hockey, fighting is pulling and punching. If you just stand there and hold a guy out and hit him, you won’t faze him. But if you can pull him into you and punch at the same time, that’s when you start hurting people.”

How to hit hard is just one of the lessons an enforcer must learn. There’s also an unwritten and often unspoken code of honor that governs who hits whom, and under what circumstances. Kocur also likes to do research of his own; knowing other fighters’ tendencies helps him avoid surprises. But nothing, Kocur says, supersedes the most basic fighter’s rule: Never, ever lose.

“You’ve got to understand some things about the fighter’s job,” says Demers. “Tough guys in this league are under a tremendous amount of pressure. Unfortunately, many of them are untalented except for fighting, and they’ve gotten here the hard way. And once you’re recognized as a tough guy in this league, you go from having targets to becoming one.

“As long as you’re beating up somebody, the fans are cheering and shouting our name. But the first time you lose one, everyone gets down on you. You have to be fearless. I’ve seen guys lose just once, and pretty soon they just sort of fade away.”

Though coaches and other players all say that Kocur has good all-around hockey talent and that Demers encourages him to use it, Kocur considers himself a fighter first. He believes that preserving his aura of invincibility is essential because “it pays off down the line. Maybe I’ll be going into the corner to get the puck and the guy going with me will think, ‘Uh-oh, it’s Joe Kocur. This guy’s crazy. I won’t give him the elbow in the face. I’ll give him that extra step and poke at the puck instead of trying to take the body.’ And then maybe I can make a play, make a good pass. And maybe we’ll put the puck in the net.”

[Photo Credit: Stefan Alforn]