Booth Tarkington — Good Enough

I got interested in Booth Tarkington via the credit Orson Welles gave him at the end of his Magnificent Ambersons film adaptation. As spoken with Wellesian richness, there seemed something enchanting about the name behind this powerful story. Even in its studio-truncated form, Welles’ Ambersons was, well, magnificent, and I wanted to understand the source of this masterpiece that was both visually stunning and highly literate. A good deal of Tarkington remained in the movie, particularly the way he used bittersweet nostalgia to set up a cold-eyed assessment of advancing modernity. I proceeded to read dozens of his books. Between

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Bizarre Bazaars

$35.00 The book of weird, befuddling and just plain embarrassing business names. Here are 600 fabulous head scratchers. Description The roadside is littered with ordinary places bearing odd names — sometimes very odd. Here are 600 fabulous head scratchers, funny names for stores and businesses ranging from Armegeddon Carpet Cleaners to Sam-n-Ella’s River Club. Additional information Weight 9.8 oz Dimensions 10 × 8 × 1 in Publisher interestingideas.com (March 03 2021) Pages 92 Illustrations 149 ISBN-13 978-1034551157

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The Evil Nice

It’s dangerous to say it, but nice people are a nuisance, constantly imposing their values and preferences on others. And they usually get their way. Because they are extremely aware of their own feelings, though, nice people come off as highly sensitive. That makes it seem obligatory to treat them with tender regard. Who wants to do or say anything hurtful to someone so pleasant? It doesn’t matter how impervious they actually are to the feelings of others (especially others deemed not-so-nice) or how imperious they are in asserting their own point of view. Deference is due the nice lest

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Leave It To Beaver Poetics

Gee Dad. Gee Wall.Gee Beave. Get lostShrimp. Come onEddie.When I was a kid —I guess kids aren’t sposed —Boy are you gonnaMaybe you shouldTell Dad.Oh Ward, do youthinkWe should? June,Get it.Have you seen the Beaver?No Ward, IThoughtHe was with you.Mrs. RayburnI Lied to you aboutthe note. BesidesI don’t knowLarry. BeaverI’m ashamed ofDad, why do the Beaver, what have youdoneto your hair?Ward, don’t you think you are harsh on the boys?June, they have got to learnHave youYes JuneSeenThe BeaverTheodoreMy name isWhen I wasCleaverBoy Wally, how doGrownups?Now Beaver(1979) Back to Leave It To Beaver Lies

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Japan's "Sukiyaki song" stamp

More of the Sweetest Song

If you like the Sukiyaki song (Ue o Muite Aruko) as much as I do, check out this playlist from WMBR in Cambridge, the MIT radio station. On his Subject to Change program, Patrick Bryant goes deep with multiple versions of one song. As readers of this site know, Sukiyaki has been covered dozens of times by artists all over the world since its 1961 release in Japan. Bryant tracked down a swell selection for his July 28, 2019, show and it’s worth a listen if you see this during the two weeks the audio remains available. Alternatively, you can

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Box of 45s

My Last Days Of Vinyl

This week I completed my decade-long record-digitization project, having ripped around 675 vinyl LPs, 150 78s and 1,100-plus 45s. First record ripped, on Dec. 8, 2007: a 78 rpm disk of Milky White Way / Bread of Heaven by the Angelic Gospel Singers, followed by I Can’t Stand Myself When You Touch Me and several other vintage James Brown albums. Last record ripped, on May 19, 2018: A 7-inch record with uplifting public service announcements for young people from the Wayout project, circa 1980s. Immediately before that: three square-dance records complete with calls. I didn’t exactly save the best for

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Ruth Norman, aka Uriel, the Unarius Society, with flying saucer models

Review — Jim Shaw: The Hidden World

Jim Shaw: The Hidden World, edited by Marc-Olivier Wahler. Koenig Books, London, 512 pages, 2014. ISBN: 978-3863355845. Hardcover. Jim Shaw’s collection of religious, political and cultural ephemera, published in 2014 as an exhibition catalog, makes for a great book, especially if your collecting interests align with Shaw’s, as mine not coincidentally do.

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About those Ventures

It took a long time to get to the Ventures in my project to rip and sell a large vinyl collection. I left them for the end because, frankly, I wasn’t sure I could face listening to the hours of music my Ventures 24 albums contained. These guys released some two dozen albums in the first half of the 1960s alone, and they must have been desperate for material. How else to explain why a song like Jimmy Crack Corn – a standby from everyone’s second or third music lesson — would wind up on Dance With The Ventures (also

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Lucy-Sparrows-8-till-late-convenience-store-on-LIttle-West-12th-Street-under-the-High-Line-in-New-York

Lucy Sparrow: All Felt All The Time

Lucy Sparrow makes deeply felt art, literally. She creates facsimiles of real objects in felt, and does so on a massive scale. The current example, a fully stocked all-felt convenience store, opened June 5 in New York and will continue for four weeks. The individual items — available for sale, of course — are each a treat in themselves. When they fill the shelves and fixtures of a shop, the colors and cultural resonances are wonderful. Sparrow, who hails from Bath, England, clearly wants to delight her audience with good feelings, but she also has some social commentary in mind.

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