lovers' link

1929 Johnson Smith & Co. Catalogue by King Power Cinema

Almost as bad as getting married!

Slip one of your fingers into the Lovers’ Link and invite the lady to do likewise to see how funny it feels when the fingertips touch. The fun begins when she tries to get back. The harder she pulls, the tighter it grips. By having Two Links, one for each hand, it is practically impossible to get free without assistance. That’s where the fun comes in.

--Johnson-Smith Catalogue, 1929


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Written by John Dufresne On In

hayden carruth, 1921- 2008

Hayden Carruth began writing when he was 6, but acclaim came late in his career. His poems captured his hard work, mental illness and love of jazz.

Hayden Carruth has died at his home in Vermont.  (thanks to Joe in Sunrise)

 

Scrambled Eggs And Whiskey
 
  Scrambled eggs and whiskey
in the false-dawn light. Chicago,
a sweet town, bleak, God knows,
but sweet. Sometimes. And
weren't we fine tonight?
When Hank set up that limping
treble roll behind me
my horn just growled and I
thought my heart would burst.
And Brad M. pressing with the
soft stick and Joe-Anne
singing low. Here we are now
in the White Tower, leaning
on one another, too tired
to go home. But don't say a word,
don't tell a soul, they wouldn't
understand, they couldn't, never
in a million years, how fine,
how magnificent we were
in that old club tonight.

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Written by John Dufresne On In

socialism for the rich; capitalism for the poor

John “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should" McCain knew enough to get in on the ground floor of screwing Americans out of their homes and their futures.

"Charles Keating was John McCain's pal. They met in 1981 and Keating dumped $112,000 in the McCain campaign bank accounts between '82 and '87. A year before McCain met with the FHLBB regulators, his wife Cindy and her father, according to newspaper reports at the time, invested about $360,000 in one of Keating's shopping centers. The Arizona Republic reported McCain and his wife and their babysitter took nine trips on Keating's private jet to the Bahamas to stay at the S&L liar's decadent Cat Cay resort. The senator didn't pay Keating back for the plane rides until years later when he was under investigation."  Read more from James Moore here. (Thanks to Garry in Plantation)

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Written by John Dufresne On In

white privilege


"White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America." More from Tim Wise here. (Thanks to John in Dania Beach)

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storytelling

"Storytelling is one of the few human traits that are truly universal across culture and through all known history.  Anthropologists find evidence of folktales everywhere in ancient cultures, written in  Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, Chinese, Egyptian and Sumerian."  Stories--why we need them.  (Thanks to Alina in Miami)
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Written by John Dufresne On In

james crumley, 1939-2008

Just got a note from Otto Penzler that James Crumley has passed away.  The national newspapers haven't taken note just yet, but the bloggers have.  Here's one obit.  Another.  I knew Jim a little bit, spent a couple of memorable nights drinking with him.  One night up in Seaside, Florida, a bunch of us closed down a barroom and rode back to the cottages in the back of pickup truck.  Must have been after two when we got home. I had to teach at 7:30 in the morning.  As I was walking, none too sprightly, to the conference center with my cup of coffee, I saw Crumley, standing in the doorway of his cottage with a beer in his hand.  He waved, told me to enjoy myself, and said he hadn't been to bed yet.  Jim's book The Last Good Kiss contains one of the great opening lines in American literature: " When I finally caught up with Abraham Traherne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon." 

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