January 1, 2009

The Kit-Cat Clock brings out the Proust in Bird Dog.

A black plastic cat pricks the memories of a man who's named himself after a dog.
I see my room, the window, my bookshelf-turned-rock-and-fossil collection, the Revolutionary War prints on the wall, my little desk and chair with my chemistry set in one of the drawers, my first precious little transistor radio, the big aquarium set up with rocks and sand for my various lizards, and my bed that I hid my forbidden Mad Magazines beneath to read with a flashlight after lights-out....
***

Don't you want a Kit-Cat Clock?



If you do, support the Althouse blog on New Year's by using this link.

9 comments:

Chip Ahoy said...

I clicked for site supportage, but no thank you.

Barking dog clock.

Or Waggy tail Jack Russell

Or Dog the Bounty Hunter.

Actually, think I'll stick with the clock on the cell phone.

chickelit said...

Thanks. Already got mine!

Anonymous said...

I have one. It has red pupils and sparkly fake stones on the bow-tie and eyeballs. Battery operated.

rhhardin said...

I don't recall Mad Magazine being forbidden to anybody when I had it. It must have gotten racier.

BJM said...

I'd rather have the forbidden MAD Magazines.

Oddly people who bought the Kit-Cat Clock on Amazon also bought John Updike's "The Twelve Terrors of Christmas", illustrated by Edward Gorey.

???

While I heartily recommend the book, the juxtaposition is jarring, but even more curious is that Althouse very recently remarked that her blog was about juxtapositions.

Spooky.

blogging cockroach said...

as the one who started this kit kat
klock trend i hope all you post
ironic boomers go and buy
your nostalgic clocks from the
amazon link that althouse put up
instead of from garrison keillor
where nostalgia = irony
i m still working on that one
which i think will kinda wear off
as boomers actually get old
as you re seeing from the
actually pretty good
remembrances of things past
that have been put up so far

anyway i m a little miffed at
the lack of cockroach clocks
you could try this
but it lacks the je ne sais quoi
of felix who has a lot more
body parts in motion which
would probably be a deal killer
in the case of a cockroach
i also won t make a cent
off of it unlike althouse
so don t feel any obligation
to your old friend blogging
cockroach who can t use
the money just now anyway

BJM said...

rhhardin, I don't know how old you are, but in '56 when MAD went viral among teens their primary message of challenging authority, ridiculing American icons and defying rules was cutting edge rebellion. You sneaked into to French and Italian movies, hijacked Dad's stash of girlie mags or purloined books from the adult stacks for sex.

Like Rock & Roll, MAD was seen as a corrupting influence and one could be expelled for bringing a copy on campus, but then so could rolling a cuff on jeans, wearing a tight skirt or combing hair into a pompadoured DA.

In The Wild One Brando's character is asked (at 2.45 min):

“Hey, Johnny, What are you rebelling against?”

While tapping out a beat on the jukebox, he replies,

“Whaddya got?”


It didn’t get any cooler than that...in a galaxy far, far away.

AllenS said...

I have a way cool atomic clock made by La Crosse Technology out of La Crosse WI. It's battery operated and to set the thing, you point it towards La Crosse and push a button. Because it's radio controlled, it will set itself to the right time. When daylight savings time arrives, it will automatically reset itself. Remember this is battery operated. There must be a lot of stuff traveling through the air.

AllenS said...

Which reminds me, I'm almost out of tin foil.