"'Stump the Dog.' Sounds like the easiest TV game show ever."

Lileks tweets — referring, of course, to the Sussex spaniel that won Best in Show at the 133rd Annual Westminster Kennel Club show. A much-needed laugh for me (after doing those 2 death posts in a row).

IN THE COMMENTS: I'm not sure why this fit in the dog post, but there's a lot of talk about what Valentine present a man should get for a woman. It started when Michael H said:

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being 'Punch His Lights Out' and 10 being 'Cut Up His Clothes and Call a Junk Yard Dog Divorce Attorney', how would you rank receiving either of these gifts on Valentines Day?

A). A Vermont Teddy Bear wearing something cute.

B). A Pajama Gram.

Thanks.

AND: The ineffably adorable Psychedelic George says:

I know what women want:

a) Wool socks. Good thick wool socks. Not heavy and ugly, but cute good thick wool socks.

b) On a budget? Flannel. Otherwise—cashmere.

c) Tea. If it sounds disgusting to the male palate, she will love it. Try 'Vanilla Sleepytime."

d) A subscription to 'Oprah.'

e) All things Jane Austen.

f) Wine.

Remember what I said about the socks being cute. And wool.

ADDED: I've corrected the text above to change "Original George" to "Psychedelic George." I'd mixed up 2 of my Georges — just when I was doing my big "ineffably adorable" compliment. I hope his girlfriend doesn't think it was the other George who got her the cute wool socks. Psychedelic George has only been commenting here since February 5th — under that name at least — and he's really stood out as a great commenter. And I mean no disrespect to Original George.

MORE: I'm told Original George = Psychedelic George.

"He meets a deaf woman who loves music. Her hearing aid has broken. But she has good eyes and can read to him, but she slurs the words."

"It turns out that he plays the guitar, and she can hear it, a bit. Then in a final shocking twist, we learn that his middle name is 'Adam,' and her name is 'Eve.' Sadly, however, she is a robot."

That's Original George's entry in the "Time Enough At Last" challenge. The idea was to write a sequel to the famous "Twilight Zone" episode in which a man, Henry Bemis, who only wants to be left alone to read, is the sole survivor of a nuclear attack and then, with time enough at last to do all his reading, he breaks his glasses, without which he cannot read. So, what next?

Christy's entry is more "The Remake" than "The Sequel":

He is on the steps to the paperless Library circa 2020, picks up a Kindle and discovers the electromagnetic pulse has wiped all digital media clean.

Actually, the comments thread veered away from the challenge and into the philosophical inquiry: If there were no longer any possibility of interaction with human beings in real life, what books would be worth reading?

Anyway, I wrote the original post saying I'd reveal my sequel idea later, so here goes:

We see Henry agonizing over his broken glasses and suffering. He has to grope about in his near blindness, etc. etc. Eventually, he gropes his way into an eyeglass store. But all the glasses are melted from the nuclear blast. And the frames in an eyeglass store don't have prescription lenses anyway, Henry, you idiot. But there, under the counter there's a safe, blasted half open. Inside, there is a pair of glasses — thick glasses, like his old ones. We see through his eyes as he tries them on: The vision is clear. Henry is jubilant. He runs through the town back to his old stack of books on the library steps. He sits down, and, no sooner does he open up a book to read than the glasses fall off, hit the step, and break.

"We'd know if Bob Dylan came in here. What was he, in disguise?"

"There are a lot of people who come here who are Bob Dylan fans." "Did we miss him?"

***

Well, you know sometimes Bob Dylan wears his Bob Dylan mask.

IN THE COMMENTS: Original George suggests it was a Napoleon Bonaparte mask . And just remember, if you try disguising yourself, Bob Dylan would like you to know he can see through your masks.

MORE IN THE COMMENTS: Meade sends us here:



AND: That's from "No Direction Home," which you might want to buy, here. And Meade finds and especially likes the audio clip those guys in at the first link were talking about.

Questions that brought 1 visitor to my blog today.

From SiteMeter.

why do men like collarbones?
why do i want to be fat ?
when you die and they embalm you what happens to your penis?
what verb tense does chief bromden employ in one flew over the cuckoos nest?
what is it with black men and beards?
what does they were almost palpable mean?
what do 40 year old women look like?

IN THE COMMENTS: Original George said...

Love, peace, and compassion were surrounding me. They were almost palpable. It was incredible. I was in total bliss. Even the foosball players hesitated long enough to appreciate the elongated notes as he suspended them in midair until they were almost palpable. They were almost palpable. For three weeks we had felt it, touched it almost; it engulfed us; it was warm. We were completely infatuated. Brass and woodwind players were on stage, and in the balcony, swinging their instruments and playing chords so dense they were almost palpable. They were almost palpable, and it was very easy to feel sorry for her character because of the injustices she suffered from her husband. With the international community frowning heavily upon him and local expectations becoming so strong, they were almost palpable. I felt that the passion, ambition, revenge, tension, etc. were so descriptive that they were almost palpable. The narrator also did a stunning job of bringing memories materialized from the walls, so strong they were almost palpable. Grandpop bursting through the front door, the decibel level skyrocketing off the cries of outrage were so intense, they were almost palpable. How could the writers do this to us? Did they not know that Jane would never try out? For upon the eyeballs, affecting the sight as though they were almost palpable to the touch, the dews had not descended, but the leaves were still wet.

What happens when you Google the phrase "they were almost palpable."

He's right! And here I was reading that and trying to understand where the mind of OrigGeo was going with that story.

Meanwhile, Jennifer says...

Oh, I thought we were speaking of one curious surfer who kept ending up at Althouse no matter what new question they came up [with]. That was a funnier mental image.

... and I laugh out loud.

Winter fog... cemetery...

The suddenly warm temperature on top of deep snow raised a lush fog. Last night, driving on a narrow road next to the lake, I said, "This is what death looks like in the movies. Driving into nothing." All the familiar landmarks had become invisible, and I felt lost even when I knew exactly where I was.

The fog remained, but it was easier to see things in the morning. I remembered the photographs I'd taken in the graveyards last December -- here and here -- so I went back to that place to see what the fog was doing to it this year -- and to do some things to it myself with the fisheye lens.

As I drove into the cemetery, just by chance, on the radio's "Sinatra" channel, Van Morrison was singing "That's Life." I can't find the Van Morrison version, but here's Frank Sinatra. Lyrics (by Dean Kay and Kelly Gordon):

I said that's life, and as funny as it may seem
Some people get their kicks,
Stompin' on a dream
But I don't let it, let it get me down,
'Cause this fine ol' world it keeps spinning around...

That's life and I can't deny it
Many times I thought of cutting out
But my heart won't buy it
But if there's nothing shakin' come this here July
I'm gonna roll myself up in a big ball and die

What a crazy song! It's all life affirming and then, impetuously, suicidal.

IN THE COMMENTS: Original George says:

Keep On the Sunny Side...

William says:

I like the Jewish custom of leaving a pebble by the tombstone -- a pittance of memory by the eternity of death. Even if you could find them, a few bright flowers on a day like today would be overwhelmed by the bleakness of nature. Sad that the Irish custom of taking a whizz on the most elaborate tombstone has fallen into disuse. A few yellow streaks against the mausoleum of some forgotten notable reminds us of the transience of life and the abiding value of malice and envy in human affairs.

Sir Archy -- our favorite ghost! -- says:

I know, Madam, that Entertainments of the Nature of a Turn through a Graveyard, such as you have taken, are apt to raise dark & dismal Thoughts in tim'rous Minds and gloomy Imaginations; but, for my own Part, because of my Sanguine Nature, I do not know what 'tis to be Melancholy; and can, therefore, take a View of Nature in her deep and solemn Scenes, with the same Pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones, especially when contemplating such Pictures as you have made upon this Occasion.

Dark & dismal Thoughts in tim'rous Minds and gloomy Imaginations... I have these sometimes. But I must say that this morning, I wasn't the slightest bit spooked by the thought of all the dead bodies as I stalked about looking for the oldest headstones and the most gnarled trees. The winter cemetery is more evocative of death than the green one, which I have also photographed, but in winter, I work more efficiently. I'm not here for meditation. I'm here for art. I concentrate on that and on not stepping in snowbanks higher than my boots.

George says:

You can get van morrison's version at amazon as an mp3 or on the album 'The Best of Van Morrison Volume 3', on rhapsody, and on itunes...

Ah, yes. Good point. Done, with iTunes. Now, I'm listening to it on infinite repeat as I write this.

I got so mad at George Packer last night.

As expressed in this post and its comments. Here I am in the comments:

I don't mind people attacking me for doing that post itself ["[I doubt that] Obama wore an earpiece that was clearly visible on HDTV"], which was done at the end of a long session of live-blogging. But what angers me are these broad statements about how insular and narrow-minded I've been, when I have spent the last year (and more) being incredibly balanced, to the point where my readers really didn't know which candidate I was going to vote for. [Links added.]

You know, I'm going to vote for Obama (94.67% chance), but these assholes make it a really distasteful exercise.

Later, I added: "Now I feel like voting for McCain... and pushing the inside the ear transmitter theory..."

That was after reading this, from Original George:

Before dismissing the idea that Sen. Obama was wearing or does wear a hearing device, in less than 60 seconds on the net, I found many, many websites advertising CIC hearing aids. Go here.

They fit entirely inside the ear canal. They cost about $1,000. They're the size of a large seed or piece of corn. Probably sold by every audiologist.

So....could there be a radio receiver that size? Why not?

And, lo and behold, another five seconds on Google, and up come many in-the-ear-canal radio receivers...like here.

The mistake the Professor made, if she made one, was not to invest a few minutes research. Best thing to do would be to call two or three manufacturers of these gizmos and see what they think.

Heck, if I were running for President, I'd use a radio so I could be fed reminders and tips, and I'd be gobbling Provigil. Anything for an undetectable edge. Lifts in the shoes, hair dye, Wheaties, whatever.

A night's sleep put me at some distance from my rage so that, even with harassment from the excessively early-rising marching band, I was feeling cool-headed enough. And then, reading more deeply into the comments, I was cheered by our little friend, our favorite insect, blogging cockroach:

i don t know about sir archy or even titus
but i am a 100 percent sorta brown blooded
american cockraoch born right here
in cambridge mass if you want to count
that as america which i am sure some of you don t
and i ve got to say i think that hatchet job
done to professor a was terrible
that s the trouble with blogging
it s supposed to be easy and breezy
but there are people who deconstruct every
breadcrumb that gets stuck under the letter r
for example that really happened and i couldn t
write a damn thing with r

railroad crossing look out for the cars
can you spell it without any r s...

anyway soon people started to say
i broke my right front leg off and other
stupid theories and my blog went to hell
until tommy came back from camp
and fixed the keyboard

tommy is the boy whose computer i use

anyway tommy and i took the blog private
and maybe i ll start again
but this sure is a cautionary tale

i have a confession to make
tommy subscribes to the new yorker
oh the shame
he s very bright and sophisticated for 12
hell he s bright and sophisticated for 34
so he started reading the new yorker
in the office of his fancy private school
and next thing he had to have a subscription
mom and dad got him one for his birthday

i m glad that hit piece is only online
as i would have to find and eat the page
if it were in the magazine
so tommy wouldn t see it
and while there are some magazines
with yummy casein coated glossy paper
i only eat the new yorker as a last resort

WaPo on "racial attitudes" in Wisconsin.

Jeez, they really made Wisconsinites look like a bunch of hicks!

IN THE COMMENTS: Original George said:

A clown making balloon-animals. Big-wheel bikes. An ol' timey band. Cloggers.

Looks like the Village from an episode of "The Prisoner."

Needs a big bouncing bubble-gum bubble....

Dust Bunny Queen said:

Oh, and they make you look like a bunch of hicks, because that's what they really really think you are.

Bitter and clinging to your guns and religion, banjos.....and cheese!!!

Meade said:

The Hick race, from which I descend, has a long proud history of tolerance for banjo players from every race, creed, and religion.