"You got to go and follow those orders. Just remember: Stay at home. Don't go to crowds. Put that cookie down!"

Stay. At. Home. That means you, too, spring breakers. pic.twitter.com/jUOgjLaOGN

— Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) March 18, 2020

Now, he should not be smoking, but, as many tweeters are pointing out, he seems to have a special privilege to smoke, explained here:

NYT "celebrity" crossword written (with a co-author) by Bill Clinton celebrates Bill Clinton...

... with the theme: Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow. One answer was "Don't Stop" (clue: "Continue"), another, further down, was "Thinking About" (clue: "Chewing on"), and another, was "Tomorrow" (clue: Another day). These are really dull clues, except to the extent the second one is a tad... oral.
 
Rex Parker is not amused:

Look, I voted for him twice...

Me too!

... but this is not a very good puzzle and if I said it was I would get dragged from here to Natick* and back because it's manifestly not. It's a vanity-theme puzzle masquerading as a Friday themeless. You wanna make a puzzle, make a *puzzle*—not whatever this winky, self-congratulatory thing is. It's not a satisfying themed puzzle, and it's really not a satisfying themeless. Neither fish nor fowl. Slightly inedible. 

Try chewing on it more.

I guess I briefly enjoyed noticing the Fleetwood Mac lyrics that are so closely associated with this puzzle's co-author's 1992 presidential campaign. 

I did the puzzle last night and didn't even notice. And I took the time to wonder why the mundane word pair "Thinking About" deserved the place of prominence in the center of the grid. I might have briefly thought why is Bill Clinton prodding me with "chewing on"? How is that a good idea? Does he want to remind us of the most famous blow job in the history of the world? Does he want me to think of the cigar? One chews on a cigar.... must I think of the most famous penis substitute in the history of the world and the strange reciprocity of using something he has chewed on?

But don't think about that. Remember the good times.



Chelsea was a darling teen, learning to clap to the beat. Michael Jackson was alive. Hillary almost didn't need 2 people to hoist her up the steps. Yesterday's gone. Yesterday's gone.
_______________________

* Natick is a town in Massachusetts and a Rex-Parker coinage that refers to a square in a crossword that is obscure whether you go by the across clue or the down clue. The coinage dates back to a puzzle that had "Natick" as the answer in one direction (clued: "Town at the eighth mile of the Boston Marathon") and in the other direction — "N.C. Wyeth" (clued: "'Treasure Island' illustrator, 1911") — crossing at the "n," ridiculously resistant to guessing because an initial in a name could be any letter.

"But beyond anything else, it was Mr. Castro’s obsession with the United States, and America’s obsession with him, that shaped his rule."

"After he embraced Communism, Washington portrayed him as a devil and a tyrant and repeatedly tried to remove him from power through an ill-fated invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, an economic embargo that has lasted decades, assassination plots and even bizarre plans to undercut his prestige by making his beard fall out. Mr. Castro’s defiance of American power made him a beacon of resistance in Latin America and elsewhere, and his bushy beard, long Cuban cigar and green fatigues became universal symbols of rebellion.... In a 1985 interview in Playboy magazine, he was asked how he would respond to President Ronald Reagan’s description of him as a ruthless military dictator. “Let’s think about your question,” Mr. Castro said, toying with his interviewer. 'If being a dictator means governing by decree, then you might use that argument to accuse the pope of being a dictator.' He turned the question back on Reagan: 'If his power includes something as monstrously undemocratic as the ability to order a thermonuclear war, I ask you, who then is more of a dictator, the president of the United States or I?'"

From the very long obituary in the NYT for Fidel Castro, who has died at the age of 90.

Celebrating the absence of a wedding.

"After Her Fiancé Left Her At The Altar, This Bride Took The World’s Best Photo Shoot/'The moment the first bit of paint hit my dress I was free.'"

ADDED: Not to be confused with "solo weddings."

The telling thing about the Japanese ceremonies is that they show that the single person would still like to marry someone, even if that someone is themselves. It makes their singledom look ludicrous. Marriage is a bond and a commitment—marrying yourself is ridiculous because you are already married to yourself....

How many of the articles about Obama and Cuba mentioned cigars?

Like about 11,000.

When 100 feminists protested The Ladies Home Journal, they lunged at the editor, John Mack Carter, tried to push him off the edge of his desk, and they smoked his cigars.

John Mack Carter died yesterday, at the age of 86. Do you remember who he is?

John Mack Carter, a Kentucky-born journalist who... was already a veteran editor of women’s magazines when, in March 1970, more than 100 feminists led by Susan Brownmiller stormed Ladies’ Home Journal and held an 11-hour sit-in at his office. Some of the women perched on his desk and smoked cigars. The protesters wanted Mr. Carter to resign and be replaced by a woman. They demanded that the magazine run a “liberated” issue...

That's from the NYT obituary, but let's look at the article the NYT published in March 1970:

More than 100 militant feminists staged a day-long occupation of The Ladies' Home Journal's editorial offices yesterday and demanded a chance to put out a "liberated" issue of the magazine...

Mr. Carter, who is 42 years old, said it had been an "educational" day...

Many of the 47 female and seven male editorial staff members expressed outrage and disgust as the demonstrators crowded into Mr. Carter's office at 9 a.m.

Do you have an issue with ESPN's "body issue"?

The cover is a photo of Prince Fielder naked. Fielder is a 275-pound baseball player.

From the WaPo write-up:

ESPN’s Body Issue is... a visual testament to unforgiving training regimens, sacrifice, passion and commitment... Not everyone need look like an Adonis to perform physical feats most of us would find impossible....

[T]he Body Issue serves to disprove the notion that you must look a certain way to reach the apex of your sport...

Via Metafilter where somebody says: "Crazy, Fielder has a basically identical body shape to mine, except he weighs 75 pounds more than me at the same height (!). That is some dense-ass muscle."

"Ass" is intended as an intensifier not a reference to the body part that is fully visible in the cover photo. (The topic of "ass" as an intensifier was well aired on here on the blog last summer.)

You know, just because an athlete is successful doesn't mean he wouldn't do even better if he were less fat. But performance is a mystery. Babe Ruth was fat. Yet Babe Ruth didn't pose naked, at least, I don't think he did. I Googled "Babe Ruth naked" and got "The Sultan Of Twat: Babe Ruth's Swinging First Few Years With The Yankees." Sample:

Fred Lieb said Ruth was obsessed with the penis and not merely because he was famously well-endowed. His speech was peppered with phallic allusions, such as "I can knock the penis off any ball that ever was pitched." A large stack of mail was "as big as my penis." When he aged he confided to Lieb, "The worst of this is that I no longer can see my penis when I stand up."...

Ruth and Bob Meusel often shared hotel suites on the road. One time Ruth brought home a woman, and they shared noisy relations, after which the Babe came out to the common room to smoke a cigar. The next day, Meusel asked how often Ruth had laid the girl. "Count the cigars," replied Ruth. According to Long Bob, there were seven butts in the ashtray.

"Naked" comes up in the context of a husband "waving a revolver" at "a near-naked Babe."

But things were different then. These days, the possibly obese professional athlete is purveyed to boost the self-esteem of magazine readers who feel good indulging in the mythology of You can be fat and fit.

How bad was Joel McHale, the (official) comedian at last night's White House Correspondents Dinner?

At last night's White House Correspondents Dinner, the official comedian — insert typical joke about how they're all comedians — was Joel McHale, whose comic gimmick seemed to be reading bad jokes off cards and then ad-libbing about how that was a poor joke. For example:

I am a big fan of President Obama. I think he’s one of the all-time great presidents, definitely in the top 50. Please explain that to Jessica Simpson. You’re right, that was low.

That came early on and was followed by what might have been his only rough treatment of Obama:

All right, how about the president’s performance tonight, everyone? Sir, it’s amazing that you can still bring it with fresh, hilarious material. My favorite bit of yours was when you said you would close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. That was a classic. That was hilarious, hilarious. Still going.

Detainee Obamedy. Obama laughed and laughed. I think he mouthed something like "I'm still workin' on it."

"The only thing I ever walked out of was ‘Dr. Doolittle’ with Eddie Murphy. It’s remarkable what I’ll sit through — it really is."

Said David Sedaris, in this article that collects his comments on his favorite movies. One is "Planet of the Apes," about which he said (making me laugh out loud):

Charlton Heston has been in that pod for however many years — a long time — and he’s got a cigar stub in his mouth. They land on this new planet, and he lights this cigar stub. They’re walking through the desert, and it looks like the entire planet is going to be like this — a horrible desert. Someone calls to him, and says, “Quick, come here!” and he throws the cigar butt on the ground. And I thought: if that’s your last cigar — and he’s got like a good two inches left — are you really going to throw it out just because someone called your name? I got so hung up on that. I thought about it for the rest of the movie. I couldn’t believe anyone had let that pass. If someone had said, “Come here!” and they were holding a box of cigars, I could understand him throwing it down. But they weren’t.

"There is nobody in this country who got sex on their own. Nobody. You got elected president out there - good for you."

"But I want to be clear. You floated your rubber ducks in bathtubs the rest of us paid for. You hired interns the rest of us paid to indoctrinate. You were safe in a swimming pool that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that Jackie would return home suddenly, and ruin everything... Now look. You built Camelot and it turned into something terrific. Great idea - God bless! Be a hunk in it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a few of those Cuban cigars and leave them in the Oval Office for the next kid who comes along."

Meade, commenting on the post about JFK and his 19-year-old intern.

ADDED: In case you don't recognize the source for this satire, it's this.

Wikipedia Article of the Day: "Exploding Cigar."

"The customary intended purpose of exploding cigars is as a form of hostile practical joke, rather than to cause lasting physical harm to the butt of the joke."

Although far rarer than their prank cousins, exploding cigars used as a means to kill or attempt to kill targets in real life has been claimed, and is well represented as a fictional plot device. The most infamous case concerning the intentionally deadly variety was an alleged plot by the CIA of the US in the 1960s to assassinate Fidel Castro. Notable real life incidents involving the non-lethal ilk include an exploding cigar purportedly given by Ulysses S. Grant to an acquaintance and a dust-up between Turkish military officers and Ernest Hemingway after he pranked one of them with an exploding cigar....

A well known use of the exploding cigar in literature, for example, appears in Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel, Gravity's Rainbow....  Other book examples include Robert Coover's 1977 novel, The Public Burning, where a fictionalized Richard Nixon hands an exploding cigar to Uncle Sam...

Film examples include... in The Beatles' 1968 animated feature film, Yellow Submarine, where an exploding cigar is used to rebuff a psychedelic boxing monster... Appearance of exploding cigars in the Warner Bros. cartoon franchises, Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes was fairly common, often coupled with the explosion resulting in the pranked character appearing in blackface. Some examples include: Bacall to Arms (1942), wherein an animated Humphrey Bogart gets zapped by an exploding cigar leaving him in blackface...

Let's look that up.... oh, my....



ADDED: I like this scientific demonstration:

Photographs by/of Dennis Hopper.

Hopper took some cool photographs in the 1960s — cool not just because he had access to some of the celebrities of that era (Paul Newman, Jane Fonda, Bill Cosby, Brian Jones, Tuesday Weld, Andy Warhol, etc.).

And Terry Richardson did a nice cigar-smoking sequence of Hopper.

Via Metafilter, which highlights the great photoblog Chasing Light.

"Everybody can't be taken to Everest."

Just my favorite part of my favorite movie, "My Dinner With Andre":

***

If you go way deep into the reviews of the movie at that Amazon link, above, you will find one written on August 16, 1999 by "a customer," which 125 of 129 people found "helpful." Let it be known that that "customer" is me. I wrote:

This is my favorite movie of all time. Period. You can sit in on the most interesting conversation ever and I've done it many times, every time finding myself thinking of different things, contemplating my own life and wondering about how crazy Andre actually is and how seriously to take his ideas about how human life came to an end a few decades ago, leaving us all robots in search of some twinge of real feeling. But the dvd is so bad I suspected it was a bootleg. When the camera switches from Andre to Wally the color completely changes. It's all grainy as if recorded on bad tape off a badly receiving tv. At one point a little white hair appears and vacillates on the lower screen for oh about 30 minutes. Are they kidding? There needs to be a new edition of this great movie, and those of us who bought this sham of a version should be allowed to trade it in. Here is a film critiquing the falseness of what our modern life has become: fine, but I don't need an object lesson costing me $20. Out of respect for the sublime Louis Malle, put out a new version!

"Extra LENGTH, Extra Taste, Extra Pleasure" in a cigar.

The sexiest commercials in the 60s were for Muriel Cigars, with Edie Adams sexing it up as much as possible while remaining cool and classy (with Stan Getz on the musical phallic symbols in this one):



Yes, Edie has just died, but she was 81. Let's not dwell on death. Let's reminisce. Let's talk about smoking and sex, commercials and comedy.

I remember seeing those cigar commercials when I was a kid, and I think it was through those commercials that every Baby Boomer learned what a phallic symbol was. My parents loved the sexy pop culture women of the Edie Adams type -- a subject I've discussed many times on this blog -- but invariably, the sight of Edie Adams would set my parents to talking about Ernie Kovacs. Oh, how they loved Ernie Kovacs, whom they'd watched from his earliest days when he was on local TV in Philadelphia and how terrible it was when he died.

Here's Edie Adams in an interview, talking about Kovacs. Love at first sight:

I remember him standing there with a hat and a mustache and a cigar. He looked like something out of a B-movie, evil personified or something.... I never saw anything that looked like that... I thought: I don't know what that is, but I want one of those.

Ernie did cigar ads too:



RIP, Edie and Ernie.

For more Althouse, see Instapundit.

I'm writing over there too for a few days. Feel free to comment over here on this morning's posts. So far:

"I GUESS MAKING ONESELF VULNERABLE to two negative stories in forty years is the price of a lifetime of public service."

LAWRENCE LESSIG'S RUN FOR CONGRESS. "The district, south of San Francisco, runs straight through the heart of Silicon Valley, where Mr. Lessig is considered a celebrity, though one who wears glasses and uses phrases like 'net neutrality.'" If you're "considered a celebrity," doesn't that make you a celebrity? Is there some deeper lever of genuine celebrity that I just don't understand?

"IS JOHN MCCAIN BROKE?"

"JIM RUTENBERG, MARILYN W. THOMPSON, DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and STEPHEN LABATON all show the kind of journalistic chops that made Us such a must-read in doctor's offices and lavatories around the world." Says Captain Ed.

MAJORING IN MIRACLES. Did Obama get sick on the eve of the big debate? Does Huckabee think this is the miracle he'd been hoping for? Unlike Huck, I didn't "major in miracles," but like the Virgin Mary on the grilled cheese sandwich, these works are uninspiring.

AND: Three more:

A BIG CIGAR? THERE?! That seems so wrong.

APHASIA IN THE COMICS.

"IF REPUBLICANS ARE MAKING TOO MUCH of Michelle Obama's gaffe that 'for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country' -- and well they might, because it could win them the election -- Democrats are making way too little of it."

"I've been fascinated... with the attention paid to me by people who really have not undertaken to understand how I succeed, how I define my success."

You may hate Rush Limbaugh. You may despise him and everyone who listens to him. But do you even understand what he is doing?

I don't think [the mainstream media] understand why I do it, number one. I treat it as a business. My definitions for success have nothing to do with who wins elections, but rather, Is the program growing audience-wise? Are we attracting new sponsors? ...

Now, in terms of the content, I just come here and I try to have fun every day. And I'm honest. I don't say outrageous things I don't believe just to get people in a tizzy....

The second thing that the media doesn't understand — and I think it's because talk radio is outside the Beltway. It's a phenomenon that attracts what I call the people who make the country work. I don't think politicians and elected officials and bureaucrats and even the media are responsible for the greatness of the country. I think it's individual Americans laboring in anonymity, not seeking fame, just trying to get by, play by the rules, work hard, ordinary people doing extraordinary things. And those are the people that listen to talk radio. And the media thinks that they're all hayseeds and hicks without minds of their own....

He's having fun. Doing a radio show.

I've been listening to the show — over the website, without the commercials — for the last month, so I've developed my own opinions about Limbaugh. One thing I've noticed — which doesn't come up in the linked Time interview — is that he has no real affinity for social conservatism. He likes to talk about the "3 legs" to the "stool" of conservatism. (That sounds so wrong!) But this leg man is only interested in 2 legs: national security and economics. He doesn't care about family values and that sort of thing. He's constantly alluding to his interest in having his fun with women and evading any burdensome entanglements. He has absolutely no interest in children. And he brags about his pleasures: parties, good food and drink, cigars, comfy beds, nifty gadgets. He gives every sign of being a shameless sybarite.

"Does he have sex appeal?... Can you smell the English leather on this guy?"

"Does he have sex appeal? . . . Can you smell the English leather on this guy, the Aqua Velva, the sort of mature man's shaving cream, or whatever, you know, after he shaved? Do you smell that sort of, a little bit of cigar smoke?" "

So said Chris Matthews about Fred Thompson — from a list of quotes of the year assembled by Glenn Greenwald, who editorializes that Matthews is "fantasizing about the pleasing, manly body smells of Fred Thompson." Greenwald's unnumbered list is hit and miss, but I'm amused by the manifestations of male enthusiasm for manly males.

"What's appealing about Rudy Giuliani is not the generous side, what's appealing about him is the tough cop side.
Right. You just wait until daddy gets home.
Yes, that part...
That Daddy.
... of the daddy. It's the tough cop side, so...
Yes. Yes" --
Chris Matthews and Howard Fineman, breathlessly sharing their excitement over the firmness of their Daddy, Rudy Giuliani.

He has "chiseled-out-of-granite features, a full, dark head of hair going a distinguished gray at the temples, and a barrel chest . . . . and has shoulders you could land a 737 on" --
Roger Simon, The Politico's chief political columnist, enthusiastically admiring numerous parts of Mitt Romney's body.

IN THE COMMENTS: Palladian explains fragrances for men (and he really knows what he's talking about).

"Is Bill a loyal spouse or a subconscious saboteur?"

The Bill and Hillary psychodrama.

Is Bill torn between resentment of being second fiddle and gratification that Hillary can be first banana only with his help? Their relationship has always been a co-dependence between his charm and her discipline. But what if, as some of her advisers suggest, she turned out to be a tougher leader, quicker to grasp foreign policy, less skittish about using military power and more inspirational abroad? What if she were to use his mistakes as a reverse blueprint, like W. did with his dad?

When Bill gets slit-eyed, red-faced and finger-wagging in defense of her, is he really defending himself, ego in full bloom, against aspersions that Obama and Edwards cast on Clintonian politics?

Maybe the Boy Who Can’t Help Himself is simply engaging in his usual patterns of humiliating Hillary and lighting an exploding cigar when things are going well....

Hillary advisers noted that when Bill was asked by a supporter in South Carolina what his wife’s No. 1 priority would be, he replied: C’est moi! “The first thing she intends to do is to send me ...” he began.

He got so agitated with Charlie Rose — ranting that reporters were “stenographers” for Obama — that his aides tried to stop the interview...

Maureen Dowd sounds absolutely right to me. I note that she's reacting to the Matt Bai article that appears in this week's NYT Magazine. I reacted to it on Wednesday and said something similar:

If you were writing a novel about the 2008 presidential campaign, wouldn't you want Bill Clinton as your main character? What a complex situation he is in. He stands to gain power, but his time is also over. He can help his wife, but he can also hurt her. He is supposed to fight for her, but he's continually tempted to justify himself. He has the more creative mind, but he cannot outshine her.

This too. (About that priceless quote: "Everything I'm saying here is my wife's position, not just mine.")

So: Loyal spouse? Subconscious saboteur? Frankly, I think he's too smart for it to be subconscious. I think he's devoted to her, but he's a dominant male, and the situation is inherently complex. Perhaps he wants conflicting things, but he must primarily want her to win, and assuming that's so, he needs to get control of himself in public so that we never see the part of him that wants her to lose.

"A hall full of yowling Ron Paul loons and questions from Unabomber look-a-likes in murky basements."

Richelieu at Weekly Standard deplores CNN's YouTube debate:

America got to see a vaguely threatening parade of gun fetishists, flat worlders, Mars Explorers, Confederate flag lovers and zombie-eyed-Bible-wavers as well as various one issue activists hammering their pet causes. My cheers went to a listless Fred Thompson who easily qualified himself to be president in my book by looking all night like he would cheerfully trade his left arm for an early exit off the stage to a waiting Scotch and good Cuban cigar. The media will probably award a win to Mike Huckabee, the easy listening music candidate at home in any crowd, fluent in simpleton speak and the one man on the stage tonight who led the audience to roaring cheers by boasting that he had a special qualification to be president that none of the second-raters on the stage could match: A degree in Bible Studies from Ouachita Baptist University of Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

Well put.

ADDED: By contrast, look at how positive Captain Ed is about CNN's handling of the debate:

For the most part -- with a few glaring exceptions -- the network eliminated the silliness and stuck to substance. The questions hit hot topics and sparked some fierce debate. With a couple of exceptions, Republican fears of crypto-Democratic hit questions failed to materialize, and the candidates responded substantively to the rest.

I expected the debate to descend into silliness and gotcha moments. The only gotchas came from the candidates. Truthfully, this may have been one of the least "gotcha" and most substantive debates we've had this year.

"The Spinach Brownie."

That could be the name of a "Seinfeld" episode where Jerry's new girlfriend is a cookbook author and...

[Jessica] Seinfeld's new "Deceptively Delicious," about hiding healthy ingredients in foods children will eat, is already the best-selling book in the country, with print runs of 2.5 million through January.

But chef and baby-products mogul Missy Chase Lapine came out in April with a book, "The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals." Lapine baked her spinach brownies with Al Roker on the "Today" show; Seinfeld shared her spinach brownies with Oprah on that show last week.

Oh, of course, it's Roker. He'll do a cameo, for sure. He was in "The Cigar Store Indian" episode, which had one of the great "Seinfeld" book plot lines:

JERRY: Thanks, because I would really like... (distractedly puts coffee cup back
on the table)

GEORGE: (screaming) Aaahh!!

JERRY: Alright, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. (picks it up again)

GEORGE: But Jerry, this is not coming out!

JERRY: Just put a coffee table book over it.

GEORGE: My parents don't read! They're gonna wonder what a book is doing on the
table!

KRAMER: Hey, hey, hey, hey. You know what would make a great coffee table book?
A coffee table book about coffee tables! Get it?

And speaking of stealing an idea... remember when Kramer had an idea for perfume that smelled like the beach:

KRAMER: You smell like the beach. What's the name of that perfume? you're wearing.

TIA: It's Ocean by CALVIN KLEIN.

KRAMER: CALVIN KLEIN? No, no. That's my idea. They, they stole my idea. Y' see I had the idea of a cologne that makes you smell like you just came from the beach.

JERRY: I know look at this [shows ad]

KRAMER: Whooo, ... That's you! What is going on here? The gyp(?) he laughs at me then he steals my idea. I could have been a millionaire. I could have been a fragrance millionaire, Jerry. ... They're not going to get away with this.

The transcriber seems to want to get Michael Richards in trouble for more politically incorrect language. The name of the character who steals the idea is Steve D'Jiff — not "the gyp" — as you can see from the episode "The Pez Dispenser" — my favorite episode — where Kramer first gets the idea for a perfume he called The Beach.

"The Spinach Brownie"... it practically writes itself:

Seinfeld and Lapine both have recipes for mashed potatoes with hidden cauliflower, grilled cheese with secret sweet potatoes, green eggs made with pureed baby spinach, and carrot-laced tacos....

[Seinfeld's publisher, Steve] Ross did admit that Lapine's agent had submitted her book to them "in May of 2006, but it was rejected."...

Oh, I can just picture the scene where Ross rejects the book. He acts so disgusted by the idea of slipping spinach into kid's brownies. Here's some inspiration from "The Pez Dispenser":

KRAMER: Go ahead smell, smell

STEVE: Yeah, so?

KRAMER: Do you recognize it? ... The beach.

STEVE: What are you talking about?

KRAMER: Oh, I'm talking about the beach.

STEVE: What about it?

KRAMER: You know the way you smell when you first come home from the beach?

Well, I want to make a cologne that captures the essence of that smell.

Oh yeah.

STEVE: That is the dumbest idea I have ever heard.

KRAMER: Oh, wait, Did you here what I just said?

STEVE: Do you think people are going to pay $80 a bottle to smell like dead fish and sea weed? That's why people take showers when the come home from the beach. It's an objectionable offensive odour.

KRAMER: So you don't think it's a good idea?

And poor Missy Chase Lapine — love the name! — is crushed. Meanwhile, Ross find the glitzy wife of some filthy rich comedian to put her imprint on the same idea. Does Mrs. Filthy Rich Comedian even cook?

As for whether [Jessica] Seinfeld actually toils over a hot stove, Ross said: "Well, I can tell you that she cooked [mac and cheese and meatballs] for us, and it was delicious. And we've heard from Jerry that he's been a guinea pig."

A spokesman for Seinfeld said, "She admits she didn't invent pureeing. But she never saw the [Lapine] book. And she worked really hard on hers."

Of course, she never saw the Lapine book! Does she even read?