John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot

A thought on lives lived ... and described

"Discretion is not the better part of biography."
- Lytton Strachey 

A T-shirt for library patrons

Gotta say, I love this shirt and its retro approach to return stamps for library books. (Especially given that the dates remind me of term papers I was writing in university at that point!) 

As seen here, on Out Of Print. 

 

A good read

"I've never known any trouble that an hour's reading didn't assuage."
- Montesquieu, a.k.a., Charles De Secondat

How Jim Henson's Muppets sold coffee in the 1950s

Our son gave me Jim Henson: The Biography for Christmas, and I've been tucking into it over the last while. I've been learning a lot about Henson, who coined the word "muppet" many years before either Sesame Street or The Muppet Show. He actually had worked out the concept for that series more than a decade before it finally made its way to air, with sketches for an opening that look remarkably similar to the "it's time to meet the Muppets" theme that we all know.

Henson started performing the Muppets in slots on local TV in Washington, and caused enough of a buzz (no pun intended) that he was approached by a regional coffee distributor, Wilkins Coffee, to make TV commercials. 

Each spot was short - just 10 seconds, which meant that Henson and his partner and future wife, Jane, had to come up with eye-catching moments. The jokes are blunt, and Henson deployed techniques to get a laugh that future Muppet Show audiences would love. The ads worked so well that Henson was asked to replicate the formula for other regional companies. For many, the ads were the first time anyone had seen the puppets, or heard the voice of Henson, who by this point was only 21 years old.  

I was  curious to see if the ads are available online. Sure enough, they are ... all rounded up in one place, too. 

Neil Gaiman reads A Christmas Carol

 From Brainpickings, a true Christmas treat. 

 

Neil Gaiman on the virtue of letting kids read what they love

"Well-meaning adults can easily destroy a child's love of reading: stop them reading what they enjoy, or give them worthy-but-dull books that you like, the 21st-century equivalents of Victorian 'improving' literature. You'll wind up with a generation convinced that reading is uncool and worse, unpleasant."

This is an excerpt from an essay by Neil Gaiman on why libraries matter and such things; it includes an argument on why parents should avoid interfering too much in the reading preferences of their children, and let them pursue what they want rather than eliminating choices (like comic books) and prescribing what they think is important. You can read the whole of it here. 

 

Happy 70th birthday, Michael Ondaatje

"A novel is a mirror walking down a road."
- Michael Ondaatje, from The English Patient 

Why we love stories

"We take to fiction, I suppose, because no such thing is going to happen, and at least on the printed page we can observe beginnings, middles and ends, and can find out where morality resides." 
- Fay Weldon 

An excellent reason to never throw out your books

This is one of a series of creatives for a Brazilian campaign aimed to get people to make good use of their old books. "Don't throw out your books," it implores. "Donate them." 

You wouldn't want to make Pinocchio homeless, would you? 

Why your books need to get along

"It’s no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently or if your favorite films wouldn’t even speak to each other if they met at a party."
- Nick Hornby 

A true mystery section

As seen here. 

Why kids need books as much as food

This  ad is part of a wider literacy campaign from a few years ago that revolved around the tag line, "When a child doesn't read, imagination disappears." 

Ideas nourish the brain and the spirit as much as food nourishes our cells. 

 

Fear and Loathing in Mos Vegas

An unexpected mashup of interests for today's TeeFury shirt. It's called Bounty Hunter S. Thompson, combining Boba Fett with Ralph Steadman's iconic drawing style for the ultimate gonzo journalist's work. 

Yes, I'm buying it. It's available for the rest of the day (and early tomorrow, for a little extra). 

 

Your own time

"What you read when you don’t have to determines what you will be when you can’t help it."
- Oscar Wilde 

Andrew McCarthy, reconsidered

One of the podcasts I like listening to while I make coffee and putter about the house is Alec Baldwin's Here's the Thing, which is produced by WNYC in New York. The show is an extended chat with a notable person, often someone in entertainment, with often insightful results; Baldwin, it turns out, has a knack for conversation. Last night, I listened to the latest show, with Andrew McCarthy - yes, the Andrew McCarthy who was in movies like St. Elmo's Fire and who is still best known as being a member of the so-called Rat Pack of Eighties movie stars. And since then, he ... well, I had no idea.

As it turned out, McCarthy has continued to work in movies, TV and theatre, often as a director, but he's made a very different niche for himself as a travel writer. The thing that put him on the Here's The Thing is a memoir called The Longest Way Home, which seems to be not so much as seeing the world as learning how to grow up. (McCarthy is about to turn 50.) 

I like hearing interviews of people whose work I know well, but I also like being surprised, and finding something interesting in something I had never (to be frank) cared much about.

Here's the interview. 

A new Jack tale

Out now from self-described micro-press Running The Goat is a new Jack story by Andy Jones, who has been collecting and telling them now for a few decades. Jack and Mary in the Land of Thieves features illustrations by Darka Erelji, and it's on my list. 

Running The Goat even produced a pretty nifty video to promote it. Here it is: 

Robert Crumb's notebooks

Here's a collector's item I learned about, like the author of the piece: an edition from three decades ago of Robert Crumb's (or, R. Crumb's, if credibility really, really matters to you) sketchbooks from his truckin' prime.     

How to fake having read a book

Specifically, faking your way through a book club meeting, and even more specifically, one of those book club meetings. 

From Funny Or Die. 

Surviving a Book Club: Better Book Titles presents HOW NOT TO READ by Dan Wilbur - watch more funny videos

Doubly endangered

"Thank you, phone books, for combining the two things that no one answers or reads anymore."
- Jimmy Fallon 

[This was part of the Thank You Notes series on Late Night, airing last week. The feature has inspired a book, not to mention a Tumblr appreciation blog.]

A lift in the library limit (electronically, that is)

I got a pleasant surprise last night when I logged on to the e-library that the Newfoundland and Labrador Public Libraries offers. 

There used to be a limit of three titles that you could have out at a time. Now, that limit is up to five books - and it does make a difference, especially if you really just want to have a look at a book and see if it's worth the investment of time. (This is a downside of borrowing electronically; at least at the stacks, you can quickly browse a wide variety of books, and there's something to be said about that tactile connection.) 

I've been finding the e-book service quite useful, and indeed have been reading more, and more widely, since I installed it. Learning I had room for two extra titles was a gift.  

A great reason for reading night

"Children want to do what the grownups do. Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school." 
- Beverly Cleary 

Be careful what you wish for (international fiction deity edition)

"The Nobel prize is a fairytale for a week and a nightmare for a year."
- Mario Vargas Llosa

The above quote from the 2010 laureate appeared in this article published Friday in The Guardian. 

 

That poor, poor book

This cracked me up: a library book about passive-aggression, with all of the pages removed. I'm sure there's a story there!

As spotted here.

Fear and reading

"Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing."
- Harper Lee

 

 

Such a funny book

"From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it." 
- Groucho Marx