A CHEEZY COMMENTARY
ALWAYS FOLLOWING THE HEP SIDE OF PROGRESSIVE AMERICAN CULTURE, I’m here today to celebrate Velveeta, Kraft Heinz’s “Pasteurized Recipe Cheese Product.” Image from Smithsonian Magazine. My starting point was encountering … Continue reading
STREET MURALS (CAST YOUR BALLOT!)
DOES ANYONE RECALL that wonderful Alec Guinness flick, The Horse’s Mouth? IMBd describes this 1958 satire/screwball comedy about Gulley Jimson, “an ill-behaved, lovably scruffy painter… determined to let nothing come … Continue reading
THIS PORSCHE SPEEDSTER IS SUPER
I’M SPEAKING OF THE ENGINE, THAT IS. Back in May 1955, R&T noted, “The Porsche Speedster is available with a choice of engines, the model priced at $2995 having a … Continue reading
FEAR ITSELF AND OTHER INAUGURAL COMMENTS
THE NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD CHOSE A TELLING QUOTATION in “Standing Up to Donald Trump’s Tactics,” Opinion, January 17, 2025: “ ‘Real power is—I don’t even want to use … Continue reading
90S SLANG STILL ALIVE AND WELL
NEAR THE END OF THE 1990S I WAS—wisely, it turns out—debunking the Y2K Dread that gizmos were incapable of counting 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001…. I was driving a Morgan at … Continue reading
KALININ’S K-12: WIN SOME, LOSE IT ALL
KONSTANTIN KALININ WAS A SOVIET AIRCRAFT DESIGNER. His designs were unconventional, which made them controversial during the Stalin era—and also, in retrospect, interesting projects for my GMax hobby of building … Continue reading
TRUMP’S BUNCH PART 2
YESTERDAY WE BEGAN GLEANING TIDBITS from Elliot Weinberger’s London Review of Books article “Incoming!” concerning Trump appointees. Today, we continue (is there no end to this madness?). “The future director … Continue reading
TRUMP’S BUNCH PART 1
ELLIOT WEINBERGER IS AN AMERICAN ESSAYIST regularly appearing in London Review of Books. By way of achievements, Wikipedia notes, “In 2021, Weinberger was awarded the Jeanette Schocken / Bremerhaven Citizens’ … Continue reading
“GHOST WORDS” IN DICTIONARIES
THERE’S NOTHING SCARY ABOUT DICTIONARY “GHOST WORDS.” They’re the result of misreading, mistranscribing, and plain old editorial goofing. Here’s a selection gleaned from several Internet sources. Dord. Wikipedia recounts, “The … Continue reading
EUROPEAN SOUVENIRS
THE DISCOVERER BLOG RECENTLY RECOMMENDED “Ten Souvenirs You Should Actually Buy in Europe.” Which, in turn, got me thinking of my own travel acquisitions, about which I score pretty well … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 