Happy Saint Patrick’s Day

From the Dropkick Murphys:

Worth a Couple Thousand Words…

What do Johnny Cash and Miley Cyrus have in common?

Not much.

Nun wollen wir singen das Mailied

Mailied (Literally, Maysong)
Wie herrlich leuchtet
Mir die Natur!
Wie glänzt die Sonne!
Wie lacht die Flur!
Es dringen Blüten
Aus jedem Zweig
Und tausend Stimmen
Aus dem Gesträuch
Und Freud’ und Wonne
Aus jeder Brust.
O Erd’, o Sonne!
O Glück, o Lust!

Latin Fun

Robert the Llamabutcher reports that British public schools are reintroducing Latin into their curricula. (Note the proper Latin plural!)
This reminds me of the fantastic scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian where John Cleese surely channels a Latin teacher from his past.

Latin Fun

Robert the Llamabutcher reports that British public schools are reintroducing Latin into their curricula. (Note the proper Latin plural!)
This reminds me of the fantastic scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian where John Cleese surely channels a Latin teacher from his past.

More Top Chef

Well, my last post jokingly referred to a Top Chef Tragedy. This is a real tragedy. Hitting Marcel/Wolverine with a bottle? Right out.
Surfing around on the term “Top Chef,” I found this great guest blog entry by chef Anthony Bourdain (whose No Reservations is another item of must-see TV for me). Bourdain served a stint as guest judge for Top Chef earlier in the season and his assessments of the various contestants (other than Ilan) squares with my own.
The finale airs tomorrow at 9:00CST on Bravo.

Top Chef Tragedy

Well not really a tragedy, but I can’t believe the Top Chef judges are letting that little crapweasel Wolverine wannabe go to the grand finale next week.
Ilan’s fine with me, but my two favorite Chefs, Sam and Elia, got eliminated last night.
My wife thinks the voting was rigged, since Ilan and Marcel have had so much bad blood this season. Say it ain’t so! This isn’t simply reality TV designed to draw ratings, is it???

Plano as The New Peoria

Virginia Postrel has authored an enlightening article in the December issue of Texas Monthly addressing the perception of Plano as the bellwether for “red-state” America.
Read the whole thing (registration required – visit Virginia’s site to get the special password).

Pendulous Reading

I am about 2/3 of the way through Umberto Eco’s excellent Foucault’s Pendulum, which I started during the cruise last week. I hope to get most of the way to the end tonight after I stop blogging here.
A couple of thoughts so far:
I wish I knew Italian so that I could read this in its original form. It is multilingual anyway, with lots of French, Latin, and Old French. But I can tell that there is lots of clever wordplay, which never translates perfectly.
Best way to summarize the story and style? Imagine that Neal Stephenson had written The Da Vinci Code instead of Dan Brown.
I would like to see them try to translate this to film, since I rather enjoyed the movie version of Eco’s The Name of the Rose. But Da Vinci Code (in both book and film form) has probably oversaturated the market for Holy Grail/Templar/Rosicrucian/Illuminati conspiracy stories.

Bill Watterson Rarities

I have loved Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes from the first time I read it (a day or two after it first ran in 1985) up to the present; my wife even got me the hard-bound Complete Calvin and Hobbes collection for Christmas last year.
So I was really tickled to check out this collection of Watterson rarities that Lynn found. It’s neat to see his pre-Calvin work, as well as examples of the only couple of authorized Calvin and Hobbes items that Watterson ever licensed.
My sons both love these books, and I wish I could get them an authorized t-shirt to keep the characters alive as they were intended to be seen, not as some peeing or praying little boy sticker planted on the back of redneck pickup trucks.