Michael K

Darn you, Tom, now I have the theme song for The Prisoner going through my head.

Many moons ago, someone on the subway asked me if I was Greg Allman. I quietly disabused her of that notion and was quietly thankful that she had not thought I looked like _Duane_ Allman.

“And David Vincent knew that the invaders were here.”

So wearing the inflatable frog costumes at protests is just enhancing their conspiracy theories?

Just got back from our own No Kings demonstration, and I saw this sign, which I knew you would love.

As you well know, my favorite band of all time.

Alas, I had no choice in that regard—dragged to the theater to see The Sound of Mucous by my parents at the age of 10.

I would love to see your list (though it’s probably a mental list, and I ain’t psychic). I’ll bet we have a lot of similarities.

When I read things like this, I “hear” the Chat GPT text in the voice of HAL 9000.

Agreed. Lots of great stories about its making, also.

“The stuff that dreams are made of.”
“Huh?”

He apparently already has one IgNobel, in 2020, which he shared with Bolsonairo, Boris Johnson, Modi, López Obrador, Lukashenko, Erdogan, Putin, and a guy from Turkmenistan named Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, for their medical education efforts during COVID. But yes, he needs another of his very own.

In 1986, our wedding rehearsal dinner was held at the White Hart Inn in Salisbury, CT, which is modeled after one of the White Hart inns in Hampshire.

Funny, there is a scene in The Fifth Element that looks exactly like this. Accident or homage? Who can tell?

“Fascists are very thin at one end, thick in the middle, and thin again at the other end.”

Little-known fact: When Bill W and I went to see BS at the Capitol Theater in Pottsville in 1974, we passed Muhammed Ali as we was exiting the previous showing. He smiled and gave everyone thumbs up, so I assume he enjoyed it, but then again, that’s what he was like all the time.

That’s what would be considered a rhetorical question, ammirite?

No Kings demonstration in New Providence, NJ, was damp but enthusiastic, with lots of positive feedback from passersby. No Kings! #NoKings

I attended a lecture by Ken Kesey, waited around afterwards to chat him up, and ended up going out for a beer (or two) with him.

“Harpo Speaks” is also a pretty good Marx biography.

As would “Mother’s Little Helper.”

YouTube video by Jersey Coaster Chiquita Banana The Original Commercial

The Chiquita Banana Song! m.youtube.com/watch?v=RFDO...

(Thanks to Jon Carroll from the San Francisco Chronicle for popularizing the idea of mondegreens.)

These are all wonderful examples of what have been dubbed “mondegreens.” I strongly recommend the Wiki entry on mondegreens (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegr...); one of my favorites has always been “the girls with colitis goes by.”

Maxwell’s Silver Hammer?

Yes, Parnell comes up in Portrait and is threaded through Ulysses as well. And the central “character” in Finnegans Wake, HCE, is supposedly based on Parnell. Joyce was pretty obsessed with him.

Well, she was The Wasp in the MCU, but she seems to have retired from acting (for the moment) to devote herself to her life as author of a children’s book series called the Squickerwonkers.

Had to look her up. I have no patience for those horrible movies he wrung out of The Hobbit.

That said, you may or may not know that I have probably read the trilogy about 100 times, so I am hyper aware of its shortcomings. (Peter Jackson’s movies pumped up the role of Arwen for that very reason.)

I trust you heard the sarcasm in my initial comment. JRRT was not exactly big on female characters (other than as figures in lore).