Levi Stahl

We began to realize, as we plowed on with the destruction of New Jersey, that the extent of our American lunatic fringe had been underestimated.

— Orson Welles, on the broadcast of the Mercury Theatre On the Air broadcast of War of the Worlds

Twenty minutes in, and we had a control room full of very bewildered cops. They didn’t know who to arrest or for what, but they did lend a certain tone to the remainder of the broadcast.

—Orson Welles, on the broadcast of the Mercury Theatre On the Air broadcast of War of the Worlds

A shot of a newspaper from the 1937 film A Star Is Born. The headline that advances the plot reads “Norman Maine Released to Custody of Vicky Lester After Drunk Conviction!” Below it to the left is a headline “Three Arrested in Indictment for Lotto Games,” with the subhed, “He Had Received Several Warnings.”

Other headlines in newspapers in movies, #2 in a new feature.

Damn, Laura. This is good. I love that movie, and you’ve made me think about some new aspects of it.

A wood-framed display case with glass on all but the bottom. Inside it is are human-size forearm and hand bones. Behind them, as if perhaps initiating an investigation, are five ceramic dogs of various sizes and the Fisher-Price figurines of the Bad Kid (a kid with freckles and a yellow shirt wearing a tipped-up baseball cap) and the Bad Kid’s Dog, a black-and-white dog.

Stacey improved the display for March.

An image of a newspaper from the film Big City Blues (1932). The headline that is there for the purpose of the film’s plot the top of the page: “Police Round Up Murder Suspects.” Next to it is a smaller headline for a different story, there as filler: “Wife Spanker Defends Action.”

Other headlines in newspapers in movies, #1 in a new feature.

Congratulations!

Numbers 10:16: 16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.

God using a mixed metaphor here that’s gonna haunt me.

Stacey moved into a college apartment once where there was a bunch of furniture that was too bad even for college students gathered in the center of the living room with a note “For Goodwill.”

Not going to ask any questions.

They opened in August. It’s a really small space, but she makes good and interesting choices about what to stock in it. (And she keeps True Grit on the front table!)

Aw, thank you! When I started back in with piano 15 years ago, I didn’t expect to do any writing, but it turns out that that much time playing gets your brain going. I get a -lot- of help from my teacher when I’m stumped, giving suggestions and pointing possible directions.

Normally save this guy for a Friday, but feels like folks could use him to start the week.

A panel from David Rees’s comic My New Fighting Technique Is Unstoppable. It shows a clip art karate guy mid-kick who is saying, “Ah, here comes a dude.”

Good morning, friends!

He was a very good-looking young man indeed, shaped to be annoyed. His voice was intimate as the rustle of sheets.

—Dorothy Parker, “Dusk Before Fireworks”

Made a little more progress on the song I’ve been writing. (The part after the big G# chord is still pretty notional.)

Still alive, nearing the century mark.

Whoa, no.

A paperback of Len Deighton’s Berlin Game and one of Jake M. Cain’s Mildred Pierce, with four small brass camels atop them.

Sometimes you stop by the bookstore down the block (Time and a Half Books) to get a Len Deighton and it turns out they also have the James M. Cain you were looking for. Their crime-mystery-thriller section is small but mighty.

I basically dream about having Orson Welles narrate everything. The other day I was idly imagining him announcing stops on the L.

One evening Orson read to me superbly some of P. G. Wodehouse’s hilarious stories.

—Peter Bogdanovich, This Is Orson Welles

(OMG)

No, our series started in 2008.

A wooden display case with a glass top and sides. Inside are two Fisher-Price toys from the 1970s: the Bad Kid (a kid with freckles wearing a yellow shirt and a red ballcap at a rakish angle) and the Bad Kid’s Dog, a black-and-white dog who looks a lot like our actual dog, Jenkins).

The March display is up.

EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert review: Baz Luhrmann blends the King's self and image EPiC is a concert film, designed to entertain, first and foremost, but to remind people why Elvis was … Elvis.

At Ebert’s site, @sheilakathleen.bsky.social insightfully compares Elvis to Marilyn, stars who have devolved to images, and whose actual performances, when you encounter them, snap you back to attention to their actual talent. EPIC totally centers Elvis the committed, mesmerizing performer.

Text from Peter Bogdanovich’s This Is Orson Welles: reer. In a conversation about John Ford's tendency to sentimentalize his female characters, we somehow moved on to a story about Welles' own mother. At the age of six or seven, Orson evidently threw something of a fit one afternoon about practicing his piano. To make the point very clear to his piano teacher, Orson had gone out onto the window ledge of their apartment building and threatened to jump if the teacher insisted any further. The poor man had gone running in frantically to see Orson's mother: "Mrs. Welles, he says he's going to jump!" Outside on the ledge Orson could hear his mother's quiet re-so lie Well on stir pat it hi mong to eir re going tO Jump.……. to his lessons.

Sending this to my piano teacher, who teaches a lot of kids.

Friday night I dreamed I took a time machine to see the ‘68 comeback special, but ended up in ‘73 at a Ravinia-style outdoor show in a glade. I wandered around & chatted with some nice fans, all a little questing & gently fuddled by the ‘70s. Then, as “Also Sprach Zarathustra” started, I woke up.

Elvis in concert in 1970, wearing a white jumpsuit with a red belt and shirt.

Still flying from how much fun I had watching EPIC: Elvis Presley in Concert last night. What a performer. It was so much fun to see how much the rest of his giant (like, 25+ pieces) band was having, too.

Among the most complicated aspects of Welles’s work is the tension between the essential pessimism of his outlook and the exhilarating optimism inspired by the brilliance of his style.

—Peter Bogdanovich, This is Orson Welles

Everything you’ve ever learned in school is balls! Do you understand? Balls!

—Orson Welles, 1974 (via Peter Bogdanovich

A panel from a 1990 Peanuts comic strip showing Sally and Charlie Brown. Sally has her head thrown back and is hollering, “Run for the hills!”

Good morning, friends!