Levi Stahl

He’s really something. There’s a bit earlier in the book when Welles talks about running into Capote once and having Capote start quoting reams of dialogue from The Lady from Shanghai.

Text from This Is Orson Welles: PB: There's a line in Lady from Shanghai, "When I start out to make a fool of myself, there's little enough that can stop me. ... Do you feel that's been true in your life-have there been times when you feel you've made a fool of yourself? OW: That's one of those searching, penetrating questions 1 thought we'd avoid PB: You don't want to talk about it? OW: There've been so many occasions I don't know how to begin. PB: Regrets? OW: Millions. But, you know, I like the people who are ready and willing to make fools of themselves-being, as 1 am, a full member of the fraternity. Still, there are lots of nice felines who just can't. PB: Felines? OW: If spiritually you're part of the cat family, you can't bear to be laughed at. You have to pretend when you fall down that you really wanted to be down there just to see what's under the sofa. The rest of us don't at all mind being laughed at. PB: Then you're canine? OW: I'm a comic, anyway, even if I don't wag my tail very often.

The Truth About Cats and Dogs (Orson Welles, 1996).

I keep hearing this speech in my head.

“A bust of Balzac . . . the French writer?”

“An Army private . . . who was unconscious at the time . . . “

Milner was born in Carlsbad, which makes his nonsense Alabama accent even more entertaining.

Re-upping for the morning crowd. Working in publishing is fun.

A detail of a panel from an issue of Avengers showing Captain America in close-up, snapping his fingers.

Good morning, friends!

It’s such a fun book, and it’s not easy to get right now.

No, but this could be a good prompt. Let me think on it a bit.

I am so happy about this.

OK, look, I need you to preorder this so hard it'll scare @levistahl.bsky.social and his colleagues half to death, OK?

It's a marvelous novel, and if you think that my foreword doesn't make a fuss over "Oh, Rose, you're so stuck-up," you have another think coming.

The moon on the way home from dinner tonight led me and Stacey to start singing “It’s Only a Paper Moon.” It was so distinct against the flat sky.

With the help and support of @bcdreyer.social, who was the first person I reached out to after I read it, to confirm my sense that it’s a wonderful little book.

I’m so glad we will get to bring this book to more readers. It’s such a delight.

Mesmerizing on screen. Can’t take your eyes off him.

Meet Me in St. Louis Sally Benson’s charming slice-of-life story is back in print for a new generation of readers.Originally published as World War II raged overseas, Meet Me in St. Louis is Sally Benson’s semi-autobiogra...

Pssst. . . . . friends. Look at what I got to do.

press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

It’s the perfect film for what she does well.

Of the 1500 or so movies I’ve seen since the pandemic set in and broke my brain so I started watching movies -all the time-, Humoresque, starring these two, is one of the top 10–15 of the ones that were new to me. It’s wonderful.

Those, alas, are at some point beyond hope for me. But, lord, would I welcome both.

I will be sad when we don’t get the final volume of Caro’s LBJ.

I’ll be more sad if we don’t get the final volume of Callow’s Welles.

Sure, everything’s been done, but it’s much healthier not to know about it.

—Orson Welles

A paperback of This Is Orson Welles next to an Old Fashioned on a marble bar.

Cocktail and a book while I wait for my dinner company.

That’s I think the only Spufford I’ve not yet read. He’s so unpredictable, and so good.

A very close-up photo of the snout of our dog, Jenkins, a black-and-white pit mix.

I am at the office. This is what’s going on with Jenkins’s walker.

It’s such a great building.

Maybe I hoped the whiskers would make me look a little less like a depraved baby.

—Orson Welles, on why he grew a beard

Snoopy knows what’s needed in 2026.

I’ll be getting into town Friday, does that still count as late Tuesday shopping?

A detail from a panel from a 1990 Peanuts comic strip showing Snoopy lying under a tree. He is thinking, “I like a book where there’s only one character and nothing happens to him.”

Good morning, friends!

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.