Beano #615, May 1, 1954

Might be the greatest opening paragraph of anything ever.

Beano #1084, April 27, 1963

The Morgan Library has all of Peter Hujar’s contact sheets. The upcoming exhibition of them reveals that Candy Darling, on her deathbed, really enjoyed having Hujar there. Most of the pictures are of her smiling & laughing. This is the one he chose.

About Dusty Springfield, all quite true

Any time I see Nimoy I hear George Takei: ‘Leonarddd…. was a gentlemannn.’

Neil was warned against working with Dusty ('she's a mess') but insisted. She was living in digs in LA, drug addicted. She knew who they were. Arrived @ session in sleek black, coiffed, lyric sheet heavily marked. A fan had followed her, so they were invited in. First chorus hits, boom. 60s again.

They have some nice used books by the bar at the the Irish Arts Center in NY. Not priced, seemingly to read there. Their old copy of AMONGST WOMEN was lovely, I asked the mgr if I could buy. - Take it. - What? - No, really. We give away books every St Patrick's Day. You need to read that.

100 Club, Oxford St, London, 18 June 1976. Prickle later played keyboards on the first PiL LP (Keith Levene called him a ‘stone geezer’) but Lydon broke with him over Gumby’s appearance (as Bill Grundy) in SID & NANCY

The short-lived Stalag 17 attraction at Disneyland closed on 5 September 1961

Pretty much every German intellectual for 60 yrs who didn't go to London wound up in Milwaukee. 'Das Deutsche-Athen' was a long time ago, but the spirit is alive. The city is square yet friendly to books, art, eccentrics, radicals. It's got a 1st class used bookstore in the airport, run by hippies.

I have a signed copy of his Memoirs. I inexplicably got it for $100. I genuinely believe it wards off evil spirits.

A long time ago, but - EDITOR. We pay X. JS. This is a long article. I'd need more than that. EDITOR. The best I can do is double it. JS. Fine with me.

I admire Lithgow all day. He’s currently doing some of his best work, & he seemingly doesn’t need the money. I’m not sure why he did it. Tickle the grandkids? Provide the family a pension?

NY Lottery - when the express pulls alongside the local so you can transfer across the track NY Powerball Jackpot - when a strange dog, among all his glorious smells, decides that you have to pet him right now

Reading more about the dogs who broke away from kidnappers. The corgi was chosen as boss because he’s even-tempered. The big labs guarded the injured German Shepherd, & the little pomeranian, etc. were scouts.

This is an earnest if slightly confused argument saying that lots of artists are dicks, etc. - yeah. Ezra Pound was a fascist. I don’t think anyone who reads him is a bad person. But there’s beauty & complexity in him that doesn’t exist in JKR. Even if her abhorrent, evil, bloodthirsty views -

I watched JURY DUTY. It's fine. But I was really interested in how they put it together from an improv standpoint. It's nice they pull the curtain back. They hit the lottery with Gladden, who's absurdly likable & decent, & Alan Barinholtz, the judge, is great. Chicago trial lawyer, Chicago improv.

Certain bodega cats are like this. There are the 'I am a cat who lives here' cats vs the 'I am following in the proud 6000 year tradition of my kind, order more seltzer & fetch the brougham' cats.

I'm so old I can remember when it was kicking off in Fallujah & they decided they needed to be open to felons, wife beaters, dropouts, schizophrenics, low-end ASVAB, etc.

I have no inside information, but this reads to me like Disney realising what everyone else already knew: Altman doesn't know what he's doing, and they had no way to protect themselves. They didn't decide to shutter Sora, they needed Disney's money to keep it open.

This case is a bit of a Philadelphia legend. I hadn't seen the FBI post this for the 20th anniversary last year. The title & wording are making a not-so-subtle point. www.fbi.gov/news/stories...

And today is Jo Mielziner's birthday, so here's a photograph of his set for Elmer Rice's Street Scene.

Was just informed that Scorsese's WHAT HAPPENS AT NIGHT is credited to Patrick Marber but Paul Thomas Anderson did an uncredited rewrite

Really, go see Mark Rosenblatt's GIANT. Roald Dahl is portrayed as he was: great generosity, charming, a brokenhearted father, hated authority as only bullies can, a boy who never grew up, who let his pathological empathy for the little guy curdle into antisemitism. Seemingly without knowing it.

His style leads people to think of Corman as, like, Ed Wood. Couldn't be further from the truth. He had nearly Scorsese-level knowledge of movies. You could talk to him about Eric Rohmer or Paul Morrissey. He just did what he did.

Ray Davies hasn't spoken about it, but Dave is furious. He should be. He says Moby should 'watch what he says' & is proud of the way the song has been celebrated by trans/queer people, especially Jayne County & the Cockettes.

You don’t decide to join two radically different songs together into one unless you have a drummer who can do that, & Ringo is the only drummer who can do that. Also he never made mistakes. How many times did Lewisohn say takes broke down because of Ringo? A dozen in 8 years?

Tomorrow Never Knows & A Day in the Life are probably the most important, I could listen to them all day, but for sheer beauty & perfection you can’t do better than the Anthology mix of Across the Universe - it came in a dream & it feels like that, a natural thing, not worked on, like water or air

Bruno Ganz (he’d be 86 today) on DOWNFALL:

My brother is not as square as he looks. He loves (for example) the Velvet Underground. He was playing Sister Ray for his eldest. His wife (lovely, was also in the Navy, quite a bit more square) came in & earnestly said, 'What's this? It sounds like my tinnitus.'

Never seen the film, but a truly great, great play - like the very best it seems to manufacture its own power.

🙄🤪

One of O’Hagan’s best bits of writing, & I’ve read a lot. In classic @lrb.co.uk fashion doesn’t review the books so much as use them to turn a flamethrower on the subject - www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

On 2nd Ave just watched a rottweiler happily howl along to an ambulance then immediately lay it on thick to some women in hopes of ice cream

World Poetry Day. 'Poetry is nobody's business except the poet's, and everybody else can fuck off.' - Philip Larkin

Beano #913, Januray 16, 1960

Beano #1336, February 24, 1968

100% a writer yelling at the boss

When George Takei used his Howard Stern fame to break out into being The World's Mildly Filthy Gay Theatre Uncle, one of the first things he did was insist - he continues to insist - he didn't spend his youth in an 'internment camp,' he was in a concentration camp. Use the term where it applies.

About 5-7 years ago I started thinking 'Didn't JG Ballard write this?' at least once a day, & it's only picked up speed since

When I played the first Suede record, my dad started giggling. The Bowie influence was one thing, he said, but Bernard ripping off Neil Young like that was too much. I took offence to this until I found Bernard admitted he ripped off Neil Young. (Dad ended up quite liking Suede.)

Robert Fox is dead - the rare producer who believed in new plays, backed them, & more often than not won

Niece met the Easter Bunny. Wish I could post the pic. It's theatrically perfect. The blue bunny sits in a huge red Adirondack chair, gives a thumbs up. Niece's mom at r., leans in, smiling. Scarlett sits straight-backed, her face at once dubious, fearful, & 'what the fuck are you trying to pull?'

Big upcoming celebration of Simon Gray at Chiswick Cinema - one of the best, toughest, funniest, most misunderstood, & sadly already one of the most neglected playwrights - www.chiswickcinema.co.uk/gray-matters...

Birthday of Son House. Here he is playing with Buddy Guy. (The whole show is available - Buddy also plays with his own band, sets the room on fire.) I love Son House but can't forget Howlin' Wolf's dismissal of him: 'He done sold hisself to whiskey.'