These guys may not be Nazis, but they’ve got moxie.
A Personal Letter From Steve Martin
My ancient obsession with comedy legend Steve Martin continues to manifest itself. From Letters of Note …
Celebrities are faced with a dilemma as their star ascends: the fan mail that used to trickle to the front door now needs its own home, and replying to those messages of support is suddenly a full-time job of its own. A small few battle on valiantly, determined to respond personally to each and every piece of correspondence regardless of the trouble, expense or delay; most, however, take the easy, altogether more sensible route and produce a form letter, to be signed and used as a stock reply for every fan. Impersonal and slightly disappointing, yes, but a response nonetheless.
Trust comedy legend Steve Martin to plump for the latter option but still, thanks to a dab of perfectly pitched humour, come out smelling of roses. Back in the day, he replied to fan mail with “A personal letter from Steve Martin,” a form letter in which just a few words were personalised for each recipient, and which was hilarious precisely for that reason. This particular example was sent to a 17-year-old fan named Jerry Carlson in 1979, the year The Jerk, arguably one of the funniest films he has ever starred in, was released.
Progress?
I’ve now worked my way up to two Smiths songs that don’t trigger my gag reflex. Enjoy or don’t.
Speaking Of Cthulhu …
Received this in the mail yesterday! Even better than I expected, and the photo doesn’t really do it justice. Shout out to sculptor Joe Broers, who was nice enough to ship this thing in the middle of a massive snowstorm. The free demon magnet (also one of his originals, I assume) and the little doodle on the box were nice touches, too.
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.
H.P. Lovecraft
“The Call of Cthulhu”
1928
我在读什么
I picked up something a little different after finishing John Dies At The End. Jernigan is David Yates’s 1991 debut novel about a brilliant loser. Check out this uplifting description …
Well conceived and well written, this book examines the tragedy of a man whose life epitomizes failure on every level. A victim of circumstances, Peter Jernigan is now emotionally crippled and psychologically impoverished. His already distorted personal relationships, skewed further by a dependency on alcohol, sweep him forward, with horrifying swiftness, into a nightmarish cycle of failure, loss, and spiritual death. Bright but unsuccessful, Jernigan drifts through a bleak life that only becomes worse. He has lost his father and wife in successive accidents and now must deal with the adolescent traumas of his only son. His encounter with the divorced mother of his son’s girlfriend promises to lighten his life but instead complicates it even further. A disturbing first novel, Jernigan will cause readers, especially men, to shake their complacency and perhaps reevaluate their own circumstances.
What’s not to love?
Oh! My copy of There Was A Light: The Cosmic History of Chris Bell and the Rise of BIG STAR showed up yesterday, too. And of course, I jumped right in.
One surprising thing I’ve learned so far is that Chris Bell’s family lived in a house across the street from the one I grew up in. I missed them by about ten years, but still, what are the odds?!
DOVE, The Band Of Love
https://youtu.be/5p7jxFMCVNQ
I had forgotten about this chapter in DEVO history. Clever fellows, ahead of their time.
According to an article on Dangerous Minds …
… while they had the world’s ears and eyeballs, they did their best to spread to the masses the prophetic, only half-satirical “Theory of Devolution” that gave them their name. One of the funniest moves they pulled to that end was to serve as their own opening band in the guise of “Dove, the Band of Love.” To satirize the devolution-proving emergence of that puritanical, self righteous, money-hungry, and censorious strain of Christian Evangelicalism that was beginning its pernicious spread through American political and cultural life—and which remains disturbingly powerful still—Dove (an anagram for DEVO, if you didn’t catch that) performed tepid, bowdlerized, Jesused-up versions of DEVO songs, wearing cheap leisure suits and accountants’ visors.
Another Fucking Restoration?
Indeed.
Sociopaths Are Creepy
And this looks amazing.
Although I always feel a little icky about getting excited for these types of documentaries, like I’m a fan of Bundy’s or something. I’m not. This heap of shit killed at least 30 women. But the way he did it – and how he got away with it as long as he did – is fascinating.
Anyway, January 24th.
I Want One
That is all.
