Trailers for books

Nancy Nall mentioned trailers for books this morning, and I immediately thought, "Hmm... there's enough room on the north side of the house to put in a doublewide trailer filled with bookshelves..." Alas, she meant theatrical trailers, or video advertisements for books. Drat. It's still an intriguing idea, though, except for our Illinois tornadoes.

Senior & Nall

I've been reading John Senior the last couple of days - he was a radical Catholic traditionalist, and, curiously, one of the most sensible writers I've read. So it was amusing to find a Senior-like rant on fast food over at Nancy Nall's place today - she is surely the polar opposite of a rad Cath traditionalist, but if she and Senior ever met at a Fuddrucker's (not bloody likely, but still...) they'd get along swimmingly.

It was just a wee little beastie

The 1981 video is funny enough:


but Nancy Nall, a "news-paper" writer, made it hilarious:

Rotary-dial phones! Those old modems with the cups! You’ll notice one of the participating papers was the Columbus Dispatch — that’s because the service provider for all this was Compuserve, based there. I can still summon the sight of the copy editor whose job it was to handle the upload, and Kirk will remember his name, but I don’t. I sent this to someone this morning, who replied: It’s like a slasher movie; THE INTERNET’S IN THE HOUSE!!!! GET OUT!!!! IT WANTS TO KILL YOU AND YOUR PROFESSION. Man, I’ll say.

Steak 'n Shake: a panegyric

Roger Ebert on the Midwestern glories of Steak 'n Shake, via Nancy Nall.