Oddly Enough Blog

Where’s your Science and Pie section?

Hey Blog Guy, I saw a picture of President Obama browsing in a Washington, DC bookstore. That’s pretty cool, isn’t it, that the president is such a devoted reader?

Oh please…

Huh? I thought we would be on the same page about this, so to speak.

Yes, of course reading is a very good thing. But let’s not kid ourselves. Obama was at my neighborhood bookshop, Kramerbooks.

So?

Who’s the cutest one of all?

I’m going to do something a little different today.

There is this writer named Bart King, whose job is almost as much fun as mine. He turns out books with titles like “Big Book of Gross Stuff” and “Pocket Guide to Mischief.”

His latest one, called “Cute! A Guide to All Things Adorable,” has just been published, and I enjoyed it very much. Bart offers clever insight into what makes things seem cute, and why.

My readers are interested in cute stuff, so I sent Bart six photos that have appeared here. I asked him to apply his own criteria and grade them on cuteness, which he was nice enough to do.

Bart says the LEAST cute one is the photo at the top, adding, “I find nothing cute about a group of immature pandas awaiting autopsies.”

Oh, did I mention this Bart guy can be fairly twisted?

More jumbo gumbo, Mr. President?

Blog Guy, have you seen that amazing new book about former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, the one taken from hours of taped interviews with her just months after her husband was assassinated?

I have, indeed. It’s a must-read for anyone who likes fish soup.

Excuse me? Are we talking about the same book?

Sure. I’m not even finished with it, and already I’m struck by her vivid chowder memories of Jack Kennedy:

“He’d come home, and then it would be fish chowder….”

“I remember we had fish chowder. You could still sit outside.”

You’re a mean one, Mister Grinch…

Man, I hope this guy is proud of himself.

But let me back up a minute.

When I was a boy, there was a Disney movie about a plucky little terrier who went to Edinburgh with his master, who then died.  The dog kept a 14-year vigil at his master’s grave, passing away himself in 1872.

Watching this as a child required more tissues than I could even carry into the theater. The movie was called “Greyfriars Bobby, the True Story of a Dog.”

Since then, there have been other movies and books about Bobby. There is even a bronze statue of sweet Bobby in the cemetery, which I myself have visited in Edinburgh.

Now meet Jan Bondeson, a so-called historian who suddenly tells us the whole story was just a Victorian business stunt to make money.

Bondeson says the real Bobby was just a stray mutt bribed with food to stay in the graveyard, and that he really died in 1867 and was replaced by another “Bobby,” much like they did with Senator Strom Thurmond here for so many years.

The importance of…Have I used this headline before?

It’s summer, Blog Guy, and that means lots of funny local competitions. I hope you’re monitoring those for your readers.

I’m all over it. Looks like they just had some kind of “Plump Old Coot” contest in Key West, Florida, open to guys with big guts, white beards and Boy Scout uniforms. I have a photo of six of them.

Wait Blog Guy, I think this was that Ernest Hemingway lookalike contest that they have down there. They hold it every year at Sloppy Joe’s Bar.

You always write about it, and you always use the same headline, “The Importance of Being Ernest.”

Are you kidding me? Those guys are supposed to look like Hemingway? No way.

That one guy could pass for that singer Kris Kristofferson. Another one looks like the actor Robert Prosky… But Ernest Hemingway? I don’t think so.

Rewriting Jane, an Austen-tatious move

Blog Guy, I read that a handwritten draft of a Jane Austen book that was never published just sold for $1.6 million at auction. The story said it was an unfinished work. She’s my very favorite author!

Yeah, I know all about that. I was the anonymous telephone bidder who bought the draft. I’m eating barbecue ribs and reading her manuscript right now. It’s not bad.

Be careful with that! What are you going to do with it?

Well, I’ve never read any of her stuff, but I did like “The Six Million Dollar Man” when it was on TV.

Are you stupid? That was Steve Austin. This is JANE AUSTEN.

Oh. Crap. Anyway, I’ve been doing some research, and I figure I can just finish writing her book myself, and then get $400 million or whatever.

Reading in bed just got a lot better…

Okay Lamar, your memo said you’ve come up with a  totally new fashion concept in women’s apparel. I’m very excited, so show me what you’ve got.

Okay, Boss!  Presenting, ta-da, The Linger-Read!

The what?

It’s lingerie that you can read, Boss. So if you get bored with your partner, you can at least read what she’s wearing for entertainment.

Are you a total moron, Lamar? What guy gets BORED looking at a woman wearing lingerie?

It’ll be a real turn-on for smart guys, Boss. It’s like, “Wait here, Big Boy, I’m gonna slip into something more educational…”

Hot motorcycle chicks lookin’ for bald guys

Blog Guy, will you please set up one of your famous fantasy photos for me?

What do you have in mind?

Well, I want to be in it myself. I’ll be in a train station…

Already I don’t like where this is going.

See, this gorgeous brunette – like Kate Middleton, only much prettier – dressed all in black, with stiletto boots, roars up on a big red BSA Spitfire and stops to let me on the back…

I’m gonna stop you right there, Ace. Let me take a wild guess. You’re over 60, you’re losing your hair and you’re no Brad Pitt. Am I right?

Waldo shows his true stripes…

Okay publishing staff, we’re here to start promoting the latest volumes in our wildly popular “Where’s Waldo?” series of children’s books.

Cripes, Boss, MORE Waldo books? Haven’t we run that into the ground? It’s getting easier and easier for kids to spot that guy in a red and white striped shirt!

Oh, there’s plenty more scope for hiding Waldo. What do you think of this one? Waldo shows up in drag at a women’s fashion show?

That’s just so wrong on every level, Boss.

And look here! Waldo in Karachi! Can you find him?

Yeah Boss, there’s just Waldo and a donkey cart.

And this is from my dumbass collection…

Blog Guy, recently you wrote about an upcoming auction where they were going to sell a rare signed photo of the outlaw Jesse James for an expected $20,000 to $30,000. When is that auction?

It’s over. It was this week, and they had autographs of Somerset Maugham, Pope Alexander VII…

So you’d say the auction was kind of a Maugham and Pope operation? Get it?

No, I would only say something that outrageous if I wanted readers to switch immediately to another blog.

Sorry. Did the stuff sell for a lot of money?

Less than I would have thought. A book signed by Maugham, a great writer, went for $427 and one signed by Walt Whitman, a great poet, went for $1,098.

A letter signed by Henry Clay, a great statesman, went for $146, and an autograph of Helen Keller, a great inspiration, went for $488.