Howl Howell

@RobProvince I would like to apply for an apprenticeship.

Got the 3 pack……

Matt Yglesias is a blogger. He is guy with a bachelor’s degree who posts his opinions about things on the internet. His standing is exactly the same as Roman Helmet Guy’s, which is: His writing is influential to the extent people find it persuasive. We no longer live in a world where some people are arbitrarily designated as the good and important opinion-havers, and those people become the columnists and are real thinkers and intellectuals, while everyone else is just the schmucks on the “letters to the editor” page. The walls of Old Twitter’s garden have been torn down. Vox has been sold for scrap to Rupert Murdoch’s second-favorite son. Anyone can put on a Roman helmet and build a platform now, and their opinions are just as good and can be just as influential as Matt Yglesias’s or Nick Kristof’s.

@Chris_arnade Who’d have thought a snapping turtle could be so ungrateful? Sharper than a serpent’s tooth . . .

For those wondering why I've not posted any Reginald and No-name content: My pond suffered a winter-kill. Which means it iced over longer than normal, oxygen was depleted, most of the fish died in it, and when the thaw hit their carcasses floated to the top. Several weeks later I spotted Reginald sunning on the edge of the lake. He'd survived, but after a few days of thought, he bolted, slowly trudging off to the surrounding wetlands to find a pond without dead fish. I was happy he survived, but a little miffed he didn't have a little more gratitude for our ten years friendship. Maybe he'll eventually come back when he realizes that the other ponds don't come with a weird tree on the bank that taps its branches in the water three times, and then when you approach it, sheds hot-dogs. Here is the last picture I have of him, contemplating his options. PS: I don't know what's become of No-name. I've seen other smaller snappers coming and going. Maybe that's No-name? Or maybe it's No-name's addict cousin, moving in on the action, to claim his benefits. Who can tell. Snappers are pretty complex.

@mikeroweworks I’d love to listen to a conversation between you and Martin Short.

Late one night, on a snowy evening in 1982, my brothers and I were watching PBS at my parent’s house in Baltimore. It was a Friday, which meant The Avengers at 11 pm, followed by Monty Python’s Flying Circus at midnight, and then, our favorite - Second City TV. It was snowing on this particular evening, and my brothers and I were stretched out on the floor next to the wood stove with a couple of dogs who never wandered too far from the heat, quietly coveting Emma Peel, and laughing uproariously as John Cleese tried to buy some cheese from the proprietor of a cheese shop that didn’t carry any cheese. And then, five minutes into SCTV, an inexplicably dressed man-child armed with a musical triangle and gelled hair slinked onto the set in a pair or trousers pulled up to his sternum and made us laugh so hard we woke up the parents. That was my introduction to Ed Grimley, the first of many characters to spring from the mind of Martin Short, a comedic genius that I finally got to know last night, thanks to a film called Marty: Life is Short. This is the best documentary I’ve seen in years, and I’m recommending all of you watch it this weekend. The director, Lawrence Kasdan, captures the essence of his subject – and his dear friend - in a way that feels utterly authentic. The movie is filled with famous people who don’t come off as famous, partly because their fame is secondary to their obvious affection for Marty, and partly because they are captured almost entirely in home movies. Tom Hanks, Steve Martin, Steven Spielberg, Kathreen O’Hara, Eugene Levy – all the Second City players, in fact, and many of the SNL alum – appear in hundreds of clips, filmed mostly at Snug Harbor, Marty’s lakefront cottage in Ontario. It’s through their eyes that we really get to know Martin Short in a deeply personal way that never feels mawkish or manipulative, in spite of all the tragedy he’s endured. In large part, Life is Short is a love story between Marty and his late wife, Nancy Dolman, who died from cancer at 58. I knew their marriage was special, but I didn’t know how completely devoted they were to one another, or what a singular talent Nancy was, in her own right. What a pleasure to get to know her in this way. Of course, Marty’s grief at her passing was profound, but so too was his resilience. It’s one thing to “get on with life,” as we all must to do in the wake of a tragedy. But it’s another to do so in the public eye, as a comedian. Marty persevered, without a trace of self-pity, just as he did as a boy, when his beloved older brother died in a car accident. And just as he is doing today, in the wake of his daughter’s tragic suicide. In his first public comment on that particular tragedy, Marty quoted George Eliot. “The dead are never dead until they are forgotten.” Who knew Jiminy Glick was made of such tough stuff? Life is Short is also full of wisdom for anyone crazy enough to try and make a living in the entertainment business, and Marty is very candid about his many professional disasters. “98 percent of this business is failure,” he says. “Nothing works and then something works.” And then again, later in the film, he says something similar to fellow actor John Mulaney, who was devastated by the low ratings and terrible reviews for one of his projects. “90% of everything you try creatively is going to fail, John. Get used to it. That’s the job.” I’d never compare my own career to Marty’s or juxtapose whatever creativity I might possess to his immense and sprawling talent. But I understand the importance of failing and take great comfort in knowing that on that score, we have both excelled. Anyway, I’m not sure why this movie stuck such a chord with me, or why I feel compelled to recommend it. Maybe it’s the nostalgia of seeing Ed Grimley on my screen all these years later, and recalling those late nights with my brothers at my parent’s house alongside the dogs and the wood stove, and all the belly-laughter that Marty and his Second City pals inspired. Or maybe it’s the passing of my Aunt Janet last week, and seeing my mother cope with the loss of her sister with such dignity and grace. Or maybe it's those other sisters from Greece that have been on my mind all morning - Melpomene and the Thalia. The famous Muses of Tragedy and Comedy, whose dramatic masks are forever entwined, and destined to worn by us all. Whatever the cause, Marty made an impression, and the film is worth your time. Maybe not as relevant this weekend as Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan, but a fine reminder that another Memorial Day is upon us, and that life is indeed, short.

@DanielMOrnelas @StuffForSisters “Well, yes. What was that?”

@StuffForSisters Whenever I get hit with the maternal do-you-remember, I cross myself.

Mom: Do you remember (so-and-so) from (such-and-such)? — Yeah. Mom: He died.

@redsteeze Casey, too, loves pretending.

People are getting notification alerts about Casey Anthony supporting trans rights

She’s been posting nonstop since her “final word,” but I am ready to take up her mantle if she does actually leave. Here goes: Mayonnaise. Even the word itself arrives pale and soft, slipping from the tongue like a secret no one wants to admit they crave. Most people see a condiment. They see a jar. A squeeze bottle. A smear on bread. A cold white ribbon dragged lazily across a sandwich assembled in haste beneath the fluorescent despair of an ordinary kitchen. They are wrong. Mayonnaise is not a condiment. It is an emulsion of defiance. It is oil and egg standing at the edge of annihilation, two forces that should separate, should recoil, should retreat into their own private kingdoms of texture and fat and golden animal memory…and yet they do not. They bind. They become. They enter the bowl as fragments and emerge as unity. That is not cooking. That is alchemy. That is the white sacrament of the fridge door, the quiet doctrine of lunch, the ancient and terrible truth that chaos can be whipped into obedience if the hand is steady enough and the will does not break. I have watched people dismiss mayonnaise with the dead-eyed arrogance of those who have never truly lived. “Too rich,” they say. “Too bland,” they whisper. “Too much,” they mutter, as though abundance were a sin and creaminess a moral failure. But I know what they fear. They fear surrender. They fear the glossy mouthfeel of commitment. They fear the terrible intimacy of a substance that does not crunch, does not sparkle, does not announce itself with theatrical flame, but instead spreads…quietly, completely, irrevocably…until every surface it touches has been changed. Mustard shouts. Ketchup panders. Hot sauce postures in its little red bottle, all vinegar and bravado, begging to be noticed. But mayonnaise? Mayonnaise waits. It does not need applause. It does not need the approval of men who mistake acidity for personality. It sits in the cold, pale and patient, holding within its silent body the entire architecture of satisfaction. A BLT without mayonnaise is not a sandwich. It is evidence of abandonment. Tuna without mayonnaise is not lunch. It is punishment. Potato salad without mayonnaise is a bowl of confused starches waiting for a god. And when that god descends — thick, white, merciful, merciless — the world does not become louder. It becomes complete. There is a brutality in its softness. A violence in its smoothness. A precision in the way it fills the gaps lesser condiments leave behind. Mayonnaise understands what the modern soul has forgotten: that cohesion is not weakness. Binding is not submission. To hold things together in a world obsessed with tearing itself apart is an act of almost unbearable courage. So yes. Spread it. Fold it. Whisk it into the broken places. Let it enter the egg salad, the chicken salad, the deviled egg, the midnight sandwich built over the sink while the rest of the world sleeps in its thin, hungry ignorance. Let them laugh. Let them sneer. Let them reach for aioli, that little masquerade of sophistication, that mayonnaise in a velvet mask pretending it has never known the jar. We know the truth. Aioli is mayonnaise with a passport and an ego. And still, I do not hate it. Because even there, beneath the garlic, beneath the branding, beneath the desperate restaurant-menu theater of it all, the old white power remains. The emulsion. The union. The refusal to separate. That is the lesson. That is the blade hidden in the sandwich. Every jar asks a question. Can you accept richness without apology? Can you love what is pale, humble, and mocked? Can you look into the trembling white abyss of Hellmann’s, Duke’s, Kewpie — whatever altar you choose — and say: Yes. Yes, I will add another spoonful. Yes, I will not live dry. Yes, I will not let this turkey club go into the dark unprotected. Because dryness is not discipline. Dryness is cowardice dressed as restraint.

I wrote the climatic chapter of my cancellation story, in which my publishers became murderous. It's horrible, ludicrous, and names names. A five minute read. Free to read, link in next tweet 👇👇👇👇👇

@davidclowery I’m still a fire-denier.

I was deeply critical of the wheel. It turned out I was wrong.

@ZitoSalena @mirandadevine And its nearly constant companion “uptalk.”

@mirandadevine I had no idea there was a name for that other than annoying

I wish women with vocal fry would stay off the airwaves until they realize how silly they sound. This bizarre affectation is like fingernails down a blackboard. It does not make you sound authoritative or strong, only weak and insecure.

@bonchieredstate This is the way Twitter was staffed before Musk took over.

No wonder this show was losing tens of millions a year.

Other than Lewis, what are some good collections of short essays?

@CamEdwards “This guy’s an easy mark.”

What’s he thinking?

@ClaudesBBQ It’s got character.

Y’all always want to see fails or here you go the fucker cracked on me. It’s not gonna matter though because it’s gonna have a ganache and a whipped frosting.

@beyondreasdoubt Try one of Donald Westlake’s Dortmunder novels like The Hot Rock or What’s The Worst That Could Happen?

need a book rec please — a light, fun fiction read; i literally don’t want to think at all, but also nothing too sappy thank you ☺️

@EricaJSandberg It’s an Emperor’s New Clothes situation. California has been in the grips of such stupidity for so long, it’s like a statewide cold plunge when someone comes along, grabs the microphone, and says “This is bullshit!”

OK, any other San Franciscans riveted by the Spencer Pratt campaign? he trashed the whole script. now all the actors are looking at each other with, "what the hell do we do now? this isn't the way it's supposed to go!"

@oblatenate Wonderful.

Was just reminded of this memory. There are good people out there.

A major reason I married him was to become part owner of Weird Al’s undies.

@Kulambq @thejadesphinx 100%

@thejadesphinx Dickens in winter is the way to go.

I read Dandelion Wine in the summer, Something Wicked This Way Comes in the fall and Dickens all Christmas. Somerset Maugham is for the rest of the year.

@Kulambq Books are definitely seasonal.

I know it's purely subjective, but there are certain books I prefer reading in particular seasons. I tend to read 'The Magic Mountain' in summer and, likewise, Faulkner. I've always returned to 'Moby-Dick' in autumn, while Fitzgerald and Hemingway I like to read in late summer.