The Apprentice

 

"YOU'RE HIRED!"

Graphic Grandeur (In Lieu of a Breeze Edition)

Oh, who cares how one develops? What the true entrepreneur wants to know is, how best to capitalize on it once it does develop?

Here's one chilling possibility:

 Cartoon by Liza Donnelly

Quips and Quotations (Transcendentalist Meditation Edition)

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.  

--Henry David Thoreau, Walden; or, a Life in the Woods, first published on this date in 1854.

 

 

Playing Platinum

 

Sure, she wanted to make it big in Hollywood, but that didn't mean she was going to...

...compromise her principles.

Loni Anderson (1945-2025) 

Best known for the highly-capable, and highly-paid, receptionist Jennifer Marlowe on WKRP in Cincinatti.

 

Quips and Quotations (Ivories That Tickle Edition)

 

1928-2025

I would listen to the radio and think, 'I can write a song as good as that,' and the problem is, they already have people who can write songs 'as good as that' so what do they need one more for? What is necessary is somebody that can write something different.

--Tom Lehrer

Graphic Grandeur (Dangerous When Wet Edition)

 

Fifty summers ago, this Roger Kastel-illustrated poster made its debut on the exteriors, and in the lobbies, of movie theatres across the nation and around the world, promising filmgoers a terrifying cinematic experience. However, movie posters often promise things that the actual movies then fail to deliver. Did Jaws live up to its poster's promise? Well, if you were a filmgoer fifty summers ago--and most people didn't bother with movies during the summer until this one completely changed the business model--you already know the answer to that question, but play along with me anyway as we watch the trailer: 

Trailers also sometimes promise more than the actual movie delivers, even as it's a slicing and dicing of the actual movie. Trust me, though, Jaws delivered (with a lot of slicing and dicing of a different sort.) Personally, I've always found the film more exciting than out-and-out scary, but that's fine with me. Whatever gets the heart thumping. Based on a then-recent bestselling book by Peter Benchley (Robert's grandson) and only the second feature film by the then-still-in-his-20s Steven Spielberg, it quickly became the all-time box-office champ and remained so for the next two years until topped by another summer blockbuster Star Wars (which in turn was topped a few years later by Spielberg's E.T., the Extraterrestrial which made its debut during--you guessed it--the summer.) One thing that had no chance of topping it--at least not in the commercial sense--was some magazine parody, but that doesn't means my then-middle-school-age-self couldn't get a giggle out of this:

Looks like unsafe swimming conditions all around.

Illustration by Mort Kunstler

 

Truth Socialites

 

NEWS FLASH: Employees of the Justice Department were told to flag Trump's name in the Epstein files.

That begs the question, just what was this "flag"?

 

Below is the dirty laundry.