Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

The Free Press did its readers a real service over the weekend. Though we might wish they’d cashiered Albom, they actually did something better, publishing a comprehensive, no-stone-unturned, no-urban-legend-unaddressed report on why, precisely, Detroit went bankrupt. It’s a fascinating document, but thousands of words long. If you’re a resident, it’s essential reading. If you’re a municipal finance nerd — a surprising number of them are out there — ditto. If you just appreciate finding answers that aren’t easy, can’t be summarized in a tweet or a few minutes on some cable-news yak show, you might also benefit from it. If there are three essential paragraphs, it’s these:

When all the numbers are crunched, one fact is crystal clear: Yes, a disaster was looming for Detroit. But there were ample opportunities when decisive action by city leaders might have fended off bankruptcy.

If Mayors Jerome Cavanagh and Roman Gribbs had cut the workforce in the 1960s and early 1970s as the population and property values dropped. If Mayor Dennis Archer hadn’t added more than 1,100 employees in the 1990s when the city was flush but still losing population. If Kilpatrick had shown more fiscal discipline and not launched a borrowing spree to cover operating expenses that continued into Mayor Dave Bing’s tenure. Over five decades, there were many ‘if only’ moments.

“Detroit got into a trap of doing a lot of borrowing for cash flow purposes and then trying to figure out how to push costs (out) as much as possible,” said Bettie Buss, a former city budget staffer who spent years analyzing city finances for the nonpartisan Citizens Research Council of Michigan. “That was the whole culture — how do we get what we want and not pay for it until tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow?”

Compare it, if you read, to these two smug pinheads — one Manhattan Institute, one Wall Street Journal editorial board — discussing former mayor Coleman Young (who singlehandedly CRUSHED DETROIT) somewhere in the WSJ video studio, where evidently the standards for on-camera performance fall well short of, say, Fox News.

Finally, in one of the surest demonstrations of the value of most internet comment sections (not this one!), the very first one that appeared on this one, after I waded through thousands of words of exhaustively researched reporting? “Unions = Corruption = Democrats = Detroit. Stop O-bomb-a!”

Zing.

So. How was your weekend? Mine was pretty good. We had two 17-year-old houseguests, the son of one of my Fort Wayne friends and one of his friends. They came to town to play in a tournament of Magic, the Gathering, which is a card game so nerdy one of the boys said he’s heard tournament organizers ask players to please consider their personal hygiene before sitting down at the table. (I sliced a pungent onion for the crock pot Sunday morning, Kate made a face and he said he’d been smelling so much B.O. recently he didn’t even notice.) It was great to have teenage boys around, if for no other reason than they always clean their plates. Always. And these two made their beds, too.

Took a 20-mile bike ride. Watched “Scanners” with the boys. Made pulled pork (the onion). It was a good one.

So, bloggage?

I liked Joyce Maynard’s take on J.D. Salinger, enough that if Prospero feels like going into a towering snit about her not being fit to wipe his boots or whatever, he — or anyone else who raises this point — is welcome to kiss my nether regions. A 53-year-old who woos an 18-year-old “woman” is a creep, pure and simple.

The Ralph Lauren spring 2014 collection, via T-Lo. Blackwhiteblackwhiteblackwhite then WHOA, COLOR.

I hope a grand week awaits us all.

Posted at 12:30 am in Current events, Detroit life |
 

46 responses to “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.”

  1. Dexter said on September 16, 2013 at 3:20 am

    Your Joyce Maynard link takes you to the News and Sentinel.
    This link takes you the Times Mag and the story:
    http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/features/2162/

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    • nancy said on September 16, 2013 at 6:01 am

      Thanks, D. Fixed.

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  2. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 16, 2013 at 6:50 am

    Salinger & Joyce (James, not Maynard) helped me understand that a great writer doesn’t have to be a great person, and that likewise, if you’re looking for how to be a good person, writing & reading alone isn’t going to get you there . . . or Jerry & Jimmy would be two of the leading great souls of human history.

    On the other hand, here’s the latest installment of a project by a friend of mine that’s going to turn into a book ultimately.

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  3. S said on September 16, 2013 at 7:13 am

    Joyce Maynard has made a bit of a cottage industry out of unraveling her relationship with J. D. Salinger, I believe. Google gives 118,000 hits for “Joyce Maynard J. D. Salinger,” including a memoir she published in 1988. 25 years later, she’s still getting in the Times to talk about it? [sorry to delurk for this, but really not a Maynard fan!]

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  4. Alan Stamm said on September 16, 2013 at 7:27 am

    The Freep’s front-page centerpiece with four pages (!) inside is laudable indeed, and a refreshing reminder of why healthy newspapers with first-rate journalists are vital.

    In that spirit, credit where due to Nathan Bomey and John Gallagher, whom I know you’d have H/T’d save for the distraction of two 17-year-old lads.

    And as for essential paragraphs, fine choice above. Also worth noting as part of The Detroit Saga:

    “For this report, the Free Press examined about 10,000 pages of documents gathering dust in the public library’s archives. Since most of those documents have never been digitized, the Free Press created its own database of 50 years of Detroit’s financial history. . . .

    “City financial audits before 2002 were available in print only. Reports from 1964 and 1971 were not available.”

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  5. Randy said on September 16, 2013 at 9:25 am

    The Detroit bankruptcy piece is a great read. I live in a city heading toward that kind of disaster. There is still time, but it depends who’s steering the ship.

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  6. Deborah said on September 16, 2013 at 9:36 am

    I like the color in the RL collection. I’m tired of black, I started wearing deep blue since I mostly just wear jeans anymore.

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  7. brian stouder said on September 16, 2013 at 9:39 am

    I like when Pam wears purples and dark reds; sets things off (so to speak)

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  8. velvet goldmine said on September 16, 2013 at 9:54 am

    S, It’s because of the new documentary and the commentary surrounding it that Maynard wrote the NYT piece. You may have just discovered the saga on Google, but it’s well known that she wrote the memoir after decades of silence, and paid a steep price for it.

    Don’t forget that she wasn’t just someone who is known for having a relationship with Salinger. By the time she wrote the memoir, she had published several novels, had a syndicated column, was an NPR commentator and regularly wrote features for national magazines.

    And yet, while she was building her own reputation as a writer, there were always rumors about her past with Salinger. Until the memoir, she felt forbidden to address any of this because of his own rages and the mystique surrounding him.

    I do feel sexism is at play here. You have two writers of some stature. Yet the female writer doesn’t have the right to tell her own story because it will violate the Great Man.

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  9. brian stouder said on September 16, 2013 at 10:01 am

    Velvet Goldmine’s argument is the most compelling to we, the jury, up here in the cheap seats

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  10. Charlotte said on September 16, 2013 at 10:42 am

    The one good thing about my decade in the creative writing academic/summer workshop biz is that it inoculates you against hero worship. I met a lot of writers whose work I loved and who were dicks, and then there was Gary Snyder, who I love without reservation, and Robert Hass too … lovely men both of them, who are capable of talking to women, even young women as though you are an actual person.

    For prose writers in particular, I think the myth of Hemingway did enormous damage to that whole generation who are now in their 70s. Many of them seemed to buy that being a writer meant they had license to carouse, and womanize, and be assholes in general. It’s too bad.

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  11. Scout said on September 16, 2013 at 11:14 am

    I actually like quite a lot of the RL collection. Unusual for short little me who cannot ever picture herself wearing anything these towering bone hungers have hanging off their emaciated frames. One thing I noticed is that the shoes were back down to something real people can actually walk in. Can it be that the stiletto minnie-mouse platform pumps are finally over?

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  12. brian stouder said on September 16, 2013 at 11:25 am

    Here’s hoping Jolene is not stuck in a lockdown, as DC goes through the wringer with an active shooter…or more than one?

    I’d think if there’s more than one, then security in general will quickly tighten

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  13. LAMary said on September 16, 2013 at 11:38 am

    Scout, I think the lower non-stiletto heels work better with short skirts like those. Tall stilettos plus very short skirt strikes me as a very street hostess look. Or a Real Housewives of Wherever look. These two categories overlap.

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  14. Judybusy said on September 16, 2013 at 11:50 am

    Yes, I too saw tons to love in the RL collection. How I wish I could afford that short white number with the ruffled collar for my nights at the opera! I appreciate both the black and white and the color. I have both in my wardrobe, and like the flexibility.

    And, now a couple of tangents: RL has ads on Masterpiece Theater. Are there any other Foyle’s War fans here? A new, 3-part sereis began last night.

    The black and white palette reminds me of a now little known artist, Romaine Brooks. She basically painted just in gray, black and white. I first encountered her last year at the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery. I’m reading a biography written in the mid-70s. It’s a hoot, because the author applies alls sorts of Freudian analysis to Brooks’ life, including the then-current theories to explain away lesbianism. Her paintings are very powerful to me, even if they are all quite sad.

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  15. coozledad said on September 16, 2013 at 11:54 am

    I always thought writers were mostly folks who’d found something to do with their hands while they drank, but there’s definitely a brief window where they haven’t got whisky dick so bad they’ll pull it out and wave it around.

    There was a black comic (George Wallace?)riffing on R. Kelly’s preference for people a fifth his age. He was giving some tips on avoiding trouble with age of consent laws. The couple I remember were:

    1.They are too young if they have those little teeth all the same size.

    2.They have those sneakers that light up when they walk.

    I had a couple of profs who were probably a lot like Salinger- old school, thoroughly lacking in the insight that younger people might find them grotesque and scary. These days they’d be out on their ass in a heartbeat, and it would only be right.

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  16. beb said on September 16, 2013 at 12:02 pm

    I don’t know how I avoided spitting out a mouthful of soup when I read coolzedad’s second tip to avoid underage fans.

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  17. Bitter Scribe said on September 16, 2013 at 1:18 pm

    Good for Maynard. I got really annoyed reading all the encomiums when that overrated weirdo kicked. The New Yorker, in particular, couldn’t shut up about him.

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  18. Jolene said on September 16, 2013 at 1:26 pm

    I’m at home, Brian, so no lockdowns here. Very sad news re the shooting.

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  19. MarkH said on September 16, 2013 at 1:30 pm

    Been an interesting past 7 days for our family:

    My sister works for a defense contractor headquartered in the building next to today’s massacre site in DC. The blockades went up minutes before she arrived at the office today, so she was turned around and is safe at home in Maryland.

    One of my other sisters lives in Boulder, CO, along with about seven of our cousins. They have been spared the worst of the flooding, but have water in all their basements. The weather is improving, so they area all less on edge. Still praying for the ongoing rescue of those stranded in danger areas.

    The rainy weather here in the last week has helped suppress the various fires in Yellowstone, and has let up today with 60 deg temps and sunny skies. According to the incident map, the fires in Charlotte’s area have been suppressd as well. Good news.

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    • nancy said on September 16, 2013 at 1:37 pm

      Except, y’know, for the biblical flooding in Colorado.

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  20. alex said on September 16, 2013 at 1:53 pm

    Biblical flooding, eh? Must be a Pat Robertson hex, payback for legalizing the demon weed or something. Don’t cross that guy. He’s God’s henchman on earth.

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  21. brian stouder said on September 16, 2013 at 1:54 pm

    Jolene – yes; jarring at this distance, but I imagine all the more personally troubling if one lives in that area.

    Here’s hoping that you’re feeling tolerably well, these days – aside from the news on our incessantly glowing screens!

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  22. Jolene said on September 16, 2013 at 2:22 pm

    Death toll in DC shooting has risen to 12; four more injured. Still not clear how many shooters there were. One is dead, but DC police chief said they have info indicating that there are two more people involved. Still lots of confusion.

    Am doing OK, healthwise. Having daily radiation treatments, but no ill effects so far. My hair is starting to grow back. At the moment, I have what looks like a very short (maybe 3/8 of an inch) buzz cut. Of course, it will fall out again when the second batch of chemo treatments start next month, but it’s reappearance is encouraging nonetheless.

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  23. MarkH said on September 16, 2013 at 2:39 pm

    Well, yeah, Nance. See my 2nd graph. ‘Good news’ in the 3rd was referencing local fires.

    Jolene, glad you’re hanging in there.

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  24. Jolene said on September 16, 2013 at 2:41 pm

    Its, not it’s. Damn autocorrect.

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  25. brian stouder said on September 16, 2013 at 2:41 pm

    Jolene, I’m pretty sure it’s those sorts of things (hair falling out) that would bother me the most; wouldn’t want to have people stare.

    ‘Course, being a semi-bald guy to begin with confers an advantage in that regard!

    Anyway, I’m sure all of us (including the trolls!) at good ol’ nn.c have you in our thoughts, and love to see your comments and reactions to whatever in the world is on your mind.

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  26. Jolene said on September 16, 2013 at 2:44 pm

    The Senate, which failed to pass a law requiring background checks for the purchase of guns, has adjourned for the day “out of respect for the victims”. Should have been to hide their heads in shame.

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  27. brian stouder said on September 16, 2013 at 3:00 pm

    Boy, at lunchtime it was looking like the story was going to be single-shooter, single-digit body count…but now it’s to double-digit death and possibly multiple-shooter (ie – act of domestic terrorism)… ay yi yi

    Here’s a very pleasant palate cleanser, about Chloe’s school, which transitions from Montessori (in the lower grades) into New Tech project-based learning in the middle-school level

    http://m.wboi.org/?utm_referrer=#mobile/20382

    Anyway, it brightened my day, a little

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  28. prospero said on September 16, 2013 at 3:45 pm

    All I would say about Joyce Maynard and Salinger is, is there a single witness to her ever having had anything to do with him personally? Her bootstrapping on his hermit-like existence seems unwholesome to me. Smells like a semi-brilliant fraud. She seems to be a champion Onanist to me and always has. Which reminds me of the absolutely funniest thing in yesterday’s NYT. In a story about Sting, there is a small kicker headline that differentiates between Sting and “navel-gazing songwriters”. Seriously? The King of Pain? The Omnipresent Stalker? Whachoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis? King of navel-gazing songwriters, if you ask me.

    Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised by a Maynard book called A Thousand Little Pieces of Me and JD. On Salinger, of course I read Catcher several times when I was an adolescent, but I don’t think of it as a particularly good book. In my opinion, A Perfect Day for Bananafish is obviously Salinger’s best literary effort, no bullshit, pristine prose. And I like Franny and Zooey.. And, Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenter, along with Bananafish is one of the great titles ever, for anything. Seymour Glass is Salinger’s best character. What all of my friend’s and I liked best about Catcher was Holden talking True Prince Ackley Kid into farting out loud during the fatuous old boy’s chapel address. For a novel of disaffected youth, I prefer John Kennedy Toole’s Confederacy of Dunces, funnier and better written. Sorry, but this is all the snit I can muster on this subject.

    Jolene, my best wishes, and get out those old Sinead albums. @26, most likely to get out of the free-fire zone.

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  29. prospero said on September 16, 2013 at 3:48 pm

    I meant to say that Joyce Maynard, to my mind, comes across as a better educated, female version of Melvin Dummar. Sorry if that offends anyone.

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  30. brian stouder said on September 16, 2013 at 4:20 pm

    Pros – I’ve not the stomach nor the heart to read the accounts of these women who had their youth taken from them, by hyenas like Polanski or Salinger or whoever else.

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/12/the-roman-polanski-girl-speaks-out-speedreading-samantha-geimer-s-memoir.html

    Even if you could make a convincing case that these people are coldly capitalizing on the events they describe, still I say – Three Cheers for them!!

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  31. prospero said on September 16, 2013 at 5:09 pm

    In the case of Polanski, it’s pretty well documented that the girl’s mom traded her for Hollywood access. And I certainly made no excuses for predators. It’s remarkable that Maynard could have gained access to Salinger, and it’s pretty obvious that he did not initiate the contact.

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    • nancy said on September 16, 2013 at 5:20 pm

      Prospero, how Salinger and Maynard met has been oft-told and no one disputes it. Stop trolling. She may not be everyone’s cup of tea, and I grant you she may well have been an exceptionally ambitious 18-year-old, but to say she sought him out is simply bullshit.

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  32. Dexter said on September 16, 2013 at 6:22 pm

    remembrance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saN1BwlxJxA

    Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins.

    Birmingham, 9-15-63. Victims of hate and racism. I hope they have rested in peace, but I don’t understand how…they missed everything, jobs, kids, marriages, grandkids, LIFE, good times and bad…all for hate from strangers. This has bothered me for fifty years now. Time to let it go? Never, my friends, I can’t do it.

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  33. alex said on September 16, 2013 at 6:30 pm

    Nothing on their web site to link, but WANE TV just had a commemoration of the Dan Osborn murders 30 years ago today. Osborn was one of Nancy’s colleagues at the News-Sentinel. He and his wife and 11-year-old son were found brutally murdered in their home; a 2-year-old daughter, also brutalized, survived the attack. A teen-ager was eventually arrested and a videotaped confession was extracted from him. Then he died hanged in jail.

    I remember always being somewhat skeptical of the evidence; the teen’s mother was using the Osborn family’s credit cards, which is how the teen eventually came to be interrogated and arrested. But it always seemed a stretch to think that a lone individual, and one so young, could have overpowered an entire family, especially without a firearm.

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  34. LAMary said on September 16, 2013 at 7:05 pm

    Below is a Facebook posting from the son of a friend of mine in Lyons, Colorado, which was one of the areas hardest hit by the floods:

    Hi Gang!

    First … thank you all SO MUCH for all the prayers and good wishes. My folks and I – and the whole community – really appreciate it.

    So … Day Four of this madness … and we’re all still OK. The third pot luck lunch at the coffee shop will go on as planned … and my folks and I have been part of a couple of the d…inner-in-the-dark-with-friends circuits that have been popping up.

    The Army and National Guard sent in a small squadron of choppers yesterday to carry out the elderly and infirm. They even took my friend’s pregnant dog out so a vet could meet her in Fort Collins and handle the birth! So … most everyone continues to do their part.

    There is a voluntary evacuation going on for the next several days … and giant Chinook helicopters have been landing in the field next to our firehouse. It’s like some lost scene from “Red Dawn.” Bizarre. I shot some video – which I’ll try to post the next time I’m online. (Thank you LaClarla for being so incredibly generous with your internet access!)

    Many of the people leaving are doing so because they need to get back to work as opposed to because it’s unsafe to be here. We still have enough supplies to ride things out for a while … so until the evac is mandatory … my parents and I have decided to stay and continue to do all we can to help. We had a long talk about this before we made the decision – and we all believe it’s the right thing to do for now. But don’t worry … we will split when/if we have to. (It’s raining as I type this … so perhaps that time will be sooner rather than later!)

    Meanwhile, day to day life is now very simple. You move during daylight hours – and you try to conserve power and sleep when it’s dark. You use water only when absolutely necessary. There are 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. town meetings at the firehouse to keep everyone on the same page … and the local church has joined the spirit of the coffee shop by offering free lunches there too.

    The damage is too intense to describe at the moment. Two of the three bridges in Pinewood Springs are gone. Thankfully, the one I take to my house survived. The water below it – which normally is a creek no more than two-feet wide – turned into a raging river spanning at least 70 feet or more. Even more thankfully … our firefighters (along with community volunteers) have bush-wacked a trial in to the folks who were cutoff from the rest of us when the bridges went. They are all OK … and, in fact, were found having a large fish fry in the middle of one of the roads!

    There are trees down and huge chunks of road gone … and just lots of property washed away. Yesterday I went down to Crescent Lake to see where the bridge washed out … and a mother deer and two fawns were walking along the bank visibly confused as to why they couldn’t cross. Eventually they turned around and walked past me back up the road. It was a particularly odd moment in a tapestry of odd moments.

    But … as I mentioned in my last message … nobody here was hurt … and people’s spirits are, in generally, good. We all know we’re far, far, far from being the only people facing steep challenges … and that we are extremely lucky to have each other during such a time.

    Lots of love to all of you! I will update again as soon as I can. I’m off to the 10 a.m. meeting!

    Pura vida!

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  35. prospero said on September 16, 2013 at 7:11 pm

    Nancy, I certainly didn’t say that. I said, for all anybody knows for sure, she may have. I doubt the famous hermit sought her out, though, and the story of their meeting, and subsequent “relationship” is pretty much hers. It’s been around a long time, and she is certainly making hay now on current events. Trying to use Franny and Zooey as an indication that Salinger is some sort of sexual predator is as literarily shoddy as it is asinine. Anybody that buys that shit must never have read Franny and Zooey. Originallly, years ago, Maynard did claim to have simply walked up to Salinger’s front door, in a Time Mag story. My only point at all about this is that she could say anything she wanted without fear of contradiction, and her popping up now is so greatly to her advantage as to be somewhat suspect. I just feel some skepticism about her entire story. Has anybody but Joyce Maynard and her mom ever seen the famous letter Salinger supposedly wrote to her? This is another viewpoint, from the NYT:

    http://partners.nytimes.com/library/books/090698mag-maynard.html

    I like what Alex Beam has said about Little Joyce Run-a-Muck: “She has hacked her way through three decades wrapped in a delusion torn from the Oliver Sacks casebook: The Woman Who Mistook Herself for Someone Interesting.” I didn’t say she was lying, nor that she hasn’t suffered through some horrible shit during her life, only that much of it could have been fabricated with the author never being found out. I think that’s undeniably true.

    The height of stupid GOPer because…Obama. Drinking water ISN”T good for you. If Mrs. Obama says it is, she’s acting like a fascist. Rash Limpballs says so. Mrs. Obama thinks it’s a good idea to breathe too, you dickweeds, so cut that out.

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  36. Bill said on September 16, 2013 at 7:18 pm

    Basset: How did the barrel o’ taters turn out?

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  37. Charlotte said on September 16, 2013 at 9:00 pm

    Okay, at the risk of feeding the troll (who I generally like) — Pros — Maynard becomes increasingly more credible (if you’re the sort of person who disbelieves that old men chase young women) as evidence comes out that Salinger chased young girls his whole life. Whether you think she’s an interesting writer or not isn’t relevant to her story with Salinger. I love some of the Nine Stories, and fell hard for Franny and Zooey as an undergrad, but the Salinger Myth seems as damaging as the Hemingway Myth or, in our own neighborhood, the Harrison Myth. When the Myth starts to overtake the work then it’s trouble. Don’t even get me started about Harrison’s recent book where he posits that a local 14 year old falls in love with him. I love that old man, but the universal reaction among the pre-teens I know (who have known him since they were pretty babies in fairy wings) to this notion was abject horror …

    And those RL clothes are lovely. I do not have the body type for RL though — he does not design for short square people like moi. If I had a million bucks, I’d be a Chanel gal … all those lovely boxy suits …

    Hearing news from friends in Boulder — every time they think it’s passed, they get hit again. Looks like a new hurricane pattern? Am I nuts or do I remember Al Gore telling us all that if we didn’t do something about our carbon emissions that the weather was going to get increasingly extreme? A documentary? Standing on a stage with a screen behind him?

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  38. basset said on September 16, 2013 at 9:16 pm

    Bill, the tater barrel didn’t go too well – got two Yukon Golds the size of tennis balls and two the size of ping-pong balls and that was it. I used the last sets the co-op had, down at the bottom of the bag at the end of the season, and didn’t fertilize or anything… will learn from this and do better next year. Meanwhile, they’re just sitting on the edge of the sink, I can’t stand to eat ’em.

    Turned the game freezer off last week and moved what little was left in it (couple bags of squirrel, a few venison roasts and such) to the main freezer. Muzzleloader season starts November 9, gotta go practice.

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    • nancy said on September 16, 2013 at 9:18 pm

      Basset, one of our columnists at Bridge addressed a deer-hunting issue this week. You might be interested.

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  39. Deborah said on September 16, 2013 at 9:21 pm

    Amazing how nature works, it always seems to be feast or famine. The flooding in Colorado after the major fires that happened not that long ago is food for thought.

    The flooding in New Mexico has been minor in comparison. We live a block from the Santa Fe River, which most times is a dry arroyo. It is running now more than I have ever seen. We’ve heard that they had to release some water from the Santa Fe reservoir, where the tap water comes from, into the river, which seems a shame but I guess it’s doing some good somewhere.

    We have another fire in our fireplace this evening, the cat has been cold and grumpy all day, finally she is quiet and content. Peace.

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  40. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on September 16, 2013 at 10:14 pm

    Jolene, whether chemo makes your apostrophes fall out or not, you’re tops in our book. Grace and peace to you!

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  41. Deborah said on September 16, 2013 at 10:28 pm

    Agreed, Jolene, it’s so good to hear from you from time to time. You seem so easy going about your condition and your treatment. I’m not sure I could do the same, you have been a virtual teacher about how to do it all with grace and dignity.

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  42. prospero said on September 16, 2013 at 10:58 pm

    How am I trolling when I try to explain reasonable comments that have been misrepresented? Doesn’t quite seem fair. And when did I say I didn’t believe old men can be predatory toward young girls? I do think Maynard is a relatively inconsequential writer, but I certainly didn’t say that before right now. Meantime, I clearly said I held no brief for Salinger, and I made no excuses for predatory men. I didn’t say Maynard was making anything up, I said she could have been doing so for a long time, without fear of contradiction or discovery. As for the well-established story of how she got together with the old goat recluse, Maynard is the origin. That is a fact. The hell with the whole story. It will be interesting to see whether any of his work published posthumously supports his reputation. I’m guessing maybe. Meanwhile, for a story of tortured adolescence, I prefer The Butcher Boy to Catcher, or the brilliant story of Ignatius J. Reilly and his Red Chief notebooks, which is what I said in the first place, and I still think Maynard may well be an opportunistic fabulist. My opinion, and there is no proof one way or another.

    In Colorado, unusually huge snowpack, early, unseasonable and intense heat, monster snow melt. USGS predicted this for this year. I imagine they’re gunshy after Shrubco misAdministration in which their jobs and the very existence of the organization were under daily threat.

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