Daily Blague

¶ Before anyone mortified me, I caught the mistake myself. It's true that I wrote most of my piece on The Line of Beauty late last night, illuminated, as it were, by dry martinis. But the novel's author (and very great writer), is Alan Hollinghurst, not Alan Hollingsworth. I can only be grateful that Googling would not have adverted him to my sottise.

¶ Thank you Gothamist: Lawrence Reuter, head of the MTA and a member of the Dubyan Persuasion as regards clear speech, has been declared, by our MSB (Main Stream Blog), a "chucklehead." Photo included.

¶ If it's out in the country, there must be a tailgater somewhere. Dick Cheney's idea of appropriate dress for a Holocaust Memorial at Auschwitz.

¶ Fafblog explains the Social Security "crisis" as only Fafblog can - but quite precisely for all the laughs. 

¶ With my own Fuji FinePix, I could take a better picture of this unprepossessing scene, but I copied this from A9's Yellow Pages. As everybody knows, Amazon equipped a fleet of trucks with high-tech equipment and sent it through the city in order to amass a comprehensive library of images like this one. (There's a video showing how it was done.) It's a good thing that they didn't work on cook's night out, and capture me in my shorts, weather nothwithstanding, scurrying across the street into Tokubei for a late dinner with Kathleen

¶ In light of all the Personal sites that I added to the Blog Roster here yesterday (scroll down on the white sidebar), we ought probably to give further exploration a rest, and get to know our new friends, but as it happens there is an even bigger awards package in the works, the Bloggies. These, I suppose, are the Oscars™ of the Blogosphere, with a real-world ceremony at Austin's South by Southwest Interactive Festival, on 14 March. The prizes, though modest, are real, too.

It says something about me - yes it does - that I am familiar with many more of the candidates for Fistful's Satin Pajama Awards than I am with those up for the Bloggies. There's Miss Fish, who I believe is a neighbor of sorts, up for the top prize; if you neglected to clip her confessional from the Times last November, you can read it now, although you'll have to pay for the pleasure. (The piece had Kathleen tutting like a jackhammer; what are these kids thinking?). Although there are moments of great good fun in This Fish Needs a Bicycle (one of the best titles in the 'Sphere), I can't really follow Ms Hunter's journal, because it gives me the creepy feeling that I'm violating my own daughter's privacy. As it is, I have to do some deep breathing each time I read a story like today's, about a mugged and murdered actress on the Lower East Side - and then remind myself that Megan lives in the East Village, which is "totally different." Parental thinking for you, right? Did Nicole duFresne live at the corner of Clinton and Rivington Streets? No. She didn't even live in Manhattan.

In any case, I kept link-clicking to a minimum yesterday as I scrolled through the unfamiliar names of potential Bloggies winners. One site that I did check out, however, is one that I think you'll find irresistible. Perhaps only New Yorkers find eavesdropping is irresistible, but I don't think so: Overheard in New York.

¶ Only Susan Sontag could have given us the sharp-eyed, pungent cultural analysis of old cover art that the collection at Bizarre Records seems to cry out for. Is this where we came from? Do try to find the album of treats for "bathroom baritones and bathing beauties" that was a handout from "your American Standard plumbing contractor." Oh, well, it's not the "art" so much, just the very idea. (Thanks, JR)