I didn’t post until late yesterday because my internet was down for most of the day. You can read the post here. Or you can punch “Page Down.” Your call.

– ALMANAC SAYS –
Law raised salary of U.S.

– ALMANAC SAYS –
Dow Jones industial average first passed 1,000 mark, 1966.

– LINK OF THE WEEK –
Scientific American: The Case of the Pilfered Planet.

– QUESTION OF THE DAY –
What kind of themed calendar ought to exist but probably does not.

Today is Andy Kaufman’s birthday. His is fifty-eight years old.

Happy Birthday, Andy.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.

Such a high note… when the staid ball finally touched down kicking off one of the more eventful years of my life, I was in the middle of a huge revelry at the Crawfords. I’d arrived several hours before with Elliot and Mitch in tow, and a decades worth of friends new and old were crowded in the basement.

Today is Andy Kaufman’s birthday.

He died on May 16, 1984, or twenty-two years, three months, and thirty days ago.

• I just want real reactions. I want people to laugh from the gut, be sad from the gut-or get angry from the gut.

– ALMANAC SAYS –
Ben Franklin born, 1706. Bridge game expert Norman Kay died, 2002.

– HAPPY BIRTHDAY –
Anton Chekhov and Andy Kaufman!

– PICTURE OF THE WEEK –
A beautiful goose.

– QUESTION OF THE DAY –
What symptoms do you show of being truly angry with yourself?

Part of the noir reading list I put together for my thesis with the help of Robert Polito and Jeffery Allen. As such, it was “required reading.”

This is actually the second of the “assigned books” that I picked up, but it has such an undeniable place in the canon that I feel I have to address it first.

Somebody was saying something about celebrity deaths coming in threes. This month we’ve had:

• Gerald Ford
• James Brown
• Saddam Hussein

1. Gerald Ford.

He was Michigan’s only president, originally from Grand Rapids, which is my mom’s hometown. He has also become un-controversial enough by now that just following his death his Wikipedia article is only “semi-protected.”

– IN THE ALMANAC –
Louis Riel, leader of Mètis resistance vs. Canada, hanged, 1885.
After black clouds, clear weather.

– HAPPY BIRTHDAY –
Lisa!

– QUOTE OF THE WEEK –
“There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.”