I was never much of a Norman Mailer fan. I read The Naked and the Dead as a teenager (my parents’ copy), and didn’t find it that impressive. Roger Kimball obviously never heard the phrase “de mortuis nil nisi bonum”–he has many not-so-good things to say of the author/cultural icon/literary thug, who died today (he had been ill for some time).

Interestingly, of all the works that Kimball mentions in his long anti-eulogy, he doesn’t talk about “Of A Fire On The Moon,” his book about Apollo XI.

The reviews here of it are interesting–many of the reviewers who disliked Mailer’s other work liked this one, and vice versa–his traditional fans had little use for it. I’ve never read it myself, and based on the reviews (including one by Roger Launius), I don’t know if I’ll bother now. Anyway, rest in peace. He certainly didn’t live that way.

Time for extreme pumpkins.

Time for extreme pumpkins.

Time for extreme pumpkins.

I can’t wait to see this piece from the ‘Hawk:

I must remain tight-lipped, but can tell you my assignment involves Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, Pancho Villa, nuclear radiation, lost treasure, Mexican carnival sideshows, Tom Wolfe, alien autopsies, satanists, tequila, John Wesley Hardin, chupacabras, Aztec blood sacrifice, Mexican outlaw biker gangs, my dad, Pershing missiles, porn shops, peyote, Billy the Kid, eating brains, and a cursed hot rod.

I am not making any of this up.

Hunter Thompson, except without the drugs (other than the tequila…well, and the peyote), and a lot funnier I’ll wager.

The first team this season to lose to Notre Dame defeated Cal.

And the Buckeye-Spartan game was close enough to make both teams worth beating for Michigan’s strength of schedule. Assuming they beat Illinois tonight, of course…

[Sunday morning update]

Sorry, I’d linked the wrong year on the Notre Dame/UCLA game–it’s fixed now. The point remains, though.

…90210?

It was a little weird seeing Mark Whittington link to his spaghetti sauce recipe today, because this is very similar to my own, which I just happened to have made last night for the first time in months. The only difference is that I add a general Italian seasoning, lemon juice, some honey, and mushrooms. I also use pureed and whole plum tomatoes (canned) in addition to a can of sauce and a can of paste. And I use turkey Italian sausage, hot not sweet.

It’s also a good base sauce for lasagna.

[Afternoon update]

As a commenter notes, another key difference in mine is that I use fresh minced garlic, not powdered. Several cloves.

[One more update]

I also forgot bay leaves. Whole. And rosemary, fresh from the garden, if possible. We used to grow it in California (in fact, one of the residence hotels I stayed at in El Segundo last year had it growing on the hillside), but I’m not sure it does well in the Florida heat.

[Saturday afternoon update]

I just noticed that Mark writes that the sauce isn’t good for someone who is dieting. I’m not sure why he thinks that–it’s an excellent sauce from that standpoint–lots of protein, vegetables (in the form of onions, peppers, tomatoes) and not even a lot of fat if one has drained it off (I use olive oil to sautee things). Atkins would probably cheer it. The problem with it is not the sauce, but the pasta, which is a high-glycemic carbohydrate. I’d at least recommend whole-wheat…

As someone who lived in LA for a quarter of a century and knows a lot of writers (and not writers) there, including Rob Long, I found this piece hilarious. I hope you do as well.

Congratulations Al Gore.

The Sun shines more energy in an hour on us than we generate as a species in a year so human heat production is not yet much of a factor in climate (but this could change if we keep doubling it). If greenhouse gases cause heating which gets reinforced by lower albedo due to the ice caps melting that would be news. Fortunately, heat radiation goes up as the fourth power of temperature according to the Stephan-Boltzmann Law. So runaway greenhouse is not in the cards.

Let’s tax some coal; that would be cool. Cutting back $50 worth of gasoline use cuts back one fill up. Cutting back $50 worth of coal cuts back two tons. The Party that does it probably won’t win West Virginia in the next election.