Dear Mr Watterson

From GoComics.com


This fall a documentary on Calvin and Hobbes, entitled Dear Mr Watterson, will be released.  The comic strip ran from 1985 to 1995, when Bill Watterson decided to end it.  Enormously popular and enormously entertaining and thoughtful it is remembered very fondly in the THC house, where we along with our children were avid readers.  Watterson has remained secluded since ending the strip, refusing to license the characters.

Wikipedia reports on an interview that Watterson gave to the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 2010 about his decision:

"This isn't as hard to understand as people try to make it. By the end of ten years, I'd said pretty much everything I had come there to say. It's always better to leave the party early. If I had rolled along with the strip's popularity and repeated myself for another five, ten, or twenty years, the people now "grieving" for Calvin and Hobbes would be wishing me dead and cursing newspapers for running tedious, ancient strips like mine instead of acquiring fresher, livelier talent. And I'd be agreeing with them. I think some of the reason Calvin and Hobbes still finds an audience today is because I chose not to run the wheels off it. I've never regretted stopping when I did."

 THC hopes the documentary is as good as the comic. 

But Don't Worry, He'll Fix That

"The bottom line is we're not broke, there's plenty of money, it's just the government doesn't have it."

Rep. Keith Ellison, (D-Minnesota) at Progressive Democrats of America roundtable, July 25, 2013

Coco

Coco passed away this morning, 10 days short of her 14th birthday.  A good dog and we'll all miss her.

Let's Burn Down The Cornfield

Let's burn down the cornfield
Let's burn down the cornfield
And we can listen to it burn

You hide behind the oak tree
You hide behind the old oak tree
Stay out of danger 'til I return

Oh, it's so good
On a cold night
To have a fire
Burnin' warm and bright

Let's burn down the cornfield
Let's burn down the cornfield
And I'll make love to you while it's burning 

From Randy Newman's second album, 12 Songs (1970).  Creepy and weird (but in a good way!).  Ry Cooder on slide guitar.  

And here is Etta James letting loose on it.

Things You Need In Your Home

From Imgur, a list of the 36 essentials.

My choice?  The fire pit for the pool.  Of course, this means we'd first have to install a pool.
The suggestions also help with practical problem solving.  Have water in your basement?  Convert it into an asset for your home!

Man Of Constant Sorrow

A traditional American folk song, the first known recording of Man of Constant Sorrow was in 1913 by Dick Burnett, a fiddler from Kentucky (who may also have been the composer).  Recorded many times over the years, the best known covers are the multiple versions (two vocal, one instrumental) from the 2000 Coen Brothers film, O Brother Where Art Thou? (see also, We Thought You Was A Toad), my second favorite film by the boys.

In this scene the Soggy Bottom Boys are played by actors George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson accompanied by blues musician Chris Thomas King but the song is actually performed by Dan Tyminski, Harley Allen and Pat Enright.  It won a Grammy and was the Country Music Association Single of the Year.