Well, I was away for two long weeks, a few days of which were spent watching the thermometer, cozily safe from the wind chill, lie to me and co-driver Jimmy V that it was 0 degrees outside. Fortunately, we got to go to Dallas and defrost. After driving by the downtown Hooters restaurant there (where a sign outside reads "The World's Largest Hooters," meaning it has the biggest dining room), we then went to pick up some items at the Women's Museum, which we retrieved from a storage room dominated by a portrait of a nursing Jerry Hall.
But enough about boobs, and on to cultural expectations. Jimmy V, a Bronx citizen on his first trip across the country, was amazed that Iowans will just leave their vehicles by the side of the highway and depart (as they are wont to do after a snowstorm crash). Weren't they afraid their cars would be stripped or stolen? No, they were afraid they personally would be crushed by one or more of the jackknifed semis we saw scattered about, and hightailed it out of there with the first cop or Good Samaritan who stopped by.
Speaking of New Yorkers, I always enjoy the way some New Yorker humorists can spin a funny story from a short, dry, news clipping. Here are two recent terrific examples.
The military's concerns about conscript fitness inspired George Saunders' tale of a platoon of porky privates. Perhaps we are soon to be defended by the National Lard....
Bovine-on-human attack statistics were the catalyst for this Woody Allen piece about a cow that plots to dispatch a whiny film director who has upset his rural Jersey Shangri-La. Recognize the artiste described thusly?:
A wormy little cipher, myopic behind black-framed glasses and groomed loutishly in his idea of rural chic: all tweedy and woodsy, with cap and muffler, ready for the leprechauns.
Enjoy!
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