Books do furnish a room

Hat tip to Richard M over on Facebook.

A Clubbable Woman by Reginald Hill (Collins Crime Club 1970)

Superintendent Andrew Dalziel was a big man. When he took his jacket off and dropped it over the back of a chair it was like a Bedouin pitching camp. He had a big head, greying now; big eyes, short-sighted, but losing nothing of their penetrating force behind a pair of solidframed spectacles; and he blew his big nose into a khaki handkerchief a foot-and-a-half square. He had been a vicious lock forward in his time, which had been a time before speed and dexterity were placed higher in the list of a pack's qualities than sheer indestructibility. The same order of priorities had brought him to his present office. He was a man not difficult to mock. But it was dangerous sport. And perhaps therefore all the more tempting to a Detective-Sergeant who was twenty years younger, had a degree in social sciences and read works of criminology.

Dalziel sank over his chair and scratched himself vigorously between the legs. Not absent-mindedly - nothing he did was mannerism - but with conscious sensuousness. Like scratching a dog to keep it happy, a constable had once said within range of Dalziel's very sharp hearing. He had liked the simile and therefore ignored it.

What was that?

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever by Will Hermes (Faber and Faber 2011)

After an encore, as the revelers filed out toward the frigid night and the year ahead, the DJs slipped on a gentle acoustic number: a cover of Suicide's
'Dream Baby Dream" by, of all people, Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen played the song as a coda to nearly every show on his solo 2005 Devils and Dust tour. This particular version, a hypnotizing mantra-cum-lullaby-cum-benediction, was released on an import-only compilation right around Alan Vega's seventieth birthday.

Springsteen had always liked Suicide: he was especially impressed by the story-song "Frankie Teardrop." When he was working on The River in '79, he and Vega crossed paths up at 914 Studios in Blauvelt, where Springsteen had recorded so much of his early work. Vega and Marty Rev were finishing their second LP, which included "Dream Baby Dream." Bruce and Vega talked about rock 'n' roll, taking nips off Vega's flask. "You know, if Elvis came back from the dead," Springsteen said later, "I think he would sound like Alan Vega."

Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin (Harper 2010)

Edwards was still doing his best Monty Hall imitation: Let’s make a deal. Although he maintained publicly that he never desired to be a running mate again, Edwards was, in fact, quite open to the idea. But he was also willing to consider more modest rewards. Having been rebuffed on the notion of teaming up with Obama after Iowa, he once again dispatched Leo Hindery to make a revised offer.

“John will settle for attorney general,” Hindery emailed Tom Daschle.

Daschle shook his head. How desperate is this guy?

“Leo, this isn’t good for John,” Daschle replied. “This is ridiculous. It’s going to be ambassador to Zimbabwe next.”

Daschle warned Hindery that this new offer, like the last one, was sure to be rejected. And it was. When Obama heard about the suggested quid pro quo, he was incredulous.

That’s crazy, he told Axelrod. If I were willing to make a deal like that, I shouldn’t be president!

Edwards wondered if Clinton might be more open to cutting a deal. For all his previous distaste for her, he was beginning to find her more agreeable than Obama—less aloof, more brass-tacks. But Edwards knew his options were rapidly running out. He had no money, the press was ignoring him, and his vote totals were spiraling toward zero; he’d won just 3.8 percent in Nevada.

Then again, Rielle Hunter was only eight months pregnant.

So Edwards still had another month to strike a bargain.

Bungpuss Bagpuss and Arse Face struck a deal

A plus B means that someone's stolen a march on Private Eye this week :

Hat tip to some wag over at Urban 75 for the picture.

Vares - Huhtikuun Tytöt (2011)