© Elliott Erwitt / Magnum Photos
I go to Slate pretty much every day, (sometimes mostly to read Doonesbury, I admit,) and I almost always look at the Magnum photographs. Last week they had a particularly wonderful batch, in honor of the Westminster dog show. Lots of the divine Elliott Erwitt, of course. Other great photos, too. click here!

Mr. Henry, the always entertaining purveyor of culinary wisdom on Manolo Food, has a post about what he cooks for his wonderful dog, Pepper.

Pepper’s Breakfast

3 lbs. boneless breast chicken
1 cup cooked lentils
½ bunch kale (or spinach) - leaves & small stems
1 sm. bag carrots, peeled baby
½ bag cranberries
2 apples
blueberries, a handful

Click here for more of the pleasantly tart Mr. Henry, and his equally tart readers and their thoughts on shedding, raw diets, feces and vegans.

I love that this is from a book published in 1889 called “The Home Manual. Everybody’s Guide in Social, Domestic, and Business Life.” Obviously this drawing is illustrating Business Life.

Here is an artist who really understands what is to love a book, to get lost in a book, and how books follow us around. See more of her work by clicking here
(Thanks, design*sponge!)

If you like looking at pictures of dogs, and you do, here are two great places to find them.
First, Clipart ETC (Click here), an amazing library of clip art from Florida’s public school system. It’s the least they could do after the 2000 election. Here are some Cairn terriers:

and here is a little pit:

and here is someone else:

AND…

there is the wonderful MUTTS site created by Patrick McDonnell…and the lovely Tilly, the beautiful pit whose picture I have been trying to post for about a year, is there–3rd down, 3rd to the right! click here

One of the best books of the last decade (two of the best books, I should say–there was Persepolis and there was Persepolis II) have been made into a film.

The artist and author, Marjane Satrapi, is the director along with Vincent Paronnaud, so I can only believe that the crisp emotion and dry drama of the those deeply moving graphic novels of great comic intelligence will be right up there on the screen. And Catherine Deneuve plays her mother, And Danielle Darrieux plays the grandmother. I interviewed both of them twenty-five years ago for a piece I did for Vogue about the French actress after forty, and the fact that there wereFrench actresses after forty in France. I spoke to Derrieux in her dressing room after a play she was starring in. I can’t remember where I met Deneuve. Hmm. Maybe I’m making the Deneuve part up. My favorite was Jean Moreau. I went to her apartment for breakfast. She had barrettes in her hair, no makeup, and gave me croissants and jam and coffee. Pretty much the highlight of my short celebrity profiling life. Except maybe Roger Tory Peterson. And of course Tim McCarver. Vogue was very eclectic in those days.
Back to Persepolis: If you haven’t read these graphic novels, I insist that you do. You will not be sorry. And I insist that I see the movie. It opened today. I will go tomorrow. Sometimes the personal is not only not the political, it is the best way to see how alien the political is. My grammar aside, go see it.
Here is something Satrapy said in a CNN interview:
The use of the humor is something that was very amazing to me. Because to me, humor is the height of understanding. Anywhere in the world we cry for the same reason. We cry because our father is dead, or our mother is sick. We don’t laugh for the same reason. If we laugh together, it’s as if we’ve touched each other’s spirit. We showed this movie in Japan, and people laugh at the same time as the French do, as the Americans do, as the Swiss, as in Germany. … It gives me some hope actually. click here for more
This passage struck me because I had just been thinking about the scene in Sullivan’s Travels when the hobos were all laughing and watching cartoons. I think this woman does have a touch of Preston Sturgis to her! That’s my highest compliment.
Here is a page from the book:

Somehow, it has come to pass that neither of my kids has a tattoo. This is a miracle, and it makes me happy every day. Have you noticed that the proportion of tattooed designers on Project Runway has grown alarmingly from year to year? But now, I have found tattoos even a mother could love: these wonderful manly men dolls made by mimi kirchner (click here) with TOILE tattoos!

When I was little, my father taught me a wonderful song about a tattooed lady:

I paid a dime to see
A Scotch tattooed lassie.
She was a sight to see.
Tattooed from head to knee.
Up and down her spine
Was the Queen’s own navy line.
Across her kidney
Was a bird’s eye view of Sydney.
But what I liked best
Was across her chest…
My home in the hills of Tennessee.

Or something to that effect.

If you love pit bulls, and I do, click here to get The Unexpected Pit Bull Calendar for 2008.
(Thank you, Tilly!)
Also, you can get a signed copy of Ken Foster’s wonderful book Dogs I have Met and the money will be donated to Pit Bull Rescue Central. click here.

Katz’s Deli not only has gigantic delicious corned beef sandwiches (mmm), it has a great web site with an excellent lexicon of Yiddish essentials. check it out here.

I missed the important 11/11 meeting of the esteemed Corduroy Appreciation Club, but I am happy to hear there is a 1/11 meeting planned! This is the only club I belong to, so at least once a year I think I should be able to say, like a 19th century English ne’er do well aristocrat: I’m going to my club. See you there! (Thank you, Noah!)

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