I spend a fair bit of time around people born there and the funniest (and also exceedingly Soviet) story I have is one of the Russian professors claims a veteran's discount at every store she goes to. Her daughter is always horrified. "They didn't say which army!"

I’d suppose someone like the Tolkien bros in the defense industrial base would self identify as someone of that stature and a renaissance person, but ugh, no way.

I often wonder with people like that - where are those people now? Who are they?

I agree with both responders, the Morley book I think is good even if it has problems because of the “flavor.” JJA is problematic but also one of the unbelievable 20th c characters. New Criticism at Yale, poetry, orchids, biblical alcohol consumption, brilliant but “paranoid” (maybe?)

And you really don’t want to read accounts of how Arius died…

Success! No Country for Old Men passed.

You're like the only person that will understand the shock I had at reading that they lived like ONE MILE from my house. I passed by the entrance to that trailer for years! Never knew. Never saw them soliciting in front of libraries, either, during the various phases.

Thank you for making the one without the hammer and sickle. This is awesome.

LinkedIn language in general is a scourge. I'm still mad about the shift in the word "ask." Around 2010 or so at the agency I was at we started getting memos from the executive with a space for "The Ask." Whut. "We need to know the ask." "Are you kidding me?"

One of my favorite movies by far. The pancake scene is good, too.

That's not just any dealership, that's NASCAR central. Also an emergency procurement, hmm.

I can’t imagine a FOIA of the selection process. (Actually I can)

“Well, if we did that chicken would get really expensive.”