The Phantom Tollbooth

Although it seems unpossible (as Ralphie might say) that I managed to make it through a rather book-filled childhood without reading The Phantom Tollbooth, that seems to be the sad truth. (Too much time spent reading and re-reading Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, perhaps, although James W. and Christopher K. agree that it's a classic.) Powells' interview with author Norton Juster sort of makes me want to jettison the rest of the reading material stacked up on my desk and go right to Dictionopolis.

True, true:

'You cannot live and keep free of briars.' --William Carlos Williams, 'The Ivy Crown'

Notes

I was planning to write something about Milan Kundera's musings on nostalgia in his New Yorker story The Great Return, but that was before I spent the day editing other people's work and fighting off impending illness. So for now I'll settle instead for two notes:

1.) Benicassim keeps getting better. B&S! Sigur Ros! Low! I'm increasingly sure that the experience will be worth trekking halfway (or so) across the globe and inserting myself into the belly of a Catalunian summer.

2.) Sloo and I once went to get coffee at the little pre-Specialty's cafe in the China Basin building and were wildly amused by the rolling hot dog machine, stamped with words advertising its contents that, as David noted, just had to be in a font called 'Hot Dog.' So I've done a search, and while I've not yet come across the lower-case, right-listing font we saw that day, I did find this, which is both Swedish and supremely cool.