Gar has lost his job—the cheese stands alone.

The Main Hippies

Clyde Didit (She’s Josie)
Albert (She’s Josie)
Sylvester (Sabrina’s cousin and activist for the New Witch Movement)
Jughead (circa 1970, his vest phase)
At least one of the Madhouse Gla-ads

“If you’ll remember, you told me I had to something about out families,” David said. “It took a bit of doing, but my Mum has invited you to tea tomorrow.”
“Oh, how fab. But how much convincing did it take?”
“Not much. She was willing. It was Dad who objected. But I’m sure he’ll go along with it.”
“You couldn’t have done anything that would please me more. Do you think she’ll like me?”
“She’ll adore you. We’d better hop it, we’ve kept them waiting long enough.” David helped her up. She clung to his arm as they walked to the folk club to meet Belle and Tom.
When they got inside, David looked around quickly. The place had always been a Mod hangout and, he noted, it still was. Little checked tables, with benches, were lined up in straight rows, so close it seemed a wonder anyone could squeeze through. People were pushing through the door behind them.
“Look,” she said,. “Over there, see them?”
They picked their way between benches and people, and sat down. Conversation was impossible. The room was bedlam—noise, people laughing and talking, benches scraping, and on top of it, the singer.
—from The Mods, a Lancer Photo Novel, 1967. Novel by Sandra Lawrence, photos by Ken Williams “of Galaxy International.”

Don’t. Even. Think. About. It.
Wait. You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?
Don’t.
Please.
OK, stop.
I know you’re thinking .
It’s because I divided that sentence into single words with periods after each one, isn’t it?
Isn’t. That. Right?
OK, let’s try it again now. Don’t even…

The Goorin Bros. Hat Shop has created a one-minute multi-character silent black-and-white video about commuting to work while wearing a hat.
I own a lovely fedora purchased from the Goorin Bros. shop in Harvard Square. I feel a touch guilty about it, because Goorin’s a slick national chain and I’m generally loyal to my local New Haven haberdashery DelMonico’s. But when a hat calls out to you, you need to get it. Also, when visiting other cities (even ones I know as well as Cambridge, a few towns over from where I grew up), buying a new hat really makes me feel like a happy tourist. I guess happy commuters feel that way too.
I’ve been debating whether to buy one of Goorin’s many style of “cadet” cap, but wonder if they look too militaristic. I like the old-fashioned oversized ball-cap cartoonishness of the cadet style. But right now, heavy wool or felt is the mode of choice. I’ve got until spring—which weather-wise still seems months, not weeks, away—to figure out the cap thing.

Playing a New Wave comp on a family road trip. Realizing that for over 30 years, I’ve thought there was a song called “Join Up,” which I’d assumed was some sort of revolutionary rallying cry or maybe a recruitment song. Turns out the band is The Red Rockers and they’re singing “China.” So, not a call to arms. Apparently something about dishes.

The Man Who Knew Too Much
By G.K. Chesterton

I’ve know about this book my whole life—my parents were both Chesterton fans. I’ve read a lot of other Chesterton, but never this one, and I’d totally blindsided myself about what kind of book it was. Chesterton wrote so many things that I’d figured this for one of his political novels. Which it kind of is, but it’s really a set of short mystery stories with overarching government-corruption and suppression-of-truth-for-the-good-of-the-people themes.
There are some powerful political ideas here. At one point the hero, Horne Fisher, stands for Parliament, running a bold new sort of campaign where he tells the truth all the time and tells his opponents that he’ll happily drop out of the race if they can convince him they’d be decent at the job. Many of the solutions to the separate mysteries involve people in high places excusing the crimes because of the necessity of a cover-up to avoid a scandal or public panic. That these anti-ethical expediencies are set during the First World War adds whole layers of philosophy to the book, about the nature of conflict and patriotism and ego and self-justification and plain old abuse of power. The best of the stories fuse Chesterton’s sociopolitical essays with his ability to construct a compelling whodunnit. The worst of the stories show up the author’s own vanities and bigotries.
So before I opened the cover I thought I was embarking on a literary novel, only to realize that it was light genre fiction, only to realize that it was actually a lot deeper, and a lot more political than Chesterton’s Father Brown mysteries. A roller coaster ride, from a book published in 1922 that I’d always meant to crack.
As for my sense that this was a more sustained work, I think I was confusing this book with Chesterton’s novel The Man Who Was Thursday, which I also haven’t read but have just downloaded and will start soon. Boy, was Chesterton good with titles. (Personal faves include The Thing: Why I Am a Catholic, All I Survey, As I Was Saying, On Lying in Bed and Other Essays, Lunacy and Letters and Come to Think of It). It’s unfortunate that the title The Man Who Knew Too Much was purloined for a couple of Hitchcock thrillers that have nothing to do with Chesterton.
The title confusion will make it that much harder for someone to ever adapt the Horne Fisher stories for stage or screen, which would be cool and apparently has never happened.

Magic number: 42421
Magic word: retrench

I just read Peter Ackroyd’s excellent, purposefully pithy biography Charlie Chaplin: A Brief Life. I’ve read most of the major Chaplin bios, and Ackroyd gives you as full picture of Chaplin’s long career without getting too bogged down in any one area for very long.
Here’s a mixtape to read Charlie Chaplin to.

“At the Moving Picture Ball” by Joseph Santley and Howard Johnson. “Charlie Chaplin, with his feet/ Stepped all over poor Blanche Sweet/ Dancing at that moving picture ball.”

Katie Herzig, “Charlie Chaplin.” “Each of us has got a little Charlie Chaplin inside us sayin’ “Hey fellas why don’t we go where movies are silent and life is as big as the stage?”

Traditional skipping rhyme:
Charlie Chaplin went to France
To teach the ladies the hula dance
First on the heels, then on the toes,
Around and around and around you go,
Salute the captain and bow to the queen
Touch the bottom of a submarine.

Oldham Tinkers, “Charlie Chaplin.” A multi-verse extension of the jumping rhyme above.

“Charlie Chaplin,” World War I army marching song, sung to the tune of “Little Redwing.”
The moon shines down
On Charlie Chaplin
He’s going balmy
To join the army
But his little baggy trousers
They need a-mending
Before they send him
To the Dardanelles
The moon shines bright
On Charlie Chaplin
But his shoes are cracking
For want of blacking
And his baggy khaki trousers
Still need mending
Before they send him
To the Dardanelles.

Asher Roth, “Charlie Chaplin.” Happy little feet. I don’t want to try to drown whatever’s happening to me. I walk with out a sound, Charlie Chaplin on the beat.” This is actually a reference to Charlie Chaplin the much-sampled reggae star, not Charlie Chaplin the movie star, but the lyric could apply to either.

A video cover of Charlie’s gibberish song from Modern Times.

The Clown Archives: Charlie Chaplin Cover, The Nonsense Song from tim trick on Vimeo.

The lyrics to that Modern Times song, courtesy of http://www.rioleo.org/chaplin-modern-times-waiter.php, which also shows the lyrics of the original French song it’s aping, plus a translation of that French version.

Se bella giu satore
Je notre so cafore
Je notre si cavore
Je la tu la ti la twah

Se motra so la sonta
Chi vossa l’otra volta
Li zoscha si catonta
Tra la la la la la la

“Modern Times,” J-Five. That Modern Times song is sampled extensively in this single, a big hit in France in 2004.

Chaplin’s been the subject of several musicals. The most recent Broadway one was Chaplin: The Musical by Christopher Curtis and Thomas Meehan, which had its New York debut in 2012 but regional productions dating back to 2006, when the show’s title was Limelight. There was a 1993 musical also called Chaplin that nearly made it to Broadway, starring John Rubinstein, but was mothballed and didn’t get a full professional production until 2012 in London. There was also a 1983 musical called Chaplin, starring Anthony Newley, that closed on its pre-Broadway tour and never made it to New York.

Chaplin’s greatest hit as a composer, “Smile,” has been covered by everyone from Nat King Cole to the cast of Glee to R&B/hip-hop diva Janelle Monae.

Five Rock Bands That Have Toured Through Riverdale
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