In the News

[fflo]

The union of University of Michigan graduate student instructors, GEO, is staging a one-day strike today. As of a couple of days ago, its erstwhile V.P. had apparently not yet managed to get her strike ballot in, according to my answering machine, which still gets messages for her from them not infrequently, despite my having informed more than a few of their callers in live conversation that this is no longer her number.


Bobby Short died this week. I have a box set of his stuff on l.p. He'll always be there in Hannah & Her Sisters singing "I'm In Love Again (And I Love, Love, Love It)." (Okay, I added the parenthetical part to the title. I like that part.) He did a commercial for Charlie (a perfume) in the '70s that was something of a hit & ran a long time. I guess pijeanf was in NYC when he died. I was there when Al Hirschfeld died. There's something about the way news plays out in that city. Something having to do with experiencing it on the street at newstands and in the subway on newspapers and in talk and I dunno. Anyway, there goes another person who probably once ordered a Croton Highball, or at least knew what it was.



Joseph Barbera is 94 today, which means he's not dead. Here's to him! As a kid I thought their animation dreadfully half-assed compared to my Warner Bros., but some of their characters were pretty rockin' .


Dropped off the cat at the vet's this morning. Gotta run now for a 7-minute shower-and-dress sprint if I'm going to make it to work on time.