Parked outside the English Building yesterday morning.

I may watch this random ad generator all day long.  Brilliant!

From the News-Gazette:

The doors are locked up, and some loyal customers are wondering whether the Jolly Roger is closed for good.

The restaurant operator, Michael Timpone, couldn’t be reached to answer the question, and city officials say they’re just as much in the dark as the customers.

A sign on the restaurant says it’s closed for the holidays and renovation, but so far there’s no building permit on file for any significant work at the restaurant, according to the city’s Community Development department on Friday.

“It says they’re closed for remodeling, but I think they’re closed for good,” Urbana Mayor Laurel Prussing said. “It’s really sad. It’s a family business.”

Longtime customer, Kathy Wallig, said she called the Jolly Roger a couple of weeks ago to order a carry-out lunch and was put on hold for a long time – then someone picked up the phone, said they were out of pizza dough, and hung up on her. And she wasn’t even going to order pizza, she added.

Now that we’re safely past Epiphany, and just before the last (and only) vestige of winter likely to slip briefly over Illinois this season, I will present to you the best Christmas television program ever.  There’s a long tradition of Christmas horror stories, of course.  Most are a bit silly, or disappointing.  Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas, for example, declines steadily after its beautiful processional opening.

I discovered yesterday, when I should have been dissertating, that “Seasons of Belief,” a 1986 episode from the excellent post-Twilight Zone series Tales from the Darkside, is on You Tube.  Sadly it’s broken into two parts, right in the middle of a little song that you may have heard me muttering to myself around Christmastime, or singing with my brothers, if you happen to have been spying on my family.

So then, without further ado, here’s some seasonal sadism, staring He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named:   

Part 1:

Part 2:

1986, eh?  Any relation, dare we ask?

UPDATE:
You might remember E.G. Marshall, the actor who plays the old-timer in this program (who is referred to, somewhat oddly, as “Dad” by the little kids in the episode).  Marshall had a long series of film and television credits to his name, including (my favorite) one as the President in Superman 2 (”Kneel before Zod!“).  Mr. Marshall is no longer with us.

But who, you might ask, is the flim’s leading lady Ms. Margaret Klenck, who seems interesting here in a Shelly Long sort of way?  Her  acting resume, it turn out is not so long, her last appearance having been in 1991.  After this she vanishes for a while reappearing after the “lost years” as a (real) Jungian analyst, who is one of the panelists in PBS’s 2004 series The Question of God, debating in terms that echo “Seasons of Belief” the existence of a certain other he-who-is-not-to-be-named.  It’s not quite clear whether Klenck’s 11 page article from 2004 landed her PBS gig, or whether it was the theologically wicked parenting skills on display back in ‘86, but if I’d been the PBS producer, you can bet it would have been the latter.

SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE LINCOLN IL
222 PM CST THU JAN 11 2007
ILZ027>031-036>038-040>045-047>053-120930

..WINTER STORM TO BRING A VARIETY OF PRECIPITATION TYPES TO
CENTRAL ILLINOIS THIS WEEKEND…
AFTER AN EXTENDED PERIOD OF MILD WEATHER…WINTER WILL FINALLY
RETURN TO CENTRAL ILLINOIS THIS WEEKEND. A COLD FRONT WILL PUSH
SOUTHEAST ACROSS THE STATE ON FRIDAY…BECOMING FAIRLY STATIONARY
SOUTH OF THE OHIO RIVER ON SATURDAY. WAVES OF LOW PRESSURE WILL
MOVE NORTHEAST ALONG THIS BOUNDARY…WHILE MUCH COLDER AIR SPILLS
INTO THE REGION FROM THE NORTH.

A film by an anonymous Iraqi journalist.

He writes:

I grew up in a country of sudden and consoling lulls, which gave life a kind of pattern and punctuation, unknown now. It was typified by the somnolence of Sundays, when no stores were open. There were empty parts of the day, of the week, of the year; times when there were no people on the sidewalks, no traffic in the streets, no audible human voices, now and then no sound at all. In this hushed world, a bumblebee was a physical presence, the sound of a cicada could dominate an August afternoon.

Nowhere was solitude more available than on a long drive, especially at night; and it seems to me that my generation was defined by the open road, and the accompanying hope that a promise lay at the end of it. The almost trance-like experience of driving down the soft tunnel of a dark highway at night was something I relished.

Late at night, in most places I knew, there was almost no traffic and driving, a meditative activity, could cast a spell. Behind the wheel, gliding along, I was keenly aware of being an American in America, on a road that was also metaphorical, making my way through life, unhindered, developing ideas, making decisions, liberated by the flight through this darkness and silence. With less light pollution, the night sky was different, too — starrier, more daunting, more beautiful.

Link

UPDATE: Someone posted a link to this essay on Metafilter, where it inspired quite an argument, forcing me to leap to the defense of Mr. Theroux.

But here’s a list of McSweeny’s lists.  I feel you deserve it, just for being you.