Once upon a New York Times, there was a Sunday section called "The News of the Week in Review," which was a non-parody version of "That Was the Week That Was" -- TW3 for short -- the British TV hit of 1962 or '63 that crossed the great pond and introduced David Frost to the countrymen and -women of Robert Frost.
Such a magazoon today would tell you, in elliptical Winchell style, that Mexico, Latin America's second biggest economy, is hosting a presidential election this year and the candidates include "a Hitler admirer, a self-confessed adulterer, and a strictly informal entry, an ex-Playboy model turned production assistant, Julia Orayen," who is evidently running on a cleavage campaign (source: Barron's, June 25, 2012, "Magical Games" by that irascible master of Wall Street skepticism, Alan Abelson). . . Texas Monthly tells us that Larry Hagman, Dallas's main man, was about to have a nervous breakdown in 1965 or '66 when his Hollywood buddy Peter Fonda came to the resuce and took the beleaguered actor to a Crosby, Stills and Nash concert. David Crosby generously handed Hagman a few tabs of acid and it had the desired effect. "I realized we don't disappear when we die. We're always a part of a curtain of energy." After his epiphanic Whitman moment, Larry gradually gave up acid in favor of leaves of grass. When he dies, he says, he wants "marijuana and wheat planted" in the field where he is buried. People "would harvest it in a couple of years and [bake] a big marijuana cake. People will eat a little Larry." . . . You wonder what the pictue of Helen Forrest, nee Fogel, in the upper left signifies? Keep wondering. . . Meanwhile, in Thailand they have their own version of Thai-dye T shirts. According to Andrew Biggs of the Bangkok Post (as quoted in The Week, June 22, 2012), Thai people of all ages and both sexes sport shirts with crude legends printed on them -- like "Heil Hitler!" or "I'm a cunt" or "Fuck Maggie Thatcher." The Interviews with T shirt wearers revealed that none knew what the words they wore meant. They bought the garments simply because they looked Western. . . Check out the current issue of Harper's. which has an excerpt from Paul Auster's forthcoming memoir, expertly done in second-person POV, a previously unpublished Albert Camus column from 1939 praising the power of irony, a smart, well-researched piece on Walmart by Dan Halpern (not that Dan Halpern), and a terrific prose poem by Mary Ruefle ("Little Gold Pencil"). . . Give up? I was listening to Helen Forrest swinging with the Harry James band when I began writng this column and ended with Bll Evans brooding at the Vanguard.. . . DL
