Author: DOuG pRATt

Too Much and Not Enough

We are now in the Second Gilded Age, once again dominated by billionaires and scandals involving teenage girls.

“Gibson Girl” Evelyn Nesbit

True story, Word of Honor:

Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer now dead, and I were at a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island.

I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel ‘Catch-22’ has earned in its entire history?”

And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.”

And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?”

And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”

Not bad! Rest in peace!”

— Kurt Vonnegut in The New Yorker, 2005

Frontline has updated their “Born Poor” series.

Putting the ZOO into ZOOM

Last night I had a ton o’ online fun, participating in a ZOOM call with the National Cartoonists Society. Mark Evanier’s pal Sergio Aragones, one of MAD Magazine’s usual gang of idiots, was on the call.

The meeting was scheduled for 90 minutes, and we went into overtime when Colleen Doran showed up. Colleen, who is one of my very favorite people, hosts her own ZOOM calls that I enjoy attending.

Funny Money

More than almost anything else, I fear Trump taking over the Federal Reserve and declaring cryptocurrency to be legitimate coin of the realm. Because it’s anything but legitimate. Regular folks should go nowhere near crypto, but some see it as a get rich quick scheme opportunity, and the suckers will take the bait.

So far, 60 Minutes journalism does not appear to be compromised. As seen in this crypto-related story.

In the Pratt Cave

Now that I’m using the Hoopla library app in addition to Kindle, I wanted an e-reader downstairs in my mancave reading spot. What about carrying the Fire HD10 tablet downstairs then back up to the kitchen? Nah. Something bigger than my phone is needed, but not that big.

Wait. What about the Lenovo Yoga 8-inch tablet that saw me through many trips to Arizona?

Retirement Man on the Go

I put the tablet away almost five years ago, after system updates ended with Android 6, and it slowed down to the point of being useless. Does it have enough life left in it to run a couple of reading apps?

After all this time, when powering it up, the battery was at 63%! Unbelievable. Once connected to WiFi, it started taking a lot of Google updates, including a system update. Whatever it was, Android 6 remained.

Eventually, the updates were done, and I was able to install the two apps I cared about. Hoopla complains about its updates requiring Android 7 and higher, but downloading and reading books is working.

One more piece of otherwise electronic waste has been forced back into service! This is nice, but not enough for me to reconsider my boycott of future Lenovo purchases. I’ll only do that if there’s a way to wake up the touchpad on my Yoga i7 laptop PC.

What if We’d Been Beatless?

“I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, ‘The Beatles did’.” – Kurt Vonnegut, 1997

I’ve always been as much amazed as amused by the British comedic thread running from the Goon Show with Peter Sellers, to the Beatles, then to the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band and Monty Python.

Michael Palin has said there wouldn’t have been Monty Python without the Bonzos. Would the comedy troupe have existed if the Beatles hadn’t first changed the world? Palin talks about what the Beatles made possible for others in their wake, in this 2012 interview.