Neanderpundit

to go back to driving a stick, especially when you spent so many miles doing it.

Today, on a long day trip, I reached for the… coffee cup, to downshift, about forty times.

Rowing a clutch back and forth to work doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, but I did it for a quarter million miles and the roads werent’ as good then as now. Maybe I’ll have to go back. They even made a Sploder with a 5 speed, though the clutch is stiff as an everclear milkshake. Now all I need to do is drive a Passat for a while, if I can do the Passat diesel and the clutch is as nice as the Jetta, I may have something worthwhile.

is still a good read, all things said. I just did the three Smiley books, and they’re everthing they always were. I’m tickled to have reread them.

There’s a good deal of subtlety in what those clever Circus folks did. I know there’s a lot more electronic shit going on now, and it has probably replaced the subtlety of that earlier time. But those skills, if you can develop them yourself, still work.

One of my favorite old Family Classics movies, I’d forgotten what a gazetteer of Hollywood it is. Everyone is in this, and I’mna tell you, some big ass names in bit parts. Frank sinatra is a piano player in a saloon for about thirty seconds. Red Skelton, a drunk in the same saloon. Finlay Currie. Noel Coward. Charles Boyer. Buster Keaton as a conductor! Joe E Brown. Peter Lorre. Marlene Dietrich. It’s a good movie just to watch and recognize the big players in bit parts.