The Writer's Life 5/20 - Words & Pictures

The Post Office suffered bad press recently, as it was reported that it had lost $65 billion in the past eleven years. In the interest of fairness, here are snippets of a response from a union official that appeared in today's NY Post: "... profit three of the last four years, averaging one billion per... red ink stems from political, not postal, factors. In 2006 Congress mandated something no entity - public or private - does: pre-fund future benefits 75 years into the future and pay for it all in a decade... that accounts for the losses..." (Edited for clarity)

Just how many of each letter are there in a tin of alphabet spaghetti? John Stitch of Britain spent nearly four hours taking part in a forensic investigation to find out. He used two cans of Heinz pasta and a pair of tweezers to take the letters out individually. Although he caught a lot of guff from know-it-alls on social media, I think it's cool, although, granted, nutty. Here's a pic from metro.co.uk of the contents of one:

New Yorkers constantly see weird stuff on the subway. Here's a pic taken by a Boston straphanger and published by the dailymail.com:

Born Rose Marie Emma, Joan Taylor had a solid Hollywood acting career which spanned 1949-1963. Her mom was Austrian and her dad Sicilian. He managed a movie house in Lake Forest, Illinois. There are 41 titles listed under Taylor's name at IMDb. She is most remembered for her roles in two 1950's sci-fi black and white classics in which the visual effects were done by the legendary Ray Harryhausen: Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) and 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957). The latter begins in Sicily. Taylor plays the grand-daughter of a local scientist. She appeared in many TV series, most notably in 18 episodes of The Rifleman as a love interest for Lucas McCain/Chuck Connors. In 1979 she wrote an episode of Family. In 1980 she had a novel published dealing with rape, Asking for It, which was adapted into a TV movie starring Valerie Harper. In 1990 she wrote and directed a short feature titled Redlands. She is credited for story on Fools Rush In (1997), a romcom starring Matthew Perry and Salma Hayek, and adaptation (teleplay) of the memoir A Change of Heart by Claire Sylvia, a transplant survivor, and William Novak, retitled Heart of a Stranger (2002) and starring Jane Seymour. She passed away in 2012 at 82. Well done, comare. Here are two pics:

For the first time in two weeks the floating book shop worked Bay Parkway. My thanks to the young man who bought Machiavelli's The Prince, and to Monsey, who purchased a Santana CD compilation.

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