The Buffalo Devil and Wendysgate

I finished reading L. Frank Baum's Animal Fairy Tales at work today. It was a short but interesting read, being made up of nine short stories about animals. It' s interesting that three of the stories feature an animal challenging another animal for the position of King. In one of these stories, the animal who is challenged is a buffalo who has made a deal with the Evil Genius, who is portrayed as a sort of buffalo Devil. There are also the familiar Baumian concepts of an inanimate object being brought to life, and an alleged wise man (or, in this case, ape) being exposed as a fraud. There are clearly shades of the Frogman, Kwytoffle, the Wise Men of Gotham (from Mother Goose in Prose), and even the Wizard of Oz himself in the story of Chip-Cheloogoo. The stories aren't Baum's best by any means, but they were fun to read.

On Queer Eye for the Straight Guy last night, they played part of the Pixies' "Here Comes Your Man." That was pretty cool to hear.

Today, I bought a used copy of a Replacements album for $3. I've had mixed feelings about the Replacements songs I've heard, and I've seen comments to the effect that some of their albums were really good and others really not-so-good. If I don't like it, though, it was only $3, so that's no big deal.

The people working at the used CD store were apparently really against John Kerry, and one of them was telling the other one about how Kerry's campaign party didn't actually EAT the Wendy's food they bought a few days ago. This demonstrates how Kerry is an elitist who wants to be seen as a regular guy, or something. Hey, maybe they could make a scandal out of it! How does "Wendysgate" sound? I guess it's about as relevant to someone's performance as a leader as that whole Monica Lewinsky thing, after all. I'm willing to give the campaign party the benefit of a doubt, though. Maybe they didn't realize Wendy's had changed their chicken sandwich until after they'd gotten back to their vehicle.