We conclude the popularity contest with another small Bleat designed to undercut every reason you have to vote for me. Lengthy daily updates? Nah. Action-packed rollicking yarns about Target? Not this week. Sonorous, obvious remarks on Today’s Events? Please. I give you this, an ad from 1975:

You may ask, as Tevye put it, what this is? I’ll tell you. But not yet.

The reason I’m shy this week, as mentioned, is double extra-strength obligations at the paper. And speaking of which: the imam story, in case you hadn’t noticed, was ably covered by my colleague Katherine Kersten, here. (It's the third of three parts.) I’ve been reading various local message boards to gauge the local response, and most of the commentors on the left seem to agree that she is a harpy who is nuts and her sources are bad and this was racism pure and simple, so there. A more interesting dissent is raised here, and responded to here. If you’re so inclined, give it a read. I’m leery of the create-a-scene-to-help-the legislation angle myself; it feels like a bit of a leap, but I can’t say why. 

I would like to see a story on the content of the imam’s conference, which my source said was loud and vociferous – as well as rude; requests to TURN IT DOWN so people in the adjacent conference room were ignored. Again, I can’t give you names, since no one to whom I spoke did so for attribution; you can trust or distrust me as you please. It would help, though, if Rep. Ellison, who was in attendance, described the event, and a reporter followed up with impressions from those in the hotel at the same time.

Do hold your breath! It’s a good test of your lung strength.

Busy as the day was, it had the monthly imperative: Chuck E. Cheese. Once again, I was heartened to note that the pizza recipe has indeed been changed; one slightly-more edible pizza is a fluke, but three consecutive non-evil pizzas implies a shift in company policy. The sugar content of each slice has been reduced to six cups, for example. The amount of kapok in the crust is down 50 percent. At least one-eighth grain of pepper has been added to the sauce. Progress. We played all the usual games, but she insisted on riding the snowmobile simulator – sorry, the EXTREME snowmobile simulator – by herself; she chose a difficult track, and finished the race for the first time, perhaps because she dispatched a few competitors with the ATOMIC BLAST.  When we ran out of tokens she cashed them in for 184 points, which were spent on a fake microphone, a plastic bracelet, and two fairy wands. Treasure unmeasurable, at least for the moment.

On the way home I stopped at McDonald’s, which I rarely do. One cheeseburger: 95 cents. A double cheeseburger: $1.00. Gosh, that's a tough one. The double was inedible; the cheese was horrid and funky, like some sort of Venusian canine feces, and I gave up after two bites and stuffed it back in the sack. I felt unclean. I wanted Max von Sydow to show up and sprinkle me with consecrated soda and demand that I reject Ronald and all of his works. Went home and ate a bag of salad. Bachelorhood in your 20s: dinner is a bag of Doritos. Batching it in your married forties: you eat a bag of romaine, because it’s good for your various pre-punished innards. I went back to writing the big bolus while Gnat practiced her spelling – Friday test tomorrow, with tricky Super Challenge Words (thought, remember – are they reading the Little Golden Book of Proust?) At bathtime she put on a CD that was in heavy rotation two years ago, and we sang along and danced and acted out the songs. It’s interesting: when it’s just the two of us, she often regresses to old standards. Olie, favorite Cds, old games. Believe me: no complaints.

And now it’s late; I’m 425 words shy of the end of the giant piece, and the first 275 are dull. Well, that’s what tomorrow’s for. In the meantime, some minor treats. Diner-wise, here’s the MP3 for part 2. The iTunes version will be delivered if you subscribe, or you can click on the link below. NOTE: bandwidth will not be clear until Friday morning, in case you're reading this in the early AM. I can't even check to see if the link works right now. Argh.

To answer repeated inquiries: these are not scripted, which is why they’re stupid. If I sat down and plotted this stuff out they might make a little more sense. In this case I had a batch of tunes I wanted to use, and one of them set the plot in motion, as you’ll see. As soon as I played it I thought – well, of course, and the thing with the Santa robot fell into place. If you know what I mean. (Incidentally, the music in the strange scene did not originally include sleigh bells. I added that, with apologies to Angelo Badalamenti.)

As for Mr. 1975: it’s an addition to the Institute Archives, which I hope makes up for this week. Thanks for the visits and the votes (ahem!) , and have a grand weekend.