Thanks, Tabula - that line just popped out while I was figuring out what to say this week. Turns out that was it. 

But of course, they wanted 932 more words, so.

The man could sell a song. 

Y'know, Jeffp, you are of course right, but where's the fun in that? ;)

I was more impressed by "Appointment in Samarra."  Not as mythic or romantic, but it haunts me much more than Gatsby's mystery or the narrator's 20-something boats-against-the-current musings. In "Samarra" it's adults in the boat, with the current, heading for the falls. 

Your wisdom shines like a shaft of gold, when all around is dark!

I love Twitter. A constant stream of links to news and things I'd otherwise miss; quick communication with readers without resorting to email (which I do hate); illusion of contact with Celebrities (got a tweet from the actress who played Seven of Nine on Star Trek; cross that off the bucket list); notes from people I do know from the writing world; odd juxtapositions of the sort you only find in the modern world (I'm following a cop in LA who tweets about his shifts, and he posted a picture last week of himself standing on the snow-covered shore of a lake ten blocks from my house); instant action from companies who are good at social media (a rant about ADT on Twitter got them to wave a $49.00 bill; an epic Twitter rant about a UPS screwup led to two guys from the home office putting on brown uniforms and delivering the item to my house.)

Once I wrote that Twitter made my phone a box of imaginary friends I can carry around and open when I please. 

I encountered Sigur Ros the way it was meant to be experienced: on the inflight music system of Icelandic Air, heading to the heavens at sunset.

Hah! USAA sold me the million-dollar policy too. I told my wife to go ahead, cause a multi-car accident on the highway. We can cover it now.

I love cheerful old ad mascots. Reddy fascinated me as a kid because he was made of electrical bolts, and had to wear gloves lest you shake his hand and get your toenails blown off.

He has a rival, by the way. 

I heard of this service a few months ago, and was impressed they'd discovered a niche in the market. I wish them well. 

On the other hand, today I got an investment statement (because I forgot to go paperless), a letter from the church about daughter's summer camp, a women's athletic gear catalog, a cruise-line brochure, and a note from the lawn-service company. During the walk from the mailbox to the kitchen, I performed triage: garbage, recycling, wife's pile, my stuff. Done. Cost: $0.00.

Which, in modern terms, now makes me one of those off-the-grid Luddite cranks.

I can correct, and am filled with shame. "Photoshop has no spell check" will now be tattooed on my forehead backwards so I see it when I look in the mirror.

Thanks for the catch - aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, etc. etc. ;)

FWIW, I interviewed a woman the other day who was one of the biggest radio stars of her day, with an audience of 27 million. She's 96. 

Ditto what gdfsp said; I use the PaperKarma app to nix junk mail. I've tried to get off the mailing list for a certain cruise line, to no avail - it's just astonishing how many thick glossy brochures and books they send. Whatever they made on my cruise years ago, they surely have spent it by now.

What Peter said. Romanticism exalted the urgent truths of Emotion - mostly booshwa, but heady stuff to a young man.  But it really got galloping when realism got supplanted by the gauzy unraveling of the representational tradition, which opened the doors for Abstract Expressionism, Surrealiism, Dadaism, and all the other Brave Blows against the bourgeois sensibilities. 

As for "crazy," well, my favorite story of an artist with a bent towards the unusual came from Berlioz' autobiography, where he describes how he dressed up in women's clothing to sneak into the chalet of a woman who spurned him, and shoot her with a pistol concealed in his bustle. He thought better of it on the way over.

OTOH, Mahler's music was late Romantic and highly individual; his personal life was utterly conventional.  

Hope springs infernal in the human breast.

Saucy! I specifically nixed the weather-talk due to a complaint, and STILL YOU COMPLAIN! ;) I can't win.