Burn the passports

It's very nice to just wander
The camel route to Iraq
—"It's Nice to Go Trav'ling" (sung by Frank Sinatra), at Moistworks

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Shades of End Zone:

Mr. Blagojevich, 52, rarely turns up for work at his official state office in Chicago, former employees say, is unapologetically late to almost everything, and can treat employees with disdain, cursing and erupting in fury for failings as mundane as neglecting to have at hand at all times his preferred black Paul Mitchell hairbrush. He calls the brush “the football,” an allusion to the “nuclear football,” or the bomb codes never to be out of reach of a president. —NYT

Can you sing anything?

Two ur-versions of Big Star's "Stroke It Noel," and much more, at Moistworks.

Sound advice

From Pinky: "[D]uring the early days of sound, the studios had such trouble with recording that some banned jewelry from their sets (too jangly) and oiled down all the actors’ hair (to prevent static-y crackles)."

Brian Evenson at Moistworks has some mighty Conan musings.

At Office Naps, Smokey Robinson's "I Care About Detroit."

Who said it?

Editing is like cooking something very delicate that must be milled or strained three or four or five times. –Jenny D, "Aphorism of the Day"

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Do you think Americans have a right to know about a candidate’s personal life? Well, look. What’s that great line? There’s no such thing as a saint without a past and a sinner without a future.

Who said that? I just did.

—Deborah Solomon, "Questions for Christopher Dodd," NYT Magazine

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Half of the people can be part right some of the time
Some of the people can be all right part of the time.
But all of the people can't be all right all the time.
I think Abe Lincoln said that.
"I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours."
I said that. —Bob Dylan, "Talkin' World War III Blues"

Bonus via Moistworks: Dylan on education.

More Dizzies Newsfeeds™ for Wednesday, July 25

Via Levi: The New York Sun has excerpted Luc Sante's "Commerce," which will appear in toto in the forthcoming book New York Calling (U. Chicago).

Once after leaving the World, a club on 2nd Street, I was riding in a taxi with J and R. Rounding a corner, we saw a mutual acquaintance, using a car hanger, breaking into a parked car. We knew he did things like that, but none of us had ever seen him in action. It was like watching a nature documentary—or better: It was exactly like looking out the window and seeing an egret building its nest.

(Here's what Jenny D had to say about it.)

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Beatles covers galore at Moistworks.