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Thursday, August 6th, 2009Hair Oil Futures Spike
Friday, July 11th, 2008Piltdown Exchange: A sharp rise in Hair oil futures caught traders flatfooted as the monthly inventory report showed a dip in supplies. Trading curbs imposed at noon prevented a blow off in the vital commodity as circuit breakers blew. Rumors that Daniel Baldwin had a buzz cut curtailed some of the panic although the possibility of a remake of WALL STREET drove the price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate Hair Gel to an all time high.
Light Sweet Crude: With his hair slicked back a young man may pursue numerous careers especially those requiring an aura of ruthlessness. Nowhere is this more evident than on the trading floor where those with limp dry hair are pushed to the rear of the crowd helpless to prevent financial ruin.
Speculators Blamed: Professor Moriarity has studied the markets for years and believes that speculators are manipulating supply. Hair Oil Reserves represent a stockpile of the strategic stuff stored in tank farms in the Mojave Desert. “During the 1980s the reserves were low as demand crested,” Moriarity said. Supplies rebounded in the ’90s but now emerging nations are net importers of the precious pomade. “Indian and Chinese men want to look ruthless too,” he said.
Refining Margins Squeezed: Having survived the writer’s strike, Hollywood faces a new threat: actors with crummy hair. Villains on the Lifetime Channel alone require 400,000 barrels of hair oil a level of demand now exceeded by Bollywood. Some have proposed drilling in the Santa Barbara Channel while others see the La Brea Tarpits as a short term solution. Actors could be dipped in the Tar Pits semi-annually for hair maintenance.
Hybrid Hair? Professor Moriarty may have an ingenious solution. After studying Baywatch reruns he realized that water may be a substitute for Hair Oil. “When I saw Pammy on the beach I saw hair oil independence,” he said. The professor demonstrated by pouring a bottle of Evian water onto the head of volunteer Alfredo Garcia. Alfredo’s hair glistened for eleven minutes before evaporation took its toll.
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia: the professor will repeat his experiment near the New York Commodities Exchange after the market closes.
T. Rex Love-Handles reporting.
Fund Managers to the Leg
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008Wellington Elementary School: With the secret of Eugenia Phaeton’s financial success about to be revealed, fund managers gathered for Story Time at our local grammar school. Regular readers may recall how 9 year old Eugenia rocked the financial markets with her show and tell project My Hedge Fund. Today she disclosed that after her project received a C from Mrs. Haggerty, Eugenia borrowed 1.4 billion dollars from a consortium of money center banks. The “no-doc loan” ignored the fact that the loan application included a stick figure crayon drawing now believed to be a self-portrait.
Tootsie Roll Defense: On advice from Timmy, a classmate, Eugenia attempted to corner the Tootsie Roll market but her mother cracked down. Instead of buying candy Eugenia began shorting the very money center banks and prime brokers who had loaned her money in the first place. As their stocks cratered Eugenia leveraged her position by sticking out her tongue at other managers and making them cry.
Treasury Secretary Paulson is insisting that the loan to Eugenia be nullified and that her controlling interest in Citigroup be “rolled back.” But My Hedge Fund has liquidated its position: Eugenia has fourteen billion dollars in treasury bills.
Governors on a Blanket: Many of the central bank’s regional governors attended Story Time today, and one, Ben Bernanke, had to be hushed by Mrs. Haggerty. “Chairman Bernanke was urging Eugenia to underpin the US dollar when Mrs. Haggarty reminded him that Story Time is also Quiet Time.”
Executives from Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, and Morgan Stanley will conference call with Eugenia unless Scooby Do is on. “They had better not call after six,” Eugenia’s Mom warned. “Especially from the Euro Zone,” she added.
T. Rex Love-handles reporting.
Whale Note May Be Fake
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008Wellington Leg: Yet another literary scandal may be brewing, this time right here in Wellington Leg, a towne whose literary credentials were swallowed whole only twenty four hours ago. The note instructing a blue whale to “swallow the earl” may have been penned by Prince Gaspar whose imperial Sharpie is now in the custody of CSI Caruso. That the scandal touches the Royal Family makes matters all the more complicated for the dedicated members of the Literary Fraud division of the Wellington Leg Constabulary.
Prince Gaspar Cannot Swim: Alerted to the crisis the Dowager Princess reminded court reporters that her nephew, fourteenth in line to the throne, “very nearly drown in two inches of water,” late last summer. Prince Gaspar, who is six feet tall, lay face down in a mud puddle of undetermined depth before a running footman came to his aid and rescue. “Would a man who cannot swim seek the company of a great ocean going behemoth?” she asked.
Doubts Linger: Experiments with whales and writing instruments have thus far demonstrated a marked indifference on the part of whales toward putting pen to paper. Despite the crackpot theories put forth by Professor Moriarity there remains little scientific evidence that a blue whale would write a note to a gray whale or a humpback to an Orca.
Boris cited: Hair stylist and former Soviet Ambassador to Wellington Leg, Mr. Boris is facing a fine for his role in the earl’s misadventure at sea. “I never flushed a whale down the toilet,” Boris said while banging his shoe on his desk. Lab technicians have built of a scale model of the toilet at considerable expense to the taxpayers. Attempts to stuff a whale down the toilet have been complicated by the absence of an actual whale. “We’re using bowling balls and a great big plunger,” said CSI Caruso. Results to date include a strike and a spare.
T. Rex Love-Handles reporting.
Don’t Send a Fancy ARC, Send the Author
Wednesday, April 11th, 2007According to Publishers Weekly Minotaur is escalating the ARC wars with 4,000 galleys set for BEA distribution of Chelsea Cain’s novel HEARTSICK. According to PW reporter Rachel Deahl, “four thousand galleys, stuffed in clear evidence bags, were mailed to booksellers and the press last week, making the September novel appear it was culled from the scene of a crime.” ( Some paraphrasing here but that’s the gist.)
Matthew Baldacci is the VP of Marketing at Minotaur which is an imprint of St. Martins Press part of the Holtzbrinck empire. Mr. Baldacci says the effort is costing SMP “a significant amount of money.”
Financial editor of the Druidical & Literary, Stanley Morgan, although fictitious, has this to say: “A significant amount of money is one billion dollars. I don’t think this campaign will spend more than a few hundred thousand.”
None of the D&L’s literary team is familiar with Chelsea Cain’s work. A quick check with Marge, the afternoon cashier at Eddie’s Book Nook revealed that another publisher recently mailed her an entire author in lieu of an ARC. “That’s where the ARC wars are going,” Marge said. “Constant escalation.”
Literary critic Ildephonse Macaroni could not be reached for comment. His WIP I COOK is entering the pre-auction frenzy his agent Lydia Careerbreaker calls “robust.” Mr. Macaroni is prepared to be air-mailed to anyone whose anyone but not everyone whose anyone for fear of “reprisals.” Thus many who are someone may be disappointed but no one who is anyone will be overlooked.
Something of a Highlight Reel
Monday, March 19th, 2007From the Wellington Leg Archives: We’ve reproduced remarks attributed to an archivist whose apartment became a prison then a condo and then a co-op before reprivatizing into a prison, who, by city ordnance, must remain anonymous. His blog was unearthed by archaelogists who weren’t looking for blogs at all but rather in an attempt to understand life in the Old City at the turn of the century uncovered a mural etched in the dank clay beneath the substrata depicting a pre-volcanic event believed to be associated with “writing.”
“gathering my wits I seize control of this blog in an attempt to create a human highlight reel out of which will come a clarity once thought so elusive as to be unobtainable. armed with that clarity I will convey what should have been said ages ago before the desire to blog first stirred, before cassius walmartus boxed us in, before my trivial concerns, condo, co-op, bubble, high velocity spatter first manifest…”
We do know this much: shortly before the meteor struck, Wellington Leg was ruled by Cassius W. Many of his Parking Regulations and Decrees survived the impact and subsequent confusion. “He was a human highlight reel,” noted Historian Bron Palaver. “We believe the author of the blog may have harbored a seditious inclination toward the Status Quo, born of an inability to play the bounce in Wellington Leg’s always frothy literary wars.”
Perhaps we’ll never know. The reign of Cassius W. ended abruptly in AD 2007 when a fishmonger hurled a salmon against the windshield of the emperor’s late model Volkswagen. Whether by accident or design this “fender bender” preceded a meteor strike which in turn caused Mount Veneer to bury the towne in magma. Perhaps it explains why both blogging and salmon hurling remain forbidden to this day long after the Restoration.
We hoped you’ve enjoyed this historical interlude from the Wellington Leg Archives. Tomorrow we’ll examine “likely causes of the Second Punic War” Will Hannibal Barca sack and burn Barcelona? Big H is back and he’s blogging about it. It’s a Wellington Leg exclusive.
Earl in Christmas Tree Mishap
Monday, December 25th, 2006Wellington Leg: An attempt to reach the highest star came acropper this morning when the Earl of Watership Down vanished into the decorated branches of a one hundred foot Sitka spruce. “He’s been in there for several hours,” noted Publicist of Gloom Lars Kierkegaard. “It was a vainglorious attempt to adjust the star that graces the very tip of the mighty tree,” Lars continued. “Several maritime creatures had conspired to move the star closer to true north,” he added.
DCI Borchardt, on duty this festive weekend, rushed to the scene of the earl’s mysterious disappearance. “This is a hoax,” he muttered. Three penguins of uncertain origin were observed “falling off the curb” by eye-witness Eugenia Gadfly of GreatBigTreesGoFlying Avenue. “Mrs. Gadfly also reported receiving VOLTAIRE’S MIASMA as a Christmas gift,” Borchardt said. “What fiend would do such a thing?”
Elsewhere in the Leg, Wilfredo Tagesblatt reported that the Guillotine is working again. “I’m making scalloped potatoes,” he added. “This is great.”
At the Tower, Mrs. Anderson-Cooper, QC, wished everyone “Seasons Greetings.” Her phalanx of elderly Walmart doormen pressed through towne “in search of hooligans,” but were flummoxed by the earl’s “vanishment.” The Prosecutrix, who’d seen an owl on her balcony, remained indoors studying film of the Raiders offense.
With Costco closed, police units withdrew from the Overflow Lot where Roman skirmishers were sighted last week. DCI Borchardt suspects these strange doings are related. “The earl vanishes in a tree…penguins jump from the curb, the guillotine is working and I’m using the present tense. It’s beginning to look a lot like…Wellington Leg.”
A cab driver reported “theft of service” by an Orca shortly after midnight. The great beast swallowed the aging Marathon before spitting it out. The cabbie had been reading ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE when the Orca struck. He was breathalyzed and dragged before Judge Hamilcar Frist. “We danced the night away,” the judge remarked. Prinz Pomerol of Regensburg reporting.
Whither the Essay Contest?
Thursday, August 31st, 2006With the earl in custody Wellington Leg officials are debating the future of the I HAVE SEEN THE EARL ESSAY CONTEST. Thus far four hundred and thirty bona fide entries have arrived at the Praesidium. WPC Mavis Davis-Gavus has taken charge of the essays, each one carefully labeled “essay” after the near disastrous incident with Wellington Leg Waste Management’s roving Recycle Squad. Davis-Gavus is herself a contestant although she is quick to point out that rather than seeing the earl during his interlude of freedom, she “imagined” the encounter during tai chi in Mad Hatter Park. “He was swathed in striped toothpaste,” she recalled. “I thought he looked sad.”
D.Rumsfeld, Proprietor of the Crutched Lynx on Great Balls of Fire Strasse, will judge the entries with the assistance of the Reading Auxiliary, a volunteer organization. Rumsfeld, faithful readers recall, is a promoter of Reading Under Water, a controversial method of appreciating literature. “The pages may be carried off by a rip tide,” warned Underwater Reader Professor Moriarity. “Indeed, the reader may be swept out to sea.” Beginners are urged to utilize a Fred Flintstone Pool and short stories. Professor Moriarity cautioned against reading the Earl’s work near bodies of water known for “tidal flux.”
Mrs. Bonita Beauregard owner of a vegan restaurant near Rittenhaus Circus has entered four essays since the earl’s incarceration. Business has been brisk since the Decima Claudia Legion pitched camp nearby. Her soy and cornmeal confections are especially popular with the invaders. Good service is essential says she, otherwise, “Roman troops will throw javelins at the wait staff.” Concetta Comedia della Arta reporting.
Quick Note to the American Dry Cleaning Association
Wednesday, May 10th, 2006This isn’t a dry cleaning blog and it pains me to confess I didn’t know there was such a thing. Anyway I appreciate all the traffic and hope you guys enjoy a book or two when you’re not blogging about dry cleaning.
New Feature: How Did it Go?
Saturday, March 4th, 2006The blog is adding new feature as of this weekend. We invite attendees of writers conferences and literary events to tell us how they fared at the conferences. Conferences like SDSU in January and the San Francisco Writers Conference in February have wrapped up. Let us know how you enjoyed the events.