It is admittedly still early in our Summer of Death, but I have to believe that when we look back at the sunny season of 2009 from the vantage point of twenty years on, this is how we'll see those more innocent times. Kudos to graphic artist Todd Grantham for so expertly capturing the zeitgeist.

William Darrell Mays, Jr., the modern-day colporteur whose stentorian tones helped overcome Americans' innate distrust of barbate concessionaires, passed away this weekend, possibly as a result of being struck on the head by a heavy object during a difficult commercial airplane landing. Mays, whose legacy of encumbering consumers with gimmicky products of dubious utility was a microcosm of the Long Boom and its senseless spending patterns, was 50 years old, which means that both he and Michael Jackson were older than the President of the United States. Weird, right?