Patrick Swayze’s G-string, Churchill’s half-smoked cigar, and a sample book of burial monuments

Lot 1: Crazy for Swayze

It would be possible, perhaps even desirable, to devote this entire column to the “Property from the Estate of Patrick Swayze,” to be offered by Julien’s Auctions in Los Angeles on April 28. Swayze, the heartthrob who danced his way onto the screen in the ’80s and ’90s, was, it turns out, a real man’s man. His estate is teeming with saddles and guns (he was born in Houston), cigar paraphernalia, skydiving equipment, plus a Harley Davidson and a DeLorean. He made his Hollywood debut in Skatetown U.S.A. in 1979 and followed it up with the 1983 cult classic, The Outsiders, starring alongside Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, and Rob Lowe. Then came a string of hunky roles, the best known of which are Dirty Dancing (1987), Road House (1989), Ghost (1990), and Point Break (1991).

Speaking of string, one of the auction’s eye-openers is Swayze’s set-worn, Willing & Able brand G-string, of which a photo was sadly not furnished (see lot 169 in the catalog). He donned the provocative garment in Keeping Mum (2005), a British comedy starring Maggie Smith. The estimate is a mere $200–400.

Those who may have watched Dirty Dancing — say, 251 times — in their youth will be elated to learn that, for $4,000–6,000, they can buy the black leather motorcycle jacket Swayze (as Johnny Castle) sports when he utters one of the most famous lines in movie history: “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.” Swoon!

Others might be stoked to see the actor’s surf stuff for sale, particularly the Spyder board likely used in the night surfing scene in Point Break. The board is inscribed to Swayze from its designer. It, too, is estimated to bring in $4,000+.

Lot 2: A Slightly Used Cigar

On a list of the “Top 100 Cigar Smokers of the Twentieth Century,” Winston Churchill secured first place, a tribute we might now consider passé in the smoke-free twenty-first century. It is guessed that the former British prime minister enjoyed eight to ten cigars per day, so it’s no small wonder that several have turned up at auction over the years, some untouched, some chewed, and some half-smoked.

Lot 747, consigned to a two-day country house sale at Halls in Shrewsbury, England, on April 26 and 27, is of the latter variety. Apparently Churchill took a few puffs from it in Paris on May 11, 1947. “He stubbed out the cigar in an ashtray after boarding the plane and it was taken into protective custody by Corporal William Alan Turner,” said auctioneer Andrew Beeston. “The cigar remained in late Corporal Turner’s possession and must have been a topic of conversation for many years. Had it not been half smoked by the great man, the value would have been much less and the photograph supports the provenance.”

Yes, Churchill’s gummed cigars raise more at auction than the un-gummed. One pre-smoked specimen sold for £2,000 ($2,478) in 2015, and Halls expects this one to match or best that result.

Lot 3: Real Estate Futures

Planning for retirement is a two-part process: 1) peruse a Florida real estate guide, and 2) flip through a salesman’s sampler of headstones and mausoleums. This one, containing 95 photographs of cemetery structures from the Raymond Granite Company, c. 1930, can help one select a final, final resting place. Simple slab? Or something more ornate, like the tomb pictured below.

Amongst an eclectic auction of photographs and photobooks at Swann Galleries in New York on April 20 — featuring, it should be noted, a cache of fin-de-siècle porn — this delightfully morbid group of photos may reach $1,800–2,200.

Rebecca Rego Barry is the author of Rare Books Uncovered: True Stories of Fantastic Finds in Unlikely Places.

‘Withnail & I’ came out so many years ago, how did that happen?

One of the many terrible things about not dying is living long enough to see the celebration of impossible-seeming anniversaries occur with depressing regularity. Withnail and I, which most days is just in the upper half of my list of top ten all-time movies, apparently turns thirty this year, which can’t be right because I saw it in the theatre as a vibrant young fellow with a cheerful disposition and a boundless curiosity and a boundless zest for life and that would mean that now I’m — oh my God, I’m so old. Anyway, here’s a nice bit where resident Withnail Richard E. Grant shares ancient memories and such. If you haven’t seen the movie yet what is wrong with you, and if you have and you don’t care for it I would once have asked the same question but the older I get the less I give a shit about how stupid anyone else is. Here:

Withnail and I: Cult classic turns 30 – BBC News

The results are in and everyone overshot the mark.

Good morning. I may have scolded you too harshly last week, because most everyone except for steve rousseau (nice) had a guess that was too high and I also failed to clarify whether I would be looking for the closest guess without going over (the usual guess-how-many-widgets-in-a-container rules), and so I will have to stick to my own words: “whoever’s guess is closest,” no qualification.

The Second Sort-Of Annual Change Bowl Guessing Game

I also didn’t say that I wouldn’t accept Twitter guesses but that’s mainly because I wanted you to engage with my blog in the comments Kinja below the post, as more of a social media strategy than a strict rule of the game, but also because that makes it procedurally more easy for me, as the decider, if all the guesses are neatly aligned in one platform.

The correct answer was $557.37

THAT SAID, the closest guess ($567.89, lol) did actually come in the form of a Medium comment from reader J.D. Connor, a professor of cinematic studies at the University of Southern California. Congrats to J.D., who will win something, maybe the half-full bottle of pumpkin cordial, maybe a galley of a novel, or maybe a nice used paperback Dostoevsky. Very amazing that his possibly joke guess was only off by $10.52. Sometimes that’s just how the Coke Zero crumbles. Sorry to all you other dummies, but thank you for playing and engaging with our content. I had fun.

Notes on life

Liana Finck is 5’6″.

Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?

If a holiday happens on a Sunday, so that you don’t even get a day off, it is basically just robbing you of half your weekend, right? It’s just another way to make you a little more miserable, RIGHT? Ugh, I’m sorry. This is not the way I wanted to start the week. I meant to be more upbeat and positive. Now if you’ll excuse me I am going to go spend hours in line at the post office so I can send money to the government. Here’s something to listen to while I’m gone. Enjoy.

★★★★ The chill on the morning was enlivening. Gradually the veil scattering the sun thinned to transparency. The 11:30 appointment turned out, on a leisurely double-check, to have been for 11 sharp, but conditions were fine for frantically rushing uptown in; the sweat went away quickly. The neck feathers of a pigeon shimmered as it coasted down to land beside another pigeon in the also-shimmering waters of the fountain. Pear trees were blooming, preliminarily but surely. Bicyclists were going uptown and crosstown, with and against traffic, in obedience to and disobedience of the signals.

Furiouser and Furiouser

FAST AND FURIOUS AND FINDING NEMO

INT. A DODGE CHARGER RECKLESSLY DRIVING UNDERWATER THROUGH PRECIOUS ENDANGERED CORAL REEF

Dom is wearing a scuba mask.

DOM
(Through bubbles, yelling)
NEMO NEEDS HIS FATHER

LETTY
But didn’t he already find —

DOM
YOU NEVER LET DOWN FAMILY

LETTY
I know but I think —

DOM
FAMILY.

THE FAST PIRATES OF THE FURIOUS CARIBBEAN

INT: A PIRATE SHIP MADE ENTIRELY OF CAR PARTS

The crew is well-suited for the pirate lifestyle. Dom appears pleased with the sartorial choices of pirates, as well: cut-off everything. Gisele is practicing her sword skills on the rear end of the ship. Mia, as usual, nurses a child. Hobbs is plugging a hole on the main deck with his entire forearm.

ROMAN
Ha-HA! We really out here!

TEJ
Shut up, Roman.

ROMAN
I’m about to get me some mermaid love!

Several dozen women in bikinis appear on the ship out of nowhere. “Danza Kuduro” plays. The team downs bottle after bottle of refreshing, delicious Corona.

Meanwhile, beneath the waters, an evil submarine lurks.

LA LA LAND

INT. A “JAZZ” CLUB

RYAN GOSLING
(Sitting at piano, smirking)
Here’s how I invented jazz —

A Dodge Charger suddenly drives through the brick wall of the club.

DOM
(Gruff, but yelling)
MOONLIGHT WON.

FAST & FURIOUS: THE BOSTON ONE

INT. SOMEWHERE IN BOSTON, IT DOESN’T MATTER.

MATT DAMON
I am nawt a cawp!

BRIAN O’CONNER
(Driving a cop car)
I am also nawt a cawp!

MARK WAHLBERG
Who the f*ck is this guy?

ALEC BALDWIN
Get a load of this freaking guy.

JACK NICHOLSON
Fer chrissakes, are you a cawp or are you nawt a cawp?

BRIAN O’CONNER
(Looks confused)
Uhhh…

CARS: FAST AND FURIOUS FOR KIDS

LIGHTNING MCQUEEN
Let’s race!

HOBBS
(Slowly taking in his now-animated surroundings)
I ain’t seen this many clown-ass mama’s boys since I volunteered in a children’s burn unit in Sao Paulo. Now which one of you fluffy little losers wants to dance with the devil tonight?

ELENA
Hobbs, I don’t think this is that kind of movie…

HOBBS pulls a flamethrower from his trunk.

12 FURIOUS MEN

INT. JURY ROOM IN A COURTHOUSE IN SOUTH LOS ANGELES

Dom is wearing a business suit with the sleeves ripped off.

TEJ
Do literally any of us know how the legal system works?

BRIAN O’CONNER
I mean, I was a cop back in the —

DOM
LET’S RIDE.

BRIAN
Dom, we haven’t decided on a verdict yet, this man’s life hangs —

DOM
LET’S RIDE.

LETTY, MIA, and the REST OF THE HOT FEMALE CHARACTERS airlift the team from the roof of the courtyard building.

DOM
(Voiceover from the helicopter)
WHERE I COME FROM, THE ONLY KIND OF JUSTICE IS CAR JUSTICE.

FAST & FURIOUS 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

INT. A DODGE CHARGER FLOATING THROUGH SPACE

DOM
(Confused)
What the…

FAST AND FURIOUS: PINOCCHIO GRIFT

INT. GEPPETTO’S WORKSHOP.

TEJ
The codes we need for the job are inside that wooden doll.

ROMAN
Ha ha, now you really playin’, man.

MIA
I don’t think he is, Roman.

HOBBS
(Yelling)
I’m gonna break that candyass carpenter six ways to Sunday if that’s what I gotta do to get them codes.

HOBBS rips the door off Geppetto’s workshop and proceeds to break every one of his bones.

HOBBS
(Looking down at stolen Pinocchio doll)
You ain’t lying no more, boy.

(The first one was eight years ago.)

According to Dusty Matthews, Awl technician and Texan anthropologist, “the worst development for society in the last 4–6 years or so is TD Bank taking their coin machines out of their branches.” We firmly agree. Do you even know where to find a Coinstar machine these days? What do you do with your change now? Do you just throw it in the trash? I know you’re not giving it to your barista, whom you are instead lavishing with full paper dollar bills. Remember when you used to be able to go to the bank with these kinds of problems? The banks aren’t for you, the citizen, anymore—they’re for the corporations and the traders.

Anyway, here’s a bunch of change again. Please tell us how much you think is in each bag, and/or all together. Honestly if you get either of them close that will count. You guys really fucked this up last time, FWIW—the answer was $624.58 and the highest guess without going over was $368). Keep in mind: The one on the left is mixed coinage, and the one on the right is all quarters. Coke Zero for scale:

The winner (i.e., whoever’s guess is closest) will win either one book selected at random from the book room or all the leftover euros and Icelandic coins or maybe an original Liana Finck drawing. I don’t know I haven’t decided yet. Here is the book room FYI:

JARED and IVANKA are driving to the White House’s annual Easter egg roll. JARED is sulking, listening to his music. IVANKA is parenting the KUSHNER CHILDREN. They’re rehearsing the national anthem of the next head of state they will meet. The DRIVER opens the door for IVANKA and individually validates each child before they run over to the EASTER BUNNY. IVANKA walks over to JARED’s door and opens it. JARED is singing all the Zayn parts of that one Taylor Swift song.

IVANKA [to the DRIVER]: I never knew he was a falsetto. [IVANKA removes Jared’s headphones.] These cancel your sound not ours.

JARED [averting eye contact]: I’m not getting out. [JARED likes Instagram photos of models and of tiny homes in wooded, rainy locations.] Where did Spicer get ‘Holocaust Center’ from? Is it because Bannon uses the expression so often that he internalized it? He makes it sound like an Amazon — like the building where they put together the orders. We read a case about them in business school.

IVANKA [unbuckling Jared’s seatbelt]: An Amazon fulfillment center. Do you really think Steve Bannon would attend this event? He’s with the generals and the other warmongers in Mar-a-Lago. Now get out of the car.

JARED [submitting]: You said we were only hiring Bannon to help flip the racists in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. And the election is over.

IVANKA [calmly]: How dare you verbalize that.

[A pickup truck, its bed overflowing with National Park System signage, pulls up behind the Kushner car. STEVE BANNON and REBEKAH MERCER emerge. STEVE BANNON stares at JARED like he is Robert De Niro from Taxi Driver but he ate Robert De Niro from Cape Fear. JARED mouths, “Don’t look at me.”]

STEVE BANNON [sarcastically]: Rebekah, look. It’s the Democrat and his wife, Bitcoin.

[STEVE BANNON walks towards the Easter egg roll. He is carrying a garbage bag and trays of eggs, stacked on top of each other. JARED and IVANKA also walk to the festivities. JARED is texting a friend from college. “Hey, I’m at work now,” JARED types, “Is everything ok?”]

IVANKA [smiling for the crowds of parents and children]: Who are you texting?

JARED: Someone from before. [JARED’s friend responds that everything is cool. He sends a meme of James Harden without a beard. JARED types that he is dying even though he isn’t laughing at all.]

IVANKA [to JARED and to crowds]: Please discontinue.

[Meanwhile a bird craps on STEVE BANNON’s head and face. He licks his face threateningly before he drops the eggs off beside the EASTER BUNNY, who is gathering the children to demonstrate how the race works. The EASTER BUNNY places a row of eggs on the ground and then hands two to JARED and IVANKA. JARED has never handled an egg before, and alarmed by its coldness, he drops it. The egg splatters all over everyone’s expensive shoes. The children also break many eggs, as they attempt to roll them, as instructed, with their noses.]

IVANKA [to the EASTER BUNNY]: Why aren’t these hard-boiled or wooden? I read that they would be wooden.

[The EASTER BUNNY removes its head. It’s KELLYANNE CONWAY.]

KELLYANNE: Yes, of course, Ivanka. I’ve had high-level strategy work, as I expect you understand. The first hundred days rebrand.

MARK BURNETT [rushing towards the stalled egg roll]: What’s going on here? I have the cameras rolling. Do we need to restage this?

KELLYANNE [purring]: Mark! You’re so brilliant to produce this like it’s a reality show. The people love guessing who is next to fall out of the President’s favor.

IVANKA: The liberals, especially, are engaging with the narrative. They enjoy projecting onto us. They enjoy recapping us like we’re “The Sopranos.”

KELLYANNE [feeling on]: What about — and I know we all promised we’d leave everything in the brainstorming session — but hear me out. One hundred days seems like such a long time, especially for our voters. What if we shift the focus to one?

MARK BURNETT [intrigued]: One what?

JARED [imagining what his friends will say about him when he dies]: One term.

IVANKA [feeling powerful]: First term.

[Meanwhile it’s mayhem. STEVE BANNON has gathered a group of the children, and is handing them face wash from one of the garbage bags from REBEKAH MERCER’s pickup. He is directing the children to squeeze the face wash, the kind with microbeads, directly into the sewers.]

IVANKA [to her DRIVER]: Please go stop that.

[GARY COHN walks outside and, as TRUMP’s most favored advisor, presses the button to unfurl the projection screen. TRUMP will speak to the children via streaming image from Mar-a-Lago. GARY and JARED then discuss how public service does have its perks, namely the hours.]

KELLYANNE [sensing alliances are shifting]: How was your Pesach, Gary? Did you get my gift basket from Russ & Daughters?

GARY [high-frequency trading via his Blackberry which he refuses to give up, first out of stubborn yet aloof arrogance and then because it has become so much a part of his personal brand that he couldn’t really ever change now]: Hi Tiffany. I got your email about your best friend’s kid working at Goldman this summer.

KELLYANNE [existentially]: I’m Kelly —

GARY [still high-frequency trading]: What do you think of us keeping Janet Yellen on, Tiffany?

KELLYANNE [messaging herself to send Janet Yellen a pallet of Girl Scout cookies and a signed copy of Sheryl Sandberg’s latest book]: Brilliant idea.

GARY: Hold on. It’s my quant. [GARY answers his Blackberry.] Vlad. Short [GARY covers the receiver while whispering to KELLYANNE] What’s something you need for an abortion? [KELLYANNE negs GARY. He speaks again to Vlad.] And go long on, I guess, our defense contractor stuff.

[TRUMP appears on the projection screen. The children and staff can see and hear him but not vice versa.]

TRUMP: Where are Jared and Steve? Steve, who I barely know by the way. Are they here? Are you two getting along?

[STEVE BANNON chucks a wooden egg, from the stacks of wooden eggs he swapped with KELLYANNE before the roll, at JARED.]

TRUMP: This is such a wonderful day. A great day, better than Obama’s. Better than Crooked Hillary’s. God is — [TRUMP smirks. He looks off camera.] Really? God? [MARK BURNETT cuts off the projection.]

[STEVE BANNON keeps tossing wooden eggs, but most of them miss his target, JARED. Because he is extremely out of shape, the repeated throwing motion injures STEVE BANNON’s back. He hobbles away, into the White House, where he plans to pop some pills and then Dutch oven himself in the smallest bathroom he can find. KELLYANNE explains to the children who remain, covered in yolk and whimpering, that they can’t make a delicious chocolate cake if they don’t crack a few eggs.]

JARED [to GARY COHN]: Okay, how about this one? An Uber but for trash collection. [JARED gestures to REBEKAH MERCER’s pickup.]

GARY [not listening, still high-frequency trading]: Love it, kid.

JARED [triumphantly]: We can hire Bannon next week when he’s out of a job.

GARY [present]: No, wait. He’s the drunk driver, right?

JARED: Steve drinks?

It’s amazing and everyone on it is hot.

A few weeks ago, a Facebook friend of mine (yeah — I have Facebook friends) posted a request for TV show recommendations. I, too, was in need of TV show recommendations, am always in need of TV show recommendations, so I scanned the list of comments. Most of them were things everyone has already seen (“ever tried ‘Parks and Rec’?” — this person’s friend), but I also saw a couple enthusiastic shout-outs to a show called “Schitt’s Creek.” I had seen the show among the “new to Netflix” selections and scrolled right past it. I am here today to make sure you don’t make the same mistake I did.

“Schitt’s Creek,” which was just renewed for a fourth season, is a Canadian show co-created and written by Eugene Levy and his son, Daniel Levy, who star as Johnny and David Rose, respectively. The show centers around a formerly wealthy family — Johnny, wife Moira (Catherine O’Hara), and their adult children David and Alexis (Annie Murphy) — who is forced to move to a small town called Schitt’s Creek after losing their fortune and assets to government seizure because their crooked business manager hasn’t been paying their taxes. The Rose family happens to own Schitt’s Creek because they bought it as a birthday present for then-sixteen-year-old David as a joke. With nowhere else to go, no money, and very little practical job experience, they move into two adjoining rooms at the local motel and attempt to start a new life. Because they must live off the reluctant good fortune of the townspeople (the family keeps a “running tab” at the town’s cafe to cover their meals), the Roses are beholden to a group of people they approach with varying levels of contempt, pity, and benevolent condescension. But in their new small-town surroundings, it is the Roses who are made ridiculous.

In Schitt’s Creek’s riches-to-rags storyline there is an obvious parallel to “Arrested Development,” but where the Bluths are dysfunctional individualists, the Roses are an essentially happy family, and basically kind to one another. David and Alexis bicker like teenagers, but they are also best friends. Johnny is often baffled by Moira’s behavior, but one never doubts how much he loves her. David and Alexis are sometimes embarrassed by their parents, but they also stand by them — in a recent episode, David saves his mother from certain embarrassment at the hands of his own ex, a famous New York photographer, and the two walk away arm-in-arm. None of them is thrilled to be where they are, but all are aware how much worse things would be without each other.

There isn’t much I can say about this without giving the good stuff away, so you’ll have to trust me when I say that the show’s romantic arcs, too, are fresh and surprising. David’s character is presumed bisexual by a comparison he makes to wines (he likes red and white), though he doesn’t claim any label explicitly. In fact, the topic mainly seems to bore him — at least until [spoiler spoiler season three ahhhh spoiler]. Alexis quickly gets involved with the two hottest guys in town (hello, Tim Rozon), but neither works out the way you’d expect. For her, too, there is an indifference to her approach which is refreshing in a female TV character in her late twenties. Also, she is very, very funny. The entire Rose family is so good it would be nearly impossible to pick a favorite, but Annie Murphy’s timing, and the specificity of her facial expressions, are unparalleled.

But really, everyone is great. Catherine O’Hara plays the former soap opera star with a delightfully strange Mid-Atlantic accent and an endearing self-assuredness disproportionate to her acting talent. Eugene Levy is the perfect straight man in a conservative suit next to Moira’s endless parade of black-and-white ensembles and fashion wigs. Daniel Levy is sardonic and more self-aware than his sister, but only slightly, and he obviously gets his fashion sense from his mother. He is also very handsome. Then there are all the townspeople: Chris Elliott as mayor and Jennifer Robinson as his wife, Sarah Levy (Eugene’s daughter and Daniel’s sister) as beleaguered waitress Twyla, Emily Hampshire’s deadpan hotel concierge Stevie. Everyone is so good!

What more do you people need?!!! There are two seasons of this show available on Netflix right this minute, and you can get the third on Amazon prime for twenty bucks. I promise it is worth it. It’s so funny and good, and there are so many attractive people on it, and it’s made me say “aw” out loud about sixty times. I’m going to start it over again right now while I wait for season four.