“It later emerged the spider had probably been living in the woman’s ear canal for up to five days, that it may have crawled in while she slept in her home during renovations.”
 — Unsettlingly, there is a photo.

★★★★ Humid but welcoming, like the night air by the ocean. You could get the jeans off the wardrobe shelf again; high, mottled morning clouds kept the sun in check. Gradually the sky burned clear in the east, and things resolved into a cool pearlescent evening. People were visibly at ease. Only the white-clad nascent flash mob looked a little tense, toting folding tables and picnic baskets through the subway, mindful of the burdens of their spontaneity. Like any picnic, really. The hassle of reaching a fun accommodation with the outdoors. But wouldn’t it be lovely when they got there?

by Sarah Marshall and Michael Magnes

1. Chicken in white wine sauce, salad, and tea

2. Half a bottle of Israeli wine

3. A tuna sandwich

4. A glass of white Bordeaux and a croque monsieur

5. Ice cubes

6. Coffee, orange juice, two boiled eggs, bacon, and toast with marmalade

7. Vegetarian pasta

8. Boiled yams, rice broth, bamboo, and a blueberry muffin

9. A mushroom and asparagus omelet, Dover sole, and vegetable tempura

10. A Hershey bar

11. Homemade fish chowder

12. A slice of apple pie and a glass of milk at a diner in Paso Robles

13. Medium-rare steak, two eggs over easy, hash browns, milk, coffee, orange juice, and toast with butter and jelly

14. Cookies and ice cream

15. Lentil soup

16. Chili and beans

17. A New York strip steak, baked potato, Caesar salad, and a glass of Bordeaux

18. A corned beef sandwich and tea at the Stage Deli in New York

19. Brandy and beef soup and more brandy

20. Guacamole, stuffed mushrooms, meatballs, and Dom Perignon 1953

21. French onion soup (when asked, earlier, about a hypothetical first meal, listed caviar, oysters, foie gras, pan-roasted duck, and a poached pear or pungent sorbet with walnut cake)

22. Goat’s milk, vegetables, oranges, and a mixture of ginger, lemon, ghee, and aloe juice

23. Cactus, berries, and leaves

24. Was fasting for several days before death

25. Figs — also, a cobra

***

A. John F. Kennedy

B. Ted Bundy

C. Cleopatra

D. Allen Ginsberg

E. Marilyn Monroe

F. James Dean

G. Julia Child

H. Adolf Eichmann

I. Jim Morrison

J. Steve McQueen

K. Jimi Hendrix

L. Princess Diana

M. Elvis Presley

N. Adolf Hitler

O. Gandhi

P. Hsing-Hsing

Q. John Belushi

R. F. Scott Fitzgerald

S. Janis Joplin

T. Robert E. Lee

U. John Lennon

V. Ernest Hemingway

W. Lonesome George

X. John F. Kennedy Jr.

Y. Martin Luther King Jr.

1=X, 2=H, 3=K, 4=I, 5=J, 6=A, 7=N, 8=P, 9=L, 10=R, 11=D, 12=F, 13=B, 14=M, 15=Q, 16=S, 17=V, 18=U, 19=T, 20=E, 21=G, 22=O, 23=W 24=Y, 25=C

Michael Magnes hopes his last meal will be a Trader Joe’s Salsa Verde Chicken Burrito and a cappuccino muffin from Bergen Bagels. Sarah Marshall wants fried chicken and blackberries. Photo by stu_spivack.

Are kids today devaluing “I love you” by using it all the time?

“Why try and trademark something his ass didn’t even create? I am mad that he isn’t giving me proper recognition for taking my saying. He is just disrespectful.”
 — Yes. Compton rapper MC Eiht says he is going to send Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte a cease and desist order to block him from trademarking the phrase “jeah.” (Which MC Eiht has has been saying since the late 80s.)

“On the subject of Ms. Didion’s writing about herself, Ms. Roiphe concludes: ‘Didion did it elegantly, but many of those who followed did it not so elegantly.’ She names Anna Quindlen, Maureen Dowd, Susan Orlean and Meghan Daum, though she fails to name herself.”
 — Katie Roiphe’s “body of criticism presumes culture is determined entirely by things people have said to or about her.”

@paulryanvp says Forcible rape, @toddakin says #LegitimateRape, @ronpaul says honest rape. Nice.

— Jennifer Gunter (@DrJenGunter) August 21, 2012

Rape was so much simpler last year, when we just had rape and rape-rape. Now that we’re having the War on Women Election — it’s your turn again, ladies! — we have to be really cognizant of how many different kinds of rape there are and which are more serious, important and bad.

“An experiment on primate alcoholism may have gotten out of control recently in Augusta where police found an allegedly intoxicated lab technician with his pants down in a room with uncaged monkeys.”

Haha, the GOP plank this year won’t even get down with civil unions, much less gay marriage, because it’s 1952. Must be a hard year to be a young Republican or even that old mythical “social liberal/fiscal conservative.”

The rotary dial was a building block of civilization, the key that unlocked the phone system for millions of people. It was an integral part of your parents’ lives. Imagine your father stuffing his dirty fingers into the waiting greasy dialpits, over and over and over again, over and over and over and over again, ringing your mother’s bell until finally she shudders and reaches — for the phone and says: “Hello? This is [YOUR MOTHER’S NAME].” “Hey,” says your father, “this is [YOUR FATHER’S NAME].” “Well, how do you like that?” asks your mother even though she likes it very much. He asks her out to dinner. “Let me check my busy calendar,” she says. She goes so far as to coyly ruffle pages of the nearby phone book. “As it turns out,” she says, “I’ve had a cancellation.” Not much later your father drives by and picks her up and off they go. And usually they would have just had dinner, but this night — this night initiated by dialing on a rotary phone — they have a couple of nice chops and too much red wine, and, maybe it was the pretty moon, they find themselves engaging in penetrative sexual intercourse, your mother and father. Both of them.

— What’s as interesting as the Internet? Practically everything.