Maggie's Farm

Among various other business interests, my Gramps had the Elco dealership for New England in the 30s. Although he was mainly a sailor, he loved all sorts of boats, and the dealership made it possible for him to have a new Elco every year. I still think of the Elco as the classic yacht. You can still buy them, if you want to can afford to mess with wooden hulls. The history of Elco here. (BTW, PT 109 was built by Elco.) He donated his last Elco to the war effort. It was shipped to Britain, and used at Dunkirk.

Here's a 1925 57' Flat Top Motor Yacht ($195,000):

Here's a 1938 34' Sedan Cruiser ($137,000):

A sight for sore eyes, especially considering the vulgar, non-nautical appearance of most modern motor yachts. You can look at other old Elcos for sale here.

Dracula's castle for sale. BBC. Cheap, but can you afford to heat it?

17 cool and unusual buildings.

It's not a Hinckley, but the Fortier 26 seems like a fine boat, for less than half the price of the Hinckley Picnic Boat. You can find one used between $60-90,000. Certainly enough boat to handle the blue water off Block and the Islands, or Maine.

Several men are in the locker room of a golf club. A cell phone on a bench rings and a man engages the hands-free speaker function and begins to talk. Everyone else in the room stops to listen.

MAN: "Hello"

WOMAN: "Honey, it's me. Are you at the club?"

MAN: "Yes"

WOMAN: "I am at the mall now and found this beautiful leather coat. It's only $2,500. Is it OK if I buy it?"

MAN: "Sure, go ahead if you like it that much."

WOMAN: "I also stopped by the Mercedes dealership and saw the new 2007 models. I saw one I really liked."

MAN: "How much?"

WOMAN: "$92,000"

MAN: "OK, but for that price try to get it with all the options."

WOMAN: "Great! Oh, and one more thing...the house I wanted last year is back on the market. They're asking $3,500,000"

MAN: "Well, then go ahead and give them an offer of $3,000,000., in cash. They will probably take it. If not, we can go a few extra 100 thousands if it's really a pretty good price."

WOMAN: "OK. I'll see you later! I love you so much!"

MAN: "Bye! I love you, too."

The man hangs up. The other men in the locker room are staring at him in astonishment, mouths agape.

MAN (turns and asks):  "Anyone know who this phone belongs to?"

1. Loyal Reader: Thanks for the tip on the Big Damn Book of Sheer Manliness. Somebody should have given me that one when I was 15, but I see it didn't come out until '98. I done gess I jes gotta get me one for my own dam sef.

2. Another extraordinary "manspace" I have seen is an aquaintance who put a two-story cathedral-ceilinged addition on his house for his gun collection. No windows (for security), and a steel door to the rest of the house. Huge fieldstone fireplace with a Cape Buffalo headmount over the mantle, leather couches, antique oriental rugs, and balcony all around the second level with built-in mahogany gun racks for his collection of one example of every Winchester ever made. Plus enough other guns to fully stock a high-end gun shop. Room loaded with game heads - Africa and N. America - and mounted birds. A heavy glass door to the stairway to the stone-lined underground wine cellar. Wow.

3.  Re the whole question of moderate Moslems  towelheads, click continuation page for the really good kind of towelhead (almost, but not quite, work-safe):

Do most men need a place to go to be alone, or to be with the guys, where they can feel undomesticated among their own stuff? I think so.

The barn, the garage, the workshop, the tack room, the gun room, and, in big houses, maybe the library or the study. A "family room" does not fit the bill - it defeats the purpose.

Villainous Company takes a look at a new book, Manspace. 

Also, Dust my Broom shows you his.

Gwynnie and I have a friend who has the best "manspace" I have ever seen. It's his boathouse, with a deck over the water. Inside, cabinets for his boating and fishing stuff, racks for fishing poles, racks suspended from the ceiling for masts, a pool table, a refrigerator filled with beer, a well-stocked humidor, a cooktop, a bar, TV, music and good speakers, etc etc. Decorated with hunting and fishing art. There's a big old wood stove, but he had the place heated and insulated.

You know about PEBD, right? (h/t, Jules C):

Recovering PEBD victims vividly confirm Leveran's description of the disease. "I found myself completely paralyzed by joy," said Malcolm Renner, whose website recently sold for 1.2 billion dollars. "I could tell--foggily--that my Maserati teetered on the edge of a mountain road in Tuscany," he recalled, "but if the supermodels in my back seat had been an ounce lighter, I wouldn't be here today."

Whole heart-breaking article here. I think we need a Federal program to help these people. Teams of counselors and social workers, ready to go at a moment's notice. Maybe involve FEMA, too.

Definitely unusual - but life is strange. Here. Piece at Ace.

Ace, predictably, wondered about their future sex life, but we wondered about motor control. Whose brain does the walking? It seems to me that the one on the right just kinda goes along for the ride. Anyway, the whole thing is fascinating, and they are remarkable in their "normalcy."

A new bio of the remarkable, irrepressible William James is out. Quote from review in the Boston Globe:

In "William James," Robert Richardson, whose previous subjects were Thoreau and Emerson, seeks to understand James's "life through his work, not the other way around." Richardson presents no new interpretations of James's theories of pragmatism and pluralism. Nor does he attempt to critique them. But he has a knack for explaining complex ideas clearly and elegantly and for bringing to life a fascinating character. Various William Jameses, Richardson suggests, lived inside the man: As he willed himself into optimism, he was often sad, irritable, and depressed. But the "central" or "essential" James was an apostle of activity, spontaneity, doubt, chance, and chaos, "astonishingly, even alarmingly open to new experiences," including a headlong plunge into the maelstrom of American modernism.

The whole thing is here.  Image: Henry and brother William (on right) James. Two brothers could hardly be more different in temperament. Henry was "an old lady," and William a wild and crazy, drug-abusing, skirt-chasing dude.

With pin-up calendars for hospitalized vets. (h/t, Iowahawk)

This healthy-lookin gal Gina has really nice hats.

And what could be more health-promoting than cute girls?

You can buy one for yourself too, if you want one - but it's not tax-deductible. If you go there, tell 'em Dave from Iowahawk sent ya. Dave deserves the credit.