The Illuminated Donkey flips on the teevee, Johnny Walker in hand, and blogs the Iowa caucuses. Among other learned observations, he notes that “less than 1% of Iowans are under 50 years old; seriously, it’s like that Soviet town they used to show in the yogurt commercials,” and that Joe Lieberman has a big future as a Chinese-food deliveryman.

And stop to admire the election-season graphics, why don’tcha. You’ll have to hum the puffed-up brassy pseudo-march soundtrack by yourself – just take Tom Waits’ “Jersey Girl”, imagine it all in majors and up-tempo with snares and no vocals and you’ll be on the right track.

Today it was sunny and 60, the white moutains bright in the distance as the cedar-scented breezes ruffled my hair.

Tintin & Switzerland excites me with information on the real Marlinspike and other locales near Lac Leman, including a cameo appearance in The Calculus Affair of a place I have been. In fact, I was there rather frequently for a part of my life around 1982. The interior of the station at Lausanne stands in for one at Cornavin, presumably in Geneva.

via The Cartoonist, via, uh, things mag.

Jeez, the things citations are outta hand.

Making of America: at Cornell.

…A digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. This site provides access to 267 monograph volumes and over 100,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints. The project represents a major collaborative endeavor in preservation and electronic access to historical texts.

Via this typically thoughtful Paul Ford post.

Design inspiration, certainly. When, oh when, will I see my long-desired handbills archive out there in the aether?