(Roughly) Daily

Celebrity Vinyl is a reminder of what happens when famous people decide to give singing a try. The number of celebrities (and pseudo-celebrities) that have indulged such hubris boggles the mind: Burt Reynolds, Scott Baio, Shaquille O’Neal, John Travolta (5 discs, with John in various states of undress on their covers), Eddie Murphy, Leonard Nimoy, Alyssa Milano… a (high)point: Terry Bradshaw’s closing track “He’s The Man I’m Looking For” (Lynn Swann? Jimmy Johnson?)

The collection was born when the advertising agency that employed author Tom Hamling elected to transfer its audio library to CDs.  Since then, he has spent close to a decade acquiring celebrity vinyl, rooting through record store bins and traveling to far-flung flea markets. Hamling says of his ongoing quest to collect these curiously compelling objects, “Sometimes I feel like Dr. Richard Kimble in search of the one-armed man. Except my one-armed man is the inaudible shriek of Jennifer Love Hewitt.”

More here.

As we reconsider our repertoires, we might spare a word of thanks for Elwyn Brooks (E.B.) White, the author (of Charlotte’s Web and other classics), who revised and enlarged The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. He was born this date in 1899.

The living language is like a cow-path: it is the creation of the cows themselves, who, having created it, follow it or depart from it according to their whims or their needs. From daily use, the path undergoes change. A cow is under no obligation to stay.
– E.B. White