Chapel Hill Daze: Pictures of Another Gone World: West Franklin Street, 1968-2018

Along West Franklin Street, starting at the Columbia Street intersection and heading toward Carrboro, there are still some vestiges of the Chapel Hill of 1968. There were more when I was a student at the University of North Carolina.

Of the "south" side of West Franklin, I've previously discussed University Square in another post. Next was Hardee's at 213 West Franklin (now there's a Panera at that address); Union Bus Station at 311 (the Franklin Hotel is now at that address) and the Chapel Hill Weekly newspaper at 501.

I certainly remember the Hardee's and the newspaper building, having eaten at the former and worked immediately next to the latter (at Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill).

The bus station building I remember vaguely. Having been completed in 1946, it soon thereafter became part of the history of the civil rights movement:

"On April 9, 1947, eight African American and eight white members of CORE (known as the Freedom Riders) set out from Washington, D.C. on Greyhound and Trailways buses; on April 12, both buses arrived in Chapel Hill. As the buses departed Chapel Hill for Greensboro on April 13, four of the riders were arrested. The commotion aboard the buses drew a large crowd of spectators, including several white taxi drivers. 

The men were taken to the police station, with a fifty dollar bond placed on each man. As white rider James Peck got off the bus to pay their bonds, a taxi driver struck him in the head.  

In May 1947, those members who had been arrested went on trial and were sentenced. The riders unsuccessfully appealed their sentences. On March 21, 1949, they surrendered at the courthouse in Hillsborough and were sent to segregated chain gangs." 

The bus station's food service desegregated in the early 1960s, under pressure.  Source: "Trailways Bus Station," Open Orange. Website link here.

Of the "north" side of West Franklin, an earlier post covered the first block off from Columbia Street, heading toward Carrboro. If you crossed Church Street going in the same direction in 1968, there was a Belk-Leggett department store at 206 West Franklin, Fowler's meats at 306, Carolina Grill at 312, Village Pharmacy at 318 and The Cavern at 452 1/2.  

The Bookshop (pictured above) came into being in 1985 at 400 West Franklin, a merger of Keith Martin Bookshop and Bookends (both Chapel Hill book shops). I remember all three of them, having bought books at each. The Bookshop closed in the summer of 2017, having lasted close to thirty-two years in that location.

Belk-Leggett was gone from its 206 location by the time I came to Chapel Hill. Fowler's was still at 306 for a while and then folded. There was one in Durham, too. 

I loved the Carolina Grill -- you could eat like a king on the budget of a college student. Which may be why they eventually had to close. I remember flat steaks there, excellent meat and potatoes type staples, probably requisitioned from next-door Fowler's. It was sort of like a large hall with tables, for some reason making me think of a Bavarian beer hall in memory. 

Village Pharmacy, 318 West Franklin, "Home of the Big O." This place was around for a while but must have eventually died on the vine. Browsing issues of the Daily Tar Heel, I came across an advertisement for Village Pharmacy from the September 28, 1949 issue: "Opposite Bus Station - Phone F-3966."  In "land line" telephone exchanges of the twentieth century, "F" might be named Flanders, Fleetwood, Factory, etcetera.  In any case, when I was working at Algonquin Books, I'd occasionally walk to Village Pharmacy for its soda fountain features. They served fresh lemonade, orangeade, milkshakes and grill food. No longer.

The Cave is a long-standing underground bar and music venue. Because I have detailed location notes from college journals dating to the 1980s, I'll devote more time to The Cave in a later post. It nearly folded after fifty years (1968-2018), but was saved by Melissa Swingle and Autumn Spencer in the summer of 2018 -- thank God! Here's a link to their website. Dig it!

Invaluable resource to cross-check memories, places:  OCCUPANTS AND STRUCTURES OF FRANKLIN STREET, CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA AT 5-YEAR INTERVALS, 1793-1998, by Bernard Lee Bryant, Jr. Chapel Hill Historical Society, printed out by J.D. Eyre in 1999. Link here.

Today's Rune: Partnership. 

What Happened to Kerouac? (1986, 2012)

Regarding Richard Lerner and Lewis MacAdams' What Happened to Kerouac? (1986, 2012), it's no joke to say this is an "indispensable" cultural library of primary Beat Generation sources. 

Beyond the insights into Jack Kerouac as person and writer, the viewer is treated to the wide range of personalities and dispositions rendering them: from Gregory Corso, a "real pisser," to the more reserved but very serious minded Michael McLure, from the affable priest Spike Morrissette to the most cogent of all, Ann Charters. There is also plenty of archival footage to accompany the literal voice of Kerouac.

Particularly in the expanded 2012 edition, there is an astonishing array of good stuff in here. There is an accompanying website.

Today's Rune: Movement.
     

William S. Burroughs: Commissioner of Sewers (1991)

Klaus Maeck's William S. Burroughs: Commissioner of Sewers (1991) renders a good introduction to Burroughs, in which one may either like what he has to say or hate it -- there's little in between. The film weaves together a solid, interesting interview conducted by Jürgen Ploog, author of Cola-Hinterland (1969) and Sternzeit 23 (1975), with samples of public readings and archival film footage. Everything works together like a nifty cut-up energized by palimpsestic language.  

Table of contents:

The Do Rights

A Writer

Western Lands

The Writer

The Cut Ups

Roosevelt After Inauguration

Young Writers

Young People

The Word

Thanksgiving Prayer

Travelling

Dr. Benway

The Future

This may be of interest to any writer or artist, to creative people with open minds (assuming ears not offended by colorful choice of diction). Burroughs touches on differences between The Tibetan Book of the Dead and The Egyptian Book of the Dead, class warfare even after death (only the rich and powerful get mummies, but mummies are fragile), and -- in the post-credit coda, space travel -- don't miss the jellyfish astronauts! 

Today's Rune: Growth. 

Chapel Hill, North Carolina: West Franklin Street 3

Among other places, I ducked into Internationalist Books at 405 West [Benjamin] Franklin Street over Thanksgiving Break. This Chapel Hill cultural institution was founded by Bob Sheldon in the early 1980s, orginally over on Henderson Street above the then-location of Linda's Bar. Hector's, a Greek (and Trojan) hangout, was next door.

Bob moved into a bigger space at 408 West Rosemary Street, behind (north of) Franklin, about a year later. That's the one I worked at while still an undergraduate student at UNC. Bob also graciously permitted the Internationalist to be utilized as a meeting and yakking place and staging point for ad hoc protest groups, such as the one I joined to march and occupy Republican Congressman Bill Cobey's office with in 1985.

Now, in 2012 at the latest incarnation of Internationalist Books, I bought some artwork and chatted to a new worker about more recent goings on, and about Bob. 

To the right on the fringe of the picture above is the front of a record store, another still thriving Chapel Hill tradition.  

On the top shelf of this scanned image from inside Internationalist Books is a photo of founder Bob Sheldon, who was killed on February 21, 1991. The 1992 song "Chapel Hill" by Sonic Youth is loosely based on his death.

A salute to Bob and the Internationalist Books community!

Today's Rune: Journey.   

Chapel Hill, North Carolina: West Franklin Street 2

This is the "ghost entrance" to Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. This portal worked magically in the mid-1980s. I was employed as an officer runner here at the time and, near the end of Algonquin's operations at this West Franklin Street location, as de facto shipping manager. We stored most books in the very nearby warehouse of The Chapel Hill News (aka Weekly). Go through those shadows now and you'd find repurposed offices and new people working in them.  

Across the street, to the right, was Pyewacket (at 431 West Franklin), a nifty-fifty eatery and social focal point adjoining "The Courtyard" area in the back. Now there appears to be another restaurant in the old Pyewacket space -- Vimala's Curryblossom Cafe.

By November 24, 2012, when the above image was captured, a mural of flowers had sprouted on the back walls. New since I worked there. The wooden frames weren't there before, either. The rail fence on the right was. I remember one day seeing Michael Jordan in a convertible at the adjacent spot in the roadway, making some kind of commercial.

I was just coming back to this exact same spot from a delivery errand on January 28, 1986 when the NASA Space Shuttle Challenger blew up. On the radio station I had on in my car, a reporter claimed everything had gone perfectly, but when I got to the office a few minutes later, everyone was freaking out -- and for good reason. Things had not gone perfectly at all.

David Lynch's Blue Velvet came out later the same year, in September.  At Algonquin, there was extra buzz about Blue Velvet because it had been filmed in Lumberton and Wilmington, North Carolina.

Final echo: up and down that spectral hallway pictured above, a moustached man would loudly whistle "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" as he came and went via another office suite -- for months and months in a row. Not too surprisingly, he was nicknamed "Mr. Zip-a-Dee" by Algonquin staff.  But hey, at least he wasn't whistling "Blue Velvet!" No sign of him this time around. Wherever he is now regardless, there may be a Mr. Bluebird on his shoulder -- which would be plenty weird enough.

Today's Rune: Signals.

The Rise of the Corporate Logo

The cover of Newsweek (March 8, 1965). Paper flags on toothpicks stuck into a map of Europe. Bon appétit. How many of these corporate logos remain intact nearly fifty years later? What about the corporations they represent?

Right off the bat, the logos for Chrysler, General Electric and Westinghouse look pretty much the same in 2012 as they did in 1965. Those for Ford, General Motors, ITT (formerly International Telephone & Telegraph) and IBM (International Business Machines) are perfectly recognizable. NCR (once National Cash Register) has an expanded logo. RCA (Radio Corporation of America) was absorbed by GE in 1986. Sperry Rand truncated to Sperry alone in 1978 and was absorbed into other corporations starting in 1986. How about the red and blue dollar signs? No idea. Generic "flavor," perhaps.

The Big Three aka the Detroit Three nearly half a century later: GM is worth more than $150 billion; Ford Motor Company, about $136 billion; and Chrysler Group (not represented in the 1965 logos), about $55 billion.

General Electric -- approximately $148 billion.
IBM -- about $107 billion.
ITT -- approximately $11 billion.
Westinghouse Electric Company (majority owner
Toshiba) -- guestimate $5-6 billion.

Isn't that something?
 
Today's Rune: Signals.

   

Rivals

Here's another symbolic artifact, a token and objet de mémoire. Notice the symbol of a D-Devil (actually a Blue Devil), then revelation of date, place and seating: November 22, 1986, Wade Stadium, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America, West Side, Section 30, Row NN, Seat 16. Opponent: North Carolina (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).

What this entry ticket doesn't reveal is the list price ($15.00), or the intensity of the Duke-UNC rivalry. Not so much in football as in basketball, but real enough across the board.

And then there's the matter of who won the game. Answer: North Carolina. Score:

UNC 42
Duke 35

In the tradition of the ancient Greeks and Romans, spectators array themselves in a hippodrome-like stadium (both Greek words) to watch opposing teams go at each other. Humans love this kind of symbolic conflict as much as they love "real" conflict -- maybe more so. Luckily, with modern football and basketball, casualties are far lighter than in a full out assault with edged weapons. However, the vestiges of real combat in football are clearly in evidence with reinforced padding and helmets. The whole modern sports approach reveals a clever sublimation of primal, atavistic energies. Plus you can bet on the outcome, just as Greeks and Romans did.

"It is what it is." Do you have any favorite rivalries? Or "at the end of the day" . . . "going forward" . . . is it "all good?"

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.       

Lina Wertmüller: Summer Night, with Greek Profile, Almond Eyes and Scent of Basil

On the one hand, Lina Wertmüller's Notte d'estate con profilo greco, occhi a mandorla e odore di basilico / Summer Night, with Greek Profile, Almond Eyes and Scent of Basil (1986) captures the garishness of the 1980s, and on the other, it continues to explore some of her perennial topics -- sex and power, gender and socio-economic class. Despite beautiful scenery, a catchy kitsch pop soundtrack, pugnacious dialogue and memorable performances by Mariangela Melato (as super wealthy Fulvia) and Roberto Herlitzka (as semi-retired CIA contractor Turi), I can't imagine many would seek this one out.

The basic setup for Summer Night, with Greek Profile, Almond Eyes and Scent of Basil  is this: Fulvia has Turi capture a bandit gangster (Beppe, played gruntingly by Michele Placido) to toy with while waiting for ransom from his crime organization in revenge for ransom her corporation had paid to it. They keep him in chains, eyes often covered. Despite the comic tone of the film, it evokes certain unpleasant images (Gitmo and Abu Ghraib come to mind, for instance), and there are unflattering references to the US-Vietnam War, the Shah's Iran and the Iranian Revolution, and US involvement in Nicaragua. Use of technology includes closed circuit TV (constant surveillance of the prisoner) and psychological manipulation. Beyond this, there is a primal mutual attraction between Fulvia and Beppe, making Turi jealous. For better and for worse, human nature endures -- "and the rest is history."  

Today's Rune: Movement.    

Eating Some Sort of Food . . .

A. Q & A Session. 

1. Is there a food you used to like and now hate, or vice versa?

2. Is there a kind of cuisine that tastes better (or worse) now than say five or ten years ago?


B. Theme Session.

Then one day he was shooting for some food,
And up through the ground come a bubbling crude . . .

-- "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" (1962)

 . . . eating some sort of food . . . -- William S. Burroughs (1986)

Today's Rune: Separation (Reversed).

The Iran-Contra Scandal

"I went down to the demonstration /
to get my fair share of abuse . . ."

And this is why: the Reagan Administration. Its support for the Contras and similar death squad entities in Latin America. 

Iran-Contra.

What was that again?  Israel-US-Iran-Iraq-Nicaragua involved in a bizarre, intricate scheme that came down to trading weapons to Iran for cash and a trickle of hostage releases in Lebanon; the cash was to be rerouted to the Contras secretly as a way to get around US legal restrictions against sending weapons to either Contras or Iranians. It was so brazenly stupid that even now, looking back, I'd be amazed except for continued blunders and stupidity, such as how an American officer -- after US forces have spent more than ten years in Afghanistan -- could be so dense as to burn Korans and basically hand a political victory over to the Taliban by inciting serious unrest throughout the region. And we wonder why the Afghan Army being trained by the West for an entire decade is either A) not ever going to be up to the task we "assigned" them; or B) prefering not to, like an army of Bartleby the Scriveners?  Or that three out of four Republican presidential candidates (excepting only Ron Paul) in this year's national nominating process have already loudly announced their intention of participating in or even gleefully starting an Israel/US-Iran war?  Good God, folks!  How else can we define collective madness?
   

"What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god!"

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

Paris: At the Grave of Jim Morrison -- Third Visit

Third visitation to Cimetière du Père-Lachaise in Paris, including paying homage at Jim Morrison's grave, this time on May 1, 1986: fête des travailleurs/International Workers' Day, just days after the Chernobyl fiasco began. An anarchists' procession romped through the cemetery while I was there -- black flags, red armbands, singing and music. Then the police moved in to disperse everyone among the living.

Père-Lachaise: always interesting.

Today's Rune: The Self.  

The First Supper

Let's rewind from the Last Supper to the First. Do you remember an early childhood experience dining with family or friends?  I remember many a family meal at a dining room table, and extended family get togethers that often included an outdoors component.  Lost in the mists of time are very early meals experienced as an infant or tiny kid.

In Pennsylvania, we had gatherings that included grilling, corn on the cob, and regular meals made by my Mom that included meatloaf and mashed potatoes, green beans and applesauce lightly sprinkled with cinnamon. I remember early on my Dad having snacks of sardines and mustard, something even to this day I've never tried. How about you?   

Today's Rune: Journey.

Withnail and I: It's 1969, Okay? All Across the UK . . .

Bruce Robinson's Withnail & I (1986), set toward the end of 1969 in England, delivers punchy banter and sly humor, a sort of virtuoso verbal blending of Don Quixote, Sergio Leone, Oscar Wilde, Zorba the Greek and Spinal Tap with Richard E. Grant in the title role. Mad props!

Robinson's latest film is The Rum Diary, based on the Hunter S. Thompson novel. 

Today's Rune: Gateway.  

Artifacts, Memory, Ace of Heart

It's funny, that which survives. Is it random, is it luck of the draw? 

Above is a scan of a simple postcard bag -- or, as Texans say, little sack -- made of crinkly paper. I'm glad I kept it, but how did it make it intact through so many physical and psychic moves?  Now that it's been scanned, why keep the original? Objet de mémoire.  

As de cœur -- literally, ace of heart. Albi, a UNESCO treasure, let's not forget the Albigensian Crusade against Cathari "heretics." Albi, beautiful little city in the south of France.

This one seems like from another epoch, pre-internet. This could have been in currency a century ago. A beautiful object now especially because of its scarcity. Memory gold.

Bickleigh Cottage Country Hotel. Nr. Tiverton, Devon.  Bickleigh 230. Mr. & Mrs. S. Cochrane. Room No. 4. Name Mr. France. Date 15-6-88.  Room & Breakfast 29.00
Deposit £ 10.00   £ 19.00 due

Tracking this down now on the internet, let's add a tighter location: "Whitnage, near Sampford Peverell."  "16th Century Cottage Bed and Breakfast." South West England, near Cornwall. Inland from the Scilly Isles.  Different women, different planet.

Today's Rune: Separation (Reversed).

Dr. Strangelove, Meet 2011

Chernobyl plus twenty-five. Above: Original trailer for Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).

Today's Rune: Defense.   

Chernobyl, Harrisburg, Sellafield, Fukushima

Чорнобильська зона. 
Chornobyl's'ka zona.

Restricted Zone.  
Tschernobyl.
福島
 
Energy matrix. Choices.  Nuclear? Coal-burning? Petroleum? Solar? Wind Power?  Hydropower? Geothermal?  Mass suicide by collective poisoning? Spontaneous combustion? 

What's your favorite form of energy?  Locomotion?  Walk, run, ride, crawl, drive, fly, float, swim, dream, beam, imagine, project? 

福島

Kraftwerk, ""Radioaktivität / Radioactivity," The Mix (1991) version reduxe:  Chernobyl, Harrisburg, Sellafield, Hiroshima . . . And let's not forget yet another notable mix, by Franco-Armenian-American François K (François Kevorkian).



Today's Rune: Journey. [The core of this post was originally dated April 26, 2010].

White Noise: The Airborne Toxic Event Revisited

A fitting time to reanimate this one, originally posted on October 6, 2006:

Would you be shocked if you found yourself dragged out of your home and sent to an evacuation center in the dead of night? After 9/11, probably not. Still . . .

Very early this morning in Apex, North Carolina (not far from Raleigh, the state capital), some 17,000 residents were evacuated in the wake of explosions and toxic fires at the humorously named Environmental Quality Company, whose headquarters are based in Wayne, Michigan. The fiery cloud release includes chlorine gas, the type used in trench warfare during World War One, and other agents that cause respiratory distress and, potentially, death.









This horror show immediately reminded me of one of the most perceptive novels of the past fifty or so years that I have read – Don DeLillo’s White Noise (1985), especially its Airborne Toxic Event. DeLillo finished this brilliant satirical work after the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, India, which by now has caused the deaths of perhaps 15,000 people (12/3/1984). The following year came the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (4/26/1986).










This is the third major plant fire fiasco in North Carolina in the past fifteen years that I can recall. In Hamlet, John Coltrane’s little hometown, a grease fire (it was a large vat, apparently) at the chicken-nugget plant owned by Imperial Foods led to the immediate death of 25 workers – the emergency exits had thoughtfully been chained shut by management to “prevent theft of chickens” (9/3/1991). At West Pharmaceutical Plant in Kinston, an explosion killed at least four outright and injured another 37 (1/29/2003).

One thing we can count on: there will be plenty more Airborne Toxic Events to come, and not just potentially above Iran and North Korea.

As for White Noise, there are rumblings this year that Barry Sonnenfield is going to produce a movie version. It’ll be just like real life, only more so. [Hasn't happened.  Instead we've gotten additional doses of real life. Just like fiction -- only more so].










Today's Rune: Wholeness.

Do svidaniya!

Nuclear Disaster: Now and Then

The nuclear disaster unfolding in Japan makes me think immediately of Chernobyl, which I first posted about just under five years ago. This year will be the 25th anniversary of that nuclear disaster, and the first anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon Gulf petroleum disaster. I can only come to the conclusion that humankind is too clever for its own good, very foolish and myopic, nothing less than tragic. Post first dated April 26, 2006:

I remember the Chernobyl nuclear disaster very well because it began in the Soviet Union the same day as my first wedding took place back in the USA. The exact date it started was worse than an omen, because we flew to Europe that evening and arrived in London -- just as the first rumors of the accident were making their rounds. This was before ubiquitous internet access and 24 hour news, so it was hard to get any facts. But we knew about it immediately.

Many Londoners, however, seemed oblivious during the first few days of the “toxic event,” even while radiation continued spewing out of the burning reactor number four. Someone or some article from the International Herald Tribune suggested swabbing iodine above one’s knees and one’s wrists as a block against fallout. Don’t drink milk, avoid rain, and wait for news updates. Some honeymoon!

Wild rumors began flying: Kiev was under martial law. Thousands of Soviets were poisoned and dying. The Red Army had sealed off dead zones. Warsaw was in the path of a large plume; Sweden would be next, then Scotland.

My newlywed wife Liz Pauk and I warily proceeded and next made our way to Paris. Since we had unlimited Eurail passes, we could hop most trains and go just about anywhere in Western Europe. We headed for the south of France, where Liz became ill, but recovered enough that we pushed on to Italy via Pisa, and eventually we made it as far east as Vienna before heading back west via Germany. By that time, a clearer picture was emerging. Yes, the Iron Curtain borders were being sealed as a safety and security precaution by the Warsaw Pact countries. Yes, radiation was a real danger, but there wasn’t much anyone could do about it. We flew back to the States from Paris.

The Soviets lost something like thirty-one killed either in the initial accident or trying to contain it. Twenty years later, we still don’t know how many have died or suffered as a result of the disaster. Estimates range from 9,000 to over 90,000 dead or dying from radiation poisoning.

The timing for us personally was so bizarre it still makes me wonder. What are the chances of getting married on such a day? We chose that date out of convenience, having been just laid off by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill as they transferred their business operations out of North Carolina and therefore had a block of time before starting new jobs at Duke University.

All in all, 1986 was a rough year. The space shuttle Challenger blew up in January, and Ronald Reagan and his crew of yahoos were acting like scary war mongerers, supporting Islamic extremists against the Soviets in Afghanistan and fighting a series of clandestine guerilla wars in Latin America. The Reagan administration funnelled weapons to Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, even while it also supplied weapons to Iran and propped up the Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. All in keeping with George Orwell's dystopian 1948 vision for 1984.

Oh, the ironies abound for today, exactly twenty years later. A salute to the rescue teams and all those who died.

Early on, I have no idea whether this is an accurate projection of radiation fallout. I do know this: don't ever believe Big Energy "experts" -- they are either liars or fools or worse, well-meaning zealots who are just plain wrong in their over-optimism about "safety."  


Today's Rune: Defense.

There Will Be Nightmares: Eugene Jarecki's Reagan

Scarier than any horror movie I've ever seen, Eugene Jarecki's Reagan (2011) just premiered on HBO. It's intense and should generate a lot of intelligent discussion. Much to consider. Still absorbing the contents, which are contextualized and very pertinent to the here and now. 

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.  

Veludo Azul

Fifty years ago today as an Eagle Scout, David Lynch was on hand for JFK's stirring first inaugural address. That day was also Lynch's fifteenth birthday. Today, it's his sixty-fifth.  This year will be the twenty-fifth anniversary of Blue Velvet. Time is strange. Life is stranger. Because. It. Incorporates. Time. And. Space. Dreams. And. Imagination. It Follows the Rules; It Breaks the Rules.  

David Lynch's life has been full of odds and ends. As a boy, he lived in Durham, North Carolina, for a stint; his parents had met at Duke University. Lynch later enjoyed his years learning the trade in Philadelphia, though it must have been a raucous time.

In língua portuguesa, Blue Velvet becomes Veludo Azul.   Translating the Portuguese title into French will get you Velours Bleus, but in 1987, Blue Velvet was released in France as Blue Velvet. Regardless of the language, David Lynch remains the credited director. That's the way the Earth rolls.

Besides it being David Lynch's birthday and the fiftieth anniversary of JFK's big day in DC, January 20th notches the date for Reagan's inauguration in 1981 and Barack Obama's just two years ago, in 2009. JFK was the youngest elected and the first Catholic president going in, Reagan the oldest and Obama the first African American (and fifth to youngest) president. So much for today's cultural colligations. What's the last David Lynch production you might have seen? "Call me -- I'm already there."

Today's Rune: Initiation.