If any Crescat readers are in New Haven and have affections for chess, Scrabble, or bourbon (or all three) that they would be interested in sharing with the author of this post, please email wbaude at crescat sententia dot org.

- The reason The Big Sleep is so baffling is because it was drastically revised a year after filming but before release-- though Lauren Bacall had turned out well in To Have and Have Not her other performance flopped, and Hawks was eager to emulate the strengths of TH&HN. The result-- an incomprehensible plot, but more sass from Bacall. (All of this is on the Humphrey Bogart DVD boxed set, graciously given to me by my girlfriend).

- You can indeed french fry eggplant just as if it were a potato. The result cooks fast and is pretty good, but no better than pre-salted, broiled, eggplant slices, so why bother?.

I've blogged before on what I consider the perfect Manhattans-- on a limited budget preparing to re-seduce an ex-girlfriend at a New Years Party, or pushing for the best while communing with a beloved parent.

But for those whose interests in this topic are as enduring as mine, I direct you to this Robert Parker bulletin-board thread, which continues to champion rye whiskey, about which I maintain doubts, as well as dry vermouth, which had never even occurred to me.

I have only one lemon until the next time I order groceries. The dilemma-- I have a craving for both lemon-Tobasco sauce and a Whiskey-sour. Which should I have tonight?

UPDATE:

It's decided-- the lemon turns itself into a whiskey sour (Van Winkle Old Weller 107 7-year whiskey-- 1 part sugar, 4 parts lemon juice, 12 parts whiskey, Marasca cherry, The Big Sleep). My eggplant will be accompanied by a Tobasco-vinaigrette.

UPDATE: Fellow YLSer Angus Dwyer has proudly caught me out on an error; the bourbon in question was Old Weller 7-year, not Van Winkle. Perish the thought.

Jeopardy Spoiler below

Those of you who have been following Ken Jennings's seemingly-endless Jeopardy run will want to be sure to watch Tuesday's episode, Jennings's 75th, of Jeopardy. Details are here.

[Link via Ask.Metafilter, where it seems to have set off a rather intense argument about Metafilter protocol.]

UPDATE: The Metafilter post has now been deleted. I guess one side won the argument.

[From Nabokov's Ada]

Van took a clean handkerchief from a tidy pile in a drawer, an action he analogized at once by plucking a leaf from a writing pad. It is wonderful how helpful such repetitive rhythms on the part of coincidental (white, rectangular) objects can be at such chaotic moments.

The New Republic dredges up a Reagan-era article by Fred Barnes about the moves Reagan might make to change the Supreme Court. The article is a fascinating mix of spot-on and way odd base.

Barnes properly pegs Scalia as an easily confirmable and highly conservative candidate for the bench, and also rightly guesses that Justice Marshall's replacement will be black. He also suggests that Justice O'Connor is a sure choice to replace Chief Justice Burger after his retirement.

But my favorite part of the article is its attack on the possible nomination of Judge Richard Posner (my favorite not because I agree but because it is fascinating; and besides, I am reminded of Judge Posner's discussion in favor of being criticized: "Negligible work rarely attracts much criticism; it's simply ignored. Only when a work gets under people's skin do they bother to criticize it, and the deeper under the skin it gets the shriller the criticism.").

But the best part?

[Justice] Brennan supposedly said he has met two true geniuses in this life, Posner and William O. Douglas.