Hyde Park Blvd

Photo by Damon in the NYT

Matt Bai brief and insightful piece in Sunday’s Times Magazine looks at Obama’s off-the-cuff approach to humor, why it endears him to as many (me included) as it repels.  Like his approach to sports (the willingness to be an unabashed fan of one team, or of a college football playoff), it speaks to his interest in calling the question about our White House — or Washington — business-as-usual expectations:

More recently, Obama sounded mystified by plans for a new presidential helicopter. “The helicopter I have now seems perfectly adequate to me,” he remarked dryly. “Of course, I’ve never had a helicopter before, you know? Maybe I’ve been deprived and I didn’t know it.” Other presidents mastered the telling of the canned political joke. Obama’s shtick is that he finds such stagecraft, the falsity and pomposity of modern politics, to be as laughable as we do.

Holabird & Root’s Gage Buildings on Michigan Avenue

With the advent/success of Chicago’s The Gage an Irish Pub situated in a handsome building originally built for the milliner Gage Brothers, the insights of Denver columnist Jason Sheehan, in the form of eight steps to creating a great Irish bar, are informative and entertaining.

Step five, for example:

The name. Personally, I like Chang O’Leary’s, but there are two ways to go here: the Apostrophe or the Ampersand. With the Apostrophe method, you just take your already Irish name (see step one) and make it possessive. My bar? It would be called Sheehan’s. Simple. The Ampersand method is only a little more complicated: You take any two things and stick an ampersand between them. The Hawk & Dove works fine. The Fox & Hound. The Pig & Whistle. Anything more witty or clever than this, and you’re running the risk of becoming twee; you might as well hang lace curtains from the windows and start serving tea.

David Lee Roth

An invaluable resource for people (like myself) who need to be silly now and then.

With thanks to Jeff Ventura, author of the blog Graceful Flavor.