The Saturday Picture Show, February 21, 2026

 

If you see odd markings like this on your barn door, check this glossary to see if the local hobo is trying to tell you or his friend something. To be honest, I only posted this because I always go out of my way to find a reason to say "hobo."

This is a bit of a reach, but with only 130 days until my birthday, here's my annual reminder that the one piece of art I desperately crave for hanging on my den wall is a sketch - a 'simple charcoal rendering,' as they say on The Simpsons - showing me as rendered by a courtroom sketch artist. With the possible exception of boardwalk Spin-Art, there is no more American artform extant.

I hope you agree that the cracker aisle is just not the same since Stoned Wheat Thins went away to the same place where Wheatsworth disappeared. Where oh where am I to shmear my Camembert?

Six more weeks of winter! The pea plant sprout saw its shadow.

This is why Franklin D. Roosevelt was a great man and president. 

Two things about this headline amuse me: the fact that there is such a thing as a double-yolk Dino egg, and that a literal reading means that scientists were buried for 68 million years and still made this discovery.

I used to take sport in calling places like this, just to hear the receptionist chirp, "Flossmore Dental! How may I help you today?"

On my way to Towson, back in the day, over by Bob Davidson Ford, someone posted a sign on the telephone pile reading simply "When?" I hope they got a good answer.

This doggie ran out in the snow and did not take long about changing its mind. We might get more snow tomorrow evening, or then again, we might not, but this dog is staying in.

I don't know which international border(s) we've crossed here, but just in Baltimore County, we have Texas, Nottingham, Jacksonville, and Phoenix, and the charming town of Boring. So Paris can't be too far away.

How can you mend a broken heart?

If you remember the good old days in the late 1980s, MTV had a game show called "Remote Control." It had everything I could ask for in a game show...a young Adam Sandler, TV trivia questions, losing contestants being physically ejected from the recliner chairs they sat in, and Kari Wuhrer.

Kari was not the quizmaster - that was Ken Ober - but she was more than just a letter-turner, taking fun parts in the skits and questions that made up the show. And woe unto anyone who pronounced her name like "Carrie"! It's KAHRRY!

But, as things go in show business, the last few years have not been so happy for her. I follow her on Instagram; she recently lost her dad, and feels that her ex-husband has cheated her out of a lot of money. I'm not a doctor, but I have to agree with Kari, who writes on Insta that she is just out of the hospital, suffering from..

"Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. Or broken heart syndrome put me in the hospital for 8 days. I can’t thank my family and friends enough for the support and concern..."

I don't need to repeat this; I am not a doctor, so I will quote from the American Heart Association: "Takotsubo syndrome, or broken heart syndrome, is a temporary heart condition often triggered by intense emotional or physical stress (e.g., grief, fear, or severe illness), resulting in sudden chest pain and shortness of breath. It causes temporary dysfunction of the left ventricle, resembling a heart attack, but without blocked coronary arteries. The condition, which disproportionately affects postmenopausal women, typically resolves within 1–4 weeks with supportive care."

So, if someone or something "breaks your heart," that old expression might be more accurate than we know. It's sad to live in a world which Roger Miller once described as "A world so full of love yet not enough to go around."

Sweet healing, Kari, and may 2026 be a better year for you!

Call the Llama Squad

Any police officer worth his or her salt knows that it's good to take help from non-police in cracking a case, even if the help in question walks on four hooves instead of two feet, and makes a laughing kind of sound to alert others in the area that there's trouble afoot...or on hoof.

The scene is Derbyshire, England, where last week, psychiatric nurse Heidi Price came home after a long day at work and found her road jammed with police cars.

And they were telling her partner, Graham Oliver, that their llamas were heroes. Which is not a sentence many people hear in the course of their lives. But what happened was, Oliver came home and let the couple's dogs out to run around their farm, and that's when he heard their llamas hollering.

"It's quite a weird and haunting sound,” Oliver said. “It sounds like someone laughing.”

There are eight llamas on the farm, and they were forming a circle around a man in a black puffer jacket. Oliver found out that the man was cutting through the farm to get away from the law.

The rogue claimed he had gotten in through a hole in the fence, but Oliver, who also has cattle and peacocks on the farm, asked to see this purported hole, worried that a critter or two might get out through it. But instead of showing the bad spot in the fence, Oliver said, the man ran for it.

He saw the police on the edge of his property and told them what was going on, and what do you know? They were looking for a man in a black puffer jacket too! The police told Oliver to be wary of the guy, because he had stolen two of tobacco from a woman near by.

The police soon found the thief with the llamas keeping him in custody, thanks to the llama squad, and took him off to the Ironbar Hilton, charged with petty theft and not at all ready to tell the tale of his apprehension to his buddies.

“They acted responsibly, efficiently, in an organized manner,” Nurse Price told the local news. “Quite frankly, I think they did pretty good police work.”

 

Bow Wow

Yesterday being the Lunar New Year, the Chinese custom of visiting loved ones to bring them wishes for the new year is still in place, but there was a mobile app that let you hire proxies who would go and literally bow to your aging relatives. Until now, that is, because the app has been taken down at the urging of the People's Daily, the Communist Party newspaper, and many others.

"Filial piety should not be commoditised," said one commenter, and so that's that. You will have to go see the old folks in person!

With all these duties and obligations by custom, there has come to be a lively business in what is called China's "hire-anyone-for-anything" service sector. And the for-hire folks were ready to deliver the goods. One advertisement showed a person in an orange uniform on their knees, bowing their forehead almost to the floor, as an elderly couple beamed with delight.

This was not going to be cheap. The bowing-to-the-old folks package would have cost  999 yuan ($144.77) but now you can just drive on over to your relatives' house and bow to them yourself.

If they're anything like American old-timers, they will have a nut dish out with all the good nuts (cashews, Brazils, pistachios) already claimed, leaving an assortment consisting mainly of peanuts, most of which have their jackets half off, like they don't want to be there either.

For those planning to come over and wish old Mark and Peggy a happy Lunar New Year, the driveway is just about clear of that snow and ice, and we have some of those tube cookies we can toss in the oven for you.

This seems like a worthwhile custom to me. The young, which I once was, should venerate the old, which I am. And when I was young, I never would have balked at visiting Uncle Albert and Aunt Halsey, as long as they were going to put out a decent spread.

 

 

Pass the Maple Surple!

I need to run over to the supermarket around the corner and hope that I get there this morning before the bus from the old folks' home  Senior Living Center gets there.

(Don't worry. I'm a card-carrying senior myself.  We're not ready to move out just yet, though. Check with me next week.) 

It's Shrove Tuesday! Pancake Tuesday! Pancake Day! The final day of the pre-lenten season known as Shrovetide. Lent begins tomorrow with Ash Wednesday. 

The plan for Shrove Tuesday among Christians is making a deep confession (I have a long list), choosing a Lenten sacrifice (I can't tell you what I'm eliminating, but let's just say I'll need a smaller belt by Good Friday), and eating pancakes.

Why pancakes? It's a traditionally good way to give up rich, fatty foods like batter and syrup before the season of Lent, with its austere menus low in fats and sweets. This is why today is Mardi Gras - literally, Fat Tuesday. Gorge today and put the rules into practice for the 40 days beginning tomorrow!

This is what Peggy's will look like. If I'm lucky enough to find buckwheat flour, I'll be flapping a mess o' buckwheat cakes for myself.

Holiday

 

Today is the holiday legally known as Presidents Day. Not President's Day, or Presidents' Day. No apostrophe, just love and respect for the two born in February, seen as bookends here: Geo. Washington and Abe Lincoln.

Think about what they gave us, enduring legacies of justice and fairness. No, they weren't perfect, far from it, but they truly cared about this country, and you can't always say that about a president.

Sunday Rerun from 2022: Pub Mix

When we see the word "vogue," we usually think it's a typo, and the writer meant to say "vague." There is a lot of vagueness all up in here nowadays.

Or you might think of Madonna, who used to be popular. 32 years ago she had a hit song called "Vogue," in which people are advised to strike a pose and wait for people to notice them. 

Maybe "Vogue" reminds you of a woman's fashion magazine published by Condé Nast, in which a woman named Anna Wintour rules with a mighty hand over the Kingdom of Fashion and tells people what it's ok to wear. I recently sent an anniversary card to a polo shirt I bought in the waning days of the Bill Clinton presidency. It's khaki in color, and I wear it whenever the odds favor me getting some sort of goop  - spaghetti sauce, creamed spinach, butterscotch ice cream topping - all down the front of me, because every stain comes out of this shirt with just a pre-wash squirt of blue Dawn dish detergent and a little marinating. I feel certain that even if I put the shirt out in the Goodwill pickup bag, the next day I would find it hanging on the front lamppost, all neatly laundered, ironed, and hanging on a hanger.

Or you might know about a little village in England named Vogue, but the chances are slim, unless you're from in the southwestern county named Cornwall. 4,500 people live in Vogue; it's the kind of town that used to be in the movies. Everyone knows everyone!

A man by the name of Mark Graham happens to own a pub there; it's called The Star Inn at Vogue. Not long ago he got a letter from Condé Nast that I suppose was meant to instill fear in him, but it didn't, since he had no idea who or what "Condé Nast" is.

The letter began: 

“Dear Sirs, 

Our company is the proprietor of the Vogue mark, not only for its world-famous magazine first published in November 1916 but in respect of other goods and services offered to the public by our company.”

An adz (woodworking tool)

So you get the deal. The letter broadly hinted that people who don't know their adz from their elbow might think this Cornish neighborhood watering hole has some connection to a snooty fashion rag, and states that Graham should consider changing his bar’s name “to avoid problems arising.”

“My first reaction is that my customers were having a laugh,” Graham told The Washington Post.

But then Mr Graham Googled Condé Nast and saw that these purveyors of silly pictures of silly people wearing tarpaulins were a BFD - a big financial deal - that took in $2 billion last year because P.T. Barnum was right about how often suckers are born. That made Graham realize, “They were absolutely serious.”

Graham and his wife Rachel live above the pub; it's literally the nexus of their lives and has been for 17 years. Locals come for the ale and pie and stay for club meetings or to talk about football or knitting or whatever. It's a popular place among people who haven't the slightest idea what some American magazine thinks of their clothing. 

For two weeks, everyone talked about this apparent shakedown, and then Graham wrote his reply:

“Whilst I found your letter interesting on the one hand I also found it hilariously funny on the other. If a member of your staff had taken the time to investigate they would have discovered that our company, the Star Inn, is in the small village of Vogue, near St. Day in Cornwall.”

He went on the tell the magazine people that the word "Vogue" has been in use for hundreds of years in the Cornish dialect, meaning a tin house. And he pointed out that Madonna did not seek his permission to release her hit record in 1990.

“In answer to your question of whether we would change the name of our company, it is a categoric NO,” Graham wrote, but he did invite the addressees to stop by for a beer and a free lunch.

On May 13, Condé Nast finally replied with a letter from an English staffer saying they were "grateful to learn more about your business in this beautiful part of our country.”

“I am sure you will appreciate why we regularly monitor use of the name VOGUE," wrote Christopher P. Donnellan. “However, you are quite correct to note that further research by our team would have identified that we did not need to send such a letter on this occasion.”

At first, Graham said he was still "miffed" (madder than "vexed," less mad than "irked") and called this whole thing a case of "a big multinational company trying to stomp on the little guy.” But then, along came a framed apology to hang up in the pub, and all is cool.

 

The Grahams and the letter that put everything right.

I often think of how much people like the CN executive who decided to hassle these nice innkeepers are paid to sit in offices and do foolish things. I'll let you know if they have any openings.