Gold Star For Robot Boy

JJK recently sent out an email that he was introduced to a robot. The not-for-public circulation photos that were also sent out to a select group of friends seemed to indicate that JJK had, in fact, made friends with this robot (equally possible reactions would have been to kick it in the shins, pour diet Coke into its circuitry, or just tip it over). Pictures don't tell the whole story, I'm sure, but it seems like JJK may have even exchanged business cards with this robot.

Not that this was surprising, JJK has been making and accumulating fake robots for years. But this crossed a line. As a sample of the reactions, JWW was shaken from his normal sangfroid:

[H]ow many more years will go by, I wonder, before these jokey emails
about JJK's traitorous collaboration with the machine race are no
longer so jokey? how many years before this whole planet is torn apart
by a not-so-civil war?

So, you see where things stand. If you need more damning evidence, well, here it is.

In the meantime, take some time to enjoy the following:

• A nice article in American Heritage magazine entitled "Why Woolworth Had to Die." One of those minor biographic notes, but for ten central years of my early childhood, Woolworth's was the centerpiece store in the Wakefield Mall, and in its convenience and breadth of selection were, I'm sure, incredible in themselves to my parents. Dim memories of suburbia, surely, still a strange touchstone. And as Wakefield has morphed into the sort of area where housing developments go up named after the things they replace, to steal a line from Modest Mouse, even a department store stirs a certain nostalgia...
• RVA turns me on to The Register - a British version of BoingBoing?
• RN sends me this review of the Daft Punk movie. Looks worthwhile, and topically relevant!
• If you grew up loving writing and obsessed with sports, the thought of becoming a sportswriter held a place in the lower firmament of your dreams, certainly a lesser light than winning the World Series or being Ernest Hemingway, but shining none the less, and perhaps more realistic. If you were this boy, I'm sure you've found your way to Richard Ford by now, but this occasionally cliched account in Oxford American is a pleasant read, too.

Photos above and below from a Flickr search for 'Robot Man.' Check 'em all out!