Let Us Spray: Beaver Pees on TV Host

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Autumn Arrives and Leaves

This is about one of the prettiest autumns ever in Dallas. The tree in my frontyard is ablaze with yellows and golds and reds. And those blasted leaves are taunting me.

You Can Take the Man Out of the Country, But ...

During my trip this past week to Tennessee, I ate enough lard to choke a pig and scored a backstage tour of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. Here's my vantage point of the Oak Ridge Boys performing "Elvira." Giddy Up Oom Poppa Omm Poppa Mow Mow ...

500 Years of Female Portraits in Under 3 Minutes

A Real One-Woman Show

When I visited the National Portrait Gallery in London this summer, my breath stopped when I entered two rooms assembled by Belgian artist Francis Alÿs. They were filled floor-to-ceiling, corner-to-corner with one image by hundreds of artists. The image is the red-hooded Fabiola, a Catholic saint, all of her in left profile and in many media. Alÿs spent 15 years unearthing hundreds of images by a range of creators -- from skilled painters to mediocre hacks and thrift-shop amateurs. As Laura Cumming of the Guardian wrote: "There are hyper-real Fabiolas and Fabiolas worked on linen and black velvet. There are wood carvings, embroideries and icons accoutred with actual veils. There are glass works, pastels and images on tin foil. There is even a Fabiola laboriously worked in varnished sesame seeds." It was a delightful display.

Super Duper

Keith, Michelle, Myron and I bowled in the annual Fruit Bowl fund-raiser at USA Lanes on Sunday, clad in colorful long johns, bath-towel capes and identity-concealing masks. Of the more than 50 teams, Myron's concept of Junior Super Heroes won hands down for "Best Costume." We are pictured above with the trophy, which was a Batman bowling pin. This is the fourth "Best Costume" award that Myron has put together. (The other participants generally show up and don the alternate identities that he has compiled.) For the record, the tyke super heroes above are, from left: Carambola Boy, Fire Red Apple, Frankfruiter and Cherry Picker. Gotham was safe for another day.

Juan Valdez It's Not

A civet in East Java, Indonesia, eats coffee during the production of Civet Coffee, or Kopi Luwak, the world's most expensive coffee, of which I had a sip at the recent Southwest Foodservice Expo in Dallas. Kopi Luwak retails for $100 to $600 per pound, but only about 1,000 pounds make it to market each year. Production features the civet, which is a small squirrel-like arboreal mammal, that eats the coffee berries or red coffee cherries. The beans pass through the civet's digestive tract and exit as feces. The feces are then cleaned, dried and lightly roasted. Enzymes in the civet's stomach give the coffee its bitter taste. This photograph is by Ulet Ifansasti of the Getty agency with information from the Andrew Sullivan blog.