Julia Child (2) vs. Bruce Springsteen (1); Dorothy Parker advances

Yesterday it was Dorothy Parker in a landslide. Commenters just couldn’t resist dissing the Wild and Crazy Guy. Noah came in with a limerick:

There once was a Martin named Steven
whose humor we used to believe in.
His outlook got starker.
He’s no Dorothy Parker.
In this matchup, then, Steven be leavin’.

And Dzhaughn took it home with:

Tut tut! We seldom make pharaohs of men who wear arrows.

As for today’s matchup . . . what can I say, Julia Child is the ultimate dark horse. I have no idea how she got this far. Where’s Virginia Apgar when we need her?

Again, here are the rules and here’s the bracket:

9 thoughts on “Julia Child (2) vs. Bruce Springsteen (1); Dorothy Parker advances

  1. The real test is would you rather have Bruce Springsteen cook for you or have Julia Child sing to you?

    Today is Pancake Tuesday. After reading the excerpt from The Boss’s memoir below, I guarantee you, you will want Bruce’s pancakes.

    From Born to Run:
    “Long ago, I’d promised myself that I would never lose my children in the way my father had lost me. It would’ve been a devastating personal failure, one for which I would have no excuse, and I would not have been able to forgive myself…

    …Once they were here, Patti and I knew our children would be our first priority. All of our tours would be booked around school schedules, childrens’ events, birthdays, and because of Patti’s insistence, planning, and dedication, we made it work. I worked hard not to be an absentee dad, but in my business that’s not always possible and Patti picked up the slack. She also guided me when she thought I was falling short. For years, I’d keep musician’s hours, a midnight rambler: I’d rarely get to bed before four a.m. and often sleep to noon or beyond. In the early days, when the children were up at night, I found it easy to do my part in taking care of them. After dawn, Patti was on duty. Once they got older, the night shift became unnecessary and the burden tilted unfairly toward the morning hours.

    Finally, one day she came to me as I lay in bed around noon and simply said, ‘You’re gonna miss it.’

    ‘Miss what?’

    She said, ‘The kids, the morning, it’s the best time, it’s when they need you the most. They’re different in the morning than at any other time of day and if you don’t get up to see it, well then…you’re gonna miss it.’

    The next morning, mumbling grumbling, stolid faced, I rolled out of bed at seven a.m. and found my way downstairs. ‘What do I do?’
    She looked at me and said, ‘Make the pancakes.’

    Make the pancakes? I’d never made anything but music my entire life. I…I…I…don’t know how!

    ‘Learn.’

    That evening, I queried the gentlemen who was cooking for us at the time for his recipe for pancakes and I posted it on the side of the refrigerator. After some early cementlike results, I dialed it in, expanded my menu and am now proud to say that should the whole music thing go south, I will be able to hold down a job between the hours of five and eleven a.m. at any diner in America. Feeding your children is a great act of intimacy and I received my rewards, the sounds of forks clattering on breakfast plates, toast popping out of the toaster, and the silent approval of morning ritual. If I hadn’t gotten up, I would’ve missed it.”

    • That’s sweet. And inspiring see below. But is Julia not the real goddess of the hearth of the two? I’d rather have an amateur singer/songwriter than an amateur chef.

      Oh, in the wee wee hours
      Your wife gets ornery
      Beat eggs, milk, and flour 
      Coz the kids are gettin’ hungry

      TV is jammed up
      On the PBS station
      Its just talk talk talk talk
      ’bout how she’d cook your bacon.

      Ms. Chef Julia 
      Please don’t help me
      Please don’t help me
      Please don’t ya help me

      • Going straight to Nebraska, huh? That’s cold blooded.

        You’re probably not sorry for the things you done,
        but at least you can say you had you some puns.

        Still, two can play at this game:

        Seen a man standin’ over a duck l’orange by Julia in a dish
        He’s lookin’ down kinda puzzled pokin’ that duck with a chopstick
        Got his napkin tucked in he’s sittin’ there on course 3 of 10
        Like if he poked at it long enough that duck’d get up and run
        Struck me kinda funny seem kinda funny sir to me
        Still at the end of every hard day people find some reason to Springsteen

        Now Julie loved Julia with a love mean and true
        She said “Baby I’ll blog for you every day, bringing royalties to you”
        One day Meryl called up and acted Childish and ever since then
        Julie waits til the end of the credits for her name to come up
        Struck me kinda funny, funny yeah to me
        How at the end of every hard earned day people find some reason to Springsteen

        Buy some beef at the butcher, bourguignon they call it
        Cook the beef in the wine, following ole Julia’s tip
        In a seasoned castiron pot the tough cut braises away
        When will it be ready? Any day now they say
        Lord won’t you tell us, tell us what does it mean
        At the end of every hard earned day people find some reason to Springsteen

        Friends gathers down by the pizza place out on Main
        Inside a dusty apartment, hungry guy waitin’ for his quiche lorraine
        Followed all the instructions, still it comes out all gloopy
        Guy stands alone at the window and watches old friends eat pizza, so effortlessly
        Wonderin’ where can his dinner be
        Still at the end of every hard earned day people find some reason to Springsteen

        • Very nice! Then you add some Worcestershire sauce, beat it with a fork, pour in a pan and stick in in the oven. In some 20 minutes it will finally be done.

          I have never heard of the guy. Her name sounds familiar. Magdalena Rettigová she ain’t, but I do hear she can cook some. Maybe she can make some caraway seed cake. Then Fermat will show up and talk about his last theorem.

  2. The screen door slams, Andrew’s blog waves
    Like a vision he dances across the Stan as Rstudio plays
    Susan Fiske singing for the noisy
    Hey, that’s me and I want you cozy
    Don’t turn me home again, I just can’t face myself alone again

    Don’t run back inside, Andrew, you know just what I’m here for
    So you’re scared and you’re thinking that maybe your work won’t replicate
    Show a little faith, be Bayesian tonight
    Your prior ain’t proper but, hey, you’re alright
    Oh, and that’s alright with me

    Not my best work . . . But, please, The Boss!

  3. Sorry, but you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Julia Child dancing with a live lobster. Of course, she’s about to throw it into a pot of boiling water, but she goes “Fwoop, fwoop, fwoop!” in time to the lobster’s fwooping tail.
    Those of you who saw this episode will know what I’m talking about.
    Those who didn’t will want to see it at the seminar.

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