"Gasby" mania? Seems doubtful

F. Scott Fitzgerald's business ledger has been scanned and put online. Now you can see what he wrote and how much he got paid for it. These things mattered to him a lot.

The project, in difficult-to-browse format can be found here. A couple of points come to mind:

A) Will there really be an upsurge in Fitzgerald-fascination after the Gatsby movie comes out? Or will the target audience think ew a book and run in the other direction?

B) This is amusing: geneological information is crossed out and replaced with, well, HER.

C) This manufacturer's note.

Who was Brown Blodgett Sperry? I don't know. Was it the forerunner of Brown and Bigelow, the famous local pin-up calendar / playing card / promotion company? Doesn't seem so, although I admit I'm no expert in local stationery supply lore. However, the American Stationer trade publication had this to say:

BURGER WARSThe Happy Meal is actually a wad of misery, right? Every smart person knows that. One hamburger, a half-cup of 2% milk, a handful of apple slices - the sheer evil of a company making kids want these things by packaging them with a toy just takes your breath away. At least someone somewhere is doing something. Business Insider asks COULD THE HAPPY MEAL DIE?

So if children are working in an asbestos-laden factory making lead paint, that's the equivalent of eating a Happy Meal and getting a small plastic toy.

Mr. J is not immune to exaggeration - one of his articles on soda is titled "Amputation, Impotence, Painful Dentistry: Soda Equals Sadness."

Of course this is nonsense, and if you drink Coke you will die of misery. In related news:

Spiegel Online's headline is "Health Be Damned: Denmark Hopes Cheaper Soda Will Boost Economy." It gets worse, or better, depending on your perspective:

WEB Heads up: reporter takes a "selfie" at the best or worst possible moment, depending on what happened a second later. Look here.