I cut down on carbs, and it’s so boring. I did this years ago after I felt as if there was more of me than there should be, and it was so successful people inquired about my health. My, you’re gaunt! Everything okay?

It’s all good! I’m abjuring bread now. I also move about more according to a computerized exercise program that uses strange idealized pictures of human beings and encourages me to exceed my previous accomplishments.

Okay, whew.

But hey don’t I look great! Much less subcutaneous fat.

Sure! Just wanted to make sure you weren’t seriously ill.

In this case it’s due to putting on my suit for the Orchestra appearance, and thinking . . . that’s a bit tight. Wasn’t it always, though? Let’s release that belt a notch - ah. Better. But still. When I got this suit a few years ago the tailor complimented me on my ability to forestall the Inevitable Gut, and gave me a hint - if you can slide your hand in between waistband and, well, you, and the fit is snug but not tight, it fits.

He didn’t mention the arbitrary tyranny of the belt. Depending on where the holes are located, you either feel fat or slim, depending on then hole. Well, be that as it may, I’ve had some bad eating habits lately. Everything fits. The arbitrary sizing of the pants means I don’t know if I’m tight on the 30 inches or loose on the 28s.

I could, of course, not care. There’s always that. It’s not as if anyone else does.

Anyway, I’m off the carbs as noted, and it’s just so boring. I give myself another month. I miss:

Breakfast cereal. I was eating Raisin Bran with lacquered banana slices, with a small ration of sausage adorned with a ribbon of hot sauce. I’ve replaced this with a cup o’ protein whose existence angers people who rail against packaging. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Crack an Egg:

Inside the cup are all the ingredients you need for an interesting scramble. Peppers, onions, some sort of ersatz meaty crumbles, cheese, etc. You crack an egg, stir, heat, stir, and Bob’s your breakfast.

But I miss pasta, and sandwiches, and buns, and loaves of bread to go along with the pasta, and so on. All of it waits at the end of the rainbow after the pants feel a bit looser.

Or I just buy another belt.

ANYWAY they come in many varieties. There is the Rustic Scramble, which has wood chips and bovine hair. There’s the Denver Scramble, which contains trace elements of gold and fir needles. The American Scramble has a strange taste that seems to simulate the flavors of the breakfast table if America had participated in the colonial grab of Africa in the 19th century, and the Ultimate Scramble has the distinct tang of the collapse of the entire universe once gravitational forces pull it all back into a dense infinitely hot ball of matter, but y’know, I’m not sure that’s going to be possible as our cosmological models advance. So let’s just say this flavor is speculative.

FACT-CHECK YOU FROM ANOTHER HEMISPHERE.

Those liquor profits aren't going to launder themselves, you know:

"Presents" is one way of putting it in polite company, I suppose

Say no more, to audiences of 1929. What is she this time? Who cares? If you must know, she's . . .

She said:

"[on being transported by police through a mob of fans to the premiere of The Trespasser(1929)] As I felt my feet leave the ground, I could tell that someone behind me was standing on my train, so I screamed for one of the horsemen to pick it up. I was now completely horizontal, face down, like a battering ram, and that is the way they carried me through the crowd and into the theater lobby."

It’s her first talkie, although it came out in a silent version as well. Cost a huge amount of money - a quarter of a million - and it got Swanson an Oscar nom. It begins with a shot of Gotham . . .

. . . and I hope that’s a reflection of the film’s condition.

She’s not the most alluring woman of the era, if you ask me . .

But she’s game for this one, and it’s a nine-hankie weeper woman’s pic. She falls in love with rich kid. They marry - but Cruel Father insists she’s a fortune hunter, and has the marriage annulled. She has a child, doesn’t tell the father.

That’s oddly specific. She becomes a “kept woman” for her old rich boss, something that lands her in Town Talk magazine!

We see her swanky new digs - and take a look at this picture. That’s quite a long shot; there’s a chair placed in the front of the frame to give it as many planes as possible. Why? We’ll get to that in a second .

“Joe, the director doesn’t want me to sing. You’re the producer. Tell him I have to sing.”

Below, one of those moments that make you wonder: did he ever see it?

It’s all quite melodramatic and improbable, and this IMDB review does a nice job of laying it out:

But if TRESPASSER is trite in many ways, and relies on at least one outlandish coincidence, it should be seen, still, as a phenomenally astute way to introduce one of the biggest silent stars to sound film. It's fascinating to watch Swanson feeling her way into the talkies. Sometimes she's perfectly naturalistic, other times she declaims like an old-school stage star, and sometimes her silent-movie roots show very clearly with some too- grand gestures.

For all that, yes. And for something else. Another interesting credit:

Only ten years away from Citizen Kane, which is like another world of moviemaking.

Swanson, by the way, would get one more Oscar nom - for “Sunset Boulevard.” Which, at the time she made this movie, was only 21 years away.

Oh, one more thing. I'd hate to be the person who had to transcribe this segment.

Here we go - a Holiday Week. Might that mean all sorts of vintage Thanksgiving stuff? It very well might. Stay tuned.