Good morning, all! I have not been sleeping well, and I slept in this morning.
DR FJL, the broom handle, or rolled-up towel or whatever, was for the patient to bite down on during intense pain caused by an amputation, bullet removal or whatever surgery was performed without benefit of drugs, say any time between 1000 BC to the 19th Century, perhaps even later.
I've known the playwright of the new XANADU since around 1985 when we worked at The Drama Book Shop; he was a funny raconteur but not a particularly good book store clerk. He was fun but a bit shallow and it's my observation that his success has made him even shallower. My last memory of seeing him was at intermission of his play THE COUNTRY CLUB. I have no urge to see XANADU, but I did like THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED quite a lot.
Today, I believe it's another NYPL afternoon with the Historic American Newspapers. There's also a BABES IN TOYLAND article I need to find in the 1903 scrapbooks and copy.