I know, I've seen the scythe in its sheath

[sovay]

I was mistaken for an academic this afternoon at the bookstore which made me want to go home and shoot myself in the head, but when I actually got home a package of white chocolate and lemon Milanos was waiting for me from selkie and I managed to get a picture before the rain started of the previously mentioned neighborhood decoration.



Every single review I have encountered so far of Death by Lightning (2025) has proceeded from the assumption that the reader and by extension the viewer has never heard of Charles Guiteau and only vaguely, perhaps dutifully of President James Garfield and I just don't think Sondheim fans are that thin on the ground. At least it should popularize this particularly indelible fact.

Comments

[moon_custafer]

I first read of Guiteau in Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation.

[sovay]

I first read of Guiteau in Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation.

That counts too! I just have difficulty thinking of him as totally, pop-culturally obscure. Like without Sondheim it might have taken me longer to hear of Giuseppe Zangara because he did not actually manage to shoot FDR, but the list of successful presidential assassins is quite short and Guiteau is on it.

[lauradi7dw]

I love everything in Assassination Vacation but think I first encountered Guiteau on American Experience.

I like the (apocryphal?) quote from Guiteau to a reporter who asked why he killed Garfield. He said that he shot Garfield, but it was the doctors who killed him. Pretty much the case.

[sovay]

I love everything in Assassination Vacation but think I first encountered Guiteau on American Experience.

Neat! I have been aware of American Experience since childhood and due to my relationship with television almost never watched any of it.

I like the (apocryphal?) quote from Guiteau to a reporter who asked why he killed Garfield. He said that he shot Garfield, but it was the doctors who killed him. Pretty much the case.

Yeah, fair.

[ladymondegreen]

What happened to Garfield is pure body horror. Thank all that is good and holy that hand washing and germ theory caught on.

[sovay]

Thank all that is good and holy that hand washing and germ theory caught on.

Just so long as we can keep it.