Gabbro B-Sides

My parents drank coffee (and still do, of course, red-blooded Americans of vague Scandinavian heritage that they are), but this is not important. What is important is that Pippi Longstocking drinks coffee. This has very little to do with my actual induction to the wonderful world of drinking coffee instead of merely smelling it, which was in 8th grade when a friend of mine brought out a thermos and insisted that I learn to like the stuff because it would put hair on my chest, but Pippi is nevertheless important to my caffeine addiction in many ways both subtle and mysterious.

So rest in peace, Astrid Lindgren.

(I was originally going to link to a crappy cnn.com obituary, but not only was it short and boring, the front-page headline was “Karzai thanks America” and such boosterism still makes me feel a bit ill. Plus, I’d just finished reading most of a Randian-feminist synthesis that I’d found while searching for some good Pippi-related feminism to post in memoriam, and Ayn Rand really makes me feel ill. But I do think it’s damned fabulous that Hamid Karzai is some kind of fashionista.)