So hold me, mom, in your long arms. Your petro-chemical arms, your military arms, in your electronic arms.

UPDATE**UPDATE**UPDATE**

www.Change.jr.bookstore.gov is on the way.

Short post today, longer blog about Election Night rally coming soon. Really, promise, with photos by Josh, etc. I'll stop watching the Abrams Star Trek reboot trailer and looking on the internet for photos of my future haircut, and get to work. Etc.

I hear there are some folks looking for advice about following along with Obama's political reading...and I am here to help.

Any wader boots wading into Lincoln-alia begins with his own masterful speeches and writing, and the best place to start is Right here. I have a nice Modern Library Classics hardcover copy of this volume printed in 1942. From the temperance address to the Cooper Union speech to the second inaugural, it's all here. Includes a short, serviceable biographical essay.

For a good in-depth one volume Lincoln biography, I'd recommend the David Herbert Donald, here.

The President-Elect has also been boning up on the New Deal. The best one volume jam on the Roosevelt years all things considered (recent scholarship, readability, ease of finding) is probably by David Kennedy, from the Oxford History of the United States series. Here is all the info.

Last, but not least, is what I'm reading right now. I'm probably overdoing it with a mighty three volume Depression/New Deal spectacular, but I have a hard time reigning it in sometimes. Arthur Schlesinger Jr's combo meal covers basically everything from 1919 to the eve of WWII. It's stylishly written and hums with liberal vibes. Just like the rest of the universe right now!

I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicitly in whatever our fathers did.

So, I'm going to see Celine Dion at the United Center tonight. Should be rippin'! Got free tickets from Hopper. Thanks girl! I heard she (Celine, not Hopper) does a tits-up cover of Father Befouled's "Excrement Pastorous" on this tour, right after the Wayne/Juice Newton medley. The segue from "Danke Schoen" into "My Short and Curlies--Slowly Unfurling" must be heard to be believed!

NOT!!!!!!!!

I'm totally going to the Obama rally. As in, I got tickets up in that piece. Josh and yours truly will be in line in a few hours...he's taking the snaps, I'm providing the freaked-out nervous vibe and Rahm Emanuel bumperstickers. A comprehensive review of the night's festivities should be forthcoming soon. They are serving hot chocolate tonight the Trib reports and it's 70 degreez!?!? That shit is out to Lunchables. Oh, and did I mention that change is coming to America?

SPEAKING OF CHANGE PS I JUST JOINED NETFLIX WHAT UP WEST WING SEASON ONE WHERE MY TOBY ZIEGLER AT?!?!?!?!