From Beyond The Grave!

Zombie Item 1: It appears that Ronald Reagan has endorsed the Linn County casino. No, not the Onion. "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you I've signed legislation that will outlaw flooding forever. We begin betting in five minutes."

Zombie Item 2: Iowa City's Gaslight Village apartments have long been known as a haven for writers; the Deeth Blog hit its stride when I lived there from 2003 to `07. The locals still brag that Kurt Vonnegut lived there in the 60s while at the Iowa Writer's Workshop.

But recently published Vonnegut letters indicate the love was not mutual:

But you should see the apartment I have. I don’t recommend that you see it. I opened the door for the first time, and I though, ‘My God, Otis Burger has been here before me!;’ It has a vileness, a George Price uninhabitability that no amateur could achieve. I must sleep in the very first hide-a-bed ever created, which was created from the rusty wreckage of the first Stutz Bearcat. Jesus, it is ever a cruel and ugly old bed! I have a bath with a stall shower, a full kitchen, less ice-cube trays, no curtains or windowshades, and this livingroom-bedroom with the hide-a-bed. You wonder what creates beatniks? Landlords! ‘Live like a pig for $80.00 a month,’ say my surroundings. Very well. Very well.

Captures the charm of the place quite well.