In which Joan Rivers gets tossed out of our local Costco for trying to sell her own book out of a satchel.

I grew up watching Marvin Hamlisch on television (and, certainly, hearing his music in movies). He was a frequent presence on “The Mike Douglas Show” and “The Merv Griffin Show” in the afternoon, and probably did more to introduce me to piano music than anyone else who comes to mind. While I never got to meet Marvin Hamlisch, who died yesterday, I almost did, just two weeks ago.

My company, Counterintuity, works with the Pasadena Symphony and POPS, where Marvin Hamlisch had served as principal pops conductor since 2011. (Click here for more about his relationship with the Pasadena POPS.) On July 21st, my business partner and I entertained clients at our table at the pops performance at the Los Angeles County Arboretum, in what turned out to be Hamlisch’s final performance. He was a real showman: unexpectedly funny, filled with passion and wit about the musical performance he would be leading, in an evening also featuring Michael Feinstein (with whom he later did a piano duet). As the photo above helps to indicate, it was a beautiful summer night spent outdoors with friends and associates and good food and wine and wonderful music.

Afterward, our little group went backstage for the VIP reception, which our friends at the Pasadena Symphony had kindly invited us to. I had brought along two copies of recent ad proofs we’d done for the Marvin Hamlisch performances at the Arboretum — including this particular show — in the hopes that he’d sign them, one copy for our office and one for the designer. We waited for a while, but he hadn’t come out yet, and my wife had noted during the show how he’d been leaning on different things when possible in a way that indicated an aching back. (It was later confirmed that he’d pulled a muscle and was in some pain.) So given that we were unsure he’d be coming out, and eyeing the gathering waiting to congratulate him, as well as the time, I slipped the ad proofs back into their folder and said, “I’ll ask him to do it next time” and we all left.

Funny how every once in a while in life you get a reminder that you can’t always count on “next time.”

Various news sources have reported that Gore Vidal died today at age 86. He had been in declining health for some while. Over the years, I’ve seen him numerous times around town at various events such as the LA Times Festival of Books, and I recall seeing him somewhere a year or two ago where he mostly sat planted in a chair, slightly confused. In his final television appearance (at least, the final one I saw), on Bill Maher’s show on HBO, Mr. Maher was uncharacteristically gracious in trying to overlook Mr. Vidal’s slippage. I say all this by way of noting that I doubt anyone is surprised that he’s now died, and to recall the comment a friend made after we’d both seen that HBO show: “He needs to die now.” I like to think that Gore Vidal would have appreciated the candor.

A quick scan of my bookshelves reveals 13 volumes of his works, plus others that I’ve read that I know are misshelved: I read “Creation” and his omnibus of essays, and “Kalki” and “Myra Breckinridge” and I don’t see any of them there. All tolled, I’ve read many thousands of pages of his work, some of them twice, and have earned the right to say that he was not a prose stylist. (And so, don’t believe any obits that would have you think so.) What he was was a popularizer — someone who knew history, both ancient and modern, better than you did, and could spin an entertaining yarn about it that conveyed his firmly held opinions. That’s what he did in print, and that’s what he did on television, frequently with Johnny Carson but often with others: make a middlebrow audience feel smarter. To read Gore Vidal was to make connections between past and present, and between people here and people there, that you otherwise would have missed, and to think afresh about things that everyone else had considered settled.

This middlebrow reader will miss him. Not because I agreed with him (sometimes yes, sometimes no), but because his writing was informative, his opinions were usually countervailing, and his style was always entertaining. And also because he’s our last great literary celebrity, someone who was widely read and widely bed.

I hope you find this helpful.

I’m at San Francisco airport waiting for my flight, and observing some people near me has made me wonder if anyone yet has started a blog called “Your kids aren’t as charming as you think. Really.” Because someone should. Really.

Google just launched a feature called Handwrite that enables mobile search from handwriting recognition. (Here’s more info.) Change a setting on your smartphone or tablet and Google search can work from your finger-scribbled handwriting.

Theoretically.

I say that because as bad as your handwriting is — and I’m pretty sure it’s not good, given how infrequently you’re deploying it — mine is worse. But even writing as carefully as I could, in block letters, here are the results Google Handwrite gave me:

• For my name, “Lee Wochner,” I got “lee w0dhto.” (Note that that’s a zero, not a letter “o” in the result. And also: You would’ve tried your name first too.)
• For “association,” I got “tion.”
• “LAX,” the airport I’m sitting in writing this, gave me “yxl.”
• And, astoundingly, Handwrite couldn’t even recognize the word “Google,” turning up a link to an organization with the acronym “CAATE.”
• Let’s just say I don’t think Siri is worried.

Even if this worked (which, so far, it doesn’t), what’s the need? In what way is trying to write by hand on your iPhone more efficient than pecking the letters in from the popup QWERTY keyboard?

Innovation does not always equal improvement.

In which a mother bear and her charges are aided by a nice woman in a pickup truck.

This reminds me of the time I tried to help a snapper turtle across a narrow roadway bisecting a tributary in southern New Jersey. I used a long branch and kept trying to flip it over to where it needed to go, while it tried desperately to get close enough to snap off my wrist. This is just like that, except much warmer in tone. (But do note that the person shooting the video is far far far away from the bear.)

Tonight’s guest on Jimmy Fallon is Fred Willard, who was booked before his recent controversy.

I hope he doesn’t say anything that exposes himself further.

Shovelman.

He sings delta blues.

He plays a slide guitar — made out of a shovel.

And I dig it.

Two Saturdays ago, my wife threw a big birthday party for me because it was one of those milestone birthdays. Among the 75 or so guests was my friend Ken. I met Ken in 2006 when we and two other guys formed a local Democratic club, and since then I’ve grown to greatly enjoy his company.

Ken is 84, recently widowed (a year ago), and ex-CIA. He was a CIA agent during the Korean War, and afterward, but when the Nixon administration wanted the data on Vietnam scrubbed, he resigned. He had lots to say about this at my party (evidently, he can now speak without fear of reprisal), as well as other things. Many other things. Clearly, the Democratic party is not the only kind of party that lights him up. He arrived on the dot at the announced starting time of 7 p.m., stood the entire time while drinking wine and vodka gimlets, then closed out the party at 2 a.m. This, while a buddy about my age told me after the first hour that he had to go find a chair. Ken also solicited advice from numerous attractive female party guests about how to go about dating again. Remember: 84 years old. Seven hours on his feet, while drinking and holding forth in my expansive back yard.

Early the next morning, my phone rang. It was Ken. “LEE!” he said in his booming baritone, “KEN A. HERE!” As though I didn’t know who it was. “GREAT PARTY! YOU KNOW MANY INTERESTING PEOPLE!”

“Well, you’re one of them,” I volunteered. Indeed, everyone at the party, across ideological and cultural and racial lines, seemed interested in him. You know that scene at the end of “Logan’s Run” where the pretty young people encounter their first old person (Peter Ustinov) and gather around to study him? It was this way with Ken.

“SO LISTEN!” he said. “HERE’S WHY I CALLED. LIKE I SAID, GREAT PARTY! SO WHAT I WANT TO KNOW IS, WHEN’S THE NEXT ONE? NEXT TIME, DON’T WAIT SO LONG!”

Meanwhile, I, 34 years younger than Ken, spent the rest of the day nursing my recovery.