Here's what I had for dinner, Volume 2

Warning: This post may not be of interest to you. It's all about cars and hardly at all about painting. Or what I had for dinner.

That said, a comment about the previous post came through last night from a reader named Tree. It reads:

You do know that's a Shelby Cobra, right?

Now you've cast doubt on if you really ate that pickle.

These are legitimate observations. Tree refers, I believe, to the line in the previous post that reads something like "This, by the way, is the original small Mercedes with a big engine. If you catch my drift." It was then followed by a photo of a spectacular, steely blue 427 (I'm thinking) Shelby AC Cobra. Or a replica of the same thing, since never in the history of the world has a car been officially or unofficially copied as much as the Cobra.

And yes, Tree, I did know it was a Shelby Cobra. To further explain my drift, it was Carroll Shelby who first stuffed a Ford 289 engine into a tiny English sports car called an AC Ace and spawned the Cobra. Born with it (probably not a true statement, actually) was the notion of stuffing big fat engines into small, light cars. And although the C-class Mercedes is hardly light, it is relatively small and 468 horsepower is 468 horsepower.

The original Cobra (which actually had a 260 for the first 75 cars) could do 0-60 in 3.9 seconds. This is a modern supercar level of performance. These are motorcycle numbers, not car numbers. This, my friend, is the holy grail. This, I want to tell you, is the Trenchtown Experience.

The what?

Sorry. That Trenchtown line came from the introduction to Bob Marley Live.

Why'd you say it?

I don't know. I was these-ing and this-ing and it just came out. It's one of my favorite all-time sentences that begins with "This."

You categorize favorite sentences based on their first word?

Well, yes. But not consciously.

Of course not. That would be bizarre.

As if this whole endeavor wasn't bizarre enough.

What endeavor?

The Year of Magical Painting and all it represents.

I hear you on that, baby.

What's your favorite sentence, all time?

Two are tied for first place.

And they are?

Well, the first one is: When do we eat?

No surprise there. And the second.

It's that one from Pride and Prejudice about a truth universally acknowledged.

Yeah, that's a good one.

Did I tell you that the night my father died I sat next to him, waiting for the funeral guys, and read the first chapter of Pride and Prejudice--his favorite book?

And THAT, my friend, was the real Trenchtown experience.

Yes it was.

Last note on the Shelby Cobra: For years, up until very recently in fact, the Shelby Cobra held the record for fastest car from zero to 100 mph and then back to zero. Imagine that for a minute--this tiny aluminum car screaming up the road, smoking strips of black rubber left in its wake, the driver like a young James Tiberius Kirk, no doubt grinning like a maniac as he boldly goes where no man had gone before ... then you hit 100 and stamp your foot on the clampers.

I mean, the mind reels.