Bob Dylan sings Doctor Seuss

It goes pretty much the way you think it will.

Buying the New Yorker 1986 - page 85

As The New Yorker seems to be happy to leave me alone while I pursue this wheeze, it seems fair to take this opportunity to send you all off to get yourselves a subscription. After twenty years, the price of a year's worth has only gone up fifteen bucks. And they print reader mail now! It's like you're making money!

I've also been trying hard to ignore the content of the issues that I look at, because I don't want to step into some copyright trap, but The New Yorker is known for the quality of its regular cartoonists, including the fellow who drew the guy with the big scissors there. His name is Edward Koren. This is his website. He isn't selling anything, but there's a link to his agent. Perhaps you can get him to illustrate the children's book manuscript that you just finished writing. He's also a volunteer fireman, so don't let him catch you playing with matches.

Buying the New Yorker 1986 - page 84

Basically, you are going to be renting a house. This thing was set up by a gentleman named Ken Irwin, who seems to be a bit of a character. (the venue seems to now be called "Ken Irwin's La Mancha Villas" and enjoys the title of "The Man of La Mancha.") I believe that Ken is the fellow in the white suit standing next to the Complimentary Chrysler Convertible - The picture of him on the website shows him wearing the same hat and his head is cocked at the same jaunty angle. The complimentary car is no longer part of the package, but you now get a 52 inch plasma television. I wonder what that says about the way times have changed.

Here I was getting all bothered about my wide feet and their needs when I see the opposite group. A store for those with freakishly narrow feet! You are my nemesis! No matter. Executive Shoes was snapped up by a clothing company in 1991. Score one for us paddle-duck gunboat footed folks.

We've seen J. H. Breakell & Co before. It looks like they may have given up on selling cufflinks.

Maria Battaglia is still running La Cucina Italiana ("The Italian Kitchen"). What is La Cucina Italiana? I'm not sure. It looks like Maria Battaglia just keeps on doing whatever cooking- related activities she wants, and administers it from this shingle she's put up. She still does the travel stuff, but the website doesn't have any details. You have to fill out a webform and then she'll send you an itinerary.

I've done Books on Tape before as well. This time, however the advertised selection is still available. Here's the link so you can buy it yourself. And check this out: They have an option so I can link to an excerpt:



I think it is quite evocative as it sounds like the recording was made underwater.

Was The Casa Marina the best place to view Halley's Comet? As I recall, there weren't many places that were particularly good for seeing it. I was able to find this site that lets you track the comet path. It doesn't let you get in close enough to see Key West though. The Casa Marina meanwhile has dropped the Halley's Comet angle from their advertising. Book now, 2061 is just around the corner!

Great Moments in Wikipedia Vandalism

Entry on Current US Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney

Revision as of 17:03, 23 February 2007

Romney's first name is changed from "Willard" to "Janet."

Buying the New Yorker - Interlude

As I am just a few pages away from closing out 1986, I've started getting all the ads together to start going on the 1976 issue. It's going to be fun.

The question is: will the fashions from the ads of the mid-seventies be able to withstand the raw, jaw-dropping couture power of the mid-eighties?

To represent 1986, I nominate my main man, Mr. Sailboat Sweater-Guy!


Can 1976 bring forth a fashion champion to top those hot threads? We shall see, Dear Readers, we shall see.

Re-introducing Introducing the Book

It seems that the Norwegian Help Desk skit that I posted a week or so ago was taken down. But here's a clearer (if darker) version:



And here's a Norwegian news report on the popularity of the clip:

I'm heading to the vendor room. Let's meet up at the mixer.

Here's the posted highlights of that Herman Hesse convention:

15.06.2006–18.06.2006
Hesse Days at the Waldhaus. For the seventh time, but with a new look – organized by Thomas Feitknecht, founding head of the Swiss Literature Archives, and Volker Michels, Suhrkamp editor of Hesse’s collected works. In German.

15.06.2006
Hesse Days: At 5:15 p.m., opening lecture by Adolf Muschg, At 9 p.m., a chat with Hesse’s grandson Silver Hesse,

16.06.2006
Hesse Days: At 10 a.m., Jochen Greven talks about “Hesse and Robert Walser”. At 5 p.m., Volker Michels talks about “Hesse and Thomas Mann”.

16.06.2006
Hesse Days: At 9 p.m., an evening of songs which inspired Hesse or were based on his poems, presented by Samuel Zünd (baritone) and Theresia Schmid (piano).

17.06.2006
Hesse Days: At 10 a.m., Thomas Feitknecht talks about “Die Morgenlandfahrer”, At 5 p.m., Bärbel Reetz talks about “Hesse, Hugo Ball and Emmy Ball-Hennings”. At 9 p.m. Volker Michels recites, and comments upon, excerpts from “Steppenwolf”.

18.06.2006
Hesse Days: At 10 a.m., closing lecture by Rätus Luck (Hesse and Hans Morgenthaler)

Buying the New Yorker 1986 - page 83

I had a NordicTrack ad in the 1996 pass as well. When we last checked in with them, I remarked about how minimalistic they seemed. This ad gives you a closer look at one, and I am reminded of how, on the few occasions that I actually tried to use one, impossible it was to actually get on the things.

And on the NordicTrack, Bill Koch! At first, I was delighted to think that it might be this Bill Koch, but no. It's this Bill Koch. Anyway, I remember those exercise outfits. I think we all believed that they looked good on us. Ha ha, egg on our face, right Bill?


Here's the website. On June 15-18 they are having a Herman Hesse convention. The reason I'm not going is that I don't speak German.

My latest radio phase

I think that the current horrific cold snap might have something to do with it, but I've started listening to Whole Wheat Radio quite a lot. WWR comes out of the town of Talkeetna, Alaska, and the thing that made me curious as to what they sounded like was a recommendation that said that it was like listening to the radio station from Northern Exposure.

And it is like that. Lots of music, and then occasionally someone comes in to sit at the mike and talk for a while. The music is eclectic and leans towards the folky (they are big boosters of the sort of artists that are doing the whole thing out of their basement and show up to do a set in your living room).

It's the sort of thing that you love to find as you roll through the radio dial at about ten or eleven on a long drive in the middle of nowhere. It's winter, it's biting cold, but the moon's out and lighting up the snowbanks. With the right music on you can drive another few hours, and this is just right indeed.

The last of the full grown men

I've been wracking my brain trying to come up with a way to explain Webb Wilder.

There are two kinds of Webb Wilder fans:

1. The ones who can't figure out if the guy is really like that or if he is just putting on a great big act
2. The ones who still don't know for sure but don't care anymore.

Have a taste of his music, which I can best describe as roots rock from Mars:



In addition to the music, he makes films in which he stars as himself. Here's the trailer for a new film that is due to come out later this year :



For more Webb, start off with his official site, and the official site for his films. Then swing by this fan site that is chock full of ephemera, like clips of him as a DJ on satellite radio and excerpts from his abortive book and radio series - a lost opportunity if I've ever seen one.

Oh, and don't forget to work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard, grow big and wear glasses if you need 'em.

Lost links for later

As I inferred a few weeks ago, I went out and got myself an iPod.

It seemed like the thing to do at the time.

As I was setting it up, I figured that there would be no harm in just taking and dumping every mp3 that I had from every nook and cranny of my computer onto it. In doing so, I rediscovered the files that I had from a series of compilations of hits of the Sixties and early Seventies redone in German, generally by the original artists.

(The Germans seem to really go for that - The Beatles and David Bowie both recut singles in German and Peter Gabriel redid entire albums that way.)

Here's a blog about such matters.

Lost links for later

As a new feature to keep the posting rate up, I'm going to try to start putting up links to things that I really haven't spent that much time looking at, but want to remember to return to. So, not an endorsement as much as a memo to myself.

First up, a band called The Books. I ripped a gig listing out of a New Yorker. It said that they were big into audio-visual experiments with found sound. Which sounds like something I'd dig.

Now I can throw out that scrap of paper.

I have no idea what to make of this

I have been looking for some efficient mechanism to inform me of whether or not a CD was released under the auspices of the Recording Industry Association of America.

In doing so, I find my way to this site which seems like the sort of thing I'm looking for.

Now, one of the functions that they have is a "zeitgeist page" that gives you a glimpse into what people are coming to the site and checking on.

As of this writing the top search for RIAA-freeness in the past seven days: Il Divo (with 261 searches).

All is the best with this best of all possible moles

In a recent post I had this to say about a mid 1980's era cotton moleskin smock:

moleskin is a term for cotton fabric that has a fuzzy texture that (theoretically) is similar to the fur of a mole. I'm most familiar with the sticky back variety that is meant for foot troubles but enjoyed by drummers who use it to dampen their skins. Thinking about that makes the fashionibility of that smock seem all the more improbable. It also doesn't help that it looks like a straight-jacket.

To which I received this reply:

But dude - the moleskin frock was made IN WALES! May be it imitates the texture of specifically Welsh moles?!

I hadn't thought of that.

At this point, I have to confess that I have (at least as far as I can recall) never touched a mole, regardless of nationality. I have spent time with the sticky back variety, as I have frequently needed to muffle drums.

It was my presumption that the cotton moleskin was based on some sort of universal Platonic Ideal of perfect moleness. I now realize that this was short sighted of me.

Now I have a new goal: I must go to Wales and touch a mole.

Eventually.

I can't go now. My passport expired. But it is on my list. Honest.

I've reached the limits of my pop culture viability and I can't get up

Residents of the US will remember this ad, which made its debut in the late 1980s:



As frequently happens, this ad became a national joke. I can recall a number of parties where large groups of people started jumping up and down chanting "I've fallen and I can't get up" over and over again.

Anyway. It seems that the actress who portrayed the unfortunate Mrs. Fletcher was named Edith Fore. And someone has come into possession of one of her grade school attendance certificates and is selling it on eBay. On the off chance that someone somewhere is a big "I've fallen and I can't get up" aficionado.

Bidding starts at $9 and closes on the 21st.

I greet my new Google overlords via my new e-mail address!

As Blogger is assimilated into Google, so does my functionality. My blog account has just been granted the ability to merge with a mail account.

So you can now reach me at xeniusjones (at) gmail (dot) com. If you are so inclined.

Great Moments in Wikipedia Vandalism

Make Way for Ducklings, Revision as of 16:57, 12 February 2007:

Robert McCloskey was born in Intercourse, Pennsylvania. He was raised by wolves that turned him into a rabid meat eating machine.

I am somehow reminded of my parents.

Buying the New Yorker 1986 - page 82

Audio-Forum is not only still around, they still have precisely the same logo! They also still have the multiple cassette tapes in the polyvinyl case. I can still hear the noise that those things make when you open and close them. Of course, if you insist, you can get CDs and some CD-ROMs.

I do have to give them some credit: Look at all the languages you can learn from these guys. To hell with French, you can bone up on your Chocktaw! There are three different tapes you can get for your Chocktaw learning, including this:

Choctaw Singing allows you to hear the blending of two very different cultures as Charley Jones sings some Christian hymns, as well as the Choctaw Warrior's Song and the Meditation on Death, both sung on the Trail of Tears. He will entertain you and touch your heart as he provides a unique glimpse into the culture of the Choctaw Nation, then and now.

The reason why I actually and honestly find this so delightful is that there is no way this is being marketed to some travelling corporate sales rep.

So let's get this straight. You spend the money to fly off to St. Thomas in the Caribbean. So why would you want to spend spend a bunch of extra money on a guest house that has a small private pool fenced in by high walls with sliding doors off of the bedroom... Scratch that. I just figured it out. Pavilions still have the same deal. If you have trouble with the pool, maintenance is available on request.

"X-C" skiing is "Cross-Country" skiing. I used to go cross country skiing when I was younger. One year I actually participated in the Birkebeiner. I was drunk. What could an X-C skier want? As I recall, I wanted a rest room. I'll bet that The Inn on the Common has one.

I honestly don't recall smocks being in fashion in 1986. But then I wasn't very "fashion forward" at that point so I might have missed it. Anyway, moleskin is a term for cotton fabric that has a fuzzy texture that (theoretically) is similar to the fur of a mole. I'm most familiar with the sticky back variety that is meant for foot troubles but enjoyed by drummers who use it to dampen their skins. Thinking about that makes the fashionibility of that smock seem all the more improbable. It also doesn't help that it looks like a straight-jacket. I think David Morgan agrees. There's nothing similar for sale at his website now.

This is one of the sorts of things that I was hoping to find on this adventure. Yousuf Karsh is one of the most well known portrait photographers of the Twentieth Century. Here is a small selection of the things Karsh of Ottawa is famous for. They left out this one of Winston Churchill. Pretty impressive, no? Now have another look at the ad. It's pretty understated, considering that he really didn't need to be advertising at this point anyway.

The next ad is another sort of thing I was hoping for. Are your neckties too wide? Send them off to be taken in! Round about 1992-93 or so you'll be sending them back to be let back out again. Astonishingly, these folks aren't in business anymore.

I think this ad is cool. Just get three friends, go off to Lancashire and get into someone's car and go. If you Google the phrase "Gartside Tours" you'll get a bunch of hits for "left-wing-inspired post-punk British rock group, turned mainstream pop music project," Scritti Politti, as it is led by a gentleman who goes by the name Green Gartside and they are just wrapping up a big tour. I think it would be great to have him drive me and a few friends all over the place. Somehow I don't think that's the way it worked.

and what did you do in the Mooninite Invasion, Daddy?

So the other day I was on my way to work.

We got to the subway station at about ten after eight. A train was waiting and we jumped on just as an announcement was being made that the train would be standing by for two minutes. After the two minutes, the doors shut and the train pulled out of the station. The intercom then came on and said that the train would be stopping at the next station and we would all have to get off there to be shuttled into the city because there was "a police action" at the stop beyond that.

Generally, the sort of police action that causes that sort of detour is someone jumping in front of a train or some sort of gunplay. Anything less interesting than that just slows the train to a halt and we get to wait until it gets cleared up.

We get to the next station and we wait. By my estimate there must have been over a thousand people waiting for a shuttle bus. For crowd control there was one person with a clipboard trying to yell everyone out of the street and back onto the sidewalk. We didn't all fit on the sidewalk.

Because I am one of the few people on the planet who still doesn't carry a cellphone, I was at the far end of the bus terminal where the payphones are. When a bus finally pulled up, the driver saw the huge mass of people and drove past them all to a place that didn't seem quite as scary. Right in front of me. Which is how I got myself jammed onto a shuttle bus.

The thing about the MBTA is that they don't have any shuttle plans for when a station goes down. The bus driver, as is always the case, had no idea where to go. So he went to the next stop on the route. The one that the police had shut down. We pull up and the place is nuts. There were fire trucks, police cars, ambulances, and the bomb squad.

This is where the station is.

You will notice from the map that the station is under the highway. This is a point where the subway, two commuter rail lines, an interstate, and a couple of smaller state highways all come together to go into the city. If you are so inclined, it's a pretty smart place to blow up if you want to get attention at rush hour.

So the bus driver tries to pull us up to the door. Past the cops who are waving at us. Finally he says "I guess I better go someplace else. Where should we go?" We all yell that we want to go into the city. "How do we get there?" He asks.

Folks who follow the news will know that this was the beginning of what Wikipedia seems to finally be deciding to call the 2007 Boston Mooninite Scare.

++++++++++++++++

Some things I've not seen mentioned.

The day before, a bomb threat note was found at MIT. It was later found to be harmless, but it most likely got the authorities to be a little more antsy than normal at the sight of a goofy electronic device with a bunch of lightbulbs on it.

From the Boston Police log:

• Six minutes later at 1:02 p.m. Boston Police received a call from New England Medical Center Security that they had uncovered a pipe bomb in their building in a desk drawer. Shortly thereafter Hospital Security reported that a suspect had been seen leaving the area of the pipe bomb in an agitated state stating, "God is warning you that today is going to be a sad Day." The suspect was reported to have fled the hospital. Boston Police continue to investigate this incident. No further details at this time.
• At 1:08 p.m. the Boston Police Bomb Squad arrived and confirmed the existence of an item which appeared to be a pipe bomb inside the hospital.

This was simultaneous to the second wave of Mooninite devices being discovered - also on bridges going out of the city. New England Medical is on the same subway line as the station where the first device was found.

+++++++++++

A digression: Two stories about me as a youth frightening people.

One of my joys as a young lad was Hallowe'en when I had the opportunity to work for a charity haunted house. As I got to be High School age, I was allowed to dress up in the monster costumes and jump out at people. Once I reached this goal, I discovered why they don't let the young kids do it. Sometimes when people are frightened, the first reaction is to punch you in the face. Good times.

Also as a youth I spent a fair amount of time in a shopping mall hanging with various friends. One day we were approached by a couple of folks who wanted to bring us to their church. We responded in a manner that we felt was perfectly calibrated to convince them to leave us alone. It could be best summarized as "Oh Ho! We're Satanists! Bwah Hah Hah! Booga Booga!" From that day on, that particular mall was filled with evangelicals as it was known to be crawling with Satanists. We were never left alone there again.

++++++++++

Oh what the hell. One more:

One day a friend and I were walking down a sidewalk when a friend of my friend was driving up the street in the opposite direction. The friend of a friend saw us and decided that it would be fun to scare us a bit. His plan was to drive across the oncoming traffic lane and on to the sidewalk at us. He would then swerve back across traffic and back into his lane. As he saw nobody coming in the other direction, he figured that this would be easy. When he cut across the street and onto the sidewalk coming at us, I, not recognizing this guy as he was not my friend, figured that he was drunk or insane or something and ran to get out of the way. At the time the best place to get out of the way of the nutcase who was driving down the sidewalk at us was to run into the street. Where he was planning to swerve away from us. In order to avoid me, now in the street, he had to swerve back at the sidewalk. Where my friend was. He missed us both, squealed to a halt, and then got out of his car to yell at me for being an idiot.

To sum up: I've learned not to go freaking people out. In the long run it isn't worth it.

++++++++++++

One more thing, just to chew on.

Let me say that I think that this was an over-reaction. There was poor co-ordination, and the media was a bit hyperbolic and slow on the ball. By far, the lowest marks go to the MBTA who seem to react to every crisis, mechanical breakdown and patch of inclement weather like they have just been pulled out of their mother and slapped on their backside.

But I've been wondering about how this advertising campaign was supposed to have worked. Presuming that there was no panic from these things, the only people who would have understood what they were, were the people who have actually seen the program that they were advertising. So it wasn't so much an attempt to increase the fanbase, but in fact to galvanise it. Thus a fan of the program can stand on the subway platform or wherever and overhear other folks asking each other "what the hell is that?" and feel somehow superior because they know.

This sort of hubris is something that I have frequently identified in myself. Everyone has it. It is part of being human, this sort of one-upmanship. I fight against it constantly. I am not superior to anyone else due merely to the facts and things that I stuff in my head. But people are always looking out for other people who have the same things in their head - religion, politics, sports teams, music groups. And television shows.

Nobody likes to see the sort of people that they identify with in trouble. That's why every time there some horrible crime in some suburb, there's always someone on television going "I never thought it could happen here." I wonder how different the ridicule that is going around would be if all this hoo-ha had been caused two middle aged guys in suits throwing around guerrilla ads for the golf channel.

Great Moments in Democracy!

The UK now has an interactive petition web interface.

Lucky residents of the UK can start a petition, collect signatures and perhaps even change some laws.

In the interests of transparency, they even continue to show the petitions that they have canceled (they do censor the particularly torrid ones) and the reasons why they were canceled (This one, calling for the legalization of cannabis, was rejected because "It was commercial endorsement, promotion of a product, service or publication, or statements that amounted to adverts.")

Rocketing its way to Parliament is this, which I will post in full:

We, the people of Britain, feel that our current National Anthem has lost a bit of its sparkle.

When we are confronted by the rare occasion of us winning a medal at the Olympics, we all have to mumble through "God Save The Queen", well God help us in 2012!

We would thereby like to table the suggestion that we change the National Anthem to something more modern and appropriate and that will re-invigorate our pride.

What we specifically want to see, is that the National Anthem be changed in favour of "Gold" by Spandau Ballet.

Further, we would like our National Olympic Committee to decree that Tony Hadley is the only person permitted to handle medal ceremonies where the National Anthem is played.

We don't mind what he wears when he does this, but preference is given towards a a gold colured suit.

Sincerely,

As of this writing, this petition has been signed by 2,502 residents of the UK, including Gary Kemp and someone whose full legal name seems to be Philip 'i've got no knickers on' Thomas.

Where the Banshees live and they do live well

I was looking at the recent news about recent archaeological discoveries near Stonehenge and decided to see what there was to see on the ol' satellite view.

Here's Stonehenge:


and over a bit to the north and east you can see this bit of business which looks like the "woodhenge" pictured here


Of course as far as I know, that's just someone staking out a new subdivision or something.

Yesterday was quite stupid

Yes. I was stuck in the middle of this.