Beautiful day! Warm and sunny! Best Fall Ever!
Would you be surprised to learn I went to the Fair today? I did. Again. That’s four. Two more to go. I’m not done with it yet, obviously, but I’m also not done with it in the other sense, the OH GOD NOT AGAIN PLEASE NO phase. But it takes a lot to make me sick of the Fair. It helps to make quick feints in and out, not overstay, and have an idea what I want to do. Didn’t have any of those today, alas. Just showed up with a camera and a tripod and figured I’d see what happens.
Actually, they’re all like that.
Here’s a picture of a booth from the 70s:
And here it is today. Hardly anything has changed!
I’m doing a short vid for the paper, using stills and filters to describe the difference between the old fair and the new, the difference between the homier days and the new era, where professional signage and neon and chrome predominate. Those I do not like. They look great at night, yes, but they have no sense of place or time, aside from the bright commercial NOW. The smaller booths are the ones I patronize, the ones with low-tech signs. Every year I see the homely humble Bratwurst Mit Kraut, and I want to cry: my old friend! It has been too long!
That thing will be there forever, because the owner has the franchise on the spot, and it’s too small for anyone who wants to make big money. I don’t think he makes a ton of money, but you buy a pack of brats for three dollars, sell them individually for, say, seven, and profit just might result.
Anyway. Column and video night. Approaching the end of the great run of obligations. All starts up in earnest next Monday; bear with me, and thanks.
Pass it along, if you wish
39 Responses to Shortness
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True confession time. When I’d go to the fair (L.A. County, out here) I loved to watch the Hot Dog on a Stick girls with their silly little hats and cute red shorts. Especially when they were making lemonade – so energetic, somehow so sexy. Also, during the rest of the year, they were one of my favorite mall food court stops.
Oh, the Hot Dog on a Stick Girls in their hats! Be still my beating…. heart.
As for the rest, cheese on a stick, followed by a brat, followed by a big lemonade, followed by a corn dog… followed by a roll of Tums.
That’s living!
Mr. Lileks is having fun with us! The picture of the lemonade stand “from the 70′s” is the same picture as the modern one! At first I was taken with how remarkably similar the booth looked “back then”, then upon closer inspection, I realized that it was the same picture, only the colors in it are muted. And I noticed that the same people are in both photos….
It was the shorts. Those knee-length shorts did not exist in the days of Boston and Jethro Tull.
Oh, and nobody outside of Texas and Cali knew what a “jalapeño” was. Cultural and epicurean wasteland, the 70s.
Hot Dog on a Stick Girls?! I never knew they actually existed. There was a reference to them (even a cameo) in the tv show Freaks & Geeks and I thought it was some phony name they came up with to represent mall food. Alas, no locations in my home state of Missouri.
On the East Coast our stick-based food groups are woefully inadequate. You used to be able to get a nice shish kebab on the street, but the guy would pull the meat off on a pita and keep the stick. Bummer. You need a good stick to get around the sidewalks sometimes.
Of course, if Nanny Bloomberg and his enablers get their way, New York won’t have any fried food either. Even the local KFCs will be serving Kentucky Boiled Chicken.
…nothing gets by you, Kerry.
hahahaha
was it the guy in the exact same pose, the exact same leaves and shadows, or the incredibly perfectly matched camera angle that gave it away?
Go ahead, and take Monday off. Watch a telethon or something!
Oh, yeah, I got caught for a minute by those two lemonade photographs… looking back and forth… hey, wait a minute! LOL!
Those designs are near-universal in my experience. We have booths that look more or less identical at my local fair, although instead of “Mit Kraut” the Bratwurst Booth’s subtitle says “any way you like it!” if I recall correctly.
‘T’aint Fall yet. Not until Tuesday will it be Fall. Still time to wear white pants. As long as it hits 90 here in Toledo it is summer, not fall.
I’m planning to do the fair on Saturday. The weather is supposed to be beautiful. It will be a Saturday on Labor Day weekend. Put these all together, and I’m pretty sure no one will actually be able to move. We’ll be stuck in place, jammed in the crowd, craning our necks to see the things we can’t actually get to. If someone yells “Fire” the state population will be suddenly decimated.
And we’ll go home with our pockets picked.
Good Times!
Every year I see the homely humble Bratwurst Mit Kraut, and I want to cry: my old friend! It has been too long!
I mistakenly read this as “Bratwurst McKraut,” and I was trying to decide if someone had come up with an Irish twist on German food, or if McDonald’s had gotten into the game.
(And “Bratwurst McKraut” would be a good name for a villain if Lance Lawson had ever visited the State Fair.)
Ah Duetsch, and in gothic black letter too. Wait, wait, I think I’m having a Dr. Strangelove moment.
“Mein Fuhrer, I kan valk again!”
old gastrononmic friend, or old visual friend, the brat stand?
Saturday is going to be a wonderful day for the fair, according to the weather peep. if they load me with OT, then we’ll go Sunday, instead. less sun, similar conditions.
bad thing about going at the end of the fair is the livestock is pretty much gone in the pens. plenty of “two legs better” walking around outside the pens, but I prefer to see my big hogs lying on straw, not sweating and yelling into cell phones.
@ Kev
McDonald’s does serve Bratwurst seasonally in some markets. We used to get it here in the summer, but they haven’t done it in at least 5 or 6 years.
I once dated a Hot Dog on a Stick girl and we did the graduation walk together, another lost love.
At the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz the shop is still there selling the impaled dogs, however, they split off from official franchise years ago so no cute costumes anymore.
Is it Labor Day Weekend already?
People here in the Garden State are fretting about Hurricane Earl. Last I heard, my area’s looking at a half-inch of rain, and winds of up to 10 mph. And that’s just Friday. After that, we get sunshine and nice temps for about a week.
I’ve had the top down on the Jeep since last Saturday. Shame I have to put it back up for a day. But I’ll deal with it.
All this talk of Brats is making me think about making a trip to the German pork store on Friday afternoon.
Earl of Assateague.
rolls nicely off the fingertips. how interesting is it that there is an island off the outer banks names Assateague?
yes, I need the long weekend, thank you for asking. Hurricane Earl might just stall our weather, and stick the edge of a weather front over us, too.
sorry about your holiday weekend off the atlantic coast. at least my relatives off Fort Benning haven’t had to pack the cars and evacuate, although they’ve been sitting gassed and half-packed all week.
the cars, that is, are gassed and half-packed. you have dirty minds
@swschrad: “Earl of Assateague.”
Sounds like a Brooklyn-based laxative manufacturer.
@swschrad: “Gassed and half-packed”
That’s how I felt the last time I had a brat mit der kraut. Next time, kein kraut.
I introduced my parents to the wonders of the brat after convincing them to buy a pack and grill them up a couple of weeks ago. First time I had brats was when I went to a cookout/meeting with the paranormal investigation group I’m in a couple of months ago. Und ja, es war gut.
If you like Assateague, you will love the name of the bay (actually, a sound) just north of Assateague.
http://maps.google.com/maps?rlz=1T4WZPA_enUS348US348&q=assawoman%20bay&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl
@bgbear — Was that place ever “really” part of the chain?? It was called All American Hot Dogs back when Wawona was a Bicentennial teen, and that was a while back. Friend of mine’s mom was the owner. It’s still there, and ALWAYS worth a stop, best french fries, served vertically in a cup, which for some reason is better than any other way. Yeah, it is.
If you can bear to wait, they’ll make what HDOAS-the-chain doesn’t make: POLISH-DOGS on a stick. Da-rool, da-rool. I’ll wait.
@wawona I though it was once a franchise based on an old photo from the early 70s where the young ladies were wearing the traditional uniforms. I’ll check the book I have and with my wife who has worked at the ‘walk in some capacity or another since high school.
The owners are no doubt the same with the Twissleman (sp) son running the show these days.
The mention of Bratwurst McKraut provides just enough of an excuse to mention a great line that Dick Cavett had about the blending of cultures.
He talked about a German-Chinese restaurant that he had gone to: “The food was great, but an hour later you were hungry for power.”
Mark:
In this age of youtube and imdb there is no excuse for getting a well known movie quote wrong: it is “Mein Fueher, I can walk!” (no again.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9ihKq34Ozc
One of the best brats I ever had was at a bowling alley in Wisconsin (forget the town–I was passing through). It was a brat, combined with a cheeseburger, on a long roll.
Combined with a couple of cold beers, it was ambrosia.
God, I’m really getting hungry now.
Correction duly noted and accepted. Funny how the brain adds a few words that seems to make it better. At least inside your own head.
Is anybody else creeped out by the sleeping pig photo from the slide show at the top? A little dried white stuff on his mouth makes him look like he OD’d and passed away Jimi Hendrix style.
Assawoman bay is next to GOOSE pond. HA HA HA
Also I at first glance read ‘homier’ as ‘hornier’ time for new glasses, I guess.
I saw “hornier” too. I think it’s the font.
I was hoping someone would notice Goose Pond. That’s a long-time joke in my family, who spent almost every summer at Assateague in my yoot.
The other Assateague family joke was when we would pass over the bridge with the sign “No crabbing on bridge” which was the signal for us all to start loudly “crabbing” about the sign in unison. Ah, memories.
_@_v – what is this ‘fair’ you speak of?
Apropos of absolutely nothing in this discussion: I got to the end of the comments and realized that that I had not seen a single troll. No idiot shouting “Look at me, I’m first,” no abusive ad hominem attacks, no obscenities. All the disagreements were amicable, the teasing gentle. You very seldom see this behavior on any public blog or website. Good work everyone!
Wow! I didn’t know Hot Dog on a Stick was still around anywhere. We had them in all the mall food courts here (I’m in the South East US) until the mid-80s, then they were pretty much all replaced by Sbarro’s. I guess I just assumed the whole company went out of business.
wow, what’s up with the main page? I just noticed the men have BIG buts. or its the pants with the large accomodations…whew! Or maybe its the stool…
The young woman to the immediate right of the booth in the 70s/Today booth shots, wearing vertical rainbow stripes, IS a Hot Dog On A Stick Girl, even though the booth doesn’t proclaim itself part of the HDOAS empire. The sleeveless polyester outfit, with matching Choo-Choo Charlie hat, is a trademark of the (mostly West Coast) chain, which peddles corn dogs and fresh-squeezed lemonade, just like this booth.
Consider yourself very fortunate. You have a job that allows you to afford attending the fair. There are many people without the means and or the opportunity to do so.