Sorry about yesterday’s screw-ups. I posted in haste, went to bed, and was away from the computer most of the day. It’s fixed now, if you want to hear that audio. Oh, why make you click back? Here.
Today’s project was set-dressing. I can’t tell you the name of the project or the type of project or anything else, but here’s the set.
Yes. That’s a set. All will be explained. I think you’ll like it. Feel free to speculate.
Natalie got Student of the Month in two classes - Math and English - so I took her out for a celebratory dinner. We went to Famous Dave’s, and I noted that the bun wasn’t as good as it used to be. What once was soft and grill-kiss’d was now bland and dry. I asked the server if they’d changed the buns, and she said they had, and no, they weren’t as good. She wished they would change back. People said they didn’t like them, if they said anything at all. There’s absolutely no way the company doesn’t know they’re lousy buns. It’s not an objective matter.
While we ate, daughter told me about school: the teacher read a declaration of human rights. I gather it was the UN Declaration. It certainly contained enough rights. This led to a conversation about whether it was better to have 150 specific rights, or 10 general rights, whether governments that define your rights can also take them away, what a “right” means, and so on. She was annoyed by the entire exercise, and does not believe people automatically are entitled to all sorts of specific things, especially if they are criminals. She is not fond of criminals.
Since mom was at a post-work party, we had a night on the town: went to Best Buy, which is like Toys ‘r Us when you’re past a certain age, then went to Southdale. Stood in line for a cup of coffee behind someone who was the worst person in the world to be standing behind when you really want a cup of coffee. Indecision over sandwich order. Interminably complex half-chai non-skim mocha frappawhatever with carmiciatto dribbles, and so on, then the proffering of a half-dozen cards, each containing one dime’s worth of credit, and on and on on. When one card came up dry there was great wrangling about its actual value, and that required a manager to come over and type in special codes to see what it was really truly worth. I suspect he just punched areas of the screen that had no keys, and said “gosh! Sorry.” Meanwhile the line grew to look like opening day for “Empire Strikes Back.” Ah, well. Unclench. Tis the season and so on.
We had some ice cream and looked at things in the Apple Store; she wants an iPod Touch SO BAD and regards each new box under the tree with doubt. Nothing looks right. I’ve told her that this is my finest year for concealment, and I mean it - the boxes’ contents cannot be discerned by shaking. One contains a book taped to the bottom and a loose Rubik’s cube, for example.
It was a grand night out. It was the best night ever.
But that was the time I usually spend writing, so this is short. But don’t despair. Two things:
More lights!
Second thing:
I mentioned last week that I’d been poring over the Film Daily archives at archive.org, and of course a big huge site will be assembled from the gleanings. Mmmmm: pored-over gleanings. It’ll be part of a larger site on the 20s, similar to one of my personal favorites, the 30s site. For now we have only one nine-page example, here. This is the start of our trip through the 20s, the big project for 2012.
