The gloriousness is beginning. I noted yesterday that we had mere hints of autumn in the foliage? Much can happen in a day. I went down to the creek at the bottom of the hill:

When I say “Hill” I don’t mean the sloping lawn of Jasperwood, but the general slope of the neighborhood as it steps down the incline, stopping at the ravine. Minnehaha Creek flows past, emptying into the Falls, where the Indigenous Drumbeat calls to mind the Song of Hiawatha. Or a drunken bear:

BUM bum bum bum BUM bum bum. It's a reference to The Song of Hiawatha, in all its droning:

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big- Sea- Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them ;
Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,

Trochaic tetrameter, the Headache Meter. I considered using “Dark Behind It” as the title of the next novel, which has a scene at the Falls, but out of context it doesn’t work. But the four sections of the book are “Dark behind it,” “Rose the black,” “Rise the Firs,” and “Bright Before It.” Maybe. It’s all up in the air. Ask me after the 4th revision.

From our neighborhood newspaper: tell me what strikes you odd about this.

Minneapolis Public Schools Supt. Bernadeia Johnson has a favorite saying: “So goes Minneapolis Public Schools, so goes the City of Minneapolis.”

Either the reporter didn’t catch it, or did and didn’t ask “don’t you mean,” or the editor didn’t catch it, or did, and thought it didn’t matter.

The reference goes back a ways:

"As Maine goes, so goes the nation" is a phrase that at one time was in wide currency in United States politics. The phrase described Maine's reputation as a bellwether state for presidential elections. Specifically, Maine's September election of a governor predicted the party outcome of the November presidential election

The phrase has also been applied to Missouri and Ohio. And Wichita Falls. (I remember listening to that entire track on my Walkman as I walked over the Mississippi Bridge on a warm fall night. When Walkmen were new, and the idea of strolling outside in the real world listening to stereo music of your choosing was a novelty, the events burned themselves into your memories. This also, alas, means I recall walking across the 10th avenue bridge listening to “There Must Be Some Misunderstanding,” trying hard to pretend I didn’t hate it.)

Anyway. After the creek, the vet: dog needed pills. They’re happy to hear Jasper is still kicking. The paper this morning had a list of things to watch for, things that tell you your dog’s ready for the soft surcease. Chronic pain that cannot be controlled by medication. Well, if he was in chronic pain I expect he would not want to go for walks. Frequent blurtation from either end: nope. Stopped eating: he picks at his morning load of colored nodules, but will eat a pound of bacon, eggs, toast, and cereal if you put it down. Lost interest in its favorite activities. That’s a hard one; it’s been about eight years since he had a serious run at a squirrel. But he loves to totter out around the block and smell things. Chronic labored breathing: nope.

Mostly he sleeps. During lunch he wanders over to see if there’s anything. At supper he’s highly motivated, and that’s his walk-around-outside time; he’ll be out from five to seven, and he doesn’t fall or slip like he does inside where the wood floors admit no purchase.

Trust me. I am watching for the Hard Day. You have to pay close attention with a very old dog, because you get accustomed to the slow fade, the quiet presence. It’s difficult to remember when he ran up the stairs and sprang on the bed. I passed the sofa today and recalled how he’d sit there curled up, enjoying the sun on a winter afternoon, or how he sat on the warm slab over the radiator and looked out at his snowy domain, ears up, eyes bright. He’s had a marvelous life. Tomorrow he will sit in the backyard under the tree where he rests, and point a snout to sniff the news. He remains a faithful subscriber.

Whoa, what's that over there?

I took that today. Bright before it.

This was the make-or-break week. If there was nothing new, no sign of wit or intelligence, nothing but running back and forth between rocks or buildings spouting technobabble about the Audiotronic Insulator or the Cosmic Oscillograph, then I was done. There are 15 episodes and I’m bored dead after three.

So:

To recap: stuff happened.

After a fight with another cardboard robot wearing a bad hat, Captain Video saves his sidekick Ranger by spraying fluid on the fire. Just in time - why, the warehouse was full of the most volatile chemicals known to man . . .

CHEMICALS!

After another fight with the hapless, weak-as-kittens cardboard robots . . .

. . . they get the “brain” out of the robot’s chest. Alas, they are spied upon by figures in the clouds.

Yes, this is a civilization that can project images and see anything anywhere by tuning in a TV knob and loft craft into the sky without evident propulsion, but they need a spyglass.

Meanwhile, back at the lab, Evil Dr. Tobor lounges about, smug in the knowledge that no one suspects him.

But Captain Video has his doubts, and dispatches Ranger to send a message to HQ. Let me explain how this is done: instead of picking up the phone, or sending a video message, Ranger gets out a manual typewriter . . .

And types words that appear on a screen. In the same room.

Why don't you just drive him there, for heaven's sake? Or call him a cab? You have to call the COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC SAFETY?

Next step: enlist scientists to figure out the Robot Brain. They go to the futuristic house of a scientist:

. . . and meet the strange, unpleasant doctor who speaks slowly, as if his body has been inhabited by, oh, I don’t know, Voltara of Atoma.

It’s a trick! It was a cosmic projection! So now that the forces of evil have the heroes trapped in a room, what do they do? Send in men with machine guns? No. They send in a guy who drops a smoke bomb, which . . . kills them? No, it paralyzes them. So they can be put in the deep freeze compartment of Dr. Tobor’s lab. Naturally, he has one of these:

“Say, that subatomic stratifier only says what it is on the dial. Better put another sign saying subatomic stratifier over the subatomic stratifier dial.”

As the temperature drops, our heroes freeze. That’s what happens in extreme cold: you just lock up where you stand, and wait for the FX guys to draw ice on you.

So it has one new effect: ice. Okay, I’ll keep watching. Sorry. Tune in next week for . . .

Work blog around 12:30 and Tumblr as well. See you around.