Man, Friday! Finally! This week, am I right? What a SLOG.
Actually, no. I think everyone was in summer mode from Tuesday morn on, and it took a while to firm up our commitment to the norms. I had a light week at work - three pieces due, two percolating in the background. The workmen were over to put down cement, which is an extra added expense because the estimate was made without knowing how much work that would involve. (I trust them completely, and they ate the cost of all the extra plumbing.) On Tuesday my mother-in-law was at the breakfast table, and then when I came home she was gone. Hallucination? Possibly. On Wednesday I took Daughter to her music lesson at the same place where she's been taking instruction since she was, oh, six? Seven? It's odd, because she doesn't take piano anymore, and that was on Friday. But her teacher wants to continue, because her teacher is a wonderful person, and now they do guitar every other week or so. A tenuous thread to the old days, but life is full of such gossamer strands, and you braid them up into a stern rope and pull yourself into the next day, the next duty, the next fresh adventure.
Which, in my case, was evaluating commercial BBQ labels. While Daughter was strumming away I hit Target, and was mightily impressed by Heinz' foray into the BBQ sauce realm. I've no idea what they taste like, but this is nice work:
Heinz is going nuts with the brand extension.They brought out a Garlic & Herb mustard that's really good, and now I have a grocery-store-worthy brand-block o their products in my pantry. Which, of course, is exactly what they want.
Any other odds and ends from the week? Sure. Tuesday I took the dog for a walk, and he wanted to go to the high school because the kids drop food and he can eat the kid-dropped food. I wandered over to the outdoor tables - I assume only the seniors get to eat there; no frosh would dare usurp the benches - and noted some graf on the wood.
There's a story here, eternal as the tides:
Nearby on a phone poll was a sign for a lost dog, and I took a look. A MinPin. The date was last year. The reward was $1,000. You ask yourself if you'd pay that much, and feel bad because no, you wouldn't. Or would you? A thousand dollars. Now you feel like a heel because you wouldn't give a grand to get your dog back. But who would return a dog to its home and demand a thousand dollars in return? A thief. A cur. A man of low breeding. Maybe it was supposed to get our attention. Would the sign be considered a legally binding agreement? Could you sue someone for not giving you a thousand dollars?
What jury would convict? Some juries would. That's the thing to consider.
Anything else? Sure. The workmen thought Scout was inside, when he was snoozing on the outdoor sofa. The door was left ajar for 2.7 seconds, and Scout was out again. They found him up in an alley, which is good, because imagine spending every morning in your new shower and thinking "the people who built it got my dog killed." No.
About time for a pupdate:
Good dog! Naughty, but only by human standards. By dog standards, the means by which other dogs would measure his bravery and spirit of adventure, he's a hero.
HERE was supposed to go this long thing I wrote about something, but then I remember I had a Screed in my back pocket about the alt-right. Link at the bottom after the insane 60s lounge-pop.
A few weeks ago I showed you the Hennepin side of the new hotel; now they've taken the plastic wrap off the other side.
It's a different color. Why? To match the library across the street.
From my investigations into the structure's layout (I walked by and looked in), it seems there's a courtyard that looks onto an ancient brick wall with a ghost sign. It's enough to make me stay there.
The Kraus-Anderson block-wide project has now leveled the field and braced the walls. Ready to pour the pilings.
Watch this space. It's going to be interesting.
Back to music cues for "The Little Things in Life," Peg Lynch's last continuously running sitcom. The cues run from substandard 60s cues to cringingly 70s, and I'm surprised at how few there were. I think I'm already repeating what I previously played. In fact I know I'm already repeating the fact that I think I'm repeating myself, but on we go: this is the sound of narrative radio in its strange last gasp.
For less than the price of a full length album from one artist (packed with more filler than you can shake a meatloaf recipe at.) K-Tel and Ronco records offered nothing but hits. Lots of them (and even a few that made you wonder how they got on there....You didn't hear these on the radio.)
For a K-Tel or Ronco record, the grooves were much finer. But the reduced depth/width of the grooves also meant reduced dynamic range.. So it really didn't sound as good as a conventional record and you had to turn up the volume a bit louder than you would on a regular album.
Bonus: there's one note at the end for the next song.
Name that song. One note. You can do it.
This week's Bob & Ray sketch starts with something that may surprise you: how can they use that? Isn't it . . . copyrighted? These days we'd get a letter.
"A strange, foreign city"
Perhaps a satire on "Counterspy," a rather juvenile radio series.
He is recognized today as one of the foremost exponents of a sophisticated style of largely instrumental music that combines elements of lounge music and jazz with Latin flavors. Esquivel is sometimes called "The King of Space Age Pop" and "The Busby Berkeley of Cocktail Music." Esquivel is considered one of the foremost exponents of a style of late 1950s-early 1960s quirky instrumental pop that became known (in retrospect) as "Space Age Bachelor Pad Music".
sYou love it or you hate it.
Oh, er, ahem:
That'll do! More to come next week, to state the obvious.
When wouldn't there be something more next week?
When you do that hiatus thing in the summer, you say.
Ah, not this year. Just you wait. Wouldn't ask for patronage and then mosey off in the dead of summer. Just. You. Wait.
OH: SCREEDBLOG here. Ignore the navigation buttons at the bottom; haven't gotten around to making an index page yet. Subject: anti-Semitism and the alt-right. It used to be you had to lift a rock to find these people; now they're lifting it up all by themselves.
