I am too busy to Bleat for the next few days, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have things for you. Whether or not they’re interesting in the least possible definition of the term I can’t say, but it’s something. There will also be something tomorrow. And then a LOT on Monday.
Since it's Thursday, that means random fruits of the scanner, and today is a peculiar example.
I have some of my childhood books - Golden and Wonder, the two competing standards. The former were known for their old-timey-ness and golden spines; the latter were more modern, I think. At least when it comes to this one.
The Astronut Show was a syndicated animated television series produced by the Terrytoons animation studio. It first aired on August 23, 1965. Each episode included an episode of Astronut and Luno The White Stallion, plus another cartoon from the Terrytoons stable.
Astronut first appeared on the Deputy Dawg series. He was a short, squat, friendly blue alien in a tiny flying saucer who frequently got into mischief on Earth. He had a human friend called Oscar Mild, who was, as his name suggested, a soft-spoken character. Oscar worked in an office for Mr. Nicely, whose temperament was the exact opposite of his name.
This is not the case in this book.
Oscar seems happy enough for a middle-aged single man:
This book appealed to me, because I thought it would be fun to have a friend who came through the window in a spaceship.
I was an only child at the time. Well, Mr. Mild is a bus driver in this book, and doesn't work for Mr. Nicely. The episode doesn't seem to be on YouTube - horrors! - but you can get a sense of the show here.
Ah, the Oirish Cop. He had a good, long run.
Now and then I pull up the stuff I snapped a year ago and wonder: why? Why did I decide to wander down Lorain Avenue? Probably looking for something on a matchbook.
For example:
Why? There’s nothing there. Perhaps I just liked the abstractness of the image; you wouldn’t think it was abstract if you were there, but when you see it on the Google Street View, it’s odd.
Okay, there was a plague?
Are the buildings full of mutated people who cannot bear the touch of sunlight? Was this ever a lively corner with stores and folks who knew their neighbors?
Yes, plague, but with cool strange linear aftereffects.
Opened in 1931, part of the Publix chain. Yes, Paramount owned them.
Looks like vinyl siding in the doorway. Note the different colored bricks, which suggests . . . what? A window, removed? Some sort of signage? What was this thing?
Whoa: from vacancy to immensitudinous:
The details:
You wonder how poorer the streets would be without churches; they're often the only intact remnants of the early 20th century.
Again, I ask myself: why did I snap this?
Because it has stories. For one thing, the upper-floor windows are original, and the style suggests the glass blocks may have been original. For another thing, the top looks as if it was lifted up and moved over to the right, confounding any sense of balance and symmetry. The bricks on the ground floor seem newer, or perhaps they were just tuck-pointed - but look at those faint lines coming down from the two windows, suggesting it used to be a store front.
You have three seconds to identify the building’s original purpose:
I feel bad for the second story.
The slight difference in brick hues tells you it was built in two stages:
Consider the order in which they were built, and make the case; your brain starts to smoke after a while.
"What did your architect do before he started offering cheap remodels?"
“He sold vinyl venetian blinds”
And then:
A perfect little modern church. Next door, the original building:
Interior pictures of the newer part: the 50s design is unchanged. I grew up in one of these churches - the Pastor in the Grey Flannel Pulpit era, restrained, with fashionable wood hues. I have great affection for the style.
Finally: a hopeful sign . . .
Inasmuch as the front looks good, but you don't know what condition its condition is in, as the saying goes. Cinematreasures says it’s being rehabbed, but the process is slow.
But that's nothing compared to tomorrow's sad demolition. It'll hit you where you live, I guarantee it. Or, in a way, where you work. All will be explained tomorrow.
OH - the Motel section was screwed up in a way I did not know at the time. This is not an omen of postcards to come. Fixed now, although it starts with a repeat.
Now and then I pull up the stuff I snapped a year ago and wonder: why? Why did I decide to wander down Lorain Avenue? Probably looking for something on a matchbook. 
