A bit achey tonight; might be the vaccine. I got a shingles shot - as long as I'm here, shoot me Booster #2 so I can have waning protection for the next 8 weeks. I've had no bad reactions to any of them before, so I'm probably just tired, and my neck is stiff from work - and no, I will not google shingles vaccine side effects.

The Shingles shot was actually detectable. Couldn't feel the booster. Couldn't tell when it started or ending. The shingles, though, that was one of those slow shots. Deep, and then an injection that seemed to have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

I've heard more people talk about shingles vaccination lately than COVID.

Well, a column day. Shopped for groceries in the afternoon, wearing a permanent wince. I had no amusing interactions with  retail clerks - no, I take that back. At Infinite Spirits I was checking out, and a gentleman in his 70s, tall, well-dressed came up to the check-out clerk and asked:

"You don't have any frozen peas, do you."

She said that they did not.

We watched him go.

"Maybe he's just checking to make sure most places don't have frozen peas," I said. "Narrow it down. Peace of mind."

"I think he thought we were Trader Joe's," she said. (They're next door.)

I looked back towards the interior of the store, and asked how anyone could possibly think this was anything but what it was.

"I think some people are confused becuse Trader Joe's used to be here until it moved next door," she said.

Sigh

"No," I said, "it was never Trader Joe's. It was originally a Circuit City, and then vacant for a long time, then opened as you guys, after Trader Joe's opened."

"Really? This was a Circuit City?"

"We're standing in the TV showroom."

"Are there any of those around?"

I shook my head. All gone. And of course left bopping with the theme in my head.

This was the great find. I couldn't believe it. I'd never seen anything like it - but you look at it and know right away what it is.

That's all clip-art. Except this isn't quite that - it's an extruded plastic mat full of little pictures, and newspapers without their own art department would scissor out what they needed, and it would end up on the drum.

These things are huge. Yard wide and four feet long, almost. It's a complete set from 1954, 25 sheets I set aside three or four to buy, but my conscience got the better of me: this cannot be broken up. This has to go to an advertising museum somewhere. These things were meant to be cut into dozens of pieces; how many can still exist?

They're tough to reproduce here, but I tried.

Eh, how many do you need, really

It's like finding an old buried Roman mosaic!

No, it's not like that at all. But you do get the "vanished civilization whose influence we still feel" vibe.

They had something for every possible situation:

I assume this was not a brothel ad, but something indicating the level of endorsement.

No paper would be complete without the archetypal druggist, staring at his compounded ingredients:

Uncle Sam is proud of you, son. Don't screw it up with foreign ideas:

Imagine someone taking out an ad today for . . .

I'll have to photograph the whole thing and send it off to an Advertising Museum.

I'll probably end up paying the postage.

Now, this year's Above-the Fold Kul-chah Feature, or ATFKF.

This month it’s the work of Pieter Jansz Saenredam.

The Transept of the Mariakerk in Utrecht, seen from the Northeast, 1637

Says the museum:

Pieter Saenredam (1597-1665) was born in Assendelft, the son of engraver Jan Saenredam. When the latter died in 1607, he left his wife and child well provided, having invested in the successful Dutch East India Company (VOC). Mother and son moved to Haarlem, where Pieter was apprenticed to Frans de Grebber for eleven years.

He continued to live in Haarlem the rest of his life, although he regularly travelled around the country to paint in other Dutch cities. Saenredam soon began focusing on architecture. His depictions of church interiors established an entirely new genre in Dutch art. He was precise in his method: Saenredam’s in situ sketches were an essential guide for his paintings. His use of perspective in his church interiors was exceptionally meticulous.

As was his social commentary:

The foreground of the painting is a study in How To Ignore Beggars:

Someone wants to play, though:

To conjure a dog and its mood with just a few strokes - it's a gift. Well, it's practice, but also a gift.

Well, that’s different, as we say up here in passive-aggressive-land.

Not bad, but I’ve never seen that type of rehab before. Could be worse, but it’s just odd; you don’t know what effect it’s aiming to achieve. “We had a lot of brackets left over from putting doors in the back yard fence,” perhaps.

w, look who’s proud of his hat:

It’s well-preserved, and looks as if it never had a bad patch.

he tower cap is a bit underscaled, but doesn’t look entirely ridiculous.

Goodbye tree; we’ve other ideas.

Ennis, Y'all.

Jack’s poffed to retail Valhalla, but no one’s seen any reason to take the old sign down.

Ah, someone’s doing the old “she was born here, so we’ll claim to her entire career” bit.

Except she wasn’t. I don’t know why it’s named after her. It’s the Ennis Public Theater.

Why did I snip this?

Oh

Snazzy original; nice to see the old storefront intact.

As I’ve said before, the vogue for putting trees downtown makes the buildings look as if they’re trying to peer through a crowd.

Tree-time seems over in Ennis.

“Those are all the classical ornaments we could afford, Bob. We passed the hat twice, too.”

Actually, it looks as if it was renovated, and they couldn’t bear to wipe away all traces of the past.

Two lodges? Or the previous home?

Again with the photobombing trees.

From the Nearer-my-God-to-Mies school of church design:

Hah! What a name!

Those aren’t your only options, you know.

Masked up for your safety, I guess.

Look, if you’re going to cover up an old facade, do something big with the canvas.

One of those buildings where it’s either a Carnegie Library trying to be a bank, or the other way around.

It was a bank.

“Oh, don’t mind him, he always tags along. Never says anything, just stands by us and thinks he’s part of the gang. Doesn't like to share our weed, just does uppers”

Yikes

Annnnd scene.

Do we have an OUMB?

We have an OUMB.

23 But we have a cantankerous old coot of a bank, as well.

We end our visit here:

I hope they keep the money on the second floor; easier to find once the top collapses on the ground floor.

And now? Why, it's our favorite annual feature, and the first sign around here of Spring, and the promise of the road.