Walking to work this morning, I crossed the Turf Club, the employee congregation area for the 333 Building. They must shoo off the non-belongers. They must not have a lot of people back in the building. It's always empty.
The lone janitor who's always shining or cleaning or sweeping was cleaning off the tables. And I was just . . sad. All this rote motion, putting out the chairs, cleaning them off, then bringing them in at the end of an unused day. Dang.
But!
The pianos are back. Or at least this one.
Since 2017, there’s been a piano here in the summer. Maybe not during 2020, when the existence of this object might compel people to stand closer than 6 feet to the player, and thus be deadified. Stay safe! But I saw it today, and smiled, then deflated a bit, simple because it reminded me of 2017. I remember sending a picture to the family of the exchange student we were about to get: this is our civilized city.
Ah well.
Then, as I sat on the bench reading the news, someone came up . . . and wanted to play.
So there’s that.
At the end of the day, walking back across the skyway over the Turf Club . . .
I had to laugh: I was absolutely wrong, and this was absolutely great.
More thoughts on Mpls, urbanism, and architecture in this interview I did the other day.
Well, let's see what ads irritated me this week.
That's not a Mazda 3.
This isn't a Volvo Recharge.
Flabbergastery does not follow.
This is not a Volvo XC60.
So it's all lies. Okay, anything new on the medical front?
Last week it was a blank-faced woman pressing a water bottle against her ear. Now it's either oddly-shaped red onions or a diseased apple. Do This Immediately!
BUT IS IT GENIUS
Another constant in this krep-chum: the begging doctors.
There's a difference between doing something to your fruit, and the fruit itself being the cause of your fatigue.
He's begging you to stop immersing your banana in the footbath you bought to cure your toe fungus
Well, that's the latest on the health front. How are the new frontiers in graphics design coming along? Let's check the Apple App store!
Angry giants always make me interested in a story, especially if one is restraining the subject with a grotesque swollen hand.
Oh god no
Nightmare fuel, high octane. Those monstrous spotted hands. The terrifying tiny head.
Well, surely there are other styles of attractive art on the App Store page . . .
Hey, you say - do you have anymore of those strange Twitter ads with made-up names? Yes. But that's not week. I'm doing a deep study on this junk.
And now, our new Friday feature. Extracts from the Dream Diary . . . illustrated by Artificial Intelligence.
I was at a concert hall, a lovely place with a very tall ceiling, and it became apparent that I was next on stage. I grabbed a guitar and a speaker and played one loud chord. Everyone cheered. There was someone else on stage, and I asked if he liked the blues, and I thought to myself: come up with some amusing blues lyrics right now or this bit won’t go anywhere.
I taught the guy how to sing the blues, even though I was worried about reviewers accusing me of cultural appropriation. I sang:
Woke up this morning
Didn’t know how to feel
Swung my legs
Right out of the bed
Stepped on Lego with my heel
I don’t know how it went over, because the next thing I recall was being home and getting a phone call from work, informing me than an aged black colleague had died. I hadn’t known him very well, but had just spotted him in the newsroom the day before.
Well, well:
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The traditional tree. It's topped off. |
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Your everyday run-of-the-mill hospital murder:
Yeah, a doctor who was known to be quarreling with the other guy, a mask will help.
This one stumped me. Solution is here.
Bonus fun! This year's old newspaper feature: a social no-no single-panel illustration. Can you figure out what's wrong?
The answer will be yours on Monday. For now, speculate away.
That will do! Hope you enjoyed your visits this week and found them a useful application of your time. See you here next week for more of the same - except all different.
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