As part of our continuing series of "Things my Employer Does Not Wish Me to Do," I bring you . . . the Discourse Column! It's a monthly thing. They asked me to do upon learning that my Strib thing had been axed, and for that I am deeply grateful.
November is my least favorite month, but this one is making it easier. Why don’t I dislike March more? It’s full of raw lies, after all. Because it’s close to April, who is also a temptress and a liar, but both point towards May. November is just leading you down the path in a dark cave. The wind slapped everyone in the face this morning, and as much as we winced and thought oh right this, it was ten degrees above the normal average.
Went to the office. This being Monday, the lights were off. Total occupancy today was about . . . seven. I finished up the next urbanism piece, all with my own photos. Not because I’m a pro, but because maybe it might get shot, maybe not. (Also, I take good photos.) Maybe the piece will be read online. Maybe not. I had a couple nice lines. Guess I’ll do another one in a few days. Thus the work week begins: shrug
Went upstairs to make a pot of coffee. Actual conversation with a co-worker in the same boat as myself - “old,” edged to the margins - and enjoyed a good, hot fresh cup of coffee at my desk, , considering, as ever, the simple question. When?
That word tends to occupy your thoughts in various forms for various reasons, if you’re “old.” It’s a better question than “why?” You can drive yourself mad with frustration if you linger on the why. The whys can make you petulant.
Then there’s what, but that is easy to answer: a hamburger patty with jalapeños, that’s what. Lunch in the empty break room. A door opens; closes. That brings us up to eight citizens. Time for another key word: who?
Probably someone I don’t know. It’s bizarre, but true: when I rarely came to the office in the old days, I still knew who just about everyone was. Some people came and left during the WFH period; never met them. I wonder if you can say you "worked at a place" if you never actually went there. There was no "place."
What’s left? Who what why when . . . ah. Where. Well, here.
At least I’m dressed for success. Got a good brown palette working for me today. It was never a hue I liked until a few years ago, and then I started embracing the wan and the tan. Everything’s Amazon. First time wearing the new brown coat, and I notice it has an unusual construction: the pockets are set way back, so it is difficult to put your hands in them. This would seem to defeat the purpose but maybe it’s the new thing. Oh in New York no one has their hands in their pockets anymore that’s so covid. You take your jacket off to get the things out of your pockets. It’s called stopmaxxing and pocket mining. There are like a million tiktoks from people who have made it like their whole aesthetic.
Tomorrow it's mostly green.
I might go with blue.
I'll keep you posted.
I’ve been watching Penguin. In episode three, faintly, I heard something.
Very faint. Notes I hadn't heard in a long time, but knew absolutely and completely. I heard the chorus I expected. Instrumentation was the same. There's a brief patch without dialogue, and you can tell how low it is. I boosted the volume and it's still barely there.
This goes back a long, long way.
Many years ago I played a game called “Tropico.” It is a Caribbean dictatorship simulator. I was not interested in the politics; I just wanted to build a nice little town. That’s all I want to do. The game had a lively soundtrack, and I extracted the audio files from the CD. Now and then I’d listen to them when I was thinking about a trip to Cozumel. When I went back to the Caribbean after a few years away - well, a decade, now that I think about it - I used the Tropico soundtrack on my home videos. One piece always seemed to sum up everything I loved about the trips, and that’s what I heard in the background.
I thought hold on, are they playing the Tropico soundtrack? Well, yes, and no. It’s a free-standing song, if you will.
Daniel Inhart, the singer, did the Tropico soundtrack.
So why is the song sitting in the back of the ep? Did someone else have the same nostalgic love of the song, and put it in just to honor it?
It’s 1926.
It’s very 1926.
But how many women actually looked like this?
In the same style, but less stylized, and engagingly deshabille:
The epicine man of the house, reflected in the oh-so-modern mirrors of his bathroom, pauses briefly to contemplate the stock market, hand resting on an ungodly agglomeration of compacted fish
Even Grandma is modern! She got her hairstyle from a fellow who would go on to design the 1933 World’s Fair buildings.
BP: I’ll bet that’s the artist’s initials. Who he or she was, it’s not impossible to say; somewhere there must be a record.
Why starve yourself, when this healthful tea WHICH IS NOT POISONOUS, REALLY will make excess flesh drop off?
The Loring Park Clinic. The area was home to two medical facilities, including a heart-specialist’s building. The Eitel building, if I recall correctly. Perhaps this operation was trying to piggyback on the rep of the area. Why, if this really wasn’t medical science, would we be located here?
Note the description on how it works. Stimulates your organs to move the crap along before it builds up somehow under your arms!
Demand for Nash automobiles was so high that by November 1924, the company's existing plants were operating around the clock six days a week and Charles W. Nash announced a US$1 million expansion at the automaker's original Kenosha facility.
Mitchell Motors Company was the manufacturer of Mitchell brand automobiles from 1903 to 1923. In April 1923 the company was forced into bankruptcy. At the 31 January 1924 auction of the Mitchell land and buildings with 500,000-square-foot of floor space, Charles Nash offered the winning bid of $405,000.
The Ajax was built using machinery moved from Nash's other acquisition, the LaFayette Motors Company of Milwaukee, and installed in the Racine plant.
Charles' parents separated when he was six years old and abandoned him. As a result of a court order, he worked as a farmhand in Michigan as an indentured servant under an agreement that was to last until he was 21. He had only three months of schooling per year while he was "bound out" to perform farm chores.
When he died, he was worth, in 2021 money, over half a billion dollars.
International Harvester - a brand I knew growing up, since we had farm relatives. .
Interesting approach with the name.
That'll do for today. Thank you for your visit. Now it's time for Quasicomics!
