That was fun. All good in every way, really. It felt like the first Christmas that wasn't measured against the ones that came before. I recommend blowing up some traditions now and then. Not in that irritating John Lewis ad from last year, in which people gleefully destroy the symbols of tradition. That had too much year-zero arrogance.
Now we just wind down the year and prepare for the masquerade of the last week. The pretending that something is over and something new has begun. The resolutions and solemn declarations. New Year, New You! Nah. I'm just going to keep doing what I did last year.
Which, to be fair, was based on a resolution I made the previous year, but in October. Perhaps it's the resolutions that aren't made at the top of the year that stick, because they come from genuine desire for change.
On Christmas Eve I found myself in the pew reading the Bible, which I always find interesting. Old Testament. Lots of begatting. There was a passage about the Isrealites coming up against King Og, and beating his forces with ease. I googled King Og, wondering where his kingdom used to be - Golan Heights, mostly - and found one of those interesting sections that shows how the Talmud differs from the OT.
The Jewish Talmud embellishes the story, stating that Og was so large that he sought the destruction of the Israelites by uprooting a mountain so large, that it would have crushed the entire Israelite encampment. The Lord caused a swarm of ants to dig away the center of the mountain, which was resting on Og's head. The mountain then fell onto Og's shoulders.
As Og attempted to lift the mountain off himself, the Lord caused Og's teeth to lengthen outward, becoming embedded into the mountain that was now surrounding his head. Moses, fulfilling Yahweh's injunction not to fear him, seized a stick of ten cubits length, and jumped a similar vertical distance, succeeding in striking Og in the ankle. Og fell down and died upon hitting the ground.
Many great rabbis have explained this story in an allegorical manner.
Ten cubits of stick would be about 15 feet. This is Moses-as-action-hero stuff, not Hestonesque gravitas.
I've a day with Daughter and Wife before they go to AZ, leaving me here to mind the dog. I have secured a special pizza for Lone Wolf Night - well, not that lone if I've a canine companion, I suppose - and I am looking forward to it. Hamburger and jalapenos. Then I will spend a quiet weekend tearing up the 2025 redesign and completely remaking everything, as is my wont. Sigh. Every year. I will also backup everything I did this year, with all the various writings put into time-proof pdfs and text files. The Strib file will end earlier than usual and there won't be any more of those. I don't feel like saving my architecture stuff.
You might wonder how is it going there, and the answer is . . . it just goes. There are two outcomes: I just keep doing the less satisfying thing, or I don't. Each constitutes a smear of rote routine. There isn't any day that says "no, you can't do this anymore," and that's the problem. It's a long, slow fade.
At least the anger over the stupidity has abated, though? Right?
Not by a single joule.
Our weekly recap of a Wikipedia peregrination. Expect no conclusion or revelations, but if you've been with us since this started last year, you know . . . sometimes we learn interesting things.
So! How do we get from here . . .
. . . to there?
I found that ad on the front page of a New Zealand newspaper from 1903. Can’t find any references to the brand. Despite its claims, it seems not to have survived the grinding glacier of time. There’s really only one standing, and it’s the Lea & Perrins brand.
I love the stuff, and every time I use it, I think of the Roman Empire. As last year’s meme had it. Why? Well, you know why, no? Have we not discussed this? It’s garum. Or the closest we’ll get.
Pliny stated that garum was made from fish intestines, with salt, creating a liquor, the garum, and the fish paste named (h)allec or allex (similar to bagoong, this paste was a byproduct of fish sauce production).
Well, Pliny stated a lot of things.
You have to admire a culture so intent on finding uses for everything it looks at fish guts and thinks “hmm, can these be fermented and used as a sauce?”
After the liquid was ladled off the top of the mixture, the remains of the fish, called allec, were used by the poorest classes to flavour their staple porridge or farinata.
And from that, I assume, we get farina, which I hated as a kid. Except a "Farinata" was a chick-pea pancake, not a bowl of morning mush. It’s still popular, and it’s Gibraltar’s national dish.
People ask google:
Is cream of wheat and farina the same thing? Answer: " Cream of Wheat and farina have the same main ingredient, wheat. However, Cream of Wheat is a brand of farina that has a finer texture than your traditional farina, and also contains other ingredients."
So Farina is the Latin word for flour, or one of them, and Farinata has . . . no flour? No grain flour. It’s made from chickpea flour. Now, we all know that Marcus Tullius Cicero, the great Roman who is possibly in heaven due to his subsequently bestowed “righteous pagan” status, was named after a chickpea.
Cicero's cognomen, or personal surname, comes from the Latin for chickpea, cicer. Plutarch explains that the name was originally given to one of Cicero's ancestors who had a cleft in the tip of his nose resembling a chickpea. However, it is more likely that Cicero's ancestors prospered through the cultivation and sale of chickpeas.
Plutarch writes that Cicero was urged to change this deprecatory name when he entered politics, but refused, saying that he would make Cicero more glorious than Scaurus ("Swollen-ankled") and Catulus (“Puppy").
It’s one of the things you have to like about him. Cicero’s role in the era of Caesar et al is one of the things that gives the times its narrative fascination, both in his actions and recollections. He might have eaten a Farinata from time to time, even though it was lower class. Who knows?
I do know that “Farina” made me think of the great Chicago detective, who would go on to play . . . a Chicago detective. Dennis Farina.
Was I hooked from the start of episode one? Did I not instantly love the theme? I was and I did.
I’m always apprehensive when I see a NV on the folder. Another gold-rush town ground to dust? Some pioneer village that’s depopulated and spare, making you wonder who stayed, and what their lives are like?
Hmm.
A new facade, you’d think, but is it certain? Those upstairs windows - could this be an old movie theater?
It is listed in the 1945 Film Daily Yearbook as closed, but reopened later, and operated until around 1954. After closing as a movie house, the Lawana Theatre was converted to retail use. For many years, it was home to a bar.
The former Lawana Theatre was acquired in late-2005 by a church. The church also purchased the former Armando’s restaurant next door to the theater building which they converted into a coffee house.
A poor job of modernizing, if that's what you would call it.
The scale of the second floor is off, and it looks as if you'd have to crouch to get through the door to the balcony.
The sidewalk canopy blocks hte light coming through the windows above the main floor windows. The building on the left lost its cornice. It looks like a town inhabited by people who were distinctly less intelligent than the people who built it.
The Grey-Reid Company. Gone but not entirely forgotten. Well, yes, forgotten, but there’s this to remind us.
The original Elks building looks as if it could have been a bank. The new addition was like so many other Elks lodges of the period: modern script sign, blank windowless walls. As if they wanted you to guess what went on in there.
That’s a mess. Without the letters, you'd never guess it was an auto garage.
From every angle, a testament to the grinding power of time.
Ah! Cool 60s modernism. We often see those wings on an old supper club, and while this is an entertainment venue, it seems too big for a supper club.
Repositioned retail, perhaps.
Probably not where you pay your taxes.
The renovations in this town seem dispirited and abandoned mid-job.
“It’s at the corner of 4th street and 1912.”
Nice of them to keep that, I guess.
deet-deet-deetle-deetle-deet-deet-deet-deet circus letters and the word NUGGET means gambling.
You know, I think this could be a movie theater.
DAMN I’m good. (Kidding.)
The New Rex Theatre was opened on December 28, 1920. On September 1, 1930 it was renamed Fallon Theatre. At some priod of time it was modernised. It was twinned in 1978. Great example of classic architecture downtown. Original neon sign still in use.
I don’t know what period of time the rehab occurred, but I’d say late 40s, early 50s.
Again with the half-hearted rehab: the piles of stone are new, since they’re jumbled like that. Means 60s or 70s.
