Monday morning I was listening to a podcast about Beethoven. Didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know, but it was engagingly presented. At the end, they played the Ode to Joy. I’ve heard it . . . how many times? Who knows. But it’s been a while because I’ve heard it so many times. It ended as I got up to the office and I stood by the window and looked out at the great clear bright view and felt as one does at the piece’s conclusion. It was the start of the first week of the New Year and the first day that would be lighter than the one before.
By a minute, but it’s something.
I had to take some pictures for an upcoming piece. Headed to Grain Exchange. Security doesn't want anyone to take pictures so I can’t show you shots like this.
I wanted to go to the Grain Exchange annex, an undistinguished building next door. Previously I’ve gone through the side door, across an alley, into the door. The door was closed. Probably a pandemic thing that never changed. The guard said I could go downstairs.
Downstairs?
There’s a tunnel? There’s a tunnel.
See those doors on the left? They all have combination dials.
I wonder if anyone still stores valuables down there. Just a reminder: no matter how long you've been in a place, no matter how much you think you know it, there's 97% you don't.
Did a quick workout, then back to the car. On the way I passed through the skyway that links Ameriprise to 333, and the overhead speakers were playing the 1812 Overture. A nice bookend to starting the office day with Beethoven, and it made me wonder if they've switched from the 80s channel to classical. BUT 80s MUSIC IS CLASSICAL! you say. You are of course joking but it's not entirely wrong. It's old.
I was watching a Judge Judy before dinner - hey, I'm alone, and it's a soundtrackn while I'll doing rote work - and she made a reference to Rip Van Winkle. She expected a reaction, and there was none forthcoming. She asked people to raise their hand if they knew who Rip Van Winkle was. Maybe three people.
"Time to die," she said. Funniest thing I'd heard all day. Likely to be remain so, unless the dog really cracks one.
Anyway, 80s music is very, very old, but it will be listened to more than the music of the Oughts and Tens. Even the worst of it has something 21st pop often lacks: melody, choruses, bridges, and other elements of songwriting that are apparently regarded as nonessential today. It is simply better, and I will die on this lawn.
If you're just joining the Bleat for the first time - and there could be one such person, no? Someone who follows a link from here to there and ends up on this site, not knowing what to expect, or why they shouls possibly return - then I have to state the TV Tuesday Pledge: no reviews. This is not a section about some TV show plot details or gossip or anything like that. There are a million sites for that. This is just about odd moments and faces and places found while watching this or that.
I can't say anything about this brief clip that wouldn't spoil it.
It has nothing to do with the TV show. It's a cash-in to get them all in a feature-length movie and trade on their fame. The title sequence is just what you'd expect, I think.
It's not very good. Ah - right. No reviews. But it's a fascinating time piece, and I only found it because I was looking at the career of Bob Crane, and his inability to move beyond Hogan. It's almost as if the movie camera saw something the TV camera concealed, and found him wanting.
It's 1890.
As is our custom, we begin with 19th century ads. These are from a Minneapolis theater program.
WHY INDEED
The Town Market is still open today, selling wood stoves at 50% off! No, of course, it isn't.
Hio coal! Nice logo.
Ha ha no of course it’s Ohio. Unlike the Town Market, the Lumber Exchange still stands.
In all my years of looking at ads and buildings, I’ve never seen a coal exchange.
Hmmm.
Go check the Kodak wikipedia page for these models. Guess what: you won’t find them. I find the Ray and the Quad in some other sources and ads, and there’s nothing about Kodak. The Ray, as it happens, was made by the Ray Camera Company.
The store is using “Kodak” generically. I’ll bet a lot of places did.
Your children will love this unnamed product:
Fifty dollars was a lot of hay.
A famous name, once:
Mr. Hyser. He ran the Nicollet for a long time, then struck out on his own. Ran a contest to name his new hotel, and oddly enough, ended up with “Hyser.” He’d sell this one and move to Nicollet, next to the Vendome. I’ve a website about it here.
What, people got the blues back then? I thought that was just a result of the crippling pressures of modernity.
The address today:
Hegener seemed to specialize in sharp things.
Also China Decorating! I wonder if that meant he literally painted your china. Didn't it come pre-patterened?
Mart N? Clever, if it’s not a mistake.
The Phoenix, as you might suspect, was built on the site of a great fire.
Very little about it on the internet, which is frustrating. There’s a newer building with the same name, and it drives the history off into distant pages.
Well, that will do, except of course it doesn't - there's always something more. Today we start Eddie's Friends, which I've had sitting around for some time. A remarkably predictable and unvarying single-panel comic about the joys of losing money at cards. Also, the return - the rerun, if you like - of Joe Ohio at the Substack, as I go five-days-a-week. I'm trying to make it worth the money, and build up a cushion for the inevitable tickle of the blade against the back of my neck.
It's not the worst thing that could happen. In some ways it's worse if it doesn't.
