LILEKS (James) :: The Bleat.

Today's Exit Moment: I went to the office to work out, but didn't take my laptop. There was no one there anyway. There was no one at the newspaper office, as I've been saying for years. The workout felt desultory. I had the place to myself, since everyone's gone for the holiday week, I guess. The gym felt like a set for a play that ended a few weeks ago. Everything's making it easy to go. I thought today: I'm grateful I had 45 years at the craft, and that feels better than seething about its end. And that makes it easier to go, too.

The Fourth is close. It’s supposed to be hot, with a 35% chance of rain. If I could make a small request: please start the rain after 11 PM. Drenching torrents and violent skies. It’s the perfect way to end the Fourth, it quiets the rowdy people who want to set off mortars at 1 AM, and it reminds you that the fireworks we have are nothing compared to what the skies can offer. Just last week everyone’s phones sprang to life at 12:35, and shrieked a warning: tornados en route. Go to the basement. I was up, watching the storm approach. My wife came downstairs and asked if we should go downstairs; I said I’m monitoring the situation, and if it gets bad I will get you. In other words, I would go upstairs to the bedroom, the opposite of the warning. But I’m like that. Don’t tell me what to do.

The storm came in with authority. First, the wind, pulling behind it a dynamo of cosmic proportions, illuminating the sky with silent detonations so bright that every leaf stood out, every object in the backyard was flashbulbed, as if God was Weegee and he was firing off every angle of the crime scene. Then the bright electrical lines that raced across the sky, illuminating the contours of the massive banks of clouds. Everything above was pitiless and thorough, clearing the way for the storm to arrive. Fat spatters of rain. Then the heavens broke and the rain pounded down in an untrammeled roar. I sat in the dark with the dog, who looked at me with plaintive eyes.

“It’s just a storm,” I told him. “The first good storm of the summer It’ll pass, and then I’ll shoehorn its description into a column on another subject.”

I waited for more sirens. I waited for a crack that sundered a tree. I waited for something to crash through the roof or smash the glass in the window. If a tornado took us by surprise, we could, you know, die.

But it passed, and we relaxed. For all its beauties, June has a terrible power, and when it reveals it you think that July must surely be more calm. June is young and erratic. August is the old man of summer.

I’ve been watching a highly rated - and I mean 10 out of 10 - Netflix series, touted as the next binge watch. Let me tell you some surprising things about it.

It’s about a cynical cop with a tragic backstory

He’s brusque and unloveable but damn is he a smart cop! He gets results in the end, but only after his unorthodox methods are finally tried

He clashes with his superior, who respects his abilities but also has to run a tight shop and solve crimes

He’s given a new assignment which takes him out of the day-to-day doings of policing, and stuck in the basement with some boxes

He’s paired with another cop who has a much different personality, and while he’s initially cold and dismissive, he comes to respect his partner’s unique abilities

He gets sucked into investigating a cold case. Everyone says the missing woman - a prosecutor - is dead, but we know differently because we have seen how she’s been held in a big tank somewhere by a couple who appear to be in their mid to late 60s, who have been subjecting her to psychological torture for FOUR YEARS. In a pressurized tank. In a warehouse. With a control booth overlooking it. Just the sort of thing vengeful pensioners construct to avenge their daughter’s misfortune at the prosecutor’s hands.

The only character I like is the OWASI, the Oblgatory Wise and Sympathetic Immigrant, a Syrian policeman who is now living in London because why not.

So to heck with that thing. As always, I followed it up with a What's My Line. Always interesting to see who's a celebrity guest. This woman was not one a celebrity guest.

So who is she?

And quite successful, too.

Emma Redington Lee was born April 5, 1874. She studied at Cooper Union and Pratt Institute. Her husband was Harry Thayer, an artist.

Thayer wrote 60 mystery novels about well-mannered private investigator Peter Clancy and his valet, Wiggar. She wrote her first novel, The Mystery of the Thirteenth Floor in 1919. Her last novel, Dusty Death, was published in 1966,[2] when she was 92.

On May 11, 1958, Thayer was a contestant on What's My Line?

As always, an enjoyable watch. I think I'll skip this one, though:

It’s 1953.

Curtiss had two hits, and lots of also-rans.

“Grovett: a wrestling hold in which a wrestler in a kneeling position grips the head of his kneeling opponent with one arm and forces his shoulders down with the other.”

Well, it’s not that. It’s “Coconut Grove” in the diminutive form to indicate the bite-sized portion.

Poor Coconut Nibbles.

I wonder when the word “Brunch” was first considered common enough to use in an ad without explanation.

Let us now to Swing American!

That phrase was a few years off.

Oh, by the way - Chun King came from Minnesota. You’re welcome. This will seem counterintuitive to some:

Paulucci was quoted as stating his motivation that, while he loved Chinese food, he found it too bland and thought it would benefit from a little Italian spicing.

No washing! No rinsing! No draining! No steaming!