The Giant Swede’s son - my Godson - was getting married Saturday. The Groom’s Dinner was Friday. I had volunteered to do video work, and I had made it clear that I should be trusted with nothing mission critical. I’m your B-roll guy. I’d shot their engagement party at Jasperwood (how the heart pangs at the word) and they liked it, so I was happy to do what I could to memorialize the actual celebration.

The dinner was held at a restaurant that used to be the passenger terminal for the St. Paul Airport. It was located a fair distance from the Fred, and since I had to be there at 7ish, that meant getting alllll the way across town at rush hour. Well! I planned a route and it looked good, right up until the point where someone blew a gasket or put his car into the railing on a bridge, and massive traffic contrusion accumulated at the river crossing. Inert. Nothing moving. I juked off the highway to find an alternative route, and saw what I could do: snake around the airport, go north past the part where Scout ran away and died, turn at the spot where the Bridgman’s used to be, over the river past the auto plant that isn’t there anymore, turn at the shopping center that’s been renovated, and so on.

You live in a place long enough and everything is not only what it is, it’s what it was.

I had plenty of time and it was a beautiful night. I rolled down the window and lit a cigar. I drove along places I knew and places I’d never seen. I passed this building . . .

When I zoomed on the nameblock, I thought: whaaaaat

I’ll get to that later. Anyone thinks they know the answer, give it a shot.

Eventually I was here, at what seemed like a place far far away from the sister city of St. Paul.

The venue:

It's a WPA building. Normal massing for the era but unusual cladding. Designed by Cap Wigington:

Wigington was the nation's first black municipal architect, serving 34 years as senior designer for the City of Saint Paul's architectural office when the city had an ambitious building program.

Sixty of his buildings still stand around town. Sixty.

You can tell it's an airport, however small; they love these things.

WHO'S UP FOR A TRIP TO SAN AN-TONE

When I got inside I went straight to the site where I’d be playing the slideshow. I have done this many times. I put together a photo slide show, set it to music, and it’s a nice thing to play while people socialize and drink and nosh. It never goes smoothly. There’s always a problem. I always get it done. I have many cords and platforms and backups. I fond the manager, and she walked me over to the TV.

“Here’s the HDMI,” she said, pulling down the cord. Of course, you don’t plug an HDMI into a Mac laptop. It’s just not done. I don’t have an HDMI -> USB-C adapter, because I have an HDMI cord that ends with a USB-C plug.

I said I would use my cord, which would go right into the iPad. (I had it on my laptop as well, and on a flash drive to put into the Giant Swede’s computer if need be.)

She said no, the cord couldn’t come out.

I smiled and said I’ll bet it can, though. It’s just a cord, I’ll swap it out.

No, she said, it was part of THIS. And she showed me something I’ve seen before on these gigs. A thin box with all sorts of inputs and slots and such. She said that if she disconnected it, the video would not mirror over the bar, and I said that was fine: we weren’t in need of that. But she said she had to mirror something tomorrow, and besides, this belonged to the airport.

This was a complication I had never before experienced in all my days of doing funeral / wedding / celebration compilation videos: the input box was owned by a transportation company.

But, smile! I said we didn’t have to use the box, or the slot into which it plugged. There would be others. There were always others. Just let me peek behind the ol’ TV with my flashlight, if I could. Well, what - do - you - know, there’s another HDMI input, just as I suspected! So let’s plug i., I didn't dare to ask for the remote - a request that would’ve seemed as if I was usurping her authority - and after the whole thin-box-is-owned-by-the-airport moment of tension, I didn’t want to do that.

She navigated expertly to INPUT, then was flummoxed, because it read as SMART PHONE. The TV had decided the iPad was a Smart Phone. There was lots of back-and-forth on the menu until finally the picture popped up. All was good.

Marvelous evening.

I left after supper to release the dog, who’d been alone for three hours. He was whimpering when I got back. Oh COME ON. But it was soft and rote. He perked right up and went for a walk, but he didn’t want to do the big circuit. No sir. We’re not straying far from home. I’m going to keep my eyes on you.

The wedding was Saturday . . . and you will see some astonishing sights. But that's tomorrow. I'd say more but it's a THREE PIECE NIGHT - Bleat, Substack, and NR.

Outtake art for the Substack, so you can wonder what the heck it's about.

I love the fact that the picture gets more handsome the more I slide the "fidelity" slider to the left.

In keeping with our Monday tradition, which became a "tradition" for reasons I can't recall and probably don't matter, we continue with our Monday trademark. For this year we'll do 1936.

		"Dry Steam." No idea. I had to google, and there are a few explanations. I don't intend to pretend I understand any of them at the moment. If you need to know, you do. If not, it'll never come up in conversation.

I suppose I just guaranteed it'll come up in conversation.

Another TV show you can find on YouTube, as I keep saying. Why not?

You know what this means:

Hence the disastrous Betty Furness AI ads we saw a few weeks ago.

Take a guess:

It's about the broadcast of the War of the Worlds in 1938. Edward R shows up to look very serious about the national panic, even though there really wasn't anything of the sort.

We're here for all the familiar faces showing up early in their career. Some you know in a second:

Right?

Then there's guys who make you say . . . oh right that guy

Frank Marth, who had a long and successful career that did not result in becoming a household name. But millions of people recognized him, and thought oh it's that guy again

And here's this guy again:

Warren Beatty's in there somewhere, too.

A couple are going out to dinner, leaving their kid with a babysitter who will listen to the radio and freak out. Don't worry, the most dangerous man on the world is here:

There's a bar scene with a brief glimpse of an old table:

It's the one thing in this whole enterprise we can see in true color today. It's also anachronistic: the table was made in 1951.

By the way, the show describes events that had taken place only 19 years before.

The other notable element, which I'd forgotten: two words were conspicously absent from the entire hour. Orson, and Welles.

That will do. Matchbooks up, and free column at the Substack around 11. See you there!