That was a bittersweet Monday. A good deal of well-wishers on the Strib website and Twitter. Had to set the record straight here and there in individual replies, telling people I had not resigned and retired, and would’ve been happy to do the column until my fingers went cold. Went on local radio to discuss it as well.
Felt as though the healed tissue had been pried apart a bit but no, it’s behind me. Let the decision stand there for what it is. Hey, why did you drop the columnist everyone in the comments seems to have liked, a lot? Not even anything online?
Anyway. Short takes today.
Made my wife an underwhelming anniversary dinner, but we both decided that the Scotland adventure was our anniversary present and all that. I tried to make a card using AI to combine marriage and tennis, using the usual intentionally stupid prompts so I don’t get something that’s plausible at all, but the AI kept tossing up the stupidest things. Not even funny-bad things. AI art is capable of a form of incomprehensible banality no human would attempt, because there's no meaning or reason.
While scrolling the feeds to occupy my mind while running on the treadmill I read that Macy's is closing 150 stores. Wondered if Southdale would be one of them, and thought gosh where will I go to paw through a four-foot-tall tottering stack of unsorted jeans in various states of rumplement, looking for my size, only to be told I should order it online? Where will I go to wander around a huge store with a pair of socks in one hand and money in the other, looking for a clerk like Stanley traversing the African bush to find Dr. Livingstone? Where?
The Macy's was originally a Dayton's, and it was a beautiful store. The top floor had something called MARKETPLACE, where you could get every possible kitchen tool. Now you expect to see a guy sitting behind an upended fruit crate selling half-used Sterno cans and empty Jiffy-Pop pans. I think half the floor is devoted to suitcases and mattresses. Macy has fallen so far that even if it wanted to tell Gimbel's, Gimbel's wouldn't listen.
BTW, the Wikipedia page for that phrase says "Usage notes: Popular from the 1930s into the 1960s. Now used chiefly among older people." Hah! Wrong. No one uses it at all. I do remember being aware of the phrase as a youth in Fargo, because I was interested in cool old slang I could use if I time-travele back to New York City in the 40s. It meant nothing to us in Fargo, of course. We would've said "Does Herbst tell DeLendrecie's?" and the answer would've been "sure, if it was a matter of civic importance, like a fire, or perhaps a shoplifting gang.
When you think about it, Macy's and Gimbel's must have had spies in each other's stores, which suggests the presence of a retail intellegence agency. It brings up the possibility of defections, clandestine meetings at the Chock Full O' Nuts at Herald Square.
And don't tell me I'm making that up because I was there, years ago. A holy pilgrammage. I am in New York sitting at a counter having Chock Full O'Nuts! Oh shoot they put milk in it, I didn't want milk. And half of the coffee is in the saucer. Still, I am in New York sitting at a counter having Chock Full O'Nuts!
I will never forget the look I got when I asked for a refill. Might as well been wearing a John Deere cap and chewing on a piece of straw.
Again, I give you some important moments from Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Not really important at all. Completely unimportant, now that I think about it. I mean, you could take one shot of William Renfield looking harried as he passes a mailbox in a crappy apartment, and you could think . . .
What a crappy, shabby, careworn world it was. Or you could see this . . .
And wonder . . .
Who's that guy? Wonder if there's anything in imdb . . .
Baruch Lumet was born on September 16, 1898 in Warsaw, Poland, Russian Empire. He was an actor and casting director, known for The Killer Shrews (1959), Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask (1972) and The Pawnbroker (1964). He was married to Eugenia Wermus. He died on February 8, 1992.
Well that's something.
And if you're thinking could it be? Could he be . . . dad?
And it gets better: his great-grandson was in The Mandalorian, and his granddaughter was married to P. J. O'Rourke.
That's why I pause and snip. The things you learn, the people you meet.
It’s 1949.
You know, Log Cabin. The Cabin made of tin, not logs.
When you search for “Log Cabin,” one of the suggested questions is “Was log cabin syrup ever real maple syrup?” I have no idea who would wonder about that, but let’s find out.
Towle’s Log Cabin Syrup was started in 1888 by a St. Paul, Minnesota grocer named Patrick J. Towle. Originally, Towle’s Log Cabin Syrup had strong ties to the maple industry and produced pure Maple syrup in their tins.
By the 1900s Towle had three lines of syrup: a pure maple syrup, a blended recipe of cane sugar and maple called “Camp Syrup”, which were considered much more popular, and from 1904 to 1909 there was also a third syrup called Towle’s Log Cabin Penoche Syrup which was a maple flavored and maple colored syrup made from cane sugar and marketed for candy making. Today, Log Cabin no longer uses maple in their syrups at all.
There’s a story? “Towle named the syrup in honor of his childhood hero, Abraham Lincoln, who was famed for having been raised in a log cabin."
Eddie Arnold did the ads.
I'm just pleased to know that Towle was running competing lines of syrup. Even if one was intended for candy making, you know that's the one kids would want to dump on their flapjacks. Mom! Got any of that penoche Log Cabin? It's swell!
“Everything’s mighty rosy up on Cloud #214.” Which would be the hotel room number.
I think we know what’s implied here. You just wish the trysting couple had been issued a room higher up to get away from the street noise, but perhaps they didn't notice or care.
There’s a plain stark quality about the Four Roses ads, even though they depict almost surreal situations.
Worth reaching for! Also, it's attached to a hot air balloon, so it's out of your grasp. Sorry we brought it up.
Meat was . . . lighter back then, wasn’t it?
One of the meats is “Cooked Specialty,” which really tells you you’re getting the ground-up butts and noses. This ad describes it by what’s not in it: “No bones. No waste.” Yum.
Joe Pesci, the early years
This is so 40s: the pattern of the drapes, the table, the chair on the right. And what a modern miracle! Pictures, moving pictures, beamed right into your house, displayed on an amazingly large 61 square inch screen!
If you're thinking this is early for TV, there were 4.2 million sets in American homes by the end of 1949. And we never looked back.
Kill, Red Hussy! Slay, Commie Doxie! Murderize the capitalist jackals!
This site says: “Due to audiences being turned off by the title, RKO released the film again as 'The Woman on Pier 13' and 'Beautiful But Dangerous'".
Trivia: “According to Daniel Mainwaring, writer of Out of the Past (1947), RKO head Howard Hughes used this film to get rid of numerous writers, directors and actors. If they refused to work on this project, they were fired from the studio."
New Pack!
They used that line a lot, indicating that the canned stuff was absolutely dewy fresh. Why, this crop just came in. Practically as good as something the farmer sent to market yesterday.
Not a bland warm can of mush at all. Peas! Everyone loves them.
That'll do for today. Thank you for your visit. Now it's time for three covers from America's most beloved runty plutocrat dauphin.
