STONE STORY, EPILOGUE Wincing a bit today from a strained lower back - to be specific, an area ‘twixt side and back, which I sure not only has a particular name but a subset of specialists whose entire medical career is spent dealing with ailments of that area. It wasn’t from the lifting of the stones, though. It was from the lifting of the mulch bags. The first was especially heavy and wet, and I felt something twang. Not one of those “you’ll pay tomorrow” twangs, either, but one of those “you’ll pay for the rest of the day, for starters” twangs.

I’ve thought that the whole gym thing was just to forestall decrepitude, but the last week I’ve been adding weights, a mad and taxing way to prove that decrepitude is not in the offing. But where is the offing? Is it near the wings, theater wise?

No: “the more distant part of the sea in view.” Well, after a point, it’s all distant, isn’t it? so what do they mean the more distant part?

“What are you looking at?”

“The distant part of the sea.”

“There?”

“No, thirty yards beyond that! The more distant part!”

"Oh, the offing."

You’d think would be the furthest observable part. That would be your offing. Also, “offing” has come to mean something that sounds closer. If I tell my editor the piece’s filing is in the offing, she’d expect it that afternoon.

“Where is the piece?”

“Oh, four days away, three if the wind is good.”

Why yes I am just limbering up for the morning writing; you’re correct.

Had a conversation with Natalie last night about a shoot for a client that used the new video tech for compositing studio and stock footage. They shoot the scene in front of an enormous LED screen that contains the background. Seamless, no need for green screening.

“So . . . they’ve invented matte paintings?”

Of course I know it’s more than that. I’m interested in whether they have to sync refresh rates or whether at that scale it doesn’t matter, or whether at that scale it matters a lot. On to the client, which touts almonds as one of its botanicals, and this surprises me. In gin? Almonds? I think pine and juniper and other green stuff, but almonds?

Turns out it’s quite common. All the big lads have an almond aspect - Gilbey’s, Bombay, Beefeater. Seems to me the least noticeable and hence least necessary of the botanical additions. Doesn’t even seem particularly botanical.

I wonder if anyone’s thought of Hogarth Gin. You know, the fellow who did the famous engravement about the Perils of Gin and the Boon of Beer. (Not the actual titles.) The former had a cackling inebriated syphilitic hag dropping her baby, which no doubt horrified people until they saw the happy fellow in the background with an infant on a spit. I've known a few gin enthusiasts in my time, and not one dropped or skewered a child.

Googling for Hogarth Gin . . . well.

		1751 was the year Hogarth released the "Gin Lane" engraving. This is like selling heroin named after a guy who famously died of heroin. Hey it must be good stuff

From the website, it appears they're leaning into it, hard:

THE BRAND HAS BEEN NAMED AFTER BOTH WILLIAM HOGARTH’S INFAMOUS GIN LANE PAINTING, AND ALSO THE LANDMARK GIN ACT 1751, WHICH LED TO GIN BECOMING LESS READILY AVAILABLE IN THE UK WITH STRICTER GUIDELINES AND HIGHER TAX AND AS SUCH POSITIONED AS “MORE RESPECTABLE."

Yeah, more respectanble, sure. The Gin Craze wiki piece says:

The Gin Craze began to diminish after the Gin Act 1751. This Act lowered the annual licence fees, but encouraged "respectable" gin selling by requiring licensees to trade from premises rented for at least £10 a year. Historians suggest that gin consumption was reduced not as a result of legislation but because of the rising cost of grain.

LATER: riding out one hell of a storm, hoping, as ever, that no trees go down, hoping no hard hail permanently stipples the roof of the gazebo. I'd say there's a 50-50 chance the power goes out. It's big. Came in fast - first the sirens, indicating winds in excess of 70 MPH, then the awesome sight of the front moving overhead. Cue the winds; cue the spattering rain, then the deluge. Grim armwaving of the weatherman on the TV, with everyone told to activate their shelter plans. Wife and I looked at each other: and htat would be? Head downstairs, I guess.

LATER STILL No hail, no big limbs down, one flower pot lost. A rainbow with lightning dancing around behind it. Lurid red Munch sunset whose hues the phone found unlikely, and kept trying to desaturate. It has passed. The world is still, the crickets are silent, and it feels as if something bad happened and no one wants to talk about it.

I watched K-19, again, because I’d started another Russian submarine movie and it wasn’t good. Everyone spoke with an American accent. K-19 is a companion to Red October, in a way, but it comes after the USSR had fallen. It has the luxury of valorizing a former enemy.

For a while we took our favorite actors and made them the face of the foe. In the case of Connery, he was a maverick who fled for the West for complex reasons. In the case of Ford, he was a by-the-book hardass whose mouth moved so little he could barely get his bad accent out. He had a dedicated and conspicuously non-ideological crew. There’s a lot of anger about the shortcuts and cost-cuts and general Soviet shite quality.

The film treats them all with respect, and A) I think that’s a wise choice, and B) something that speaks well to us, the US. It’s possible the movie could’ve been made in the 80s, but I don’t think it would have had the same tone; it wouldn’t have had the distance from history afforded to the filmmakers in the 90s and 00s. There would have been too many small notes to remind us they’re still the enemy, OR, it would’ve bent over backwards to refute the idea that they were the idea. They’re just like us! The Russians love their children too!

We miss the USSR, in a way. There’s now a doomed romanticism that attaches to the whole endeavor. Which, of course, is foul. No amount of earnest young men doing their duty for Comrade Captain or shouting WE SERVE THE SOVIET PEOPLES or deadly scenes in slo-mo with balalaika music erases the misery and folly and decades of wasted chances. I watched the movieat the end of the week where the Russian state was invaded for the first time in my life, and I see the collapse that was bred in the bones for so long.

It’s 1968.

Esquire again. A man's journal. The thinking man's man's journal.

I know little about cars - very little - so I can’t comment on the performance, although I assume a T-bird ate the road. Problem is, it looks as if it literally does that. That’s a lot of mouth.

Nice stern, though; looks like a jet, or a spacecraft.

“In,” as in “hip, popular” - and full of that famous Native American spirituality everyone’s talking about!

Pamela from Golden Valley High liked to dress up in the buckskins.

Mmmmaybe it’s just a bad scan

Sharp was one of those interesting also-ran brands that had a certain cool reputation. In the 80s they made a variety of well-designed products that captured the cultural design vibe perfectly and advanced it a bit as well. Not sure if they did the same in 1968; this seems rather standard.

I’d prefer the controls on the side, so you’re not looking at them, or tempted to look at them, just because they’re there.

I think they’ve identified their actual audience, as opposed to their target audience, and decided ah hell, might as well market straight to them. They’ll appreciate it.

You’d think this would kill the stuff for anyone else.

Kids today have no idea of the ubiquity of Brut.

Five bucks!

I wonder what the other top 12 were. In any case, they failed. Dead brand. Possibly because it was the 12th on the list.

I mean, if it was the third best, it would be one of the world's Top 3.

No one smokes a pipe anymore.

Dobies was a candlemaker, a business founded in 1809. The town’s website makes it sound as if they were out of business by 1956.

In the back of the book you’d get the ads that somehow said “junk.” Too messy, too much, just not top-notch ads.

Gellman also sold silverware, which makes me wonder if it wasn’t an importer. No, just noticed the Made in the USA tag. Also it’s made of SKA! Or something. Surely not leather.

I’ll bet the clasp felt cheap.

I remember Nine Flags: a collection of international colognes. My Dad got it for Christmas once. Cool stuff.

This cologne page quotes Popular Science:

Borrowing rocket technology from Cape Kennedy, this new thermal shaving lather packs soap, propellant, a reductant (material that oxidizes to create heat) and an oxidizer in the same can. The oxidizer (hydrogen peroxide) is in a special plastic bottle inside the aerosol. When the can is turned over and the nozzle pressed, a double valve mixes the oxidizer with the reductant and soap in the right amounts.

Does anyone sell this today?

They do not. The days of hot foam shaving went the way of pipes.

That'll do. Now it's off to see what sort of ridiculous things Richard is doing with piles of money. Certainly not putting them anywhere to get a good return on an investment.