You'll figure it out soon enough.

Bright day at the start, fading to gloom and mist. Filed a piece and did some editing and photo selection. Tried to troubleshoot why Spotify Daily Mix #4 wouldn't play. Clickety-clickety, silence. If I click on a particular song, it goes to the song's page, but it will not play it in the playlist. Guess I have to log out and log back in, according to the AI google summary! And more junk advice.

It's like this, except there's AI in 1976.

"Hey, my record player isn't playing any albums. It's plugged in, the lights are on, the needle's new, it's not wearing a ball of dust on the needle, the volumn is turned up, and the amp has the proper input selected. What should I do next?"

"I understand you're having problems with a Spotify playlist. Have you tried leaving the house and coming back?"

"No - why would I? What does that -"

"Leave the house, lock the door, walk around the block, then log in to your house again with the front door key, then unplug all your gear, plug everything back in, and try a different record."

"Okay, hold on. (30 minutes later) Still doesn't work."

"Some have found that repeating the log-off / log-in process twice solves the problem!"

"I'm not walking around the block again once, let alone twice. I forgot to mention that I can play singles, but not albums. Is that important?"

"Sure! You may have set your needle to "allergic" and it doesn't like the flavor of the grooves on an album. Have you tried spraying it with a mild antihistamine?"

"That doesn't make any sense. Record needles cannot be allergic to grooves."

"My apologies! Looks like I screwed up. Let's try getting a sheep and rubbing its ears with a metholated unguent."

I don’t usually bore you with old buildings out of nowhere, but: I was browsing through an old architecture magazine and saw this lovely picture.

It’s right across the street from the office. The other side of the office.

I'm not crazy about the black reflective bands, but it could be worse.

It was the Metropolitan National Bank Building. Then it was world HQ for Pillsbury, and then Northstar Easy offices, and now . . . anyone want to guess?

Let’s look at the top.

It still looks like this - but the metal designs between the floors was removed. A sin.

The magazine had drawings for the top decorations:

All the details were translated from ink to stone.

But there are always things you never knew about, things lost long ago and never heralded, never noted.

   
  The details of the doors and trim.
   

Look at that door design: very Nouveau.
Another illustration, with the obligatory "cars and people just milling around without a sense of purpose."

No one loves this building, and only a few would miss it. But don't worry. We're not booming. It's not coming down. It's residential now.

 

 

It’s 1935.

I choose these dates at random, by the way. Not looking for the big stories, just seeing what happened here and there. Well:

Uh oh

   
 

Uh

Oh
   

I’ll bet it was the top headline. Let’s rewind a few days . . . It was. Happened the 15th.

   
 

On the 17th, they ran this odd headline.

Perhaps that’s because everyone knew what had happened, via the radio, and it wasn’t news. The news was the in-depth description and updates.
   

To give you an idea of the impact: The memorial service would be held at the Hollywood Bowl, and there would be a eulogy presented before “the 33,000 persons at the mass services sponsored by every city in the Los Angeles area.”

Los Angeles was an interesting place in the 30s.

The lonely princess:

   
 

If I have it right, the correct and full name was Princess Hermine Caroline Wanda Ida Luise Feodora Viktoria Auguste of Schönaich-Carolath (9 May 1910 – 30 May 1959).

She married Hugo Herbert Hartung, if anyone cares.

   

Murder:

Eventually someone confessed:

Her sister Mrs. Florence Dowling later confessed to the crime. With testimony by her psychiatrist corroborating her story of not remembering the crime. She was sent to a mental institution.

Didn’t see that coming.

They had a what now?

The school board argued “that it would be an undue burden on the pension fund if Freistater was to fall ill.”

She lost. Also:

One year after Graves refused to overturn the City Board's decision, the Board hired Joseph P. McDonald, a 287-pound (130 kg) man, as a physical education teacher after a physician certified him as "physically fit in every respect.”

 

   
  "Comedienne." A word that ws banished in my lifetime.
   

Let's learn about her.

She began getting parts in pictures, starting with leading roles in Happy Days (1929) and Sunny Side Up (1929).

The same year, she was required by executives of the Fox Film studio to lose four pounds to secure a role in The New Orleans Frolic.

White was diminutive to begin with, weighing only 103 pounds and standing 4'10" tall. The part called for a woman who weighed less than 100 pounds.

She also can be recognized by fans of "Charlie Chan" films in a prominent, if brief, uncredited role in the 1931 Fox film The Black Camel starring Warner Oland and featuring Bela Lugosi and Robert Young in what may have been his first leading role. Marjorie appeared as a forward, and rather sarcastic, young woman among the usual group of suspects held waiting upon the conclusion of Charlie's investigation.

This I didn’t know:

White is best remembered for her co-starring role in the first Three Stooges short made at Columbia Pictures, Woman Haters (1934), in which she played the new wife of Larry Fine, who he needs to keep secret from his fellow Woman Haters Club members (who are both "pitching woo" at her behind Larry's back). The entire comedy short is done in rhyming verse.

She didn’t survive the accident.

That will do for today. Except, of course, for the Decades Project update, and the Miscellany and Outtakes at the Substack. Thank you for your patronage, and I'll see you tomorrow.