That was the banner I settled on. The other was too cheerful for this particular week.

 

 

This was scheduled for yesterday, and I'm glad I had it in the back pocket. Something to put up today. I ask you to indulgewith a little ancient history.: A song, and the movie in which it appeared.

This number just kicks. Slaps. Rocks, whatever you want. I want you to listen to the whole thing. That chirpy downward motif at the start, the orchestration (which sounds archaic to modern ears, but was the knees of bees at the time), the switch to vocals and expertly strummed guitar at 1:05, then back to the instrumental, everyone trading licks. Sax! Trumpet! Violin! At 2:12 it goes MAD.

 

 

I knew it was from King of Jazz, the 1930 Whiteman movie, but for reasons I cannot possibly understand I had never seen the actual sequence.

It is insane. Not at first. But it gets there. And no, it’s not colorized. It’s two-strip Technicolor, in 1930. And yes, that is who you think it is.

 

 

The movie has this guy, too.

 

 

I just realized something: that's the hated color of TV commercials.

 

I understand, I really do: YouTube thumbnails have to grab your attention. Your eye skitters past the rolling scrolling feed, looking for something that tosses the chocks under your wheels.

 

But I see so much of this.

 

The arrow, of course. We’re supposed to be drawn to flops and fails, I guess.

 

There’s another genre I started noticing: smug, annoying tourist guides.

 

You don’t know what this is, but I’m sure he’ll tell you, because you wouldn’t want to make a BIG TOURIST MISTAKE and find a hand-drawn red arrow following you around the City of Light.

 

Someone told everyone which word the algo likes:

 

 

I don’t know what that face is supposed to mean. “I’m both dismayed and amused that the person did not avoid ending up in a train station.”

 

Nor do I wish to take advice from this dead-eyed professional pointer with the perpetually disappointed wokan, with her resting-judge face.

 

I always carry one just in case the phone loses connectivity for some reason.

 

I - I can’t tell what the scam might be! I’d better watch, lest I find myself in a ruinous situation where I have a pint and a paper AND THEN THIS HAPPENS