I went to the bank to close an unused account.

Do youI have an appointment?

I did not. Just thought I could drop into a seldom-visited branch and do the work on the spot, but that’s not how it goes anymore, I guess. You make an appointment online, or, as the lobby representative explained. I could do it over the phone. So I drove home and got out my earbuds -

Hold on, there’s one missing. The case has only one. That doesn’t make any sense. There’s no way I’d put one in the case and the other in my pocket. Every habit and instinct screams against it. Well, fire up the Find My feature, which can locate the small item within, oh, a six-mile radius. Okay, not that bad, but. It showed the location, all right, but on which floor? I’d last used the earbud while napping, because noise cancelling was handy when the dog saw the painter poking his head through the bushes to get to a window, and started barking. And that’s just the painter, the dog was even louder. (BADUM)*

That was the last known location. But it’s not anywhere around here. According to the app I am standing on top of it. IT’S RIGHT HERE.

I swear I’ve spent 45 minutes walking around the house with the phone held out like a divining rod. No luck. So I had to use wired headphones for the national radio segment, all because we were thinking of selling the house and had to spruce up some things and then I said no but we should still paint, which led to a situation where dog reaction to painter interrupted nap. Everything has an unknowable series of aftershocks. The multiverse must truly be infinite if every possible reaction plays out.

*(tish)

Nice day. Only 84. Worrisome cooling trend.

But hey: it’s . . .

And on that note, a few more of the 1937 movie ads. Why not. You got something better to do? In our last installment of 1937 movie industry ads, I gave you some elegant examples. Let me just state for the record that they made a lot of design decisions that strike modern eyes as hot crazy messes.

Never mind the horses with top hats, which somehow signals hilarity. The colors. THE COLORS.

Okay, well, a little garish exuberance now and then, spice of life and all that?

If used sparingly?

WACKY DAFFY GOOFY GIDDY

Here’s the other page of the double-truck:

The Four Horsemen of Hilarity will make the country “Screwy-conscious.”

That has to refer to something. The “-conscious” term. When I check newspapers archives I see a lot of “conscious” in 1935, then a big spike in “self-conscious” in 1936, and a great deal of “-conscious” in 1937.

		Like this.
		A new buzzword with a veneer of "science" because of Freud et al.

Anything about this performance seem familiar?

People who saw Wizard of Oz came to his performance with things like this in mind. We kids knew none of that.

Another eye-bleeder:

At least you know what you’re going to get.

GAH

Things got so much cleaner and more refined in the 40s.