The new owners came by for a walk-through this afternoon, and we had to leave. I guess that’s how it’s supposed to work. There are complex psychologies involved here, according to our realtor. I stood in the backyard waiting for them to arrive, feeling sorry for Birch. He was laid out on the lawn as usual, basking in the sun and the scents. No more of that. I wonder: if we walked past the house in a year, would he head up the stairs?
I’m shopping for apartment pee-pads, something for the balcony. One of those old-dog / new-trick things. As it stands now, I wake, open the door, out he goes, business is performed, in he comes. In the future I will have to dress, go down seven floors, out the door, around the corner, then back up. It seems like a lot before coffee.
Well, just start the pot before you go out, you say. Yes, but if you remember I have made a vow to shift my coffee paradigm. Part of the whole “new things, new routines” resolution to establish a grand array of differences that will provide life with quality and novelty. I’m going to use those little coffee pots you put on the burner, and it boils up, and makes a perfect cup. I’ve had it with Keurigs. I’ve had it drip. I like French Press as well, but they’re more of a bother to clean. SO, no, I can’t start the coffee before I go out. Hence the pee-pad. I can only imagine him looking at me with utter confusion. What are you talking about? What do you mean go there? What is this thing? There are chemicals you can spray that make them more alluring, I guess.
I have bought some delicious wet food for our first few trips so he associates the place with happiness. I will bring him over for the first night I sleep there. We’ll have fun! It’ll be like living in a hotel!
Actually, it’s exactly like living in a hotel.
I know I spend an inordinate amount of time here obsessing over the details, how the place is kitted out, where everything goes, but it makes me happy. It used to make me resigned, like I was outfitting myself for a trip across a desert and taking some comfort in the fact that I’d have a water bottle, but now I’m in a different mood: HELL YES PUT THAT WHISK IN THE CART. I am so going to whisk eggs for breakfast. Extra large ones, too. With homemade pico de gallo! Not kidding. Got a chopper. I am an inch close from getting a bread maker, so I can perfect the weekly grilled cheese sandwich.
Such quotidian thoughts, right? The guy is getting excited about . . . grilled cheese sandwiches? What kept him from doing this before? Hard to say. The weight of compounded years and habits and autopilot life, head down, power through the eye-rolling and heavy sighs.
Yes, it's the completely expected textbook short-lived euphoria!
Daughter called tonight and we had a great chat. She'd sent me a piece of art she did in a cafe that had some Doodle Event, you show up and have Iranian cookies and Armenian coffee and doodle. I thought it was clever and nifty and texted a review, whereupon she called to see how I was doing. She worries! She oughtn't. She said her agency was doing work for an opera company, and she had tickets to an upcoming concert. What was the piece? I asked.
Three disasters befell Mahler during the summer of 1907. Political maneuvering and antisemitism forced him to resign as Director of the Vienna Court Opera, his eldest daughter Maria died from scarlet fever and diphtheria, and Mahler himself was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect. "With one stroke", he wrote to his friend Bruno Walter, "I have lost everything I have gained in terms of who I thought I was, and have to learn my first steps again like a newborn.
You wince to read that, because it was 1907, and he'd find out his wife was cheating on him in 1909, something that made him go Sigmund Freud for advice.
One of Freud's observations was that much damage had been done by Mahler's insisting that Alma give up her composing. Mahler accepted this, and started to positively encourage her to write music, even editing, orchestrating and promoting some of her works. Alma agreed to remain with Mahler, although the relationship with Gropius continued surreptitiously.
I'm not sure I buy that. Could be Alma's version. I think the death of the daughter had more to do with it, or perhaps Alma was just bored and inclined to find a new young vigorous genius.
Me, I've never forgiven her.
I am not inclined to watch Rooster on HBO, and it has nothing to do with Steve Carrell. I like him. Who doesn't? The premise - famous writer goes to college to teach, comes out of his shell or reinvents hijself or whatever - holds no interest, even though it's something I'd like to do.
No, it's this moment in the trailer. I guess this is funny?
Apparently he cheated on her, so it's okay. But no. It is not okay. It is remarkable that they think it's okay. bUt wHat IF iT WaS reVErSed, yes, obvious, and correct: it would not be presented as a humorous scene.
It’s 1924.
Ads from the Los Angeles paper.
It has all the new hues, like Delftones.
What? Can’t google that without the band getting in the way.
My Lord, that’s a year’s salary for some.
The piano looks as if it’s been backed into the wall and forced into a different dimension.
Mmmmmm, don’t think so.
Hand lettered . . . obviously. Wonder if the client was a bit peeved by the lean.
Not sure about the address. The Lowe’s State building was indeed at 7th and Broadway. The other numbers - 308 - 309 - might be the floor?
In America the company saw a chance to challenge soft-drink giants Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola with its own C&C Cola. An elaborate marketing scheme was launched in 1955, in connection with the television revival of theatrical motion pictures produced by RKO Radio Pictures.
They bought the whole catalog. As for the cola - I never heard of it. Apparently it’s still around although I cannot and will not deduce anything from its enthusiastic admirers.
Well, imagine that. What a boon
Bell-Ans. What is that?
Sodium bicarbonate. So many companies made this stuff. They all had their own claims. I’m thinking that people stuck with a particular brand because they remembered the time when it worked, once.
SS Belgenland was a transatlantic ocean liner and cruise ship that was launched in Belfast, Ireland in 1914 and scrapped in Scotland in 1936. She was renamed Belgic in 1917, reverted to Belgenland in 1923, and renamed Columbia in 1935.
A Harland & Wolff ship, as you might imagine from its Belfast origin. Scrapped in 1936. This ad celebrates its first journey around the planet.
Corns just seemed like a much bigger problem back then.
Personally, I’d chose a product name that didn’t sound so . . . pointed and painful.
That will do. We return to 1920s obscure comics today, and of course there's Joe at 11..
