Came across a muttering man with an infant in one hand a gun in the other.
Let me back up:
The night before the brunch my wife was up until 2 getting everything ready. She made a vast amount of bacon, glazed with brown sugar, studded with pepper. I went to bed with the smell of bacon permeating the entire house, and I thought “I’m going to dream about this.” As it happens, I found myself walking around downtown in the winter at night, playing the electric guitar. Came across a muttering man with an infant in one hand a gun in the other.
This, I thought, I should report. So I went to the library to use the phone, which annoyed everyone because every time I moved the guitar played a loud chord. Remembered I had a cellphone, but it wouldn’t let me make a call. At this point a pastor appeared, and I think you know the type if you grew up in the 60s or 70s: sideburns, mustache, aviator glasses, a breezy “hey, Jesus is FUN!” demeanor.
“I know you’re all talking about old Tom,” he said, “but that’s just what he does. He walks around with that gun and the kid. Last week they found him clear down in Iowa, but he’s no harm. Let’s eat!”
Whereupon he turned to a pan that must have been a foot deep, with layers of eggs separated by planks of bacon. That’s when I woke.
Went downstairs. Looked at the egg dish my wife was making.
“Is the bacon . . . layered?”
It was not. Well, it was all delicious anyway.
Other than that, a wonderful weekend. I didn’t write anything. I did assemble; turns out I can released ebooks of all my columns, so I’m going to dump ‘em out for $1.99 a year. That’s about 100 columns for two dollars; you do the math. I watched, of all things, the first ST:TNG, but in Blu-Ray! Looks incredible, although the bridge looks more like a set. Which, I gather, it was. So the “extra realistic” claim for Blu-Ray still holds. Actually had a late-night twitter debate about how the saucer could separate at warp speed. Actually had someone tell me that the technical manual says the saucer contained “warp field enablers,” or something like that, so it didn’t shear into atoms. Bah.
I readjusted lights in the back yard. I edited some Joe Ohio for the ebook edition. (There will be new chapters.) I took apart a postcard and photoshopped it into a 1940 picture of the Citizen-Herald newspaper building. Had a frozen pizza - but it was a Geno’s deep dish. When my daughter had a sleepover and she couldn’t fall asleep we texted for a while and I sent her a picture of her hamster. It was all as good as it gets. I mentioned bacon, right? Also: french toast glazed with caramel.
One of those meals where you figure you’re just done eating for the rest of the day, and rather disheartened to find yourself eating again, seven hours later.
Alas, he said, beginning the week with excuses, and wanting to point out that there are almost 20 pages of updates elsewhere but resisting the temptation because it would sound like the dodge it really is, given that they’re redesigned pages - oh, they look new, and you probably don’t remember seeing them in the first place, but there’s a difference - I have a piece to write tonight about the “Mad Men” premiere. (Moment-to-moment thoughts over there in the Twitter feed.) I want to like it but I won’t be crushed if I don’t. But that will take much time I usually spend here.
However, he said, knowing that pictures merely give a post the illusion of length without the substance, I do have some things snapped as I drove around Sunday waiting for daughter & friend to finish Joy of the People soccer. Really, that’s what it’s called Joy of the People. Should be conducted entirely in starkly-lit black and white, and German, with a near hysterical voice-over exulting the virtues of strength and defeating International Jewry with middle-school calisthenics.
Dropped by the Luther Seminary, a big old classical pile on a hill in St. Anthony.
Always liked the Corinthian Order - that’s when the column tops have vegetation. (The others are Doric and Ionic. Easy to remember: Doric is the simplest, hence D for Dull, and a serif capital I is sort-of like the scrolls on the top of an Ionic. Ionic is always safe. Good for college buildings. The Corinthian looks like you had more money to spend, and you probably see it the least around America.
That’s a useful thing to know, isn’t it? To be able to look at a classically-styled building, and know the capitals? Even if you don’t tell anyone. Hard to see how you could slip that into the conversation unless someone asked, and believe me, they never do.
Graffiti: er, okay.
Leave aside the Art Spiegelman story for a bit, because I don’t think this is a reference to that. There’s absolutely no way you can draw a connection between Mickey Mouse and Nazism, can you? Oh sure! Walt was a Nazi. Well, no. But it’s what some kids think. It’s just one of those things that smart people know. One of those things that gives you satisfaction, because while everyone else is enjoying old Disney cartoons you know the truth, and it confirms the sneers and whines of your inner Holden Caulfield. They’re all phonies. If only they knew - but then it wouldn’t be as much fun anymore, would it? You suspect people would still think you were something of a drip.
Yes, yes, YES I KNOW:
That's from "Wayward Canary," 1932. Why, it's one of the many pro-Nazi symbols Walt hid in the cartoons!
You have to be a special kind of stupid to buy that.
Remember the cool old building on University Avenue discussed two weeks ago, the one with the interesting Sullivanesque details? I hadn't noticed that the side contained a palimpest, recently revealed:
Here's one of the reasons I love living in the city: you drive a few miies from the building above to an old theological institute, and pass under this . . .
. . . and a mile or so away, it's an old enormous elevator . . . .
I like it here.
Hey, don't forget! Matchbooks and such. See you around.
