I’m just not going to work hard this week. I’m sorry. I’m not. I’m going to do a little Bleatage, the usual updates, some Fair videos, some novel revision, and maybe three or four work blog noon posts. It’s the last full week of summer, and I am going to be happy and relaxed OH MY GOD HOW AM I GOING TO GET DINNER IN AND GET TO THE FAIR BY SEVEN - see? No.

Got to the Fair by 6:15, as it happened, and promptly developed that feeling of Fair Despair I get when don’t know what to shoot. But no, I had an objective. Focus. Off to the Food building for the ceremonial Chicago style hot dog; that’s my annual must-have item. Chopped tomatoes, sport peppers - named, I believe, after Harvey Keitel’s character in “Taxi Driver” - sweet green relish, onions, brown mustard. On a seeded bun. Then I started shooting moving lights.

 

 

That was the objective: neon at twilight. Specifically, creating pictures that had some moving elements, but were static. I’ll post a few on the Strib Blog tomorrow. Also tried something called “Picle,” which lets you add sound to still pictures. Nice idea, but you can’t save them to your phone or computer. Gee thanks.

As usual, I wore my press badge around my neck, so it didn’t seem WIERD that I was shooting video. If I’d had a bigger camera, it wouldn’t be a problem. Bigger videocameras - legitimacy. Stopped under one ride to get some shots, and when the ride flew overhead there was a sharp sound on the pavement to my right. I looked: shattered cellphone case. And, shattered iPhone. It flew out of the pocket or hand of some idiot on the ride, and would have really, really hurt if it’d hit my head.

 

   

 

Since it’s Tuesday, that means it’s Ancient Products Day - a sure-fire way to make the page look extra long and filled with material! Of course I did have to find it and crop it and resize it, but I did that Friday while watching something out of the corner of my eye. Left eye, for the second monitor. The right eye handles all the important work.

I think these were popular because they were vaguely educational. I remember them as being different, somehow - denser, with a flavor you didn’t get in other oat-based breakfast nodules.

 

Fashion first: chic white-haired ladies prefer to cover abrasions with similar-hued plastic strips, now with pus-absorbing pads!

 

 

. . . .which they never did.

There’s no reason beer shouldn't look like this today:

 

 

. . . except we’d probably associate them with crappy old brands trying to snag an unsuspecting generation. Modern hip beers have to have clever labels. But no modern beer would dare take a name that speaks so directly of the inevitable beer-belch, the great ripe yawp that follows a solid slug.

The Bread Parade of 1960!

 

Holsum we had when I was a kid; never knew it meant something. The misspelling is your guarantee of freshness! Then there’s Miss Nineteen, which was brand-name registered in 1952 but is currently expired. It was sold as a diet bread. Hollywood seems an unlikely name for a bread; glamor is not something bread needs.

It’s an aluminum ad, by the way.

 

 

You might not be able to tell it from the picture, but that's no ordinary foil. Some Don Draper got the idea to pitch an attribute no one had previously considered necessary:

 

 

June Foray, of course. Odd to hear Rocket J. Squirrel do ads, isn’t it.

This would work today. It would work better than most cheese packages, which are gaudy and banal:

 

 

Let me make a bold statement: the cheese packaging of sixty-two years ago exceeds the quality of cheese packaging today.

Stark kitty graphics: preferable to cutesy pictures, isn’t it?

 

 

I seriously wonder if this was any good:

 

 

I seriously doubt it was.

But I want some, now. It's the one that includes cheese.

 

Today we have a diplomat tortured by Hitler's Monsters. The usual. hit the Comic Sins button, and off you go. See you around!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
  ...

blog comments powered by Disqus