I don't know why this caught my eye, he said, disingenuously. It was the contrast and placement. I sit here at noon and consult with a small cigar after I have had my meager lunch and one (1) alloted piece of licorice. These things take place every day between 11:30 and noon, without fail and without much variance, and this brings me great contentment. Afterwards I went back up to my desk and got a reusable paper bag I got from Morrison's in the UK, which had traveled all the way to the states to ferry a pair of shoes to Napoleon, so he could fix the heels.
Should've called first. He wasn't in the shop. Ah well. Walked back through the skyways, through the old bank, through the other old bank with the Egyptian facade. There was a woman looking at the skyway map.
Whenever I see someone stopped at a skyway map, looking a bit lost, I stop and ask if I can help. My Boy Scout moment du jour. A brand ambassador for Downtown Minneapolis. In this case the lady needed to get to the Government Center, and I said I was going that way and would show her.
So we walked through three buildings, and I told her what everything was, when it was built, what its original purpose was. She was down to the Cities from a town to the northwest, which I knew slightly: wasn’t there a Happy Chef restaurant there with the statue? There was! I don’t know why I remember that. We talked about Highway Ten vs. 94. There, that’s my building, the StarTribune. Oh do you work there? I do. Are you a writer? I am. Would I know you? I don’t know. (This is like a “What’s My Line” questioning.) I told her my name and she says her mother loves me.
Well, you’ll just have to tell her I was as short as advertised.
Put a spring in my step, it did. Never fails to delight.
BREAKING: WRITER LIKES COMPLIMENTS
So: another account of an internet peregrination, as we go . . .
How do we get from the here . . .
To there?
I was looking through old Halloween-week movie listings.
Sneak, Snoop and Snitch is a 1940 Animated Antics cartoon. It is one of two shorts in the series starring the villains Sneak, Snoop, and Snitch from Fleischer Studios' 1939 feature film Gulliver's Travels.
IMDB entry, written by a fellow who just typed and posted, although I should talk:
Two cartoon series were spun off of Max Fleischer's feature "Gulliver Trails", one was a series of color "Gabby" cartoons and the other was a B&W series of "Sneak Snoop and Snitch" cartoons, of which this was a pat of. Max Fleischer was hoping to find a new successful series to replace Betty Boop who's series took a nose dive after the Hays Office 'cleaned her up'. This series only lasted for three cartoons. Gabby did a little better but only lasted two years. Max would then lose his studio to Paramount Pictures when he couldn't pay back the loans they gave him to finance his cartoons.
Many of Popeye's funniest under-the-breath mutterings - the puns, malapropisms and wisecracks - were freely ad-libbed by Mercer during the recording sessions, since he didn't have to match any onscreen lip movements. He sadly toned down this endearing trait and it faded away in the Famous Studios Popeye cartoons.
His wife did the voice for Olive Oyl. Who, by the way, is the youngest sibling of Castor Oyl and Crude Oyl.
I wonder what happened to Crude. He didn’t make the cut when the animated cartoons arrived, did he? Wikipedia:
Debuting on December 19, 1919, Olive was the childhood sweetheart and more-or-less fiancée of original Thimble Theatre protagonist Ham Gravy.
We’ve met him in Comics Obscura, or we will. He was supplanted by Popeye.
Ham vanished as a regular altogether; while he made occasional appearances in the later Popeye strips, he never regained comparable prominence.
Ham makes a supporting appearance in the 1980 film, Popeye, where Olive has recently left him and has since begun dating Bluto at the film's opening. He was played by Bill Irwin.
Mr. Noodle! Any parent who had to suffer through Elmo knows Mr. Noodle - as well as the second Mr. N, Michael Jeter.
There was a Ms Noodle, played by Kristin Chenoweth, and never once while watching her (and I don’t remember her at all) did either me or Natalie think they would one day share an IMDB credit.
I cannot believe that's on her page. Also, it's not listing the movie she made last year, because she didn't add it, and yes, I nagged her about that, and no, I cannot believe that the world turned out in such a way that I have to nag my daughter to update her IMDB page.
Our second look at Tifton.
The not-so-good sign: the inevitable antique store downtown in a store that was once a thriving merchant.
A small local merchant, once, but what? I'd say a local variety store, but the metal screen usually indicates clothing or something fashionable.
Say no more!
Everyone knew what that meant.
Although usually they had a name block to say MASONIC TEMPLE.
That’s nice. Wonder what it looked like when it had all its bulbs. (Which sounds like an insult in the sign community. Well, he's got some empty sockets that could use a bulb)
SHEPHERD & MAYNARD 1895.
The sign isn’t connected to the building.
And it’s not going anywhere. Rather lame 50s rehab, it must be said; the letters make it look a bit cheap.
30s / 40s rehab on the corner.
The windows betray its earlier origins. Not bad, though. Spiffed up the corner.
YOWZAHS
Wait - hold on.
Same architect, no doubt. And he probably did the boring one on the right, too. Why so severe?
Say as long as you’re in town, and you’ve already done two, think you could dash off one for me?
So many Merle Normans scattered around the small towns of the country.
Looks stucco’d over. Nicely preserved . . .
. . . but empty.
Okay, that’s different.
I’ve never seen this in the Commercial Style. Were those residences? Offices with porches?
Fantastic Doric-columned bank, but . . .
. . . that type of creepy-crawly marble always makes me a bit uneasy.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been a bank, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the columns were wood.
Off-the-shelf minor adornment. A miracle that the little vases have survived all these years.
I suppose it’s something of a respectful rehab, but it still looks worse than what the building must have originally had. I don't know why they could never get it right.
Perhaps an attempt to undue an unwise 50s / 60s rehab?
Untouched.
One of those examples that lets you relive exactly the look of the street a hundred years ago.
And it was?
The Golden Hardware Co.
A bit frilly, but not outside of the bounds of the style.
And the courthouse decorations include . . .
Fasces! Don’t worry, no one will make the connotation in a hundred years. They won’t even know.
Now two ways to chip in!
That'll do. Motels, as always, await your Thursday visit.
