I feel as if I'm taking care of a lost dog, putting up FOUND posters.
Took a walk around downtown for a piece on Christmas trees and decorations. Not a lot. A few big trees. I did go back to City Center and take pictures with brazen disregard for the safety of all.
I like this shot from IDS, which I don’t think will make the paper. Too peculiar.
Otherwise a normal day at the office, except I am out of my traditional post-meal piece of Wallaby licorice. I’ve been waiting for a sale on the stuff. There has not been any sales. It’s possible there will never be any sales anymore. They did that once or twice, people liked it, and then liked it so much the price point was no longer a barrier -
My GOD did I just write price point? Instead of, you know, price? I first heard the term at a Toy Fair in New York, when one of the guides was describing some new must-have Elmo-related thing. It struck me as industry lingo used to make people feel part of the inside tribe. Naturally, I used it from then on. I think that was the year the fellow who voiced Elmo was at the booth, and all the reporters asked him to record answering-machine greetings.
This was before the reputational crash, of course.
I was not bothered by security in any lobby, although the one where I did ask permission, I was told to wait while MANAGEMENT was contacted. I said it wasn’t worth the bother for any of us.
I was listening to an old radio show, Suspense, from 1944. A strange Thurber story. Something in the music jumped out. The composer wasn't named, but we know Bernard Herrrmannn did a lot of work for the show.
Oh, Bernie. Did you file this one away for a long time?
At the end. It's close . . .
It's so close.
Can you name that tune?
NOTE! For some reason, can’t quite get my hands around it, Discourse asked me to write a piece on . . . nostalgia. I know, I know, maybe it’s one of those things where they ask the bookworm to report on high school sports or something. Fresh perspective untainted by immersion. Anyway, it’s here.
Outtakes from the Christmas tree search. It's beginning to look a lot like, etc
A more understandable perspective.
The picture at the top of the page shows the ceiling of the Medical Arts building, a lovely house of nerves and discomfort. It's in the "Gothic" style.
I've always loved this style. It seems so august and scholarly. It seems peculiar that we were doing it a hundred years ago, in an age of modern building tech and new advances in communication and illumination. But people responded to the style, obviously. It carried the weight of the centuries with lightness and connected today to the culture of yesterday.
Back when that was regarded as a good thing.
And now, the weekly dream-journal entry, illustrated by AI, because that's what this week is all about.
Art Buchwald was in the hospital, and everyone was concerned. I had to see that his car, which as on the fritz, was repaired at a strange subterranean auto shop on the edge of the Mediterranean. It was a dark and greasy place.
Eventually Art recovered, and I guess his car was transferred to my house, for some reason. I was driving home with wife and daughter, arguing, almost near tears because wife was waiting for me to say something that needed to be said, but would give me absolutely no indication what it might be. Daughter was amused by this. I hit the wrong button on the garage door remote, and it operated a pneumatic lift in the second bay, the one on which Art’s car sat. The car was pushed into the ceiling and smashed flat; the shaft off the lift was bent.
I was apologetic, and asked him what kind of car it was, and that I would give him a check for the Blue Book value, and would help him pry open the door to extract anything he’d left in the glove compartment. He seemed more confused than angry.
Let's take another look at the possibilities generated by "greasy underground auto repair shop."
I love the textures on this one. And the mysteries.
The Great Marvello:
Don't tell me it's because Lance can't smell any cleaning fluids.
