Welcome! A full complement of Bleatage begins now, and will conclude Friday with a song. A reminder, in case you don't get down that far: Diners every Monday!
Big News: I mowed the lawn!
(Golf clap) Yeah you and every other guy with a house. A medal you should get?
No. But I haven’t mowed a lawn in 24 years. It’s not hard, of course - back and forth, boring, done. But I have an inordinately large yard for a city dweller. There’s not just the main lawn, which is a hill of considerable pitch, and there’s not just the various areas of the hill that wrap around trees or landscaping. There’s the north hill, which is damned steep, and the entire back yard. The back and north are the result of the original owner buying the adjacent properties so he could have a garden. The decision of a candy mogul 110 years ago resulted in more work for me.
I wonder how he cut it. He had more yard, since the original footprint of Jasperwood encompassed the Haunted Triangle.
It took about two hours, all told. A bit more with the post-mow edging and trimming. Felt great. Now I have a defined weekend yard task. My wife is always planting and weeding and doing things for which I have no aptitude; she sends me out to spray the weeds and I'm looking at some things and thinking, is this maybe a weed? So have to get out the app that tells me if it's intentionally there, or not. But. I can figure out something that requires me to start a machine and drive it over a defined terrain to achieve a particular result. The task also involves the edger and the leaf blower, so that’s two more loud tools.
And my friends, it was exhausting. But a good work out. The Toro AWD proved its mettle. I have been thinking about it for the last week, wondering how hard it would be, how much assist the AWD would give me. The answer is “enough.” It’s still an act of particular misery to get it up to the top of the hill, but it can be done.
Before the mowing I ran to the postcard show. I went straight to the table run by the guy who has motels at popular prices, as they say, and he informed me he’d added a whole box, having bought a collection. Although he said it wasn’t really a collection, implying the original owner had no guiding principle. I fished out 90 selections, thereby guaranteeing the Motel Postcard site updates for 2027.
At another table I found some things I just wanted to show you:
Telebingo, from Red Owl. There don't appear to be any Tele-Bingo cards from Rew Owl on the interne,t so we're all breaking new important ground here.
Here’s a lovely brochure that provided information on Honey:
One guy had a bin of stuff from someone who’d saved everything from a trip west in the mid-50s. Postcards, menus. Coasters. Business cards. His memorabilia is about to be returned to the Great Stream, because his daeth sundered them from context and meaning.
It was a quick stop. I had things to do. In an our, a fifty-dollar hit.
When the lawn was done I napped - too brief - then made the Saturday hamburgers. Returned to the lawn to edge and trim while Wife planted pots. Night fell. Scanned everything I’d bought, which is the rule: if I don’t scan them the day I get them, then they get added to the horribly daunting backlog pile.
A day of great accomplishments! And I learned a lot about the Peasants’ Rebellion and the reign of Richard II from a four-part podcast while I did it all.
And beauty all around:
The last of the flowering trees in the yard. It's the last salute to early spring. I never tire of seeing these pop, and am always reminded that we moved here in summer, and were surprised by these the next spring.
Our new Monday feature! The Gazettes provide a look at the commercial vernacular from 90 years ago. Sometimes they look forward, and just as often as not they reach back decades for a familiar look.
Are any of these brands still around? We'll find out.
This one, yes:
That's a lot to trademark. I'm familiar with this; I've seen the style and characters in other ads.
Eggs with top hats because of course; why not? A note of high class and society style!
It’s one of those movies where it could be the other way around. Edward Condor brings you an Alperson production! Because the names aren't exactly household terms.
We get the "stars" first.
They had to tweak the sliders before the Loretta Young Replacement Clone didn’t look strange and mean:
Our hero:
Names above the title, so there's that.
Newspapers! BUGS was shot, right in the ol’ County J:
BOLO for an embrace in professional human form:
Oh, right, Thug.
Okay, okay, WE GET IT
I’m starting to think Bugs is dead:
The movie lasts one hour and six minutes. It's a basic cheapie, but it's okay. Here's what stuck out:
I wondered if that was from the terminal across from Grand Central Station; no.
The lettering is so wrong for an air terminal, except it wasn’t; the styles of the time made it fit the architecture. Which was . . . Southern Californian ersatz historical.
For a breezy cheapie, it has some interesting period interiors.
Oh, one more thing.
Can we find the covers?
Of course we can find the covers. Right side, even with the briefcase-carrying man's head . . . That's a Liberty magazine layout. So year of filming, quick check . . .
The other is more difficult. I had no luck looking through 1937 archives, until I considered that maaaaybe they had a stack of old magazines sitting around? And yes, they did.
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I had no luck looking through 1937 archives, until I considered that maaaaybe the filmmakers had a stack of old magazines sitting around? |
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I enjoyed this challenge more than the movie.
A note: your matches will start with one that was used last week, to give context for the next one. You are still guaranteed your standard three (3) new matchbooks.
Oh . . . one more thing.
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