My shoelace quest continued today, but I’m going to save that for a column.
Gee, it’s really a baffler why they killed your column, when you write about things like finding shoelaces.
Uh huh. Thanks. Thing is, there’s something there - the decline of convenience, the strange contractions of retail, the push to online, the inability to find the simplest things, the disappearance of the shoelace as a common object, the time spent in a society of abundance trying to locate a quotidian object, all told with peevish pique, a manufactured sense of irritation that makes me look laughable while providing a relatable tale - why in GOD’S NAME would anyone want an amusing little parable.
Sorry, bile and ire up for a moment. I’m fine! Let’s see, where were we? Exhausting days. Yesterday I mowed the great expanse while there was an interval between rain showers, like running errands in the eye of the storm. I have been writing the last columns in advance, tuning and tweaking. The gym, the walks, the archiving, the prepping for . . . well, I can’t quite say, but you’re going to find out.
Oh yes. There’s going to be a tale. And it stars, however indistinctly, John Keats.
But that’s for later.
The Great Globe in the StarTribune building. Either I walk past it at the same time every day or it's not moving anymore.
Hmm. What is that . . .
There's a prompt for a story.
As is this, spotted en route to the Dentist office:
It's not impossible to work backwards here. The "HAS BEEN" part obscures something like "ABOUT TO BE" or "YET TO BE," you think, but no, the sign says LEASED, so it's not an enticement for someone to rent it and tell a tale. Perhaps it said LEASED STORY TO BE WRITTEN" and "HAS BEEN" refers to the previous tenant . . . or . . .
I don't know. It closed last year. It was a nice place.
The owners said the building owner didn't renew the lease.
Well, that's all I have for on top today. Come Monday you'll see why. We are about to embark on something familiar, yet different. Different, yet familiar.
That's every week of the Bleat
I know, I know. Humor me, as they used to say in newspapers.
I was in Mexico at a hotel. I went down to the restaurant and got a table for four, and was served some water in an elaborate dispensing device. It was supposed to infuse the water with a particular flavor. I was handed an ornate menu that made it difficult to find what I wanted, which was tacos. Eventually I found "tacos," but before I could order I left the restaurant for some reasons with an old friend who had suddenly appeared. (Note: he is dead.)
He was promptly run down by a car, and laid on the road in a strange, bulging state. The car slowed down to make the turn as it ran away, and I got the license number. I dialed 911, hoping it had the same effect as in America, and it did. The operator shifted quickly to English, heard my story, and then asked with an accusatory tone whether I had been downtown to buy something from a man.
I said if you’re insinuating I bought drugs you’re wrong and I don’t appreciate it, and don’t you want the license plate? Whereupon the phone beeped and my wife came on the line and said she thought I would be home today, and I had to explain that I needed to get back to the police, but that everything was okay. When I switched over the police call was disconnected and my friend was sitting up, a bit groggy, but not dead.
Prompt: man in a Mexican restaurant looking confused about a big menu
IC'mon, AI. Concentrate. Listen to the prompt.
Better.
That is one elaborate sombrero:
I have been to a few restaurants in Mexico. Perhaps I just haven't been to the authentic ones, like this:
And now, a related feature that will provide some Friday amusements:
For no reason this week it was gas station, white car, woman reading map. Rejects follow.
Fill 'er up with Gasolue:
I do like these cars.
I would like this car. I don't know if it's a Ford or a Udans, though:
The 60s version: now that's a compact car.
More from the 60s. It does have the composition of the old ads, but it keeps adding canopies to gas stations that probably didn't have one. Pumps are wrong.
The Seventies:
The pumps are wrong again.
If these were perfect I would hate them. It's the imperfections I love.
"Two-Gun" has the most pathetic excuse we've seen in a long, long time.
I'm surprised Lance even asks a question instead of putting him up against the wall and cuffing him. Maybe he just enjoys toying with them?
Lewis's Sun recording contract ended in 1963, and he joined Smash Records, where he made several rock recordings that did not further his career. The team at Smash (a division of Mercury Records) came up with "I'm on Fire", a song that they felt would be perfect for Lewis and, as Colin Escott writes in the sleeve to the retrospective A Half Century of Hits, "Mercury held the presses, thinking they had found Lewis's comeback hit, and it might have happened if the Beatles hadn't arrived in America, changing radio playlists almost overnight. Mercury didn't really know what to do with Lewis after that."
Now we're done. Thanks for your visits this week, and I hope the Bleat delivered! We'll start it all up again on Monday . . . or will we.
