We come to the end of the finest September in memory. It’s been hot and nothing has a hint of brown - except for the lawns, blasted by the warmth and the lack of rain. But it’s been like summer refined and perfected. Today: more 80s. It slams down twenty degrees in a few days, but no one dares complain.

Two weekends of relatives, and it was all a pleasure. A breezy week at the office that made me rethink my exit. A good solid month on the Substack, with new features to come. I only hope yours was good as well. Given the Trials of Summer, this has been a boon and a tonic.

And you know what? I know October will have a happy interlude, because about two months ago I just . . . did something. I said “I have to” and I made some keystrokes on websites and now I am a week and a half from Doing Something just because I absolutely needed to do it.

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I have been upgrading my wardrobe over the last year, because a lot of my favorite shirts are just old. Many are from a shameful period when I was wearing M instead of S. I would replace my favorites, with their eye-popping peacock hues, but that era is over, and it’s hard to find shirts at the store that have interesting colors. Part of the problem is that the stores are gone, of course. I used to get my best bright shirts at Penneys, of all places, but they slunk away from Southdale, and I’m not driving up to Rosedale to see if they have a crimson shirt in my size. They still have over 660 stores, though.

Macy’s is a mess, a perfect example of a store that seeks to actively drive away customers. It inhabits the old Dayton’s store, and it’s like one of those 80s dystopian movies where an elegant old establishment is filled with sneering punks and trash-can fires. I feel bad for the wise and quiet old men who are still working there, and have to deal with the downmarket indignity. Once they sold suits to men who wanted a uniform of quality. Once they had a special fellow who would come out with the tape and the chalk. No more. Now the clerks are indifferent and talk amongst themselves too loudly, and don’t make eye contact.

So I have to go Amazon, where you find venerable brands like XXJOPR or GHJIIF, all of which assure you they are passionate about clothing. The arrival of the items is always disappointing - the color is not quite right, the item is compressed to the point of asphyxiation, the material seems to be spun from the hindquarters of some giant plastic insect, but they do fit.

The art is always off.

I have absolutely no idea what this is meant to convey. A good shirt for contemplating the logistics and supply chain intricacies required to bring this beverage to your life, perhaps.

We are used to this inexact, cross-eyed English; we just accept we’re being sold a meaningless brand that babbles vaguely-relevant phonemes.

THEY EVEN MISPELLED THE NAME OF THE BRAND. It's "Coofandy," not "Coofadny."

I can imagine Don Draper at his drunkest, or most hung-over, reacting to something like this.

More liquor from the Booze-surge of '34:, when Overbrook was making up one brand after the other.

"Aged" has a rather elastic meaning here, I'm sure.

I should remind you that Crime did not, in fact, file incorporation papers.

Let's see, what delights can we expect -

Somehow I doubt actual beheading will occur.

Well, he would, wouldn’t he:

When last we saw Dick, he was on the tracks, covered by a parachute. Good to know that was just an error in perspective!

No chance the train would pick up the chute and drag him under the wheels.

Well, we have to start again, so we’re back at the Mansion where the League of Industrialists Who Are Unknowingly Compromised By One Member Who is the Ghost. It seems an odd place for the G-Man to be. Shouldn’t he be back at the office?

Tracy, sitting in the library, is summoned to a meeting with Cabot, the member he suspects. Wouldn’t it be easier to tail him? Use the resources of, you know, the government bureau for which Tracy works? Nah. One suspicious guy gets up to use the jukebox.

It is a very large jukebox:

The volume masks the sound of the Ghost using his invisibility device, so he can go in and waste Tracy. And what’s the best way to do this while invisible?

Throw a knife from a distance.

Look what they find on the floor.

Could there be some significance?

Thanks, underused gal cop, or whatever your job is here. Ah, the Secret Council, that’s their name. Okay. So they know it’s that one guy, Cabot. Tracy tells the members of the Council to assemble, and everyone has to produce their badge. Cabot claims ignorance about summoning Tracy to the hotel. Everyone, show your badge!

Then the lights go out, because the Ghost is about. In the momentary blackout, the badge Tracy found is gone! And Cabot has his - dropped on the floor!

We cut to the Ghost, who says he planted the badge in Cabot’s area, and he also cut himself, and probably left a fingerprint, so they have to kill Cabot.

Ohhhhkay

By . . . BEHEADING?

The Ghost shows up at Cabot’s, so to speak, and holds him at suspended gunpoint, and starts babbling about Rackets Regan, and how everyone on the council has to pay for his end in the electric chair. Plugs Cabot. Tracy, of course, is on the scene, hears it, and thus:

More of a conk than a beheading, really.

The Monday Boon: