She still hasn't moved. I'm wondering if she's seeing something outside the window she never expected to see. My God it's John they said he was lost at Busan, so I remarried, how did he find me
The busiest day of the week, Monday, is almost done. Two of three pieces in the bank, or the bag. Yes, there's a difference between the two, but not in the idiomatic sense of "completion." Although no one ever says "I'm right, and you can take that to the bag."
A king-god-alpha-truth-bomb-dropper has been hooted at from all quarters for this tweet.
As they say on the twitter, tell me you are an emotional nullity without saying your are an emotional nullity. And he’d probably say Yes, Emotions For Woman. Ok, guy who poses in carefully selected stances with custom eyeglasses, like a Kardashian, except for dudes who would totally be off at war somewhere doing dude things if it was possible.
It made me wonder who my masculine role models were when I was coming up, and I had two immediate answers, both Captains. Both Captains with a K. Kangaroo and Kirk. Then Spider-Man, who taught us that you could be a hero but still feel like a loser, and that there was something intrinsic to the male experience to putting on a uniform and acting as if you had more confidence than you did. (The type of uniform didn’t matter. Sports, business, nerd garb, whatever.) The best example of the cliched male role model was J. Jonah Jameson, who was all bluster and force and fury, but confessed in the end that he hated Spider-Man because he saw something powerful he could never be.
These are children’s tales! Child no come to me until Child understand grown-up story! Yes, they were children’s tales, and I happened to be a child. I also had Tom Swift, who was ingenious, although now that I think about it I wonder how many of his inventions were attempts to get the attention of his remote father. He didn’t seem remote at the time; he was just at the Dad Inventor equivalent of the Office, which is where Dads went. You know, the Business Factory.
Then there’s the poor dog. Go away, needful active fur-wad! Learn respect and rules. Go to room and consider lives of famous war dogs, and dogs of farms. Come back when you wish to be commanded.
This is entirely different from telling males not to be sloshy bags of squee who spend all their time dreaming about Japanese anime females. Or Seventies-style “sensitive” men who strum guitars and sing about being wounded by love or injustice. (That was just a dodge for getting women in the hay, anyway.) The lesson could be don’t celebrate weakness and passivity because you have the same traits, and wish to see them elevated as cultural norms. But any man who can’t take care of a baby or pup has cut himself off from the instinctive sense of protectiveness and instruction, and retreated behind a soda-can armor.
You know, shiny on the outside, empty on the inside.
Every time I go to YouTube I’m asked if I want YouTube TV. The answer is no, because I need a certain channel, and also, I don’t want Google taking notes of what I watch (not because I’m paranoid, but because I just want them to leave me alone), and also, YouTube, in my head, is anti-TV.
Is it TV, though? How do you define that? Is TV the device that brings you the images, or the images themselves?
I know, stupid question. It’s (your preferred answer.) But consider. I bought a new TV. We know what that means. Let’s watch TV. We know what that means. It's a hybrid - we watch the TV shows on the TV. It’s both. Who’s your TV provider? This means who provides the visuals? If you say “Who’s your food provider” we think of the person or organization that brings you food, not the plate or your mouth. So TV is all of these things in different contexts.
For me, TV has a schedule. It is the channel grid. Netflix is not TV; Amazon Prime is not TV. They are services that appear on the TV. But DirecTV is TV, even though, like the others, it streams. YouTube is not TV because of the wandering, serendipitous nature of the experience. You watch this then that then this because it’s recommended then this entirely different thing because it’s on the same page. It is a diversion, then an education. A history lesson, then click! A song. Click! Stupid content that has a splash screen with a clickbait title and the host making soyface or broface. Then something that just gives you a feeling that you are a million ways away from something that should feel familiar.
I was just on a train. I’ve taken them for decades. I’ve spent time in sleeper cars, done my time in miserable smoke-stinky bars cars and nice dining cars with heavy plates and good coffee. I recognize all of this, but it’s starting to feel impossibly remote.
Isn't that interesting? Refitting old locomotives. Accordians in the bar car. Without the internet, we'd never see things like this.
And then click! A fascinating video about the Chinese skyscraper regulations. But. The sidebar is reminding me that I like old game shows. To Tell the Truth, sure. What’s My Line, definitely. I watch one on YouTube. . . but it doesn’t feel like TV. It feels like TV forced through a keyhole.
When I watch it on my TV, the screen so much bigger than the original equipment, it feels at home. It seems correct. This is TV.
Except I’m watching it on the YouTube app. On my TV.
I try not to watch the YouTube app on my TV, because hours melt away. TV has the channel grid; it is defined. It is a place in time through which you move left to right, a list of options through which you move up and down. YouTube is like a Marianas Trench whose depth you will never plumb, and that includes the videos about going down the Marianas Trench.
NOW we're in the Tens.
It’s 1916. Some of these look familiar, so I apologize for repeats. Perhaps I just recognize the brands, or recall setting them aside. It’s not like there were that many products and brands. A lot, yes, but the big players tend to recur.
A modern miracle:
“You do not belong to the 20th century” if you don’t have a set of the stored knowledge of Western Civilization.
Old sets still go for a lot of money. I’d love for someone to compare the 1916 edition with what we know today, and see how our knowledge has advanced.
It has, you know. A lot.
Your Watch is your Timetable!
Yes, but I need to make a connection, and if I had a timetable I could see when the other train arrives -
Your watch is your timetable!
Oh all right.
The station is here. Look at that monster. The railroad filed for bankruptcy three times - 1939, 1947, 1967 - and was defunct by 1972.
THEY HAVE ALSO FAILED TO COMPLETE MORE SENTENCES THAN ANY OTHER AD
The Powerplus “was highly successful, both as a roadster and as the basis for racing bikes. It remained in production with few changes until 1924.” Top speed: 60MPH.
They’re headquartered in Minnesota now, so yay for us.
.
They were still delivering with horse-drawn wagons?
The more things change etc: ConEd is now bringing electrics back for their fleet.
One of a million Rogers Peet ads. I have a couple dozen. Small, unique, hand-produced for one client, a fixture on a particular part of the comics page of the paper. (Or so I recall.) We have discussed Rogers Peet here before, and I’m not sure it requires another recap of this New York retailer.
Deets:
The firm was established in Saint Paul in 1855 by Ernst Albrecht, an immigrant from Coburg, Germany. The Albrecht family first entered the fur business in 1725 in Coburg.
In 1981 the firm was known as Albrecht of Minneapolis, Inc., and operated stores in downtown Minneapolis, Edina, and the Highland Park area of Saint Paul. It was at that time said to be the oldest and largest manufacturing and retail furrier in the United States.
FREAKISHLY TALL AND FRANKLY PISSED
Looks like he might actually shove Mr. Voter right into the middle of a European war.
I remember writing about this.
If you’re a regular Bleat reader, you know what she’s holding.
Care to explain it for the rest of the class?
That will do! Off to see what Fireball's doing this week.
