Interesting sights downtown today: Lobby Pizza, my barometer for the way things are going, was absolutely jammed. In the skyways, mask wearing has dropped off by 25, 30%. Things had the mood you sense after the tenth super-snowstorm warning that doesn’t materialize. Of course, I’m the last fellow you should heed on these matters, since I’ve been done with masks since April 2020, and have also cried wolf so many times I got a copyright strike from A-ha.
What? This piece of high 80s synth pop. They may not have had any songs as big as the first, but they did have others.
The video is a fine example of the era, when we expected some new video innovation every month or so. It simply couldn’t do for A-ha to have another rotoscoped cartoon.
It did make it to #14, but I don’t remember it from the radio, or from MTV. I'm always pleased when I remember something obscure, but I rarely think of all the things we forget. The small details are the ones msot easily forgotten. As well as the large, forgotten details, of course. And there’s a lot of medium-sized details we just don’t remember -
Let me start again, with less pretentiousness. I can do it! I know I can.
My long detailed evaluation of the semiotics of newspaper imagery has led me to conclude that -
Oh to hell with it. Small newspaper cuts. The little illustrations on the top of columns. They come and go, and no one notices beyond a day or two if they’re changed. The big newspapers had custom illustrations for their columnists, but the smaller papers just bought a book and snipped them out and pasted them in, or used the art supplied by the syndicate.
From a small (eight-page) daily newspaper in 1935, then: the look of the day. They’re efficient, and they get the job done. In a sea of small type, they grab the eye and anchor it, and I apologize for making you think of an eyeball plucked from the socket, attached to a chain, and dropped into the ocean.
Dad's just reading the paper with a blank look. Mom's tuning something in. Junior is just standing there. Looks a bit tense, if you ask me.
The enormous familiar dome is actually a short-tentacled creature from the depths of our id! Run! Run for your lives!
Actually, neither appear in this column, which lacks any other visual componant.
These are all on the editorial page, which served a much broader function in the old days. Bigger page, smaller type - had to fill it all somehow.
Iago Goldston?
Iago Goldston?
That was his name.
Aren't we all. Or weren't we all, at one point.
The social columns had to be chic, stylish, feminine, and modern.
Obligatory top-hatted swell, looking like a million-dollar trooper. Are these modernistic typefaces hand-drawn, or is this a question of bad reproduction?
Anyway. That's that. Now you know a little more about the middle of the 30s. Use the information wisely, and for good.
Did any of you head straight to the comments to set me straight on "trooper?" You did? Super duper! You'll find both spellings on internet lyric sites, but c'mon. Dressed up like a million-dollar foot solder? Or dressed up like a million-dollar actor?
Now, this year's Above-the Fold Kul-chah Feature, or ATFKF.
Misinformation, the early years! I'm sure someone said "the printing press was a mistake."
Monsterlijke kameel-mens, 1690.
Go ahead, try to translate that. I just dare you. It's absolutely impenetrable!
The Museum note:
Man-eating monstrous animal that is half human and half camel. According to the text, the beast was captured by King William III's troops near Limerick on 20 September 1690 and transferred to London.
Yes, the famous Irish half-camel.
Welcome to Marshfield. Nineteen thousand souls. Local industry was hit by the 2008 recession, but the Wikipedia page said it has a new industry: processing sand for fracking.
Let's take a look. I'm sure I missed lots of things.
“I’m sick of being a twin, and no one being able to tell us apart! I’m going to find a way to be - to be me!”
Someone upsold the developer a bit of stone. Not a lot. But enough.
Although occupied by a single merchant, the Noll building was constructed in two separate stages. The north most portion was constructed in 1887 after the fire of June of that year; the south most was constructed between 1887 and 1891. Mr. William Noll directed his sown, Frank, to open a hardware store, as well as a warehouse for storage in 1887.
Yes, two parts. This is considered the Noll building:
“As Mr. Noll will tell you, a stone accent doesn’t cost very much, and adds a pleasant note of distinction.”
GREISINGER.
Nothing much comes back on Mr. G. It’s not a C; I do get a hit on A. M. GREISINGER in the local paper, but it’s just rote government stuff.
Why, yes, I do suspect the building eventually had two owners.
"You pay to clean the brick, I'll be damned if I waste money on such things.
I’m sure they meant well.
They did keep the name block; it says LAHR, 1887. The Lahr family lived upstairs - Mr., Mrs., nine kids. The missus died up there in 1913.
As I usually say: some “modernizations” still look modern, even though they’re twice as old as others.
Someone got a little eager, looking through the catalog of off-the-shelf decorations.
Classical pediments . . .
. . . and the mail-order pseudo-Sullivan cartouches.
It was an impressive undertaking for a small town, no?
That’s . . . interesting.
The new cornice has a stylized version of the old cornice; bonus points for that. The rest is over-scaled and cartoony, but it gave the old downtown a lift, I’m sure.
Washington sent them out on trains, one after the other, packed in a big box. Where do you want it, Mac?
“I say medians and planters will bring back downtown, and I’ll fight any man who says otherwise.”
With a name like that, you know it’s not really a bank.
But what a gift to the street! Let’s end with some close-ups of the figures.
American art wasn’t fascist, but let’s say it was on the same road, a few lanes over.
That should suffice, and if it doesn't, the Main Streets section wraps up for 2020.
