It was a clement day, a good long melt. Didn’t make a dent in the backyard glaciers, but it’s only March. I took a walk around downtown, and found myself in the newest skyway. It still had that new skyway smell! There were more people walking around than I’ve seen in a while, but I don’t kid myself; the baseline for two years has been “no one but the mad and the occasional scurrying person in a mask.” On the other hand, a restaurant opened in our building, and I saw a waiter delivering a meal to people sitting in the atrium, looking out the broad high windows. All this is welcome.

Really short-shrift stuff here today, for reasons, but every week needs a Breather Bleat. But: now, the rest of the story, as the man said. To repeat from yesterday, this was the text exchange with Daughter.

She said sure, and I sent the sound file.

And that's what it was.

One of the few artists alive I’ve listened to my whole life, which is one of the reasons it's so gratifying to know she loves the piece, too. I’ve often listened to this piece on takeoff after a long trip - but only when heading home. Perhaps you can understand why. 

Landing? This one, sometimes, for obvious reasons.

I remember listening to this as I took off from New York on my first trip after 9/11, exhausted from just being there among the innumerable memorials and unsettled, jangled, angry mood.  (I mean, more jangled and angry than usual for NYC.)

In normal times I used to listen to the "Airport" soundtrack while landing, which seems perverse, but hey: that was the Minneapolis airport, and Dean Martin did land the plane. (It's actually an oddly underwhelming piece of music."I memorized that soundtrack when I was a kid. It has titles like "Joe Patroni: Plane or Plows?" WHY NOT BOTH I SAY

I'll be damned if I don't get this world back again. Planes. Ships/ Going to events. Speaking. Exploring a museum with Daughter. It all got blown up for a variety of reasons. When I was walking around today I was thinking how 2020 was just a fargin' hammerschlag, but on the other hand, here's this immense new blue building on the end of downtown, and I watched it go up, floor by floor.

Guess what I did then?

I sneaked inside. But that's Friday.

It’s 1951.

Boyle, named:

Kaiser-Frazer was told it could get a government loan if it “hired” William Boyle, DNC chairman.

In 1951, he was implicated in an influence peddling scandal involving loans made by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. While a Senate investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing by Boyle, he resigned later that year due to "ill health". He returned to the practice of law in Washington, remaining there until he died in his sleep in 1961 at the age of 58.

Kill the dug-in Reds! It was literally Operation Killer:

10,000 enemy casualties at the end. It was followed by Operation Ripper. The war would continue for two more years.

They use the term as if everyone knew what it meant. Well, they probably did.

Real “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition” stuff from the Sky Pilot there.

Everyone’s pretty damned happy to be dead and filled with sawdust:

That’s Ralph Hershberger. One of those guys whose work appeared in 500 pages, had a generic name, and never quite cracked through to the pantheon of greats.

His 30s work, as shown by this sorta-kinda-Ripley thing (at least conceptually) was different.

THIS IS A BREAD AD

YOU MIGHT WANT BREAD FOR LUNCH

JUST A THOUGHT

ALSO, SHAKESPEARE

I clipped this only because it seems as if things like this were rare enough to make the paper in another state.

Nowadays it’s another afternoon on Venice Beach.

Treatment for Polio includes “Heat”

Protect yourself! DON’T GET TIRED

The vaccine was four years away. 21,000 would be paralyzed by polio in the next year. It was terrifying.

The Terp!

		Named, I’m sure, for Terpsichore. This picture has Stan Hyland on the marquee; must have played the place a lot.

Teddy was a late swing-era bandleader who played the ballroom circuit. From his website:

By the late 1960s, Teddy had transformed his group into the Mexicali Brass, a Las Vegas-style Mariachi band. The group's unique sound, a combination of the mariachi style made famous by the Tijuana Brass, the golden tones of Teddy's saxophone and the rich quality of Colleen's voice, made the Mexicali Brass a most popular band. They played all the best clubs across the country, appeared on all the top TV shows, had several million seller records and appeared at State Fairs with stars like Bob Hope, Red Skelton, Jack Benny, and many more.

Teddy died in 2001. The Terp today:

As with so many other things.

That'll do. Now head back to the Fifties, and drink up.