Long before Ring cameras and all the newfangled surveillance devices we have now, this was the original patent application for a home video burglar detection system. The man who devised it was an electronics tinkerer who worked nights. His wife was fearful of home intrusions, and he came up with a way for her to be in bed and monitor the front door. Extra points for the cartoon of the would-be burglar; like all cartoon thugs, he is wearing a horizontal-stripe shirt and a sports jacket and a newsboy cap and a three-day beard.
I don't know if all fish have names, but this one has to be "Rusty."
Peggy and I once found ourselves all alone in an Italian restaurant in Williamsburg, VA. I'm fairly certain that we were the only two people in town who didn't know the place was mobbed up, and I got the feeling that they wanted us to finish our spumoni so they could drag in some guy who failed to pay a loan back and beat him mercilessly by the salad bar, his head resting sadly on the antipasto. But the maître d' played his part to the fullest. He summoned us to our table with the most insouciant "table for two, right this way" you ever saw.
You might look at this and call it a good sketch but nothing great. But if I tell you this is a "long-lost masterpiece," Vincent van Gogh's "Scène de rue à Montmartre," you might regard it more highly. Either I am the king of all philistines, or I know a high school artist who can do as well as this.
Learning a lot today. Apparently, back in the day, Battlecats roamed the earth, clad in protective gear. I like the little ear slots. The winner in any cat fight is the second one to fall asleep!
2021: I write down my grocery list as the week goes along, and then when it's time to shop, I take a picture of the list and go to the store. 1955: You clicked off what you need on this little metal list thing. Don't forget the delicatess.
A bench in the public library in Alexandria, Egypt.
Vacation tip: To get the very best shot at the Olde-Time Photo Booth on the Boardwalk as you dress like Machine Gun Kelly (the original one) and his gun molls, make sure you're not wearing flip flops. You'll only look silly.
The other day, one of those "27 Things You Never Knew About" lists popped up, and since I had nowhere to be for three days, I clicked on it, and one of the things looked like this, and was properly called a "mustache cup." But the 14-year-old who wrote the description got it all wrong. He/she said it was the mug a shaver used so he could whip up lather with a brush and soap, and the half closure was a place to rest the brush while shaving. No. A mustache cup was for those guys with the elaborate bushy mustache, so he could drink coffee without soaking the cookie duster. Trust me. I'm old.
I have been staring at this album cover since 1966. The local connection is that Triumph Motorcycles were made in Timonium, at the place that became the Timonium Drive In and is now a big hotel. But the look on Dylan's face, the unisex blouse in place of his usual chambray work shirt, the sunglasses, the person behind him with the camera all add up to an example of the "studied unstudied fake casual look." It's all part of a way to say "This is not a Fabian album."
2 comments:
Never knew about the mustache cup.
More stuff I learned from Dad!
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