a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
Happy Friday.
I bought a few 1960s magazines at the Friends store in the Seattle Public Library for a dollar each on Monday.
This cartoon is from The Saturday Evening Post of Sept. 9, 1967.
(That would be the Empire State Building. It opened on May 1, 1931).
I had lunch at the Washington Athletic Club in downtown today, and took these pictures.
.
Copy cat.
The video is short — just 19 seconds — and not particularly compelling. A viewer would be forgiven for clicking away before it ends.
The grainy footage, uploaded on April 23, 2005, of a man standing in front of the elephant enclosure at the San Diego Zoo — “All right, so here we are in front of the elephants” — does not look like the sort of thing that would touch off a video revolution.
And yet, two decades after that inauspicious start, YouTube is now a cornerstone of the media ecosystem. It’s where people go for music videos and four-hour-long hotel reviews. It is a platform for rising stars and conspiracy theorists. It’s a repository for vintage commercials and 10 hours of ambient noise. It has disrupted traditional television and given rise to a world of video creators who make content catering to every imaginable niche interest.
-Amanda Holpuch writing for the New York Times
Uh-oh.
I started playing one of the games that Neflix offers: Underwatermelon.
I like it. (It reminds me a little bit of Tetris from wayy-back when I first started working).
I hope I don’t get too addicted to it .. but what if I do?
R.I.P. Kris Kristofferson (1936-2024).
Well, I woke up Sunday mornin’
With no way to hold my head it didn’t hurt
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad
So I had one more for dessert
Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes
And found my cleanest dirty shirt
And I shaved my face and combed my hair
And stumbled down the stairs to meet the day
I’d smoked my brain the night before
On cigarettes and songs that I’d been picking
But I lit my first and watched a small kid
Cussin’ at a can that he was kicking
Then I crossed the empty street
Caught the Sunday smell of someone fryin’ chicken
And it took me back to something that I’d lost
Somehow, somewhere along the way
Refrain
On the Sunday morning sidewalk
Wishin’, Lord, that I were stoned
‘Cause there’s something in a Sunday
Makes a body feel alone
And there’s nothing short of dying
Half as lonesome as the sound
On the sleeping city sidewalk
Sunday mornin’ comin’ down
In the park I saw a daddy
With a laughing little girl that he was swinging
And I stopped beside a Sunday school
And listened to the songs that they were singing
Then I headed back for home
And somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringing
And it echoed through the canyons
Like the disappearing dreams of yesterday
Refrain
On the Sunday mornin’ sidewalk
Wishin’, Lord, that I were stoned
‘Cause there’s something in a Sunday
Makes a body feel alone
And there’s nothing short of dying
Half as lonesome as the sound
On the sleeping city sidewalk
Sunday mornin’ comin’ down
– Lyrics from “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” (1970)
“Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down” was written by Kris Kristofferson, and first recorded in 1969 by Ray Stevens before becoming a No. 1 hit on the Billboard US Country chart for Johnny Cash.
Kristofferson himself recorded and released the song on his album ”Kristofferson” in 1970.
The fiftieth season of the American sketch comedy late night television program Saturday Night Live premiered tonight.
I confess that I fast-forwarded through some (okay, most) of a recording of the three hours of the closing ceremony of the 2024 Games.
I liked the Golden Voyager and the mummies— and was that a spry 62-year old Tom Cruise ‘sky diving’ into the arena to receive the Olympic flag, and take it to Los Angeles on a motorbike? (Yes, it was).
Well, I watched some of the Paris 2024 Olympics opening ceremony this morning as it happened.
The Eiffel Tower must have been spectacular to see during the light show.
As for other parts of the ceremony, I suspect it was a challenge for the choreographers to pull all the pieces together to make for compelling TV viewing.
The rain certainly did not make it easier, least of all to the camera crews that needed to keep the rain drops from their lenses and from getting into their expensive equipment.
‘At Trocadéro, opposite the Eiffel Tower, where the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed in 1948, Mr. Macron awaited the athletes before a crowd that donned ponchos and huddled under umbrellas in the unrelenting rain. He told the French newspaper Le Parisien this week that he had felt some “vertigo” as the Olympics, a decade in the making, were set to begin’.
– Roger Cohen reporting from Paris for the NYT
I can see clearly now the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day
From the song I Can See Clearly Now (1972) by American singer-songwriter Johnny Nash.
The rain is gone, and there is a number of sunny days ahead in the forecast.
I believe an inch or so of rain was recorded in the city since Sunday.
The film honored at the Oscars told a very specific story, but countless other lives trace back to that day, too.
In one way or another, no one emerged untouched.
We are all living downwind of that first momentous blast.
– Ariel Kaminer referring to the opening scene in this year’s Best Movie Oscar winner ‘Oppenheimer’, in a guest essay in the New York Times print edition that is due out Monday.
Her uncle had worked for the US Army and became an atomic veteran many years after 1946— veterans developing radiogenic health issues that may have been precipitated by their exposure to ionizing radiation while participating in a nuclear weapon test detonation, or a post-test event.
Of course: in the year before 1946 there was Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The amigos went out for beers and fried chicken at Maro Polo saloon in Georgetown tonight.
After that, we checked out the goings-on at the Equinox Studios and the Georgetown Atelier art school nearby.
It was the once-a-month open day for the public.
cantina
can·ti·na kan-ˈtē-nə
Southwestern US : a small barroom, saloon
Source: Merriam-Webster
Yes, another puzzle— of a cantina.
It gets me away from the computer and off the couch watching too much TV and Netflix.
This puzzle is a holdover from the pandemic.
The entire dining room table is full of puzzle pieces, and at this point it’s hard to believe they are all going to be squeezed in tightly into the frame!
Here is a smattering of pictures that I took at Seattle Center: from the Space Needle, from inside the Chihuly Garden and Glass and from inside the Museum of Pop Culture.
‘Barbie’ defied her critics and enjoyed great success at North American movie theaters this weekend, raking in $155 million in ticket sales.
Now that she’s back in the atmosphere
With drops of Jupiter in her hair
She acts like summer and walks like rain
Reminds me that there’s a time to change, hey
Since the return of her stay on the moon
She listens like spring and she talks like June, hey
Hey, hey-yeah
[Chorus]
But tell me, did you sail across the sun?
Did you make it to the Milky Way
To see the lights all faded
And that heaven is overrated?
And tell me, did you fall from a shooting star?
One without a permanent scar
And did you miss me while you were
Looking for yourself out there?
-Lyrics from ‘Drops of Jupiter'(2001) by Train
I am trying out the new James Webb telescope of Jupiter and its auroras as wallpaper for my phone.
I did not watch the Oscars, and so I missed the storm in the teacup.
Clips of it was all over Twitter, of course.
I don’t think Will Smith is looking good, and I don’t know if his apology of today will help his damaged image.
He was obnoxious as he sat in his seat after the slap, yelling f-words at Chris Rock.
I solved today’s Wordle on the very last of the six tries I had.
I would have had it in three tries if I were luckier with my guesses .. or four, or five.
Here is a young Marlon Brando (31) with his cat, from a write-up in Look magazine from May 17, 1955.
‘I live in my cat’s house’, said Brando at the time.
