Kentucky Flea Market Finds

Many of my postcard agglomeration are blank, of course. Couldn’t say a percentage, but it would be substantial. I add to it regularly, so I expect the agglomeration will outlast me.

One of the places we went on our last full day in Louisville recently was a flea market. Not just any flea market, but the Kentucky Flea Market New Year’s Spectacular at the Kentucky Expo Center. A sea of tables in a vast structure and – wait, there’s another sea of tables in another, connected vast structure. Safe to say it was big.

One of the first tables we encountered offered postcards for sale, which didn’t turn out to be that common at the Spectacular. I spotted what turned out to be promotional cards for a radio show called Breakfast in Hollywood, hosted by one Tom Breneman. I wasn’t familiar with it.

The man at the table made me feel a youthful spring in my step by comparison: gnarled, he was, as they used to call old men. Full head of white hair and a shaggy white beard and wrinkles that often come from a lifetime of hard work just to get by.

“Do you know that show?” I asked.

“No, it was a long time ago.”

The old man was right – a long time ago, longer even than his lifetime, or possibly he was a small child when the show was on, and it was nothing a child would listen to. Fifty cents each, that’s not bad. Not particularly rare or valuable as a collectible, as far as I can tell. I bought a handful.

Breneman pictured with the famous.

And the less famous. They weren’t even in the same room, these two.

Uncle Corny, huh? I’d look further into him, but for now I’d rather wonder about him. A character brought to the show by its actor from years of honing in vaudeville?

Breakfast in Hollywood was a chat show, with host Breneman an experienced radio hand by the time he started the show in 1941. In the waning days of World War II he opened a restaurant in Hollywood from which to broadcast. The show had a large and loyal following among listeners, but in 1948 Breneman died suddenly.

Or, as a headline at the time put it, Tom Breneman, Famous Radio Star, Drops Dead

Later I read about the show, its high fame long evaporated. Got me into a mild counterfactual frame of mind. Breneman wasn’t that old when he dropped, only 46. Wife and youngish children. Television wasn’t far off – would he have made the transition successfully (many did), hosted a show or run of shows into the ’60s or even a little later, and be remembered among my cohort for some last semi-retirement gig like a regular square in the Peter Marshall Hollywood Squares?

It wasn’t to be. Sure, that isn’t one of the ponderous issues that counterfactuals usually spend their time with: What if Lincoln had lived longer, what if Germany won the Great War, what if Ronald Reagan had played Rick Blaine, that sort of thing. So what?

A man calling himself Korla Pandit (d. 1998) appeared regularly on Breakfast in Hollywood. If this article is even half accurate, he was one of the hardest working men in U.S. show business in the mid-century and later, and a lot else surprising besides. He’s had a documentary made about him. You can listen to his organ recordings, right now. There’s a biopic about this guy just waiting to be made.

Mega Cavern

A message we saw in Louisville recently.Mega Cavern

Not something you see that much, not put quite that way. Maybe that’s an unconscious acknowledgment that nowhere in Scripture is Jesus’ exact birthday ever mentioned. It reminded me of a scene from Full Metal Jacket.

The message was in lights, and there was a good reason for that. It was part of Lights Under Louisville, an annual display of Christmas lights by Mega Cavern. A lot of lights: at 7 million, said to be the largest such light display in the world.Mega Cavern

Mega Cavern is an attraction south of downtown Louisville, and a fairly recent one at that, opening for tourists only in 2009. In the mid-20th century, miners extracted limestone from under the area’s hills, eventually creating 4 million square feet of space. In comparison, the Sears Tower totals 4.4 million square feet, so nearly a Sears Tower worth of space was excavated under a section of I-264 and the Louisville Zoo and a major city park. By the early ’90s, mining had ceased, and the voids were developed into warehouse space.

In that, the place naturally reminded me of SubTropolis in Kansas City, Mo., which I visited in ’99. Unlike that man-made cave, which is still all business, Mega Cavern started adding activities for visitors, at first tours through the cave. There is still underground warehouse space, and tenants for it.

But now the facility also has underground zip lines, an aerial ropes course, and walking and tram tours most of the year. Mega Cavern used to have an enormous dirt bike course, at 320,000 square feet said to the the world’s largest underground off-road bike facility, but that didn’t last (I suspect insurance issues).

Around Christmas, you can either drive through Mega Cavern to see the millions of lights, or pay a little more and ride on a wagon pulled by a Jeep, which is what we did on December 30. It was the only activity on this trip that I had to book in advance.

The public entrance to the cave doesn’t even hint at what’s below.Mega Cavern

At the end of a short hall is a large room used to turn vehicles around, and as a waiting area for those riding trams.Mega Cavern Mega Cavern Mega Cavern

Beyond that is a room with the service desk, a small snack shop, a gift shop and a view of some climbing equipment.Mega Cavern Mega Cavern

We’d come for the Christmas Express.Mega Cavern

Of we went, exactly as scheduled. I was expecting the lights to be arrayed in tree-oriented abstractions. Or just to be artful strings of lights.Mega Cavern Mega Cavern Mega Cavern

There was a lot of that. At the risk of sounding churlish, since we enjoyed riding through the lights thoroughly, the ride could have used more displays like these. Most of the displays had themes. Such as local themes. They were artful, too, just not quite as spectacular.Mega Cavern Mega Cavern Mega Cavern

Patriotic themes. Many more than this.Mega Cavern

Christian themes.Mega Cavern Mega Cavern

Movie franchises. More than pictured here, but I don’t remember all of them now. Many geared to children. I’d heard of almost all of them.Mega Cavern Mega Cavern Mega Cavern

I remember a few omissions. Star Wars – more than one display, I think. But no Star Trek. Also, Barbie. Were pink Christmas trees in vogue over the holidays? Experts say yes. But what, no Oppenheimer? C’mon, they were peas in the same summer blockbuster pod.

I’m pretty sure a Manhattan Project display would have harshed everyone’s holiday buzz, so no go. But can you imagine? The centerpiece of the Oppenheimer display would, of course, be a mushroom cloud in holiday lights.

Rialto Square Theatre

Years ago, as I crossed a pedestrian bridge in Shanghai, a young man with construction paper and scissors paralleled me across. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see he was trimming the paper quickly as we walked, and toward the end of the bridge, he showed me the result, which he probably wanted to sell me: my silhouette in black paper.

I only glanced at it for a moment before brushing him off. Yuriko saw it too, and not long after, she said, “That was pretty good.” I agreed, he’d captured my outline during those seconds on foot in a moderate crowd of other people. I should have bought it, I realized, since it would have made an absolutely unique souvenir. Unless of course Shanghai is a hotbed of silhouette artists with roots in Ming dynasty aesthetics or some such, but somehow I doubt it.

No, I think it was just that talented guy. He came to mind when we spotted a couple of silhouettes in metal next to the street in Joliet, not far from the Rialto Square Theatre.Rialto Square Theatre

I didn’t need a sign to tell me that was Groucho Marx leading the way, and a few second’s examination told me that Harpo followed. Groucho has, or had for earlier generations, a famed silhouette. How many famed silhouettes are there, anyway? More than I probably realize.

A nearby sign said that the Marx Brothers had played the Rialto when it was new in the 1920s. I don’t doubt it for a minute, but wait – where’s Chico? Did the city not have the budget for a complete complement of Marxes? (Zeppo could have been left out, however.)

I had Ann pose in place of Chico.Rialto Square Theatre

Sure, Chico’s silhouette might not be as distinctive, though his hat might be. But so what? Those in the know would spot Chico right away, considering the context. There’s no excuse for no Chico. As Chico would have said, “That’s-a no good.”

We’d come to town to see the majorly entertaining Christmas movie Elf at the Rialto.Rialto Square Theatre Rialto Square Theatre Rialto Square Theatre

I knew it was a grand old movie palace. I’d known that for years, but never got around to stepping inside. Just how much of a grand old movie palace we didn’t find out until we entered.Rialto Square Theatre Rialto Square Theatre

One minute we were in Joliet; the next we stepped into a piece of Versailles, adapted to the needs of early mass entertainment in my grandparents’ time.

“Joliet, Illinois, having a published population of 38,400, today has what is unquestionably the finest motion picture theatre for a city of this size in the country,” crowed the Exhibitors Herald on June 12, 1926. “In fact, the new Rialto Square theatre… is a playhouse which it takes no stretch of the imagination to place on a par with any of the picture palaces of Chicago or New York.

“Further, the Rialto was designed by C. W. & Geo. L. Rapp which makes it a foregone conclusion that it can lack nothing in beauty of appointment or modern comfort.”

The ’20s was a time of boosterism and its prose, but I’m going along with the Exhibitors Herald on this one.Rialto Square Theatre Rialto Square Theatre

“At the west end of the inner lobby is an arch of mirrors and along the walls between marble pilasters are huge mirrors, eight feet wide and 20 feet high, three on each side. The vaulted ceiling, 45 feet in height, is paneled with figures cast in plaster from clay models made by Gene Romeo, a sculptor.”

The theater itself is certainly grand, too, but not quite like the inner lobby.Rialto Square Theatre Rialto Square Theatre

Over the stage, gilded myth.Rialto Square Theatre

A theater organist expertly ran through a Christmas song medley in the minutes before the screening.Rialto Square Theatre

When the time came, the organ and organist slowly disappeared, as a mechanism lowered them past sight of the audience, level with the orchestra pit. Nice organ. Aural icing on the lavish visual cake of the theater.

I couldn’t find a fitting Chico quote to laud the Rialto, so I’m making one up: “Atsa-some theater, eh boss?”

The Kingdom of Elvis

Is December here in northern Illinois evolving – devolving – into a chilly but snowless period? So far not much this year, including forecasts for the next week+. I can live with it.

I picked up Ann from Normal not long ago. Part of that involved a solo drive of two hours, much of it through the flat, featureless winter darkness of rural Illinois. Odd thoughts bubble up at such times and along such stretches, and that’s one reason I like this kind of driving, provided I’m not too tired.

A thought bubble this time, on the long road, fleshed out a little bit more later: Say there’s a major religion in 500 years – 1,000 years – whose founding document is the song “Elvis is Everywhere” by Mojo Nixon. The song makes a welter of theological claims: read them here. They might sound dodgy to you or me, but people believe the damnedest things, and I don’t expect that to change in the coming centuries.

The Kingdom of Elvis, let’s call it, but it isn’t a secular state. It’s a religion with certain tenets:

• Everyone has a bit of Elvis in him or her, and in fact inanimate objects participate in Elvis nature. That’s every human being, regardless of their other differences.

• There is an anti-Elvis – the hallmark of whom is that he has no Elvis in him. The evil opposite one walked the Earth at (roughly) the same time as Elvis, calling himself Michael J. Fox. Not much is known about him, but lore and artists depict him as diminutive and able to travel in time. A female figure, almost as evil (a nightmarish succubus, according to certain interpretations), called herself Joan Rivers.

• Elvis has been a creator throughout history, including before he made himself flesh in the 20th century (First century, to believers). Stonehenge in Britain and the Pyramids of Egypt, which Elvis lavished special attention on, are venerated as especially holy sites, as is Bermuda and the waters around the island. The homeless population of Elvis’ time (roughly) are regarded as saintly, since Elvis himself spoke to them, but that doesn’t apply to later homeless.

• Elvis has a special connection to the maritime industry, which has its own Elvis lore and ritual, though it isn’t clear why – scholars and laypeople have long debated why Elvis needs boats (compare with a parallel religion also with roots in the 20th century that asks, what does God need with a starship? Elvis believers think of that other religion as “jive.”)

• Intelligent beings that live elsewhere in the Universe resemble Elvis, “a perfect being.” Eventually the people of the Earth will more and more resemble Elvis – and indeed ultimately animate and inanimate matter alike will become Elvis. This process is called “Elvislution.”

• Believers are active participants in Elvislution, first speaking to Elvis, calling on him for healing, and to bring the perfect Elvis light. Elvis responds by calling on them to sing – like He sings — singing being a major form of worship for them. Exactly what kind of singing has been the subject of much acrimony down the centuries, but the practice has also produced ethereally beautiful songs.

• Posture is also important when singing like the King, but (again) different groups have different ideas about how to position and move their legs and lips. Stories are told of a fool called “Billy Idol” who didn’t worship Elvis properly.

Naturally, I could elaborate more – about how Mojo Nixon was widely regarded as Elvis’ prophet, but very little was actually known about him; and in fact a splinter group accepts a different prophet, a singer from the mid-21st century, who did one of the countless thousands of different recordings of the song; or how depictions of Elvis vary widely, but usually he wears sparkling white clothes marked by rhinestones and always — always — long sideburns.

The lyrics, demented as they are, are fairly easy to hear, to Mojo’s credit. Enjoy.

Billy Goat Tavern & Grill ’23

I can’t say whether Billy Goat Tavern & Grill looks exactly the same as it did in the ’80s, but it sure felt the same on Monday night. The walls of photos, neon, beer taps, rows of bottles, knickknacks and basic restaurant tables and chairs, and plenty of worn red bar stools. The vibe is Chicago tavern clutter, comfortable as an old shirt.Billy Goat Tavern Billy Goat Tavern

Now that I think about it, I had the most Greek experience I’ve ever had at the Billy Goat, having never yet made it to Greece. Shortly before the 1988 presidential election, the Dukakis campaign staged a campaign parade on Michigan Avenue, and after work I went to watch, on a spontaneous quasi-date with a fetching Greek-American woman I knew. Was it a torchlight parade? In my memory, there were torches, but probably no: that seems like a 19th-century thing.

We were within feet of the candidate as he walked by, his expression a little stiff and discouraged. Later we repaired to the Billy Goat, which was wall-to-wall packed, including many Greek Americans – wearing the colors of the Greek flag, some of them — with everybody feasting on cheeseburgers and beer, the place alive with talk, and the clank of spatulas on the grill, and the hissing burgers and onion air, and the clouds of cigarette smoke still common in bars and restaurants.

I’m pretty sure the workers called out Cheezborger! Cheezborger! in those days, which might be an example of life imitating art, or more likely, life and art reinforcing either other.

Rumor was that Dukakis himself would make an appearance, and well he should have, but he never did. He should have shown up in his tank helmet, shaking hands and mugging for cameras. Rather than be embarrassed by it, he should have leaned into it, but no.

Back here in the 21st century, there are reminders of goats at Billy Goat. How could it be otherwise?Billy Goat Tavern

You can see a wall of bylines at Billy Goat. Once upon a time, both major Chicago newspaper buildings were within easy walking distance, even in winter, so newspapermen hung out there.Billy Goat Tavern

Best known was Royko, who worked the place into his column from time to time. From there, the place went on to wider notice, sort of.

I expect the number of journalists is fairly low these days, outnumbered by other kinds of downtown residents and workers, plus tourists. On Monday night at least, no one called out when you ordered your cheeseburgers; they just went to work at it.

Except for the vegan in our group – she was a good sport about it — we had cheeseburgers and chips and beer. What else? In theory, a few other things are on the menu, but we didn’t test it. No fries, either.Billy Goat Tavern

We also sipped from a single glass of Malört. It’s a Chicago thing to do.

Around the corner from the entrance of the Billy Goat, directly facing Lower Michigan Ave. and just north of the Chicago River., is a mural and a tavern sign.Billy Goat Tavern

The mural is a work by Andy Bellomo, “a self-taught artist who began her creative interest as a young teen studying the color, light, shapes, and lines of traditional stained glass in churches,” according to the the Magnificent Mile Association, as part of a number of murals known as Undercurrent (at least to the Mag Mile Assn.).

It’s been there about a year, which would account for me never noticing it before. Haven’t been down to Lower Michigan Ave. in a some years, but I can assure the world that it’s still the hard urban space it’s always been.

There’s more of the Undercurrent mural on the other side of the tavern’s entrance, not captured in the below image.

But I did capture, without realizing it, part of a different mural, one that’s been there for decades, by an artist mostly lost to time in Chicago, even though his heyday was only about 50 years ago. It’s on the extreme right edge of the image: a rainbow goat.

“Many people ask about the rainbow goats painted on the walls outside of The Goat,” notes the tavern web site. “They were painted in 1970 by Sachio Yamashita, known as Sachi… Billy [Sianis, original owner of the tavern] made a deal with Sachi. Every day after Sachi and his helpers finish their work, beer and borgers are free! Unfortunately Billy Goat Sianis passed away on October 22, 1970 just days before the paintings were complete.”

I might have noticed the goats before, but didn’t give them much thought. I didn’t notice them this time, or I’d have taken a full image, since how many rainbow goats could there be in the world? On walls, that is.

Chicago Christkindlmarket ’23

I made a point of watching the tribute to Norman Lear that was simulcast – now that’s a aging concept – on several networks this evening, at 8 Eastern/7 Central. Mostly, I was curious to see what they would do. Turned out to be about 15 seconds of a picture of him (maybe taken in the late 20th century), his name and birth and death year, indicating quite a lifespan. That was it. I wonder how many people who saw the spot knew who he was. Network audiences skew old, but even that demographic is more likely to remember his shows than him.

But he was well enough known to inspire a torrent of virtual print, so I won’t add to it, except to say too bad Hot L Baltimore didn’t last, while Good Times did. Nobody’s perfect. RIP, Mr. Lear.

Extremely crowded Chicago Christkindlmarkets of years past – mob city, as my mother used to say, not referring to gangsters – must have pushed any notion of visiting it on Monday right out of my head. But when I ambled over to the Thompson Center, I saw the market. Might as well drop in, see if the crowd was thinner. It was. A more manageable Monday in mob city. Just enough to be lively.

First, pass by the eternal flame on Daley Plaza. Dedicated since 1972 to all U.S. veterans of any kind.Chicago Christkinlmarket 2023

Still there. Well, it is eternal. That’s not meant in a literal sense, of course, on past the heat death of the Universe, but as long as humanly possible. The upshot for the flame is that people will maintain it until its honorees have disappeared from common memory. I hope that’s some centuries at least, but who knows.

As I said, lively. It isn’t really crowded unless it’s tricky to navigate through people.Chicago Christkinlmarket 2023

The stalls are more crowded.Chicago Christkinlmarket 2023 Chicago Christkinlmarket 2023 Chicago Christkinlmarket 2023

Everything in that lower pic is eccentric shapes of chocolate, and pretty much the only place I was tempted to buy anything. The economic model at the market is the same as I described a few years ago: “priced in euros at a lousy exchange rate, with an extra 50 percent tacked on for good measure.”

Paper stars.Chicago Christkinlmarket 2023

Locally themed ornaments, and pickles. Who doesn’t like Christmas pickles?Chicago Christkinlmarket 2023 Chicago Christkinlmarket 2023

Eats.Chicago Christkinlmarket 2023

And Paul.Chicago Christkinlmarket 2023

His sign says, “Hi, everyone! I am Paul, the Hamburg sailor! Take a picture with me!’

Paul, huh? Are the Hamburgers having a spot of fun with that? St. Pauli is a red light district in Hamburg, after all, and while Paul here might look clean-cut, on leave I bet he’s out for beir and bumsen. Or maybe he’s a more modern sailor, and while visiting Chicago slips off to North Halsted Street sometimes.

Boop!

Boop! = much fun. I know that because I remember enjoying myself during the new musical of that name, despite my uncomfortable seat there in the dress circle at the theater formerly known as the Sam Shubert, now named for a bank, in downtown Chicago. We popped in for the show on Friday evening.

Even now, only four days after the performance, whatever detail I took in about the jazzy score or entertaining lyrics or the vivacious dance moves or the intensely colorful costumes – which were sometimes monochromatic yet colorful somehow – or the peppy dialogue or the remarkable sets, is all a kinetic blur.

That’s the way it should be with a musical, I figure. A little razzle, a little dazzle, something to enjoy in the moment. Still, Boop! wasn’t just a musical, it was a staged musical cartoon with a star character nearly 100 years old, singing and dancing her way through an appropriately gossamer plot.

A young woman named Jasmine Amy Rogers brought Betty to life with astonishing vitality and, often enough, a hot red dress, once Betty leaves monochrome behind. The supporting cast, up to and including a marionette dog, likewise filled the stage with song, dance and antics. The cast was first rate in every way.

Pudgy, Betty’s dog, a more-or-less life-sized marionette, did some astonishing moves himself, as guided by Phillip Huber, who once upon a time did some puppet work in the extreme oddity that was Being John Malkovich.

I am, I confess, mostly indifferent about Betty Boop. Or was, until I married a fan. Capt. Gus on KENS-TV Channel 5 didn’t show her cartoons on weekday afternoons after school; his thing was Popeye, though maybe he screened the Betty Boop short in which Popeye made his cinematic debut. In those pre-Internet, pre-You Tube days, the cartoons simply weren’t available. Betty, for me, was stuck in the amber of the 1930s, and while pop culture of the time has considerable interest, somehow she didn’t resonate.

So I grew to adulthood without giving her much thought, though I did see her brief appearance in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

“Work’s been kinda slow since cartoons went to color, but I’ve still got it, Eddie!”

– Betty Boop, voiced by Mae Questel (d. 1998), who managed to live long enough to do so.

In Boop!, a monochromic-ish Betty, tired of being a cartoon celebrity, manages to transport herself to the “real world” via a machine concocted by Grampy, the inventor character from the shorts who is explicitly her grandfather in this show. She figures no one will know her in the real world, but she lands at New York Comic-Con in our time, in living color, and of course everyone knows her, especially the spunky little sister of her soon-to-be love interest, a modern jazzman. He provided the story’s shout-out to Cab Calloway, and I was glad to hear it.

Luckily, the story didn’t make too much out of Betty being a fish out of water, though that provided a little amusement. To her eventual dismay, she realizes she’s famous here, too.

Grampy, realizing that Betty needs to return to the cartoon world, comes to the real world to look for her, but also manages to spend the night with a real-world woman he had a dalliance with decades earlier. (The Hays Code doesn’t apply to this show, though it’s mostly wholesome.) There’s also a sleazeball running for mayor of real-world New York and it is he, in the fullness of time, who chases Betty around a desk, only to get clocked by her with a blunt object.

The sprinkling of serious elements – most musicals have a few – mostly involve female empowerment, though there was a dig at modern-day plutocrats. Betty is known for resisting sexual harassment and, after returning to the cartoon world, tells her director that she won’t be chased around desks by lecherous men any more in her cartoons.

I believe we saw the only the fourth performance of Boop! Not the fourth of this particular run, but the fourth ever in the history of the theater. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any big production that soon after its premiere. It was a fluke of marketing, and my experience with the character, that made that happen: a few weeks ago, a theater ticket website that sends me email once a week suggested Boop! I figured Yuriko, who has a longstanding fondness for Betty, would like it, so I got some tickets for something to do on the day after Thanksgiving. She did like it. Ann did too. We all did. Boop! is a crowd pleaser, and we were happy to be in the crowd.

Apparently the show has been in the works a long time and eventually was brought to fruition by director and choreographer Jerry Mitchell, who is very much a known quantity in the American theater. Its run at the Shubert serves essentially the same shakedown-cruise function as pre-Broadway runs in New England towns used to do – may still do, for all I know, but I expect Chicago offers a much larger pool of potential theatergoers.

Eventually, probably soon, Boop! will be on Broadway. As a crowd pleaser, I’ll bet it will do well there.

Pre-Thanksgiving Assortment

Regards for Thanksgiving, back to posting November 27 or so. In the meantime, eat, drink and be indolent.

I woke up this morning from some sort of dream, trying to remember these three kinds of to-dos: shindigs, hullabaloos and hootenannies. I’m pretty sure I could call Full Moon Bluegrass a hootenanny. Otherwise, my experience with them is thin. Also, I forgot about hoedowns. The unconscious is a funny place.

Gentle rain last night, and all through the early morning. I cracked the window very slightly to listen as I drifted off. Still raining when I went to the bathroom not long before dawn. Maybe that put me to mind of folk music parties.

A couple of recent flags, including one that I saw in full flutter after I entered Tennessee just north of Nashville.

A distinctive design. The three stars represent, of course, the Grand Divisions of Tennessee, a thing unique to the state. Distinct legal entities, but also acknowledging historical and cultural distinctions.

I remember when Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander joined Garrison Keillor on stage during the pre-broadcast warmup for A Prairie Home Companion when the show came to Nashville in 1985. The governor played a little on the piano – he was really good, as I recall – and bantered with Keillor.

When it came up that Alexander had grown up in East Tennessee, Keillor said, “You guys were on our side during the war, weren’t you?”

In Texas, I saw a Space Force flag on a pole. First time ever.

That arrowhead design looks suspiciously familiar. Can’t quite put my finger on it.

Heard some blatherskite on the radio recently about planning one’s “celebration of life.” There’s that absurd euphemism again, standing in for funeral. Apparently it’s caught on. I suspect that undertakers and their marketing people are behind this.

I insist that my survivors, if they want to have some kind of formal event to mark my shuffling off this mortal coil, call it a funeral. It doesn’t need to have any of the trappings of a conventional funeral here in North America, just the term.

That got me to thinking, “mortal coil”? Sure, it’s Shakespeare, Hamlet in particular, but why coil? First place to look: my copy of Onions, which I haven’t opened in entirely too long. That is, a volume called A Shakespeare Glossary by C.T. Onions. I have a revised edition published in 1986.

Coil, n.

1. Noisy disturbance, tumult. Comedy of Errors: What a coil is there, Dromio?

2. Fuss, ado. Much Ado About Nothing: yonder’s old coil at home. Hamlet: When we have shuffled off this mortal coil.

So a coil’s a noisy bit of business. An Elizabethan meaning worth bringing back, but I doubt that’s going to happen. Thus your mortal coil would be the fuss of being alive, of which there’s a fair amount, including sound and fury and signifying… a different play, one that I won’t name.

Not Yet, I Haven’t

Not long ago I came across the blog of a fellow – Everywhereman.me — who aspired to visit everywhere mentioned in the U.S. version of the song “I’ve Been Everywhere.” He then did just that, mostly by motorcycle. I don’t think I’ll do that exactly, but that’s the kind of meshuga I like, since I’m a bit touched myself.

Though others have recorded it, including Johnny Cash no less, I associate the U.S. version with Hank Snow. As well I should.

The original version was Australian, written by Geoff Mack and a hit for Lucky Starr. I have to give it its due. Australia is full of lots of weird and gorgeous place names, after all.

You need a written list to keep up with Lucky, as posted in Wiki. Or a very detailed knowledge of Australia.

Other versions for other places exist. None other than Stompin’ Tom Connors starts off in the United States, but naturally gravitates to Canada, with an entire verse about the Maritimes.

Canada’s fine, but Texas place names are just as good.

By one Brian Burns, who managed to work in some of my favorites, ever since my days of poring over Texas road maps: Pflugerville, Dime Box, and Cut and Shoot.

I Don’t Need No Talking Pictures

From the Department of Not My Beat, excerpts from a PR pitch that arrived in my inbox recently:

While the Covid-19 pandemic has officially ended, the male loneliness epidemic in the U.S. persists… AB, Founder and Executive Coach of CD, knows this struggle all too well. He was the “Mayor of the Friend Zone”… Over the span of a decade, he immersed himself in the art and psychology of male-female connection, meeting countless women all over the world while training with the most elite dating and attraction coaches…

AB is available to speak on the male loneliness epidemic, how to find success on dating online and IRL, trending news stories, and the following topics:

Logic is the Death of Romance: Many of CD’s clients come from analytical fields (doctors, engineers, software developers). CD helps them get in touch with their inner emotions that attract women — more Captain Kirk than Mr. Spock…

My eyes are a little sore, having rolled them so much reading that pitch. Or maybe that’s just a lack of empathy on my part.

Nah. Still, anyone can call him- or herself a “dating coach.” I don’t think there’s a specific NAICS code for that. (I had to check: probably 812990, “all other personal services.”) Moreover, how does one get to be an elite dating coach? Is there a series of tests, like for actuaries? Doubt it. Do dating coaches have trouble keeping a straight face when they meet each other? Could be.

Interesting to note: the Kirk-Spock yin-yang is so completely woven into the culture that no elaboration is required. But I will say that Spock got lucky a few times, too. I seem to remember a dalliance with a high-placed Romulan, though it was a ruse, and a hot woman in a cold cave. Also, as evidenced in “Elaan of Troyius,” an episode that Ann and I watched just last weekend, not even an alien space babe with love potion tears could pry Jim Kirk away from his one true love, the Enterprise.

The sorry state of romance, if that’s really the case, reminds me of an entertaining video I happened across earlier this year, one made for the song “Silent Movie” by Little Violet, using artfully edited clips from the movie The Artist (2011).

After seeing the video a few times, I was inspired to finally get around to watching the movie on DVD, which I enjoyed a lot. The leads, especially French actor Jean Dujardin, nailed it, as was widely acknowledged. Take him back in time 100 years and he could have been a silent movie idol.

As for the video, it manages to loosely tell a rather different story than the movie did, and listening to the song without the video isn’t as good an experience. The British label Freshly Squeezed calls Little Violet a “retro pop piano-playing chanteuse and band.”

The Little Violet lead singer is one Cherie Gears, which AMV Music – a music booking agency based in Newcastle, England – describes as a “Yorkshire Wedding Singer Pianist.” Quite the voice.