Thursday Cha-Chings

Ann came home for spring break today. I offered to subsidize her expenses on a romp somewhere, even a mild sort of romp like my spring breaks of yore, such as to cloudy St. Petersburg, Florida, where we stayed at the condo belonging to the grandmother of one of our party (she wasn’t there) and found one of Vaughn Meader’s Kennedy records stashed away in her record collection. But Ann preferred to come here.

Remarkably, the fellow who produced The First Family in 1962, one Bob Booker, is still alive at 92, at least according to Wiki. Of course, he was only 31 then.

Saw this phrase at a supermarket recently, on banners hanging from the ceiling. Cha- ching!

The point in this case was to persuade shoppers that the store offers low, low prices. Save some cha-ching here or some such. I think most people understand that the phrase refers to cash register noise, and thus hard cold cash in one way or another, but it made me wonder how many people any more have even heard a cash register make a sound like that?

Because I am of a certain age, I have. I’m pretty sure the dime store I patronized ca. 1970 still had mechanical registers. But that was long ago, and even then the sound was a little old-timey. Now even the smallest stores in the nation’s remote backwaters use electronic registers, whose signature sound is a muffed beep-beep-beep that’s weak tea when it comes up to conjuring up images of drawers full of money. And yet cha-ching! lives on. Just another shiny bit in the jewel cave of English.

One more pic from Devon Ave. in Chicago on Sunday.

The mural is just outside the entrance to Cary’s, the bar I went to. As far as I saw, this was the only reference to Alice in Wonderland around. Why is it there? Why not?

Street View tells me that this small mural is a recent addition, too. It wasn’t there the last time the All-Seeing Eye passed by in November 2022. The bar’s wonderful neon sign has been there longer, appearing sometime between August 2007 (the first image available) and May 2009. That was a period of economic disruption, so maybe the bar did well enough to spring for the sign.

This from the NYT today: “President Biden has selected his education secretary, Miguel Cardona, to be the so-called designated survivor during Thursday night’s State of the Union address, a grim moniker meant to ensure at least one decision maker survives if a calamity were to wipe out the nation’s leadership assembled at the Capitol for the speech.”

Grim moniker, huh? Journalism might be a sickly industry, but journalese turns of phrase live on. Hard to imagine anyone actually saying that.

As for the office, the Secretary of Education is 15th in line to become president (vice president being first), which means that “designated survivor” is probably the only ghost of a chance of succeeding to the top spot, without the usual rarefied politicking of a presidential run, that the Secretary of Education has.

How long has that been a cabinet-level position? Right, the first one was during the Carter administration. Carving Education out of Health, Education and Welfare was, in fact, a campaign promise that he was able to keep, for what that was worth.

Barely Winter Thursday Assortment

Another warmish day and a not-so-cold evening. We walked the usual path around Lake V. well after dark, taking in the Moon in the cloudless sky now and then. It’s nearly full. Then I remembered that an unmanned American spaceship was due to land near its south pole; Odysseus, which might not be the most auspicious name for a traveler, but at least a noble one from classical antiquity. Maybe the next one will be Penelope or Telemachus.

When I got home, I learned that the landing was successful. Good to know.

A leftover image from “Presidents Day.”

Recently Jay sent me two of those buttons: McGovern and Carter. The others have been hanging there a while.

The Hoover button was created for a Halloween party that a company down the hall from us in the Civic Opera Building used to throw many moons ago. The event wasn’t in that building, but rather the Rookery, whose common areas are excellent for a corporate events. The Harding one I picked up at the Harding Museum in Ohio last year, and the Grillmaster button has nothing to do with U.S. presidents. It was a souvenir of St. Petersburg, Russia.

Spotted at the Schaumburg Township Library not long ago.Schaumburg Time Capsule

It used to say 2023.

“On Saturday, Sept. 23 [2023], more than 850 people gathered at our Central Library (with another 300 joining us online) to watch as we unveiled the contents of a time capsule that was placed in the cornerstone of our Library when it was built in 1998,” the library’s web site says.

I wasn’t one of them. I went to Milwaukee that day instead for Doors Open. The  contents of the ’98 capsule are mildly interesting, but one of the Westinghouse Time Capsules, it isn’t. (And no horny toads or cartoon frogs.)

Still, I like the idea of time capsules, enough to bury a few myself once upon a time, including one late in the summer of 1974 in our back yard, which I wasn’t able to retrieve five years later as planned. I dug a few holes in an effort to do so, damaging some grass, which annoyed my mother, if I remember right.

First in War, First in Peace, and First in the Heart of Generative AI

The “Presidents Day” weekend has rolled around again, but it’s an ordinary weekend for some of us followed by an ordinary Monday. Including me. Still, I can’t let it pass without a mention. If it were up to me, it would still be widely known as Washington’s Birthday, as it was when I was young.

The state of Illinois, for its part, calls it Washington’s Birthday, and has separate holidays for Lincoln and MLK. It has not, as yet, changed Columbus Day to anything else, which surprises me a little, but I’ll chalk it up to legislative inertia and a still distinct Italian-American population.

With Washington on my mind, I went to the first free AI image generator I could find and had it spit out some images of the Father of Our Country in various art styles. Such as – and these are my exact prompts – “George Washington Manga.”

“George Washington Cubist”

“George Washington Dadaist”

That last one has a tinge of nightmare to it. Come to think of it, they all do. Still, while I’m not art expert, I don’t think these quite fit the bill.

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.

Fort Sheridan Water Tower

Where are those copy editors, anyway? A Washington Post correction from today.

Much of the former Fort Sheridan in Lake County, Illinois, is now a residential neighborhood, which is only reasonable. Even when it was an Army base, it was mostly residential. The officers’ houses are now refurbished single-family houses and the enlisted men’s quarters are now refurbished multifamily.

Time was short on Saturday, so I didn’t have all the time I wanted to look around the post-military neighborhood, but we did take a stroll on the former parade ground, which is now green space looped by Leonard Wood Ave.Fort Sheridan 2023 Fort Sheridan 2023
Leonard Wood. Ask people driving on Leonard Wood who that might have been and his obscurity would assert itself in the form of blank stares and wild guesses.

I don’t know the details of all of his lengthy military career, but I do know that TR theoretically reported to him in Cuba in ’98 and that, in some alternate reality, Wood captured the Republican nomination for president in 1920 and went on to be 29th President of the United States, rather than the office going to a newspaper publisher from Ohio.

In that case, Wood would surely be remembered. Maybe about as much as Harding. Which might not be that much.

We spotted the fort’s former water tower on the other side of the grounds.Fort Sheridan Water Tower 2023

I had to see that up close, so we stopped by before we headed south for our lunch appointment.Fort Sheridan Water Tower 2023 Fort Sheridan Water Tower 2023

Impressive. A design by noted Chicago architectural firm Holabird and Roche, who did many of the fort’s buildings.Fort Sheridan 2023 Fort Sheridan Water Tower 2023 Fort Sheridan Water Tower 2023
Per Wiki: “Built from 1889 to 1891, the tower was among the first structures completed in the fort. It was built with bricks made from Lake Bluff clay and designed to resemble St. Mark’s Campanile in Venice.”

Springtime Thursday Musings

Warm again early in the day. Thunderstorms rolled through in the morning and again in the afternoon. Cool air came back late in the day.

Ahead of the rain, we walked the dog around a pond, where a good many red-winged blackbirds flitted around. Hardly our first encounter with them, though there don’t seem to be as many after spring is over.

Moths are back in the house. How did this happen? There’s no lasting victory over moths, looks like. So I put out fresh glue traps, and some dozens have been caught. I still see a few flitting around, and slap them when I can, but I hope they too will either die in the traps, or die mateless and without descendants.

Rabbits are back in numbers too, often in the back yard, but I leave them alone. The dog does too, seemingly not interested in chasing them any more. Such is old age.

Completely by accident, and speaking of rabbits, I learned that today is the 44th anniversary of a swamp rabbit attacking President Carter’s boat (which wasn’t known till later in 1979). Even better, I learned that the photo of the incident is in the public domain, being the work of a White House photographer. This copy is via the Carter Library, though I don’t remember it being on display there.

With the looming deadline for renting more Netflix DVDs in mind, I watched part of the disk I currently have at home, Judgment at Nuremberg. I don’t remember why I put it in the queue, except that I’d never gotten around to seeing it, and Spencer Tracy and Burt Lancaster are always worth a look.

I didn’t realize that William Shatner was in it until I saw his name in the opening credits. As it happens, he plays a captain. In the U.S. Army, but still a captain.

I also didn’t know that Werner Klemperer played a part, one of the defendants. Naturally, I had a silly thought when he entered the courtroom: Col. Klink was put on trial at Nuremberg? No! His incompetence consistently aided the Allied cause. Call Col. Hogan as a character witness.

I’m reminded of something I once heard about Klemperer on stage: “Kevin D. told me that, during a production of Cabaret at the Chicago Theatre in the late ’80s, Werner Klemperer played [a Jewish merchant not in the movie version], and got the biggest applause of the night. ‘Everyone knew it was because he played Col. Klink,’ Kevin said.”

In the staged revival of Cabaret I saw in 2002, Hal Linden played the same part, and likewise got a vigorous round of applause on his first appearance. For playing Barney Miller, I figure. Such is the power of TV.

The Ohio Statehouse

Through much of 1999, I visited a fair number of Midwestern cities on editorial business of one kind or another. At some point, that included Columbus, Ohio. I was staying downtown, so during a lull, I popped over to the Ohio Statehouse, which occupies a prominent 10-acre block.

I went in and looked around back then, but thinking about it last month, what I remembered most was the statue of William McKinley near the street. He’s still there, of course.Ohio Statehouse Ohio Statehouse

With verbiage about the immortal memory of President McKinley. That’s what I remembered, how memorials speak to those who already remember, at least among Americans. Later generations do not remember, or much care, except in certain lightning-rod cases. I suppose that isn’t a good thing, but there is the upside of mostly forgetting to hold historical grudges.

The president isn’t alone at that part of the capitol grounds, with some bronze allegories to keep him company.Ohio Statehouse Ohio Statehouse

The back entrance.Ohio Statehouse

We’re used to seeing a dome on such a structure, but state capitols mostly started using that form, patterned after the current shape of the U.S. capitol, after that building took shape in the 1860s. The Ohio Statehouse is older than that.

We arrived late in the morning of March 25, the last day of the trip, after spending the night in suburban Columbus. I would have similar shots of the front, but as innocently spring-like as the pictures seem to be, there was a wicked strong wind blowing. Not terribly cold, just incessant and sometimes so energetic that you could feel yourself tipping one way or another, especially as a gust passed without warning.

Much calmer inside. Under the rotunda.Ohio Statehouse
Ohio Statehouse

Nice detail work. I’m impressed by the Spirograph floor. The Spirograph-ish spirit of democracy, maybe.Ohio Statehouse

The design is much less spare than in West Virginia, but not the work of any single designer. It’s the Greek Revival creation of a series of architects beginning in the 1830s and not finished until 1861, just as the nation fell apart.

Perry, hero of Lake Erie, isn’t forgotten. Not at least on the wall.Ohio Statehouse

Nor Vicksburg. Many Ohioans were there.Ohio Statehouse

Nor Cleisthenes, ancient democratic reformer.Ohio Statehouse

I can’t say I’ve ever seen him at a capitol before, and he isn’t known as a native of Ohio, but it’s a good choice. No less than Herodotus called him “the man who introduced the tribes and the democracy” to Athens, “tribes” being the 10 groups organized by residence in Attica, rather than clan or other kinship.

The seal of Ohio in glass.Ohio Statehouse

The visitor entrance, and the information desk, closed gift store and some museum exhibits, are in the basement, itself fairly handsome.Ohio Statehouse

I didn’t know who founded the 4-H Program. Now I do, but sadly I am likely to forget.Ohio Statehouse

I like this a lot: the counties of Ohio, each in a different stone.Ohio Statehouse

Finally, words of wisdom –Ohio Statehouse

Not because Lincoln had a special connection to Ohio or the building. Just, I think, on general principles.

Fort Necessity National Battlefield

I walked about a quarter-mile from a parking lot to get to the reconstructed log palisade on the site of one hastily built by men under the command of Lt. Col. George Washington, age 22. Fort Necessity, he called it. These days, the site is called Fort Necessity National Battlefield.Fort Necessity

It is the only battlefield associated with the French and Indian War preserved by the National Park Service.

By the time I got there, I’d worked myself into a counterfactual frame of mind. Just what didn’t happen here — that easily could have – that proved so important for the future course of events in North America? Affected the fate of the unborn United States in unknowable but profound ways?

Those are the kind of Big Thoughts you get alone, under a pleasant late afternoon sun, in a meadow amid the rolling hills of rural southwest Pennsylvania, with nothing but a paved footpath and the palisade ahead. I do, anyway.

Consider: Washington and his men had surprise-attacked a French force at nearby Jomonville Glen a few weeks before the battle at Fort Necessity, defeating them and resulting in the death the French commander, Joseph Coulon de Jumonville. Washington was well aware that the French weren’t going to let that incident go unanswered, so he ordered the completion of Fort Necessity to prepare for the counterattack.

Louis Coulon de Villiers, who was Joseph’s brother, led the French response and besieged Fort Necessity from an advantageous position and with a larger force. Many British — mostly members of the Virginia Militia — were cut down, dying in the mud from recent rain. It seems likely that the French could have killed most, if not all of Washington’s command, but Coulon asked for parley and ultimately gave Washington generous surrender terms. Essentially, get out of here, and promise not to come back for a while.

Would a man of a different temperament more aggressively ground the British to defeat, perhaps to the point of seeing its commander dead with his men? Washington, that is. Dead at 22. You can see how this line of thinking puts some counterfactual ideas in your head.

What motivated Louis Coulon to do what he did? Motive’s a hard thing to pin down even in someone alive today, much less a French military commander of the 18th century. From what I’ve read, he was under orders not to massacre the British, and his men were tired and low on ammunition even though the defenders of Fort Necessity were in much worse shape. Those seem like fairly compelling reasons. Still, a more aggressive or ruthless commander could have continued the fight, not really held back in the wilderness by mere orders. This was the force that had killed his brother, after all.

On the other hand, young Washington had a number of near-death experiences as he was surveying in the Ohio Valley before the war. What’s one more?

So many questions. Big history pivoting on small fulcrums. I got closer.Fort Necessity Fort Necessity

Inside the palisade.Fort Necessity Fort Necessity

The site isn’t just that. Worn earthworks linger nearby.Fort Necessity Fort Necessity

Maybe Coulon was intensely proud to be under French arms, which were magnificently powerful in those days, even at such a far-flung place, and wasn’t about to dishonor his command with a massacre. Or maybe he didn’t like his brother that much, and was inclined to be philosophical about his fate. C’est la guerre, dear brother.

Down the road from Fort Necessity, U.S. 40 that is, is the grave of Major Gen. Edward Braddock.Braddock's grave

I won’t go into details about why he’s there, except that it’s only indirectly related to the battle of Fort Necessity. He’d been sent with a much larger British force to confront the French the year after that battle. Things didn’t go well for him, and he ended up buried under the military road he had had built as part of his campaign to take the Ohio Valley from the French.

The wooden beams mark the course of the road.Braddock's grave

The monument was erected in the early 20th century. He’s probably under it, but we can’t quite be certain.

This plaque adds an extra layer of poignancy.Braddock's grave
Braddock's grave

Nineteen-thirteen. It’s probably just as well that the officers of the Coldstream Guards didn’t know what was coming.

Warren G. Harding, Favorite Son of Marion

Marion, Ohio, a burg about 36,000 residents 50 miles north of Columbus, happens to be along the route we took south from Michigan on the second day of our trip, March 18. It also happens to be the hometown of Warren G. Harding, which pretty much guaranteed a stop there by us.

After his sudden and unexpected death in office almost 100 years ago, the nation’s grief for its popular president allowed for the construction of an impressive memorial, finished in 1927 and, as Wiki points out correctly, the last of the big presidential memorials (at least so far). Donations paid for it, including pennies from schoolchildren, back when a penny could actually buy something small rather than nothing at all.

We arrived at the memorial in the afternoon. It was cold and very windy. The structure is whiter than I’d think it would be considering its 90-plus years in the elements, but I suppose the good people of Marion keep it maintained. Warren G.’s the only president they’re ever like to produce, after all.Harding Memorial, Marion, Ohio Harding Memorial, Marion, Ohio

Its marble Doric columns rise to support an entablature, but not a roof. Harding reportedly wanted to be buried under an open sky, and this was architect Henry Hornbostel and his partners’ way to honor that request.Harding Memorial, Marion, Ohio

Warren and Florence Harding are indeed buried within, and under the open sky.Harding Memorial, Marion, Ohio

A few miles away is the Harding house, built in the 1890s at the time of the Hardings’ marriage, when he was a newspaper editor and publisher and she a wealthy divorcee. The Marion Star, his paper, is still around, though it’s a Gannett asset these days.Harding home, Marion, Ohio

We arrived too late to tour the house, but you can wander around the grounds. Yuriko and the dog had enough sense to stay in the car while I did this, in a wind that felt like it was going to freeze my face off.

Still, I got the satisfaction of standing on the very porch where Harding ran his front porch campaign for president beginning in the summer of 1920, briefly reviving the late 19th-century practice. He would be the last president to do so (as yet, unless you count the zoom campaigning of Joe Biden exactly a century later).Harding home, Marion, Ohio

Marion will probably never have a summer, or any other season, like it again. The world came to Marion in 1920, including delegations from groups nationwide to offer their greetings to candidate Harding, and presumably many other people who showed up to hear the speeches he gave on the porch or otherwise join the festivities.

Speaking from the porch didn’t mean a lack of attention elsewhere in the country. The Harding campaign had a small house built on the grounds, which still stands, for the use of the press covering him.

Behind the main house is the Warren G. Harding Presidential Library & Museum which, as any presidential museum does, tries to put a good face on its president and administration. I will give the place credit for mentioning the various scandals the period is known for, such as Teapot Dome.Harding museum, Marion, Ohio

It’s also forward in acknowledging that his mistress Nan Britton had a daughter with Harding, Elizabeth Ann Blaesing, who died only in 2005. As well it should, since DNA evidence in the 21st century has fingered then-Sen. Harding as the baby daddy.

As for his other known mistress, the married Carrie Fulton Phillips, the museum notes, “when she appeared at Harding’s front porch campaign, Republican party members paid for the Phillipses to take a lengthy trip abroad.”

Still, a triumphant Harding is in evidence. At least while in campaign mode. Not bad for a compromise candidate picked by the 1920 Republican National Convention.Harding museum, Marion, Ohio
Harding museum, Marion Ohio

Events could have gone another way. Leonard Wood could have been the nominee in 1920 and gone on to the presidency. Or Frank Lowden might have been tapped. Or, had TR lived a little longer (d. 1919), he might have captured the prize and returned to office (at my age, TR had been dead more than a year).

Harding might merely be an obscure senator buried in a more modest plot in Marion, rather than an increasingly obscure president in a grand tomb the likes of which is completely out of style. But that isn’t how it happened.

Historians roundly deride Harding, and I believe there’s some basis for it, but my own estimation of the man himself inched up a notch or two when I read, per the museum, that Harding and his wife were avid travelers well before they occupied the White House. That was part of the impetus for the famed long trip that he took as president in 1923, and which was interrupted by his death.

I didn’t know that Harding called it “The Voyage of Understanding.” Quite a route.

Some of the museum’s artifacts are odder than others, including this one from the Voyage.

That’s a papier-mache potato, about a yard long, that the citizens of Idaho Falls, Idaho gave to President Harding when he passed through in 1923.

That That Nation Myglue is All Together Sitting

Sometimes I use an automated transcription service. I feed it an audio recording – say, of an interview – and it spits out a transcript. The service touts the power of its AI. All the rage these days.

I found a reading of the Gettysburg Address by Orson Welles on YouTube. Obviously, it’s an analog recording with some imperfections. I recorded it as I would a phone conversation – producing a tape that isn’t high fidelity, but easily understandable for an English speaker. Then I let the transcription service have it.

Started out OK, then…

Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated.
We met on a great faculty have
come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who hear, feed their lives, that that nation myglue
is all together sitting, we should do this.
In a larger sense,
we cannot dedicate,
we cannot consecrate
we cannot tell
the brave men living and
consecrated far above our power to add or detract.
The world will little note nor long remember what we say here.
I can never forget
it is for us, the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which failed here.
far so nobly advanced.
It is shrouded for us to be here dedicated to the great past remaining before us.
Honored
to take increased devotion for that was
the last measure of devotion.
We hired to resolve
these debts from outside in
this nation
shall have a new freedom
government
by the people,
for the people

Still a few bugs in the system, looks like.

To be fair, when I did this test again, but with the service transcribing the speech as it “listened” to the video play, the results were much better. Not flawless, but not bad.