Movies Unlimited, April 2020

Posted on April 7, 2020 by admin

Today = an actual spring day. Even when a little wind blew and the sun was behind clouds, it was still pleasantly warm. Lunch again on the deck. Breakfast, too.

The April 2020 edition of Movies Unlimited came in the mail not long ago. I will assume for now that the dread coronavirus doesn’t last long on paper and handle my mail. (That’s what it should be called, the dread coronavirus. It was good enough for the pirate Roberts.)

Sounds like a magazine, but it’s really a catalog produced by a company of that name in Itasca, Illinois, only a short drive from where I live. I don’t remember the last time I got one. They come now and then, not monthly. But MU seems optimistic that someday, in a freak of geezer inspiration, I’ll order one of its DVDs or Blu-ray discs. Maybe I will.

“The book you’re holding is NOT the complete Movies Unlimited Catalog,” the company proclaims on the inside cover. “This Is!” it says, with an arrow pointing to a picture of a 432-page catalog available for $8.95. Order it now, it says, “and get ready to be movied like you’ve never been movied before!”

Well, no. But the free smaller catalog has its interests. In fact, MU offers a decent selection — old and new, famed and obscure, color and black-and-white, movies and TV shows, domestic and foreign, in a variety of genres. Much of it for an older audience, such as the wide selection of 20th-century TV series, but not entirely geared to geezers, with a sizable selection of 21st-century output.

There are near-full pages devoted to Studio Ghibli, Disney, the Three Stooges, Ray Harryhausen, film noir, John Wayne, Dick Tracy, Hammer, Little House on the Prairie, Audie Murphy and more, and one full page each devoted to Martin & Lewis and Dark Shadows.

That last one struck me as an oddity, but I guess they know their market. Mostly women roughly my age, I think. Maybe more men than I’d expect, those who watched it in secret during its initial run. That didn’t include me. I think I saw an episode and decided that was enough.

Anyway, someone interested in owning the complete original series on DVD will have to pay $479.99 for 131 discs totaling 470 hours, “packaged in a coffin-shaped, collector’s set and including a 100-page booklet.” If that’s too much, 26 separate collections are for sale for $31.99 each, or you can buy Dark Shadows Bloopers & Treasures.

Quieter Spring, But Not Silent

Posted on April 6, 2020 by admin

For the first time this year, since sometime in October probably, I sat out on the deck and ate lunch. Conditions weren’t perfect for it, but good enough at about 12:30 this afternoon under partly cloud skies. When the sun came out from behind occasional clouds and there was no wind, the deck was a pleasant place to be for a few minutes, lunch or not.

Out in the yard, the dog lolled in the greening grass a time or two. Rabbits have been spotted, though not by the dog today. Early hatching insects can be seen here and there, and early flowers are well established. Birds are noisy in their quest for food and to make baby birds. The only thing missing from the usual early spring sounds are those from the playground behind the house.

British Air ’88

Posted on April 5, 2020 by admin

In early April 1988, I visited London for a week, which included laughs in the basement of a pub and time at the British Museum and the Imperial War Museum and a lot more. A good trip.

To make the trip a reality, some time earlier I called a travel agent. The agent who also booked tickets for my company, whose office (I think) was somewhere on Michigan Ave. For me, the ticket buyer, her services cost nothing. Hard to imagine now. I’d call her even for ordinary domestic tickets. The last time was to book passage to Japan in 1990.

I told her where and when I wanted to go, fully expecting to pass through New York to get to London. That’s what you did to get across the Atlantic. Get to New York first, as surely as Lindbergh did.

I reconstruct the conversation:

Agent: We have a flight leaving at x, arriving at Heathrow at y.
Me: Leaving New York?
Agent: No, it’s direct from Chicago.
Me (a touch astonished): Really?
Agent: Oh, yes. So is the return.

A pleasant surprise. I bought a package: RT air tickets, a week’s accommodation at a middling hotel — but very well located near Paddington Station — and a week’s pass on the Underground. Good value.

British Air was the carrier. That too was a first for me. In fact, still the only time I’ve flown that airline. Flew across on a charter in ’83 and on the upstart Virgin in ’94.

A souvenir of the flight. A menu.
I don’t remember what I had, and I’m not going to bellyache about how much better flying was then compared with more recent times. On the whole, that might be true, but I suspect the differences are exaggerated. Jumbo jets have always been pressurized cattle cars. You put up with it, enjoy the view if you can, and get where you’re going in hours. Worth a little discomfort. Now that air travel is mostly gone, maybe it will better appreciated when it comes back.

Mm, Suburban Chinese Food

Posted on April 2, 2020 by admin

The other day I picked up our second pandemic-era takeout food selection, the first being doughnuts: two lunch specials and a serving of chicken wings from a storefront Chinese restaurant. More than enough for three people.

It’s a place we know well. I’ve had better Chinese food, and more authentic Chinese food, in as much as that means anything, but I’m fond of the storefront anyway. (I guess by definition the food I ate in China was more authentic, even if it wasn’t always very good.)

The storefront isn’t expensive, or far away, and it’s consistently good if not great. Everything you need in Chinese food here in suburban North America. We order it about once a month.

The place is mostly takeout and delivery — with only two tables — so I expect it won’t suffer too much from the current crisis. It operates at least one Smart car (soon to be a memory) with the restaurant’s name and colors painted on the side, but I never get delivery. Always takeout. The only difference this time was that I couldn’t go in. I called them from in front of the shop and one of the employees brought out my order, which I’d already paid for over the phone.

Order by phone. Online sites are not to be trusted for that function.

We got what we ordered, enjoyed the meal, and still have leftovers. The order also provided something I’ve never seen before. With each lunch special comes a fortune cookie, a suburban Chinese restaurant touch if there ever was one. The fortunes within show, let’s say, a certain unimaginative consistency.

But this time I noticed that the fortune was printed on slick paper and featured an advertisement on one side. Never in my years of fortune-cookie opening have I seen that. The ad was for tax preparation software.

This article might be behind a paywall, but the readable lead tells me all I need to know: fortune cookie advertising is the work of one company so far. I’m not thrilled about ads invading that obscure space, but I will note that the company has produced something new under the sun, however minor. No mean feat.

My fortune: Chasing your passion will make you happier. Sure it will. Do I even need to list examples of evil passions? Still, it’s a good example of fortune-cookie wisdom.

Mm, Wild Pecan Rice

Posted on April 1, 2020 by admin

Hanging on the wall near our kitchen is an empty burlap bag that once contained 2 lbs. of Konriko Wild Pecan Rice.

I bought the rice during my visit to New Iberia, Louisiana, in the summer of 2009, when I stopped at the Conrad Rice Mill, a local tourist attraction but also a functioning rice mill. I’m glad to say that even now the mill is still in business, producing rice and other products. When I was there, the mill’s centennial was coming up in a few years; now it’s well past.

The rice included no pecans. The bag, and the Conrad Rice Mill web site, are careful to note that. The bag promises a “nutty aroma and a subtle pecan-like flavor.”

The rice is long gone, and we probably enjoyed it, but what I really like is the bag. That’s my kind of souvenir. Other examples kicking around the house include the small can that used to contain some reindeer pate, acquired on the Finnish ferry between Helsinki and Tallinn, and the front panels from some small cereal boxes acquired in Mexico.

Mm, Grits

Posted on March 31, 2020 by admin

There are two kinds of grits in the house. As far as I know, people aren’t hording grits these days, but I haven’t shopped for them since before the pandemic, so who knows.

To the left, the brand I’ve eaten for years. The standard. The go-to. Often the only brand at the grocery store. Easy to make, best eaten after only a few minutes for cooling. Some add butter. I usually add honey, but not always.

To the right, a brand recently acquired. The texture is slightly different, but not enough to put me off of it. Takes longer to make. Naturally, the verbiage on the package tries to make a virtue of that necessity: “You’ll have to hesitate before you eat quick grits again,” it says. Naah.

The standard grits package tube lists the following as ingredients: degerminated white corn grits, plus iron and various vitamins, which are added in the processing. The new grits bag merely lists white corn. Made me wonder if the hull and germ have been removed, which seems essential to grits.

Note this handy definition at Culinary Lore:

Hominy: An endosperm product made from corn, made up of starch, with the hull and germ removed.

Grits: Ground hominy (usually coarse).

I checked the nutrition facts on the new grits package, and indeed it seems that whatever vitamins might have been present in the hull or germ aren’t there, so I assume they aren’t there either.

Anyway, grits and I go way back. As long as I can remember, because my mother made them and I assume her mother did too, though I don’t have any specific memory of grandma’s grits. I learned to make them myself early on.

I also learned that somehow, most restaurants that offer grits serve an inferior version to what you make at home. How is that? Occasionally, though, I find superb grits away from home. For instance, years ago in Mexico Beach, Florida, I had wonderful cheese grits — at a place probably destroyed by Hurricane Michael a year and a half ago.

When I moved to Chicago in the late ’80s, I was glad to find grits in the grocery stores, despite being well north of the Grits Line. I shouldn’t have been surprised, considering how many Southerners, black and white, have migrated to the region over the decades.

Grits aren’t available in Japan. At least they weren’t 30 years ago. We gaijin ordered it by the case from North America, which we then split up. (PopTarts were ordered the same way.) I remember serving them at my apartment in Japan to a Scotsman who also lived in Japan. He liked it well enough.

“Porridge, is it?” he said. I wasn’t sure how to answer. Can porridge be made from corn? Maize, that is. Seems yes, or maybe, since porridge can be any grain, though I think it’s usually associated with oats and not de-germed corn. Porridge isn’t part of my dialect anyway. Growing up I never heard anything outside of children’s stories called porridge, such as what the Three Bears prepared for themselves and Goldilocks pirated.

Yuriko had no notion of grits growing up and still doesn’t care for them. Lilly took to them in a big way, but Ann did not. Different children, different tastes.

Mm, Doughnuts

Posted on March 30, 2020 by admin

Been a while since we’ve gone out to eat, of course, but we haven’t been that keen on takeout lately either. On Sunday morning, I decided to drive to the nearest doughnut shop, an independent, and bring home a dozen. Here they are, a selection of creme-filled delights, since that’s what we prefer.

The siren call of doughnuts is pretty strong, but we only buy them every two or three months. Call this latest box our quarterly ration, then, comfort food for uncomfortable times.

For the first time ever, I bought doughnuts using the drive-through. Not just the first at this shop, the first time anywhere. Not bad, just not my typical method. Given my druthers, and until now I’ve always been given my druthers in the matter of doughnuts, I go into the shop to buy a selection. The rows of cheap pastry, from the alluringly plump creme-filled offerings to the scrawny cake doughnuts, wait behind the counter, available not for self-serve, but upon request of another human being.

Ritual selection, it is. Eye the doughnuts, determine what the shop has that you and your party might want — it’s always good to know the tastes of your immediate family in these matters — order two or three or four of this or that, until your dozen is complete. Does anyone ever say to the clerk, just give me a dozen of your choice? Do such devil-may-care people exist? It’s a large world, so they must. But I’ll never be that person.

I’ve been ordering doughnuts for 50 years, that’s why. In our early years in San Antonio, we would sometimes stop at a doughnut shop on the way home from church on Sunday. By ca. 1970, maybe even a little earlier, I’d be tasked as an eight- or nine-year-old to go get the dozen doughnuts.

It was a Dunkin Donuts. I mention that not as an ad — that brand hasn’t been a preferred choice of mine for many years — but to note that it must have been a new franchise in those days, since the brand exploded out of New England only in the 1960s. I never associated it with New England, at least not then. It was merely a likable doughnut shop. It did not, as it does now, distance itself from its pastry origins.

That shop, on Broadway near the Witte Museum, is long gone. A meat shop is in the building now.

A meat shop associated with the restaurant next door, Smoke Shack, which hasn’t been there long, though some kind of restaurant has been next to the former Dunkin’ Donuts since I can remember.

If you look closely at Meat Market, you can see its doughnut past — the glass wall showing most of the store interior, where people sat to drink their coffee, and the part of the building on the right behind brick, which is where the doughnuts were made.

Downtown Chicago St. Patrick’s Day Parade, 2018

Posted on March 29, 2020 by admin

I fell asleep to light rain and occasional thunder on Friday night. A comforting sound. During the hours when I was dreaming odd dreams — damned odd, but it all made perfect sense at the time — the rain must have picked up its pace, since large puddles had formed in our back yard by Saturday morning, as usually happens with inches of rain. But not quite this much.

Two years ago we went into the city in mid-March and found ourselves near the Downtown Chicago St. Patrick’s Day Parade. We were going to visit the Art Institute that day, and the parade was passing next to the museum, on S. Columbus Dr.

We walked over to see it, but the crowd was so thick that we never really got a close look. Often enough, the view looked something like this.The crowd was festive, with many dressed for the occasion.

We stayed for a little while and saw what we could.

The solid-waste industry was well represented. Downtown Chicago St. Patrick's Day Parade 2018

Some participants were off to the side. I suppose they were finished and watching the rest of the parade.

Crowds thronged in front of the Art Institute and elsewhere.
No social distancing in evidence. It would have been weird if there had been. No wonder the parade was cancelled this year.

Yakov

Posted on March 26, 2020 by admin

Though not particularly warm today, we took a mile or so walk beginning at about 5:30 this afternoon. Just an afternoon stroll. There’s still traffic on our suburb roads, of course, but in volume it was more like a Sunday afternoon than a weekday rush hour.

One more item from the early 2000s. I didn’t realize it until today, but everything this week has been from that period, except for Sunday. An unconscious choice, probably, signifying — like all that sound and fury — nothing.

The first time we ever passed through Branson, in 2001 as a short detour on the way to Dallas, I picked up a Yakov ad pamphlet. Probably at the restaurant we ate lunch, which was the only thing we did in town.

Why? We weren’t planning to see the show. I think I’d heard of him, maybe even seen him on television by chance, such as his beer commercial, though I didn’t watch much TV during his heyday.

I’m sure I picked up the pamphlet because of the billboards we’d seen between Springfield, Mo., and Branson, which amused me. There were a lot of them advertising his Branson show, which he did from 1993 to 2015. The billboards looked a lot like the pamphlet, if I remember right. A big Yakov face promising a wacky Soviet — that is, Russian — comedian.

For the record, Yakov Naumovich Pokhis — his stage name taken from the vodka, apparently — was actually from the Ukraine. He’s still touring, or presumably was until recently, and probably will be again sometime.

The Grim Fate of the Ace of Diamonds, Who Surely Had It Coming

Posted on March 25, 2020 by admin

Back in the spring of 2003, while visiting Manhattan with a coworker, we came across a street vendor selling most-wanted Iraqi playing cards. Officially “personality identification playing cards,” according to Wiki. I’m a little surprised the U.S. Army didn’t refer to them as PIPCs (pronounced PIE-picks). “Sergeant, distribute two PIPCs to each man before 1800 hours.” “Yes, sir.”

I bought a pack from the vendor and it’s still kicking around the house somewhere, along with other souvenir playing cards that I’ve acquired over the years. Such as a pack depicting Elvis — every card a King? — and another one from Mexico City with the Aztec Sun Stone on each card.

That purchase seems like a long time ago. Maybe because it was, though more psychologically than chronologically.

As for the Ace of Diamonds, Abid Al-Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, certainly a man with much blood on his hands, a later Iraqi government (2012) showed him the business end of a rope, though that was some years after his boss met the same end.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

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