Downtown Waukesha

Posted on August 24, 2025 by admin

The other day I wondered how long it would take to count a million dollars’ worth of nickels and dimes a million times. That’s one of the dream images from “Minnie the Moocher.” Not just a dream, but an opium dream. After all, no sooner does Minnie learn to kick the gong around, does a vivid dream of wealth begin, all shiny and metallic, ending with:

She had a million dollars worth of nickels and dimes

And sat around and counted them all a million times

Let’s say half the dollar value is nickels, half dimes. That would be 5 million dimes and 10 million nickels. So 15 million individual coins. Let’s also say it takes a second to count each, just to keep it simple. That would be 15 million seconds, or 0.475 years (roughly, I shaved off a few places). Counting them a million times would thus be (roughly) 475,000 years.

Of course, if it’s an opium dream, the niceties of time and such don’t apply. Still, it sounds like a hellish task of a Sisyphean kind. But maybe it would be a heavenly task, if you have no sense of the passage of time.

I didn’t sit down to figure all that out until I was at my desk, but the question came out of nowhere during a short interstate drive just before the end of July, up in the southeast corner of Wisconsin. One destination that day, a Sunday, was downtown Waukesha, an outer suburb of Milwaukee, but a place with a distinct history of its own, where people came to take the waters once upon a time.

We spent some time near the five-pointed intersection of Main, Broadway and Grand, focal point of a handsome streetscape.

Now this is a set of buildings.

The Almont Building, whose original name was the Robinson Block.

“The core of the downtown, prior to 1856, consisted of freestanding wooden frame buildings, but a new era began after a massive fire nearly destroyed this northern section of Main Street,” the Waukesha County Historical Society & Museum says. “The Robinson Block was built in 1857 with fireproofing in mind and is the first Five Points building to use Waukesha limestone.”

The Nickell Building, as it looked recently, and long ago.

“Built by Addison J. Nickell, local businessman and jeweler, the first floor housed the U.S. Post Office from 1902-1914,” notes the WCHS&M. “The work of Waukesha architect C.C. Anderson, this Queen Anne displays a projecting oriel and corner turret capped by a domed roof: both are covered by pressed metal.”

Being mid-day, one bit of business to take care of: lunch. We soon found the friendly joint called Joey’s Diner.

Joey likes Betty.

Joey’s is next to an Italian restaurant, similarly casual, that I think was owned by the same fellow. He was everywhere at once all the time — running a restaurant is nothing if not busy, and he seemed to be running two — but toward the end of our meal, asked how it was. I answered enthusiastically to the positive about my simple but also delicious hamburger. He responded by giving us a slice of chocolate cake, on the house. Thanks, Joey.

The street has other (many other) examples of places found here and nowhere else.

Been a while since I’d seen a joke shop. Closed.

The last one might have been Uncle Fun in Chicago, which closed some years ago. Too bad about that, but at least Jest For Fun Joke Shop, which has been at this Waukesha location more than 40 years, is keeping the retail tradition alive.

Southern Loop Leftovers: SC & GA

Posted on August 14, 2025 by admin

Early in the recent trip.

The Buc-ee’s imperium marches on. On my way to Tennessee that first day, I stopped at the location near Smiths Grove, Kentucky, to visit its gleaming facilities. Business was reasonably brisk that Monday, but nothing like the bedlam on the Sunday, nearly two weeks later (on the trip’s last day), when I stopped on the way back home at the same place, for the same reason.

South Carolina

Had a pleasant walk down a non-tourist street on a Sunday in Myrtle Beach. Not a lot going on. The late afternoon light had a nice glow.

Myrtle Beach International Airport used to be Myrtle Beach Air Force Base, which began as Myrtle Beach General Bombing and Gunnery Range in 1942 for use by the U.S. Army Air Corps. It closed in 1993.

One legacy of the base is a cluster of military memorials near the perimeter of the airport – at a place called Warbird Park, which is fully accessible to casual visitors – that includes something you don’t see all the time.

It is one memorial among many.

As well as some of the aircraft that used the air base.

Found at a MB beach shop among the clothes and beach equipment. Nothing says Myrtle Beach better than skulls, no?

There was more. Much more.

In Columbia, the Basilica of St. Peter.

Mass was in progress in its impressive interior, so only a glimpse.

Georgia

An automated, Fotomat-style ice store in north Georgia. They’re not as common up north, with the closest of this brand to me (I checked) in Aurora, Illinois.

Twice the Ice is the brand name. Quick facts: there are about 3,300 Twice the Ice locations so far in the United States and elsewhere – water and ice “vending machines,” according to one page on the company web site. Another page on the same site puts it at over 4,000 locations, which just means part of the site isn’t being updated. Whatever the exact number, there are a lot, and most if not all are franchised, representing about 1,000 franchisees.

It’s automation we call all get behind. I don’t think the machines are putting ice handlers and baggers at local gas stations and grocery stores out of work, since who holds that specific job?

So far as I know, “Ice is Civilization” is not the company motto. But it could be. It was said with such conviction by Allie Fox in The Mosquito Coast.

Of course, by the end of the book and movie both, he was howl-at-the-moon mad. So maybe some other slogan. Then again, that line is one of the few things – besides the fact that Allie Fox goes nuts chasing Utopia – that I remember from either the book or the movie after about 35 years. So it’s pretty memorable.

After gassing up at a station in north Georgia, I parked away from the pumps near the edge of the property to fiddle with my phone for a few minutes. Just outside the car window, kudzu lurked.

Which got closer.

And closer. Man, it grows fast.

Not really, but I did see all that kudzu at the edge of the gas station property. Kudzu. Who hasn’t seen the walls of it down South?

“In news media and scientific accounts and on some government websites, kudzu is typically said to cover seven million to nine million acres across the United States,” Smithsonian magazine reported in 2015. “But scientists reassessing kudzu’s spread have found that it’s nothing like that. In the latest careful sampling, the U.S. Forest Service reports that kudzu occupies, to some degree, about 227,000 acres of forestland, an area about the size of a small county and about one-sixth the size of Atlanta.

“That’s about one-tenth of 1 percent of the South’s 200 million acres of forest. By way of comparison, the same report estimates that Asian privet had invaded some 3.2 million acres — 14 times kudzu’s territory. Invasive roses had covered more than three times as much forestland as kudzu.”

Yet kudzu is regarded as a particularly intractable invasive species. How is that? It grows well in highly visible places. Such as next to a gas station parking lot. Smithsonian notes: “Those roadside plantings — isolated from grazing, impractical to manage, their shoots shimmying up the trunks of second-growth trees — looked like monsters.”

Along Georgia 60 in Chattahoochee NF, Smokey Bear is still at his job.

One thing leads to another online, and Smokey eventually lead me to “Smokey the Bear Sutra.” Only takes a few minutes to read, and it’s a trip. Just like the song “Elvis is Everywhere,” there’s a founding document of a religion in the distant future, one that asserts that humans should never have given up worshiping bears.

Augusta Flyby

Posted on August 6, 2025 by admin

In the heat of midday back in late June, en route to Athens, Ga., I arrived at the Georgia Welcome Center on I-20, a sizable structure just inside the state, and did what I needed to do. Returning to my car, I wondered whether I should drive into Augusta, only a few miles off the Interstate at that point. Specifically to downtown, to see what I could see, even at 90+° F. or so.

Would it be worth the short detour? At that moment, the lyrics of a song of my youth came to mind, as the only mention of Augusta I know in popular music.

I beg your pardon, mama, what did you say?

My mind was drifted off on Martinique Bay

It’s not that I’m not interested, you see

Augusta, Georgia is just no place to be.

The song was “An American Dream” by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (a.k.a. the Dirt Band) – with backing vocals by Linda Ronstadt, no less – which reached No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 after its release in late 1979, and probably annoyed Augusta’s city fathers and other local boosters. But all that was nearly a half century ago, so I expect any annoyance is long gone as the tune has slipped into obscurity.

The song merely came to mind then, as songs often do, and didn’t affect my decision – which was to go. Do a flyby, in my idiosyncratic nomenclature for such a visit. That is, pass through a place, but a little more than merely driving through. If I see anything interesting during a flyby, I’ll stop for a short look. (So not only is my nomenclature eccentric, it isn’t really accurate. Who cares.)

Sure enough, I spotted something worth stopping for.

A mural at the intersection of James Brown Blvd. and Broad St., completed in 2020 by an artist named Cole Phail. Though born in South Carolina, Brown grew up in Augusta, a fact I previously didn’t know.

Later I learned that there’s a bronze of the Godfather of Soul not far away on Broad, but I didn’t look around enough to spot it, considering the heat dome, which seemed to be bearing down on me personally at that moment. So I looked at the mural, got back in my car, and blasted the AC. A few blocks away, as I was driving along, I saw an open church. I had to stop for that, too.

St. Paul’s Episcopal. Not only a church building, but a church graveyard as well.

Inside, some fine stained glass.

“Four buildings on this site have been destroyed,” the church web site says. (Sank into the swamp? Burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp? Speaking of 50-year-old references.)

“Our present church, built in 1919, was designed as a larger copy of the 1820 church lost in Augusta’s Great Fire of 1916. Among the furnishings saved from the fire is the original baptismal font brought from England in 1751, now located in the narthex.

“History buffs will find the church yard fascinating. Many undocumented graves lie beneath the ground, but others are marked, including that of Col. William Few, a signer of the United States Constitution, whose portrait hangs in the narthex…”

Missed the painting. But I did see Col. Few’s stone.

A busy fellow, both before and after the Revolution, including attendance at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and a stint as one of Georgia’s first Senators under the Constitution. His capsule bio at the Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress mentions all that, except leaving out the fact – detailed by the stone I saw – that he was reinterred at his current location in 1973.

Also, no word on whether he knew Button Gwinnett, everyone’s favorite early Georgia politico. He must have. Gwinnett might have had a similar career had he not ended up on the wrong end of a dueling pistol in ’77.

RIP, Mr. Lehrer

Posted on July 27, 2025 by admin

Summer moves forward. Some flora from around the time of the solstice this year, all found on public land hereabouts in the Northwest Suburbs.

It was a rainy summer as of June, and it has been in July. When I got home today, I found driveway and deck puddles and damp bushes. Lush, flowery bushes.

Sad news over the radio: Tom Lehrer, 97, died. All the cool kids in the ’70s had your records in high school, Mr. Lehrer. Not really. But I did, and so did my friends, and we’re better for it even now.

The Tomb of I’timād-ud-Daulah

Posted on May 19, 2025 by admin

As a tourist in Agra, the thing to do is visit the Taj Mahal last. Anything seen after the Taj will pale in comparison, however grand the edifice. So after the Agra Fort, and toward the end of our first day in that city, we visited the Tomb of I’timād-ud-Daulah, with Taj Mahal slated for early the next morning.

Go through a finely styled gate.

From there, it isn’t far to the mausoleum.

An exquisite work. How is carving in stone like that possible? It’s impossibly intricate. It’s also always compared to the top masterpiece that is the Taj, which is not far away. More modest than the Taj, but with some clear similarities. This tomb came first by a few decades, so it would be the inspiration. There is a reason the Tomb of I’timād-ud-Daulah is also called “Bachcha Taj” or the “Baby Taj.”

“What makes the tomb of Itimad-ud-Daulah stand out from its contemporary structures, undoubtedly is the overwhelming decorative technique that was used — its polychrome profuse ornamentation consisting of intricate florals, stylized arabesques, abstract geometrical designs, mosaic kaleidoscope techniques enriched with splendid ornamentation in semi precious and rare stones inlay and exquisite carvings that resembles the finest of lace,” explains Outlook Traveler.

“All these were mostly inspired by plant studies and motifs of vivid flora and fauna with a distinguished influence of Persian heritage drawn by masterful artisans and craftsmen of Persia who worked at the Mughal court.”

All that made me think of the outline for a bit of sketch comedy, though a bit that assumes that most people have heard of the Baby Taj, and how it compares with the regular full-sized Taj. So not a realistic idea for a sketch that North Americans or western Europeans might respond to. Still, imagine Mitchell and Webb doing the following. Or rather an Indian comic duo equivalent, to abide by modern sensibilities. Say, Mitchell-like and Webb-like. There must be someone.

The setup would be the architect hired to design Tomb of I’timād-ud-Daulah has submitted plans – which are visible to the audience – and they look suspiciously like the Taj Mahal as we know it. The architect meets with the Grand Vizier to discuss the plans (would that actually happen? Never mind, the rule of funny). I imagine Mitchell-like would be the architect, Webb-like the Grand Vizier.

Grand Vizier — We rather like your design, but we want a few tweaks.

Architect — Tweaks?

— Yeah, you know, little things. But we do think your design is wonderful. Too wonderful, in fact.

— What does that mean? What do you want to change?

— Well, it’s a bit large.

— Large?

— Yes, the building. The main one. We were hoping for something, you know, a bit more modest. Yes, that’s it. Modest. Scale it down.

— But it wouldn’t be the same.

— And the dome. That’s a little much, don’t you think?

— No dome?

— Well, something should be up there. Let’s call it a roof element. Your dome’s just a little grand.

— But this is going to be the tomb of the great I’timād-ud-Daulah! The father-in-law of the emperor! Grand Vizier before you!

— And don’t we know it. A great man, for sure. But do you know how much stonemasons cost these days? I mean, really good ones. Oh, and don’t worry, we like the four minarets. That’s a classic. But those should be smaller too.

— Grand Vizier, I object. If I do say so myself, I’ve designed one of the greatest buildings in the world! If we make it smaller, it wouldn’t be that. It would be just another tomb.

— Well, now. Who is it that is paying you?

— You are, Grand Vizier.

— And who could, let’s say, make things pretty uncomfortable for you? We still have some space in our dungeons.

— You could, Grand Vizier.

— So…

— Smaller it is, Grand Vizier. More modest. Yes.

Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin

Posted on April 30, 2025 by admin

I’m not sure exactly what “Hey, this is a World Heritage Site! Show some respect, wanker!” would be in German, but I suspect in German you probably could shout just the right mix of threat and shaming.

Spotted in March on Museum Island (Museumsinsel) in Berlin.

Note that the red-letter headline is in English. I think of that as more of a function of English as a ramshackle world language than the propensity of Americans, Britons or Australians to use bullhorns while peeing on World Heritage Sites from their bicycles or scooters. Well, maybe Australians would. (I trade in that stereotype with abiding affection for that nation, since the Australians I know would sound right back about Americans). To be honest, it also sounds like something Florida Man would do.

We were in the vicinity of the Alte Nationalgalerie.

Make it a Greco-Roman temple, at least on the outside, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV must have said, though he didn’t live to see its completion in 1876. August Stüler was tasked with the design, but he didn’t live to see it done either.

The museum complex on Museum Island certainly deserves to be on the UNESCO list. A detail from the museum’s tourist leaflet shows the Old National Gallery in relation to the others, and the fact that the Pergamon Museum is “closed for refurbishment.” Dang.

We didn’t go directly to his gallery up on the third floor, but I knew the Casper David Friedrich was a priority at Alte Nationalgalerie. Like visiting an old friend. They say maintaining social relations is important for one’s health in older years, and maybe that’s so. But I’m sure visiting old friends makes your life better in the here and now. Mine, anyway. Including mainly people, but also places and favorites in art or entertainment.

My old buddy Casper’s canvasses are usually good for more than one detail. Such as “Abtei im Eichwald” (1809/10), sporting a good old Casper David Friedrich moon.

Or “Eichbaum im Schnee” (1829). The man had a gift for trees too.

This one is CDF and it isn’t, since it is a copy of one of his paintings, “Klosterrunie im Schnee” (1891), by an unknown artist. The original didn’t survive WWII.

There was even an appearance of CDF himself, at work, in a portrait by colleague Georg Friedrich Kersting (d. 1847).

There probably would have been more CDF on display, but as it happens, the place to be right now to see many of his works is the Met, which is hosting Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature until May 11. Seventy-five paintings, drawings, and prints by Friedrich are in that show.

No matter, the museum offers plenty else to see, with a collection of European art roughly from the French Revolution to WWI. The place wasn’t crowded, but a fair number of museumgoers were around.

We spent a while looking around ourselves.

Detail from “Die Pontinischen Sümpfe bei Sonnenuntergang” (“The Pontine Marshes at Sunset”) (1848) by August Kopisch, which has a Chesley Bonestell vibe.

Detail from “Doppleporträt der Brüder Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm” (1855) by Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann.

Detail from “Tükische Straßenszene“ (1888) by Osman Hamdi Bey.

Detail from “Porträt Kaiser Wilhelm II” (1895) by Vilma Parlaghy.

Tough luck, Willie. But at least your hope didn’t end at the end of a rope.

Dubai Mall

Posted on March 25, 2025 by admin

“How far is it to the Metro station? I mean, to walk?” I asked the clerk at my hotel in Dubai, a property not far from the airport that I had picked for that reason, and because it was supposedly close to a Metro station. Like many places, that is what Dubai calls its part elevated-part subway system. My maps had given me some clue about the walking distance, but it’s good to check with someone who might have personal knowledge.

Or not. “Five minutes,” she said, offering a standard answer. That actually wasn’t too far off in the grand scheme even of a single day, since the walk took about 10 minutes. In late February, that difference doesn’t make much difference, but I bet it does during the hotter months. Beginning soon, maybe?

I had a hankering to get around Dubai by Metro. So each time I rode the system, I first did the 10-minute walk along a moderately busy street, part of whose traffic was Emirates employees arriving at work, since the airline’s HQ is nearby. Coming to Dubai, I flew Emirates for the first time. It has a solid reputation among travelers, or at least did the last time I thought about it, but in any case I can report that the Airbus flight was good, including a number of small amenities (such as nice snacks), though inevitably legroom was a little short for a six-foot fellow such as myself. The flight attendant uniforms are pretty spiffy, though.

Travel on the Metro involves a Nol card. Once I found the right machine at the station, those were easy to buy and not particularly expensive. Nol, I understand, means “card” in Arabic, so what I acquired from the machine was a Card card good unlimited rides for 24 hours, total cost about $6, which one pays in UAE dirhams.

During my transit excursions, I had to make sure not to board the gold car – a single car upfront at a higher price – nor the women-and-children only cars on the rush hour trains. I almost boarded one of the latter, but I realized my mistake before I did. Not sure whether doing so would have merely been embarrassing, or whether transit cops would have shown up for a mandatory chat in a place that has no Fifth Amendment.

Everything about the Dubai Metro was easy. The only way it would have been more frictionless would have been no charge at all, which isn’t going to happen. As a relatively new system, built by a consortium of mostly Japanese companies and only in operation since 2009, the cars are clean and new, the signage (Arabic and English) is fairly clear, and I never had to wait long for a train.

On the other hand, most of my travels on the longest of the two lines, the Red Line, involved crowds as thick as any you’d see in rush hour New York or London or Tokyo. As diverse, too, though more heavily skewed toward South Asia, where most of the UAE’s non-citizen residents come from. A fair number of tourists packed in the cars as well, many of whom were from Europe, but probably also India – to judge by the flight from Delhi, Indians who can afford it take holidays Dubai. Another detail hints at large numbers of Indian visitors: my hotel room toilet came equipped with a spray nozzle.

After a few rides on the Red Line, I noticed that the crowd wasn’t quite like any other transit crowd in one way. Until the last few stations on the line, few people actually got off. People would get on and never seem to leave, station after station. I had time to reflect on that more than once as I stood for about 15 stations, waiting for someone to leave a seat. (I don’t look old enough for anyone to offer one, though I feel that way sometimes.)

In most subways, unless it’s absolute peak rush hour, there will be turnover from station to station. But not much in Dubai, at least according to my small sample.

Later I thought of a possible reason. Though there are two lines (and eventually will be a third), the Red Line is the main one across miles of the city, roughly paralleling the coastline. I can’t imagine that most low- and mid-level workers live that near their places of work, and so the Red Line forms one link in their commute, which also includes buses on one or both ends.

One exception was the Burj Khalifa/Dubai Mall station. A lot of people got off there. They were going to the mall. I did too. I’d read about the mall, known as one of the larger ones in the world, and one of the posher. I also knew that, for the last three decades or so, malls have been developed all over the world, including in places where they are big new hits, such as in China, Southeast Asia, India, Saudi Arabia and other places (Dubai, for instance), and not relics of a more expansive time, like they might be North America. So I figured it was worth seeing.

I noticed on the map that an elevated walkway goes from the station to the mall. I didn’t think about how long it might be. Soon I found out. One source says half a mile. Having walked it more than once, I believe it. Moving walkways made things a little easier, but the first time you go through, each section of the walkway makes you wonder how many more there will be. Close to the mall itself, but not in the mall, you go through a passageway lined with snack shops and souvenir stores. Leaving, I found my entire supply of Dubai postcards at one of the latter, including stamps. International postcard rate: 3 dirhams. US 82 cents, not bad.

Before long you reach the entrance to the mall. I should have paid closer attention at that moment. Actually, I thought I did. But no: it would take a while for me to find that passage again, and my exit from the mall.

I spent maybe three hours wandering around the mall, unusual behavior for me. But part of the time I was lost. Not lost in the sense of they’ll find my bones somewhere, but rather disoriented for stretches of time. I expect the design encourages just such a reaction.

There are four full shopping floors and not a lot of right angles, and a sort-of oval shape overall, with extra branches snaking off in various directions (this is just the ground floor). Wayfinding isn’t bad, but the endless distractions in the stores and among the people passing by make it easy to miss an important directional sign. Most importantly: the place is huge.

Measured by gross leasable area – at 4.3 million square feet – Dubai Mall is the seventh largest in the world, according to Luxe Digital in 2024, though its floor area is 12 million square feet. That is, for every square foot of retail space, there are nearly two square feet of everything else. There is a lot of everything else: sweeping common areas, all bright and immaculate, a gargantuan aquarium, an ice-skating rink, the entrance to the Burj Khalifa observation decks, possibly two food courts, a thing called KidZania and naturally a multiplex cinema. And more. That could be the property’s informal motto: There’s Always More!

As for the stores, there are about 1,200 of them, many familiar (indeed, U.S. and European), others less so (Middle Eastern, South and East Asian, and some of the Euro-brands). Every upmarket brand you’ve ever heard of is going to be there, and then some. Many cluster in a section of mall called Fashion Avenue, which is big enough to be a standalone shopping center. Mid-market retailers seem to thrive in the mall as well, though some of the more everyday sorts of stores, such as a large grocery store, are to be found at the lowest level. There is an entire section of the mall called Chinatown, sporting Chinese retailers and restaurants and décor. Nice use of lanterns and neon. Also, supposedly you can play various sports on the roof of Dubai Mall. I didn’t look into that.

The mall was busy, and just as multicultural as the subway or the rest of Dubai. Signs tended to be in four languages: Arabic, since this is an Arab country, English for almost everyone else, plus Hindi and Russian, which must represent two large shopper blocs. It’s only three-and-a-half hour flight from Delhi, probably the same from Bangalore and certainly less from Bombay. As for Russia, much of Europe is off limits these days, but the UAE apparently isn’t; and maybe some Russians with the wherewithal are sitting things out in Dubai. Just speculating about that.

Slightly detached from the mall is the Souk Al Bahar, another 100 stores and a posh place indeed, done in “Arabesque” style (the mall’s term). It wasn’t nearly as crowded as the main mall, but I expect people who do go there are probably prepared to spend some serious dirhams. Me, I was just looking around, and as usual looking for a restroom. Time Out Dubai is in the souk as well, its restaurants tucked in a warren-like area, and so giving off a different vibe from the high-ceiling space occupied by Time Out Lisboa, though I’m sure the food is just as good.

Next to the mall and the souk is an enormous artificial pond, home to Dubai Fountain, which pushes water as high as 500 feet into the air periodically, with water jets choreographed to music and, at night, colorful lights. I didn’t know this before: It is a WET design – the same company, WET, that did the Bellagio fountain in Las Vegas and a lot of other fountains in a lot of other places.

Not long after noon, I surveyed lunch options at the end of the mall I happened to be, which was near the souk and the fountain. One option that had seating outside, within view of the fountain, was Five Guys. So lunch was al fresco that day, February 26, a serving of Five Guys fries and a drink, which is definitely enough. As I enjoyed my taters, some of sort of rousing Middle Eastern tune struck up, and the water show began. Nice work, WET.

I wasn’t lost all the time. Much of my visit was pure wander: a peek at store after store, level after level, up and down escalators, and looking for a restroom (one I visited twice was marble-and-mirror swanky, with more than one attendant in coat and tie, none of whom asked a tip, unlike India). I also passed by most property’s entertainment features, with none more impressive than the aquarium, even for those who don’t pay to go in. Officially, it is the Dubai Aquarium & Underwater Zoo. Shoppers just wandering through the mall can see one wall of the aquarium.

“Dive into an amazing aquatic world at Dubai Aquarium & Underwater Zoo — home to thousands of aquatic animals, over 140 marine species and a 270-degree walk-through tunnel,” says the mall’s web site, “Located within Dubai Mall, Dubai Aquarium & Underwater Zoo features a 10-litre tank [sic] containing more than 400 Sharks and Rays, including Sand Tiger Sharks, Giant Groupers and a wide array of amazing marine life.”

I’m sure that was a simple typo, but the absurdity of fitting all those sea creatures into 10 liters makes me smile. The actual size would be 10 million liters, a number I can believe, now that I’ve stood next to the two-story wall of glass holding all that water in. The sight is magnificent: enormous swirls of undersea life, schools and large fish and sharks in motion, as colorful as can be, and an attentive collection of shoppers, kids and adults, clearly enjoying the spectacle.

By about 3 pm, my energy was at a low ebb, so I made my way to Reel Cinema, the multiplex, to find a place to sit for a couple of hours. That is how I came to see Captain America: Brave New World in a nearly empty theater near the shores of the Persian Gulf. (There were a few boys in a row behind me: the intended audience.) The movie was the only one I didn’t mind seeing, at a starting time that wasn’t too far in the future. I suppose I could have taken in a Bollywood offering, just for the novelty of it, but I wasn’t feeling it.

The only modern Captain America movie I saw before was – something or other, but it was actually set in the 1940s. That’s the Captain America I know, vaguely. He fights Nazis. Brave New World has a now-ish setting and someone else is Captain America (both the actor and the character) and the villain is someone or other out for revenge for some reason or other. My interest in this particular franchise, and pretty much all of the “Marvel Cinematic Universe,” is fairly low. As in, next to nothing. The characters discussed, from time to time, things that had happened in previous movies, but I couldn’t get interested in that, either.

Still, the movie was fun to watch sometimes, such as the mano-a-mano fight scenes or the brisk violations of the laws of physics, or, come to think of it, the biological impossibility of Harrison Ford morphing into a red Hulk. (Hulks get to be different colors, like kryptonite?) Bonus extra for watching the movie in the UAE: Arabic subtitles. That, I think, was a first for me.

P.D.Q. Bach 1980 (Not 1780)

Posted on February 2, 2025 by admin

Below is a poster I picked up among the debris in the closet of my former room in San Antonio, and brought back north last month. I probably originally liberated it from a wall at Vanderbilt, though I would have had the good manners to do so after the concert.

I remember going to see P.D.Q. Bach in Nashville in early 1980, but, maybe true to the spirit of the not-great composer himself, I don’t remember much about the concert. After all, Schickele.com says: “P.D.Q. was virtually unknown during his own lifetime; in fact, the more he wrote, the more unknown he became.”

It’s easy to believe that after 45 years, my memory of the concert is slight. I saw Bob Marley in concert in 1980 as well, and mostly I remember the various kinds of smoke at the venue, and Marley’s frequent cries of “All hail Jah!” and “Free Zimbabwe!”

Back to P.D.Q. Bach. I must have been amused by the concert. Not as much as if I’d actually known anything about classical music, but I’m sure Peter Schickele’s antics were amusing above and beyond mere music spoof. I’m also pretty sure I went by myself, since even the student price (more than $34 in current money) would have been a lot for an act no one else had ever heard of.

But I had. We had at least one record of his around when I was in high school, namely Report from Hoople: P. D. Q. Bach on the Air, which was in personal heavy rotation for a little while, along with all our Tom Lehrer records.

That reminds me: I need to get around to writing that short bio of that other non-famous musician, Irwin Hepplewhite, leader of Irwin Hepplewhite and the Terrifying Papoose Jockeys during the gold and silver age of American pop, since clearly no one else is going to do it.

Back to P.D.Q. Bach again. I didn’t note the passing of Peter Schickele last year, but I’m going to now. Here’s an interview he did only a few years after he came through Nashville. Everybody comes to Nashville, even Irwin Hepplewhite and the Terrifying Papoose Jockeys, who brought the house down – literally, a ceiling fixture fell on them – at the Ryman in ’69, one of the lesser-known events referenced in “American Pie.”

The National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum

Posted on January 7, 2025 by admin

You might say I had a vision recently.

A vision, but no mystic revelations. When I saw the Jesus bobbleheads in Milwaukee on the Friday after Christmas, I thought that a really good lyricist could do a follow up song to “Plastic Jesus,” which would be called “Bobblehead Jesus.” But I am not that person.

We’d dropped by the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum, where the bobbleheads crowd shelf after shelf after shelf: some 6,500 on display of the 10,000 figures the museum says it has.

But for Google Maps I might have missed National Bobblehead, which reminded me at once of the American Toby Jug Museum in Evanston. Still, there are some differences. Most of the tobies are behind glass, but not the bobbleheads, and most of the bobbleheads are sports figures, while the tobies have a wider variety of figures.

Like that other museum, National Bobblehead started with a single collection that morphed into something bigger – in this case, a bobblehead business for the two founders, Milwaukeeans Phil Sklar and Brad Novak. It isn’t enough that they collect them, though they still do, but they make them and sell them as well.

The museum asserts that Chinese nodding dolls had a vogue in Europe in the late 18th century, and that afterward various bobbly figures were made worldwide, with references to Germany and Russia and other places. These days sports figures dominate. Maybe three-quarters of the bobbleheads on display are sports figures, including both players and mascots.

Their popularity in the sports world has been growing since their introduction in the early 1960s in baseball. The first player-specific bobbleheads formed quite a lineup: Roberto Clemente, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Willie Mays.

Most of the others are entertainers and political or historic figures, as you’d expect.

More of him than I’d expect.

Can you really be a famous entertainer if you don’t have a bobblehead?

Near the gift shop – which sells bobbleheads, naturally – is a more than complete collection of U.S. presidents, in order, back-to-front, left-to-right, Washington to Biden.

More than complete because FDR is represented twice, once standing (with a cane) and the other in a wheelchair. Grover Cleveland is represented only once, however. Curiously, beginning with Herbert Hoover, all of the figures have their hands raised, as one does to a crowd. Before him, only TR does so, and he’s holding a top hat.

One more note: the museum occupies part of the second floor of one of the redeveloped Kramer International Foundry buildings in the Walker’s Point neighborhood of Milwaukee. That early 2000s project was an early one in the transformation of the neighborhood from industrial to retail and residential.

Milwaukee continues to surprise.

Musical Maps

Posted on December 16, 2024 by admin

This is quite a site: Musical Maps, whose title isn’t quite descriptive, since it lists and illustrates the locations of a wide variety of music album cover photos. Still, it’s a place to meander for a while, to sample and follow your idle curiosity, only to find our more time than you thought disappeared while looking up the location of x, y and z. And another one after z. And that reminded you of another – scroll down – wait, what about a, b and then c?

The cover of Hotel California, which does such a good job of evoking some dark desert corner of California, a place of colitas smell and no exit — is for example actually urban, on Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills.

Looks like there’s been some gentrification since Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five posed on 123rd St. in Manhattan in 1982.

Our Man in New Orleans – an Al Hirt disk from 1963 that I’m pretty sure was around the house when I was growing up – features the trumpeter in front of 941 Bourbon Street, at night with shadows for that extra New Orleans vibe (and probably to avoid the heat).

Good to see that at least two Chicago albums depict Chicago in some form. Chicago 13 is a variation on Marina Towers.

Part of the site is organized geographically. The inordinate number of shots taken in New York City and California and various parts of the UK is little surprise. This isn’t a list of Bollywood soundtrack albums, after all.

I was inspired to look for the most remote location, at least on this list. I was hoping someone, maybe some prog rocker of the ’70s, had used an image of a moai or a row of them, which would put it on Easter Island, but apparently not.

Hit Collective goes Bossa Vol. 1 features a view of Rio from Christ the Redeemer, which seems fitting, but a little further away is that busy set of musicians called Various Artists and their album Guitare, whose cover was shot at the colorful Dr. del Valle Iberlucea 1256 in Buenos Aires. Both places one can aspire to see.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Entertainment