Category Archives: Over the Transom

Skeletons in the Big Box

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Yesterday I was wandering the aisles of a major warehouse store when I noticed a life-sized model of a human skeleton hanging at one of the endcaps. I had to investigate further. Turns out it was a bit of Halloween decoration for sale, along with some other items. Halloween?

I took a closer look. The quality was high, or so I imagined, not having spent much time with actual human bones, other than the ones hidden within our fleshy selves. Lilly was with me, and I said it was too good just to take out on Halloween. Better yet, we could get one and put it in a closet most of the year. That’s where skeletons should be, right?

— Or, I continued as we walked away, we can take one with us on our next road trip, and hang it in the motel closet. That should give the cleaning staff something to talk about.

— Are you really considering that? she asked.

— No, they might freak out and call the cops. Anyway, I forgot to check the price. But it’s probably too much just to spend on a joke. And we don’t have enough closet space.

Later I wondered, do other languages have a similar idiom to a skeleton in the closet, or is it peculiar to English? I was going to look into that, but I didn’t get any further than Skeletons in the Closet, the LA County Coroner’s Office Online Store. I found myself looking at it and thinking, is this for real? Does the LA County Coroner actually sell – or benefit from the sale of — clothing, cups, hats, key chains, magnets and the like? Looks like it.

 

Giant Planter Heads on a Major Metro Thoroughfare

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The July 2 edition of the Chicago Tribune had this to say about the giant planter heads on Michigan Ave.: “Fifteen giant heads, filled with various plants, have taken up residency on Michigan Avenue for the summer. The Plant Green Ideas sculptural heads are the brainchild of Plant Green Ideas RRR, a Chicago not-for-profit committed to sustainability and are in conjunction with the Chicago Cultural Mile.”

We saw a few of them on Saturday. This is one sponsored by Italian Village, a downtown restaurant.

Better pictures are, for now, at the Tribune photo essay.

Dwarfs on Parade

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How is it that I didn’t know until yesterday that Belmopan is the capital of Belize, and has been since before that country’s independence? If you’d asked before yesterday, I would have said Belize City. But I was looking at a globe and chanced to see Belmopan starred as the capital. Has Belize moved its capital? I thought. (The globe was new.)

The answer is yes: in 1970. I’m shocked at my ignorance sometimes. A new capital was built in the late ’60s, as Brazil built a new capital for itself in the late ’50s. Apparently, Belmopan isn’t known as a hotbed of modernism like Brasilia, at least to judge by the kind of buildings featured in the Wiki article.

On Saturday Ann and I went to downtown Chicago. As we headed eastward on Jackson, we came across a sparsely attended parade along Dearborn. One of the cops on duty told us we could go ahead and cross the street – the next part of the parade was still off in the distance – and I asked her what kind of parade it was. The 10th Annual Disability Pride Parade, it turned out. (She just called it the “Disability Parade”; I had to look up the rest.)

I think we missed most of it. We did happen to see the marchers – or rather riders, since they all seemed to be in vehicles – for Little People of America, the “nonprofit organization that provides support and information to people of short stature and their families,” to quote the little people themselves. I’m glad to know that they embrace the terms “dwarf” and “dwarfism,” a fine old word reaching back into the mists of Anglo-Saxon to maybe proto-Indo-European.

Other things I didn’t know: the organization was founded by actor Billy Barty, whom I’m certain I’ve seen on old TV or movies. Also, October is Dwarfism Awareness Month, at least in Arizona, California, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, New York, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Puerto Rico. The org seems to be working on having the federal government so designate it.

And there’s this: the strange story of the Ovitzes and Josef Mengele. The things you find out if you’re paying attention never cease to amaze.

The Mighty F-1 Laid Low

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I hadn’t heard until today about the expedition that found some Saturn V first stage engines – the mighty F-1 — on the bottom of the Atlantic. The Bezos Expedition site is careful to note that “many of the original serial numbers are missing or partially missing, which is going to make mission identification difficult. We might see more during restoration,” so they could be from any of the missions that used the engines, though I believe they were looking for Apollo 11 relics.

There might be less headline glory in finding something from (say) Apollo 16, but I think it would be just as cool. The expedition site goes on to say that whatever their origin, “the objects themselves are gorgeous.” Bet they are. They’ve gone to the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center for stabilization, so maybe they’ll stay there for display. That place would be worth going to that corner of Kansas to see, F-1s or not.

Seems that Amazon boss Jeff Bezos paid for the expedition, or at least much of it. Good for him. It’s the kind of thing that billionaires should spend some of their money on. That and the 10,000-Year Clock.

Still Life With Lawnmower

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Temps were cool today, but it was a fine day all around. I went out to mow the yard, and did the front but not the back. Maybe tomorrow. In the meantime, I composed “Still Life With Lawnmower.”

Of course I didn’t invent that title. Here’s a painting from more than 20 years ago that not only features a lawn mower, but also a more traditional vase & flowers motif.

RIP, Kevin Norton

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I’ve learned a number of things since the last post, including unfortunate news about a high school friend of mine, Kevin Norton. He died last August, but only I found out about his passing about a week ago. The news traveled at 18th-century speed, but that’s because I had little communication with Kevin in the last 20 years or so. Just one of those things.

From the Sept. 2, 2012, San Antonio Express-News: “Kevin Charles Norton, age 50, passed away in Dallas August 16, 2012. He was born September 18, 1961 and grew up in San Antonio, graduating from Alamo Heights High School in 1979. He attended college at the University of Texas at Austin in the Plan II Honors Program and graduated in 1987. He went on to the University of Texas School of Law and earned his Juris Doctor in 1990. He practiced appellate law with the firm of Cantey & Hanger in Fort Worth and Dallas for many years and later was briefing attorney for the Fifth District Court of Appeals at Dallas.

“He had many intellectual and artistic interests studying languages, literature, philosophy, history, religions, art and music. He is survived by his parents, Doris and Donald Norton, sisters: Lucy Norton and partner Maggi Joseph, Deborah Norton all of San Antonio, and Nancy Norton of Dallas; a paternal aunt, Geraldine Koch of Richmond, Virginia; and numerous first and second cousins from all around the country… In lieu of flowers contributions in Kevin’s name may be made to Dallas Symphony Foundation Endowment… or It Gets Better Project …”

I met Kevin sometime in junior high, but I remember him best as my debate partner throughout much of high school. That meant long hours with him sometimes, preparing index cards and other pre-electronic materials for speech tourneys both in town but also in Austin, Houston, Corpus Christi, and one time even as far afield as Midland – the only time, in fact, that I’ve ever been to that place. He was the first person I knew who drank coffee to stay awake, and if I’d had any taste for it, I would have started drinking it then too.

After high school, I hung out with Kevin some in the summer of ’81 in Austin. Among other things, introduced me to Eyebeam – which was still running in the Daily Texan at that time – and ragtime, specifically Scott Joplin, which he had a talent for playing. He spent a longish period traveling in the ’80s, mainly in the Middle East and India, which he told me about later. His travels didn’t inspire me to go to the Middle East or India, but they did help inspire me to take my own leave of the country for a while.

All in all, the obit is right: Kevin had a keen mind and a lot of interests, and I was better for knowing him. RIP, Kevin.

Old Tech

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A grey weekend to begin June, and today was ridiculously cool for June 2 — not over about 60 degrees F. Temps should be warmer later in the week, but not what I call summer.

I’m not sure why I bothered to write the following down in 1997, but I did. These weren’t the first Power Macs that I’d ever used — that was in 1995, when everyone was certain Apple was a doomed enterprise that would never again live up to its glory days, much less become a sinister behemoth on the order of Microsoft. I was glad, maybe, just to have a polychromatic screen.

June 9, 1997

I came back from the fire show in Lake Kiamesha, New York, and our new Power Macs were waiting for us at the office. Fast! It’s a little scary. No sooner is a button pushed than something happens. It didn’t work like that on the old machines (a IIci). This is a 8600/200 with a 7.5.5 operating system.

If I understand correctly, there’s 32 megs of RAM and a whole lot more disc space, and I just discovered that the thing plays audio CDs. Now if it would only play tapes. I have many more of them. No question about who owns the machine, though. A blue label marks it, Property of Intertec Publishing Corp. I may get to buy the IIci for a low price, however. That would be nice to have at home.

I didn’t buy the IIci. It wouldn’t be until 2000 that I had a computer at home, a spiffy purple iMac. Intertec merged into something, and that into something else, and I don’t know what, but some of the magazine titles it published are still around, such as Fire Chief, where I worked at the time.

As for Lake Kiamesha, I’ve posted about that before, though I refer to the trip as White Lake. I happened to visit the Concord Resort Hotel the year before it closed, and it wasn’t hard to see in ’97 that the place was on its last legs.

Cockta Cola

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The ease that goods move around the world is a marvel of the age — an everyday marvel. No small infrastructure was necessary to bring a frosted bottle of Cockta brand soda from Central Europe to the shelf of a grocery store far inland in North America, where I bought it not long ago for a small sum.

An impulse purchase, of course. Why? Because it was bottled in Slovenia. I don’t ever remember buying anything made in Slovenia, and that was enough to sell me. The label tells me that a company called Droga Kolinska of Ljubljana makes Cockta. It is a regional food conglomerate with other brands that include Argeta, Grand Kafa and Smoki, according to this site, though a lot of the links are broken, including the Cockta one.

It’s a cola. It isn’t bad. With sugar instead of corn syrup. It reminded me a bit of the cola made in Vietnam as a domestic alternative to imperialist running-dog Coca-cola, and maybe Cockta was originally created as a Yugoslav version of such. I know from watching One, Two, Three long ago that the quest for a drinkable socialist cola was once an important concern behind the Iron Curtain.

Borodenko: We do not need you! If we want Coca-cola, we invent it ourselves!

C.R. MacNamara (James Cagney): Oh, yeah? In 1956 you flew a bottle of Coke to a secret laboratory in Sverdlosk. A dozen of your top chemists went nuts trying to analyze the ingredients. Right?

Mishkin: No comment!

C.R. MacNamara: And in 1958, you planted two undercover agents in Atlanta to steal the formula. And what happened? They both defected! And now they’re successful businessmen in Florida packaging instant borscht. Right?

Peripetchikoff: No comment!

C.R. MacNamara: Last year you put out a cockamamie imitation “Kremlin-kola!” You tried it out in the satellite countries, but even the Albanians wouldn’t drink it. They used it for sheep dip! Right?

Juvenile Amusements

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Not long ago I was getting rid of debris on one of my computers, the main one I use now for my work since the older one is bronze age in computer terms, and I found the scan on the right. A pizza delivery receipt. We rarely have pizza delivered, so I’m pretty sure it didn’t originate with us. I suspect it’s something Lilly put in the system, sent to her by a friend.

Probably the name “Bonquiqui Butts” had something to do with it. Turns out that refers to a character I’d never heard of, but which Lilly and her friends must know about.

Also found on my computer taking up space: a video made by Lilly and a couple of her friends in our back yard. I don’t think it was last summer, since the grass is much too green; probably the summer before last. Which would make them junior high antics.

It only goes to show that kids aren’t spending all of their time with electronic entertainment.

Animals in the Back Yard

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A recent visitor to the back yard, captured in black & white. At least it didn’t show an interest in making a nest inside the garage, as one squirrel did a few years ago. That creature was discouraged from returning by closing up the hole it had clawed near the roof, as well as an application of cayenne-pepper solution to nearby surfaces.

We thought of using the cayenne solution to discourage the dog from digging holes in the back yard, but so far we’ve taken a simpler tack — dumping a cup of water on her when we catch her doing it. So far that seems to work.