Monthly Archives: August 2024

Cucumber Time

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Rain early this morning and clouds all day, and fairly warm. In the afternoon, we paid a visit to a warehouse store. In the retail world, Halloween is just around the corner.

As Halloween décor goes, I’ll say they’re impressive, though I’m not in the market for any such ghoulish simulations. Not even the Werewolves of Schaumburg (a lesser-known follow-up to the Werewolves of London?).

They retail for about $200 and $250, though I can’t remember which one was for which price. They’re a bit animatronic. For instance, the werewolf’s jaw opens and closes.

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this long sentence in the Wiki article about the Silly Season, but I like the term “Cucumber Time,” so I’m quoting it here.

“In many languages, the name for the silly season references cucumbers (more precisely: gherkins or pickled cucumbers). Komkommertijd in Dutch, Danish agurketid, Icelandic gúrkutíð, Norwegian agurktid (a piece of news is called agurknytt or agurknyhet, i.e.,  ‘cucumber news’), Czech okurková sezóna (‘pickle season’), Slovak uhorková sezóna, Polish Sezon ogórkowy, Hungarian uborkaszezon, and Hebrew עונת המלפפונים (onat ha’melafefonim, ‘season of the cucumbers’) all mean ‘cucumber time’ or ‘cucumber season.’ ”

Considering the fraught politics of our time, and the equally fraught – if somewhat more permanent – 24/7 news cycle, and the way people glue themselves to their hand-held boxes, I’m not sure the Silly Season is an active concept any more, whatever you call it. Either there is no such season specific to August any more, or it’s all Silly Season.

No matter, I’m taking a long break for the Silly Season. Once upon a time, I worked for a news organization that didn’t publish during the week before Labor Day, just like the week between Christmas and New Years, and it was a paid week, no less. I thought that was a fine company practice; but it didn’t last.

Back to posting around September 9, assuming I survive the Silly Season, and I’d say the actuaries would still be on my side in that matter. But who knows. The Yellowstone Caldera (say) might blow, ruining everyone’s end-of-summer plans.

Virtual Lightbulbs & Cats

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Something new in the world of robots asking whether I’m a robot.

Or at least something new to me. Previously I’ve tended to run into a challenge to click on buses or motorcycles or traffic lights or the like. Maybe those have been cracked by nefarious robots pretending to be people, and so we need cats to foil them.

Whatever the case, there was a reason for the CAPTCHA photos of objects you’d find driving.

“In 2012, Google started snippets of photos from Google Street View,” says the Grove Street Auto Repair Blog. “By 2014, the CAPTCHA system was primarily focused on training AI. Google has mentioned that by this time, they used CAPTCHA to teach self-driving cars, such as the new rideshare Waymo vehicles.”

I think I’d read about that before. It’s a steep learning curve for the robot cars, apparently.

It licks the air with crimson flare

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Wood debris fire in my grill, just after sunset, August 13, 2024.

Prompt for the free version of Chat GPT: Write a short poem in the style of the Romantic poets about the tongue of flame in my grill.

Result:

Amidst the twilight’s dusky veil,
Where shadows dance and spirits sail,
There roars a tongue of fierce delight,
In the grill’s embrace, so wild, so bright.

It licks the air with crimson flare,
A fleeting dragon’s breath laid bare,
Each flicker whispers ancient songs,
Of passion’s fire where heart belongs.

O, fiery serpent, weave your tale,
Of embers lost and moments frail,
In your embrace, the night does sing,
A hymn to life’s consuming spring.

Beneath your blaze, the dark recedes,
And dreams take flight on fiery steeds,
Till dawn shall break, and still you’ll stay,
A spark of dusk that lights the day.

Eh. It licks the air with crimson flare? Each flicker whispers ancient songs, of passion’s fire where heart belongs? Dreams take flight on fiery steeds?

This isn’t bad: O, fiery serpent, weave your tale, of embers lost and moments frail. Still, the effort’s underwhelming.

Summer Lunch

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As forecast, the week kicked off warm, but not too warm, and sunny, but not too sunny. Out latest bill from ComEd suggests a cooler summer so far: average temps for July of 74.1° F., which I assume means both day and night averaged. Last year, the average was 77.1° F. The latest bill was higher despite that, because for various reasons we’ve kept the AC at a lower temp this summer.

Another benefit of summer, if you attend to a garden.

The meat and bread, we bought. The tomatoes and cucumbers, we grew.

NYC ’83 Debris

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After returning from Europe in mid-August 1983, I spent about 10 days in New York City, a kind of coda to the longer trip. Expenses were low, since I was house sitting – apartment (co-op?) sitting in Greenwich Village – for Deb, a woman I’d met in Germany, while she was on the Jersey shore with her parents. A place New Yorkers went in August, Deb said, because their analysts were out of town. I think she was only half-joking.

If I were a different person, I would have spent late nights at the likes of CBGB, the Palladium, Danceteria, or the Peppermint Lounge (or the Village Vanguard or the Bitter End, for that matter), staggered back to Deb’s apartment, and slept most of the day. That would have been quite the time and place for that kind of activity. But no: I didn’t take a stronger interest in live music in small venues until I lived in Nashville for a few years, and I never did latch on to the alcohol or cocaine components of those kinds of nights. So any stories I’d tell about the NYC club scene 40 years ago would be necessarily made up.

I did a lot of walking. Mostly Manhattan, but one day I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and spent some time in that borough. I also made it up the Bronx.

The zoo was a little run down in those days, but nothing like the south Bronx territory I saw from the #5 IRT. The zoo guide above, looking at it now, is a model of compact information, unfolding to offer a good map of the zoo’s 265 acres on one side, and on the other side, other information about the zoo, and the various trails in the facility one could follow to see different kinds of animals: the Wild Asia Trail, Africa Trail, Reptiles and Apes, Bird Valley Trail, etc.

I see that elephant and llama rides were available for an extra fee in those days. I wonder if that’s still the case.

Back in Manhattan, there was always Art to see.

Note the adult admission price: $3. Or the equivalent of about $10 these days. And what is the adult rate as of 2024? $30. That’s just gouging, MoMA. You have no excuse.

Vistas. I don’t remember what I paid, but the ESB price now is absurd. I’m glad I’ve already been there. 

I went to the top of the Empire State Building at night, and marveled at the glow of the city, but also at just how many vehicles on the street below were yellow cabs. I was at the World Trade Center observation deck during the day; a lost view.

Thursday Updates &c.

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Cerulean days. Thursday dusk on the deck.

It’s come to my attention that Jim Varney did occasionally perform live with Gonzo Theatre. At least, the Tennessean posted an image of him doing stand-up at the Municipal Auditorium in downtown Nashville on November 14, 1982, describing him as a member of the troupe. So maybe he was sometimes; but not specifically on the night we went, and he isn’t in the publicity shot I have in my possession. A Tennessean article about Gonzo Theatre from the year before doesn’t mention him either.

Argh, we could have seen Varney live but, being ignorant young’uns, we didn’t know about the show. Bet he was a hoot and a half.

We were out and about the evening NBC broadcast the Olympic Parade of Nations nearly two weeks ago, so we didn’t see that. Since then, I haven’t felt much like following the Games. But occasionally I look at the medal counts. I see that the UK has 57 and France 56 thus far. Is that the count that the French really care about? No hope to best China or the U.S. (or even Australia), but maybe they’ll top the limeys.

What do the French call the British when they’re in a derogatory mood, anyway? One source says rostbifs.

I also checked the nations that so far have a single bronze. They are:

Including one for the Refugee Olympic Team. How about that.

“Boxer Cindy Ngamba became the first-ever Refugee Olympic Team athlete to win a medal this week, giving the team its first piece of hardware since its creation nearly a decade ago,” NPR reports.

“Ngamba was born in the Central African country of Cameroon and moved to Bolton, England, at age 11, according to her official biography. She took up soccer at a local youth club, where she discovered boxing by chance at age 15.

Ngamba, who is gay, cannot return to Cameroon, where same-sex sexual relations are punishable by up to five years in prison… Ngamba qualified for the Refugee Olympic Team earlier this year, becoming the first boxer to do so.”

Good for her. Hope she gets to stay in the UK.

Down in Oklahoma

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Received a collection of postcards from my brother Jay recently, who picked them up at an estate sale, where occasionally one finds such things.

One of them featured some period-specific doggerel about Oklahoma, with 7-24-40 written on the edge, which no doubt was when the card was new. It wouldn’t have been the only gag postcard of roughly that vintage. The card was printed by Curt Teich (it says Curteich on the card), as so many were, on behalf of Mid-Continent News Co. of Oklahoma City. No copyright date.

Nothing like a wild-and-woolly oil patch, eh? That’s the vibe, of course, but some specifics are a little hazy. The populace is “boost”? As in, prone to steal? And what was it about wearing dresses to their knees for big girls and wee ones? A sideways comment on Oklahoman female morality? Also: “whist out” in the morning? The context is clear enough, but that’s a turn of phrase that seems lost to time.

A Quiet Suburban Spot

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Rain blew through last night and so did cool air. Dropped temps by about 20 degrees F. compared with yesterday, making today feel like a pleasant day in October. The days ahead look to be warm and dry: a nice run for declining summer.

Spotted near a suburban street recently in Du Page County.Bloomingdale descanso Bloomingdale descanso

I parked – off the road – and took a look. I drive this street fairly often, maybe twice or three times a month, and hadn’t noticed this descanso before. That probably means a recent accident, though a simple search using the street and town names and a few other items turned up nothing. A look at a fatal accident database with a helpful map pinpointing the incidents (just the kind of thing to set your teeth on edge) told me there was a fatality on that road in 2017 involving one car, one drunk driver, and one death.

If this were that person’s memorial, it seems odd that it was take so long, so I doubt it is. My search wasn’t conclusive, but that was as far as I wanted to take it. Someone died unexpectedly on this uncrowded, obscure suburban street, and someone wanted to remember that person.

A Normal Car

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When I see a car decked out like this, I admire the effort that went into it. Spotted in a large parking lot in Normal, Illinois, a little over a week ago.

That effort is more than decorating the car’s surfaces. Cars move around. This isn’t going to be set and forget. What happens when you drive on the highway in that machine? Or a hard rain falls? Or wind gusts, even when it’s parked? Things fly off, of course. Lose, replace, lose, replace. The enthusiast who owns this car has to work at it that much more, and more often.

So – interesting to look at, but I wouldn’t want it in my driveway.

Camden Hills State Park, 1995

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Somewhere in our boxes of physical prints are some from Maine in August 1995. At some point, I scanned one of them.Camden Hills State Park, Maine

The view looks toward the town of Camden, and out into West Penobscot Bay. Camden Hills State Park surrounds the town, and we camped there, though not exactly at this vista. I don’t think so, anyway.

I don’t remember a lot about Camden Hills SP, but even so I was reminded of that place when I found out that August 4 is a free day at all national parks, reportedly in honor of the anniversary of the passage of the Great American Outdoors Act four years earlier.

Not because Camden was a national park – obviously not, it was a state park – but because it was close to Acadia National Park, which hugs the coast of Maine just a little further to the east. The visit to Camden was a weekend trip, so there wasn’t another day for Acadia, though we knew it was there. No worries, we’ll visit later, was the thinking.

So far that hasn’t happened. Maine was close in 1995; now it’s a little far. But still possible. I did a count and among the actual national parks (not other kinds of park service units) in the Lower 48, I’ve visited 26 out of 51. None of those was on a free day, including August 4, 2024. Major events that day including mowing the lawn and sweeping out the garage.