The Spyglass Chronicles: 8/16/16

Posted: August 16th, 2016 | Filed under: Cinema, Culture, Dining, Food, Music | No Comments »

“Affordable Shotguns Planned at Broadway, Baxter” Courier-Journal Headline. Geez, just what we need another gun shop. A discount one at that. Or, so I thought when reading that not so clear — to me, anyway — headline in the C-J. I thought it was referring to the next biz in the long vacant gas station/ convenience store there at that corner. Turns out it referred to “shotgun houses,” that were being turned over to Preservation Louisville Inc. by the developers of the new housing project. Guess the NRA and its acolytes have made me a little gun shy.

Margherita Pizza, Birracibo. Artisanal, my ass. Crafted by a hack is more like it. No subtlety whatsoever. Wimpy dough. (Would be a travesty to call it crust.) “Pomodoro” sauce that tasted like Chef Boyardee himself was in the kitchen. Overwhelmed with glops upon glops of tasteless cheese. So wet I almost asked our very attentive waitress for a mop during one of her many visits to the table. It’s what I get for suggesting to my pals we try out the new “Italian” place in Fourth Street Live. Never again.

“Bo Diddley” Bo Diddley. It reverberates through the speakers as mysterious and messianic as it did more than a half century ago.

A mixture of rich Delta dirt, Jerome Green’s maracas and Elias McDaniel’s cosmic echoing rhythms. The sound was easily the most exotic from rock & roll’s Founding Fathers.

Christopher the Conquered & Some Other Guy, Musical Interlude during Commercials at the Movies. Okay, I didn’t catch the name of the guy in the first B & W video. Sitting at piano which he plays like he never got all the way through the Bastien Level 3 primer, and has a voice that grates like fingernails on a blackboard. And I’m wondering what mogul’s lawn he had to cut to get his video on screens across the country? Then figured Christopher the Conquered was cleaning the pool. His wimpy song “What’s the Name of the Town?,” also runs during those silver screen commercials.

It’s got to be payola. With all the really interesting music being crafted these days, the makers of that filler we’re forced to watch while waiting for the trailers at the flicks are choosing this crap?

No, they’re the ones who smell bad.¹

Organic Spray Tan. Perhaps The Donald should switch to this less toxic process for that orange skin glow he savors.

“We’ll Meet Again” Vera Lynn. A song that meant so much to so many during WWII, found new life in the boffo ending to Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

“Mein Fuhrer, I can walk.”

Taste of Frankfort Avenue, Clifton Center. Way delicioso.

John Oliver on Print Media. The pundit’s pithy (and extended as usual) rant about the impending death of universal print journalism.

Rock & Roll Story in “Real Life Rock” Greil Marcus. The book’s a compilation of Marcus’s always interesting “Real Life Top Ten” columns from various publications through the years. Here’s the gist of this great tale, totally stolen and paraphrased from GM’s book, which he probably stole and paraphrased from another publication. (I’d have printed it verbatim, if I could have found it.)

At some point years after Buddy Holly died in the day the music didn’t really die plane crash, the Peggy Sue, after whom his song was named, was doing a tour of some sort. Maybe for a book or something? I simply don’t recall. Another woman, a contemporary of hers who knew she had something in common with Peggy Sue, was able to get contact information, before Peggy Sue got to her town.

She called Peggy Sue, said she’d like to meet with her to chat.

Peggy Sue asked, “Do I know you?”

The woman replied, “No. But, I’m Donna.”

— c d kaplan

 

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