Tag Archives: postaday2011
Tag Lines
A middle-age woman in jeans, a t-shirt and a short, white veil was sitting at the center stage table at Knucklehead’s last week when singer/story-teller Tom Russell was the headliner. Later, we chatted while waiting at the back counter for a couple of pre-show brisket specials.
“So,” I said. “The veil must mean something?” “My bachelorette party,” she quickly confided. “What happens at Knucklehead’s stays right here,” she said slamming the counter with the flat of her hand. “Yes, indeedy,” I said to her back as she grabbed her order and headed back to her table.
“What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” is some tag line. It has slipped into the American vernacular and shows up in the most out of the way places. It sums up their city — what’s bright, special and why you’d want to drop by. Here are some other city tags that I like. (Source: Tagline Guru)
Always Turned On – Atlantic City, NJ
So Very Virginia – Charlottesville, VA
The Sweetest Place on Earth – Hershey, PA
Rare. Well Done – Omaha, NE
The City Different – Santa Fe, NM
City with Sol – San Diego, CA
And my personal regional favorite:
Where the Odds Are With You – Peculiar, MO
Flushed
Today Sig and I took delivery of a 24’ steel grey, Mercedes Sprinter van in Austin, Texas, a long way from home. We ordered it a couple of months ago after endless nights of fretting and more fretting and finally giving up saying, “Why the hellnot?”
We spot it on the lot right away. It is the only steel grey among a herd of white. And it really is something.
We climb around in it for a while, and then go in and get about the business of finalizing things, like the size of the refrigerator, the arrangement of the cabinets, the color of the carpet, the soul of the toilet.
Paul, the absolute conversion coordinator, talks about toilets: the cassette and the porta-potty. The cassette toilet is a stable, predictable fixture that makes people feel at home while the porta-potty is flexible and encourages diversity and spontaneity. The two are the same size, style and general demeanor. But water is pumped to the cassette toilet and hauled to the other.
We finally choose the porta-potty! Imaginary confetti dumps from the ceiling, we all gaze up and smile at the positive consequence of our choice.
I don’t much remember anything after that.
Snarky
So I wake up this morning and learn Paul McCartney is married again. Since I really didn’t have a dog in that race, I didn’t think much beyond, hmmm. But I couldn’t resist clicking to the Huffpost pop culture cache for the details.
Along with a requisite photo of the beaming couple in a shower of confetti, the article introduces the bride, an American heiress of 51, and chatters about the wedding details. Here’s the part that kills me.
The former mop-top wore his tinted hair longish for the occasion, bringing back memories of the days when girls swooned as he sang “All My Loving” and other boy-meets-girl hits.
Tinted hair? Did this follow with … and the bride attached a flower in her artificially darkened for the occasion coiffure to remind herself that 50 is the new 40? Nope, not a single word.
I felt the same way when I first read that Mama Cass died when she choked on a ham sandwich; it was in 1974. (A giant myth, as it turns out. She died of heart failure but it was too tempting to leave out the leftover ham sandwich on her night stand.)
I think of things like this when I remember I’m not a celebrity. Have a Happy Monday, Monday.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Comfort
It’s a lazy Saturday morning in October.
Steve Jobs
October 5, 2011
Unplugged.
Location, Location
Put your name on a waiting list and you never know what will happen. But that’s how I ended up in a box seat on opening night for Turandot, the Lyric Opera’s first performance, at the new Kauffman performing arts center in Kansas City
I was greeted by a server holding a tray of champagne — and guided into a door that opened to a spacious area with 4 chairs angled toward an enclosed balcony overlooking the orchestra.
I settled in close to the railing so that I could put my champagne glass on the ledge. I looked to the left. Close enough to talk to were theatre-goers in rows just outside my box seat. I caught people looking over to where I sat and imagined them wondering how much my seat had cost.
Here Turandot (Lise Lindstrom) gazes up to check out my box seat.
I casually sipped my champagne as if I did not know that ushers had insisted that the others leave their unfinished drinks in the lobby bar. The server brought in a menu announcing an order of seasoned nuts, fresh fruit and a modest cheese tray for two could be delivered immediately for 45.00. I waved her away, saying that I had already had dinner.
The lights dimmed. I took off my shoes and pulled back in the chair. The opera? Oh, it was amazing. But not nearly as good as my box seat.
Walter and the Oven Season
Walter, a friendly clerk at the Sear’s Scratch and Dent Appliance Store down in the East Bottoms, announced that it is the beginning of Oven Season. 
“From here on out,” he says, “people start dreaming of what they can bake, roast, broil, saute, boil and lightly sear. They’ll squint at their old stoves and mentally switch them out for sleeker, bigger, more robust models. I’ll see ‘em coming in, all the way through December.”
He nods toward a bunch refrigerators.
“Those sales slump after summer. Nobody’s thinkin’ about guh spah choh,” he drawls,
“ it’s all about beef stew.”
Sometimes you just have to listen to learn.
Inside Out
TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out in 1984 as a meeting of the minds of like-minded people interested in big ideas. Speakers have 18 minutes to present their ideas in the most engaging ways possible. Surprisingly, people were willing to pay what was then $4400 to attend and hob nob with others also willing to pay to play.
The TED Prize was introduced in 2005. It is awarded annually to an exceptional individual who receives $100,000 and much more important, One Wish to Change the World. The 2011 award went to JR, a self-styled artivist from France.
I wish for you to stand up for what you care about by participating in a global art project, and together we’ll turn the world…INSIDE OUT.
JR has turned number of places in the world inside-out with his black and white portrait projects such as Women are Heroes. It features the faces of resilient women who live in Kibera, Kenya’s largest slum; the portraits are super-sized and cut in two. The bottom half of their faces are glued to rooftops on a hillside; the top half of the portraits shows their eyes pasted onto train cars. Every time the train passes, for a few seconds, the faces are complete.
Israelis and Palestinians are together in his Face 2 Face project; JR wall-papered both sides of security fences/barriers with portraits in 8 different cities.
Want to be a part of the art? Join the Inside-Out Project. Take a black and white photo or series of photos. Send it in to be made into a poster, when it is returned decide where you want it to hang. Open to individuals and groups world-wide. As JR would say, It’s a way to stand up for what you care about.
Whatta’ world
This image belongs to Living Earth, well worth a visit.