...when she finally concluded at the end by summarizing....

There ought to be something profound to say at the end of National Blog Post Month.  Ok, profundity is a stretch, but something meaningful anyway.  What's it all about, etc.

It has not been easy to make space for it every night -- reading other people's finds on the Internet are always more interesting than anything I think I might say about them, and there are plenty of topics I did not get to this month that I had listed ou on my little listie.

I thought for sure there would be an "Occupy" commentary.  I need to get back in the election swing for Decision 2012, but I felt like it was all being said.  Or tweeted.  Or photoshopped.  Or videoed.

I wanted to explore what goes on in the Fellowship Tract League -- the pamphlet people.  A lot, I discovered, but their own website covers it, really.  They make a tract in ASL.  I cock my head.

The guy in the center is reading "Porn XXX."  He super-sized.

I had some art-nostic opinions about the new Walton-funded art museum in Arkansas, but I think NPR got to them first.  Or maybe that's where I got them in the first place.

After learning my hiking boots had been retired by New Balance, I fantasized George Mallory trying to find a new alpine hat for his next Base Camp visit. That scene amused me until I was home, then I was done with it.  The way that story really ends is that I found the 2007 model (mine are 1999, all right - I admit it), which has also been retired, and bought 2 pair.  If I am still hiking at 60, please teleport me to New Balance so I can show off these shoes.

Push came to shove during the holiday week and I had to borrow from other sources in order to both unplug for vacation and fulfill this inconsequential obligation.  They were my sources, though, so it's cool.

I am always interested in reading the site traffic report, and will have to see what happened over the past month.  Besides the NaBlo traffic, I am grateful to the Non-Fiction Class at Plymouth State U for their interest and feedback.  I had nothing profound to say to them either about what motivates me to keep blogging -- particularly in the dark, anonymously, about nothing of much significance whatsoever.

I guess because it is there.

Thanks for supporting the bloggers in your life.  We do what we can to break up the day.

Double bubble

A loyal reader asks:

So what am I supposed to call the stuff, anyway? Seltzer? Soda Water? Sparkling Water? Club Soda? Tonic? Our favorite: "Fizzy Water." And is there actually a difference, or are these just different words (regionalisms?) for exactly the same thing?

I am pleased to oblige.  

First, there was Water.  And it was Good.
Because I stopped listening to science around 6th grade, I believe that you should theoretically be able to make water out of air.  I realize that's not true -- it requires some curly-que'd flasks and a thing that goes buzz -- but water you know.


Now gas it up: your water needs more elements in it.  It's name is Legion, but I believe there are connotative differences in the term you choose.  The origins of the terms themselves are covered in delightful detail on Wikipedia.  Pay them or don't pay them; that's their business.  We were talking about me.


Seltzer  conjures up the art deco spray bottle on the bar that Nick Charles handled so well.  Because of that, to me, seltzer is the hard bubbles, the dangerous bottle that has to be opened like cracking a safe.  We say it so it rhymes with salsa, and as I have mentioned, Polah makes the craziest Seltzah flavahs evah.  It is in fact the same thing as sparkling water. but sparkling water is softer:  Pelligrino, for example.  Seltzer in the Social Register.
Perrier is too oily, far too soft, and is mineral water anyway. Why accept nature's bubbles when you can trick them out?

"Fizzy Water" is accurate (and charming).  It will get you through a language barrier.  It could get you served a bromide.

Bromo Seltzer - is your remedy for not having drunk seltzer.  It is Tylenol + bicarb + citric acid.  And you deserve it.  Alka-Seltzer is bicarb + potassium bicarbonate + citric acid, and indistinguishable from Efferdent.   


Barley water is what Mary Poppins never smells of.   The more you learn about British foods, the more you understand the Revolution.

Club Soda contains added salt.  Why?  I have no idea.  Club Soda is what you say on the airplane, or in any establishment where you know they will not know what seltzer is.  It comes out of the gun at the bar.  They have it.

Tonic is not club soda.  Tonic is the vile mosquito repellent so undrinkable that is requires gin to make it go down.  (And they do play nicely together once you introduce them.)  Tonic is carbonated water + qunine, and according to Wikipedia, it glows in UV light.  You try it; I'm not gonna.

Seltzer Madness

Ever try to buy seltzer in a grocery store outside of New England?  Are you right now asking, "what's seltzer?"  Can't feature what a seltzer aisle even looks like?  No SUH! 

This story will amuse you even more.  There is a new sheriff in town over at the Polar Seltzer, and by the looks of it, s/he was recently transferred from Yankee Candle.  Because this is a terrible idea.



You don't have to taste it to know it is a terrible idea.  But I did taste it, and I am still resentful, weeks later.  (I am also on day 27 of this blog-a-thon, and even Jerry Lewis eventually loosened his bow tie.  I'll write about anything at this point, but that press release opener...?  Manna.)

A gateway to seltzer?  Why does Polar need to push its bubbly deliciousness on anyone?  Because they just bought a bottling facility in Georgia (from Winn-Dixie, saints preserve us) and the South needs more than carbonation to get its drink on.

Premium seltzers.  Seltzer costs 88 cents a half gallon.  It's hardly premium.  And in spite of everything else we learned in the Rich & Famous 80s, "gross" is not a synonym for "gourmet."

The season's most beloved aromas.  This is not tea.  This is seltzer.  As a mixer, I might buy it (metaphorically.  Not literally.  not at half price). 

A healthier choice of refreshment.   Because if you can't drink it, it can't hurt you.

Granny Smith Apple :  Jolly Rancher plus a facial masque without any of the afterglow of Woodchuck.

Cinnamon:  a candle over ice.  How refreshing!

Candy Cane:  

Pumpkin Spice: Lemme tell you something, pumpkin.  I have been your biggest champion.  But you are this close to getting kicked out of this car.  Settle.  Down . 

Eggnog:  now you've made me mad.


Predicting the Cinco de Mayo flavors:
Chipotle
Mole
Pinata full of Chiclets
Dulce de Leche
Margarita Lime... ok, maybe not so bad.  They may have gotten to me.


Hope you're enjoying National Blogpost Month.
Here's another NaBloPoMo participant for you to enjoy.
http://veritiesandbalderdash.wordpress.com/

Heroes on the run

#37 in an occasional series of repressed 70's memories that turn out to be true. 


Let me explain the differences between Run, Joe Run and Run, Joey, Run.  They are subtle.


If you are looking for the ballad of teen lovers, sung to the baseline of Shaft... or just really like primitive music videos (see... red symbolizes blood, man) you want to go here.

If you want to explore why so many of Saturday morning's line-up was made up of fugitives, stay right where you are.

Run, Joe, Run
Amnesty-seeking Canine GI wigs out during a training exercise and attacks his trainer.... or does he?  To escape the gas, he takes to the run.  And we are to believe that his $200 bounty is enough to make him vulnerable to fortune seekers.  Take a Lude, Joe - you are totally harshing.  Anyway, Joe becomes the stranger who lopes to town, and helps others as he helps himself.  I need the readership to explain how this accusation against Joe came about, since his own trainer is trying to clear his name.  Total Television is silent on this account.

I believe that's William Cannon on the opening narration.  Expository intros were  in vogue, as we have addressed before.  Give that Tarzan a new listen, too, and tell me if that is Richard Chamberlain.  It would explain everything about my need to commit to memory.  Tarzan, however, is no fugitive.  It is easy to confuse him with

Lucan

"unjustly accused" of killing some drug-dealers he takes up the baton dropped by his cultural cousin Joe while on the run from the university's bounty hunters.  That's what I said.   

Why was Kung Fu on the run?  I couldn't remember.    "I like to think he killed a man; it's the Romantic in me..."  Caine had to leave China, but it wasn't for the glamor of working the railroad.  That was just a bonus.  If you ever wondered how s-l-o-w-l-y a prime time drama could move, watch a little Kung Fu.  Let me know if you make it through this clip.


The Incredible Hulk was not a Saturday show either --  CBS put their spring replacement into the fall season on Friday nights, first in a strong double bill with Wonder Woman, then later as a weird opening choice for the Dukes. [:02 DIXIE].  "The creature is wanted for a murder he didn't commit..."  blah blah you know it by now and the "raging spirit that dwells within him."

You know who they mean....
Hell hath no fury like the decorated vet scorned....

Setting the stage for this crew: 
armed and bloody well for hire.  The A Team is grumpily pursued by a full bird Colonel who apparently can't delegate enough to get some NonComs to do his dirty work for him... like they did in the Nam, brother.



Hope you're enjoying National Blogpost Month.
Here's another NaBloPoMo participant for you to enjoy.
http://forty-fiveseventeen.blogspot.com/

Practically perfect afternoon

Someone is about to confiscate the tambourines.

I don't mean to suggest by this title that there were flaws in the afternoon.  If there was anything less-than-perfect, it was that I had to end it so early, due to living so far out and needing so much to do before returning to my routine life.  I certainly could have extended.

Some things you do just to blog about them.  Some things you do for the officially sanctioned freedom of singing "Sister Suffragette" at the top of your voice in a public place.  This was the latter.

Sing-along Mary Poppins at Arlington's beautiful Regent Theatre has one more showing this weekend, and you need to get down there to help skew the average age to those who can actually read the lyrics... and BOO the Bankers when they chant "Think of the Foreclosures!!"

It is a damn shame we did not have this theatre event in my youth, because I would have been there every weekend, in an era where you certainly could afford to go to the movies every weekend (and a horror flick screamer was 94 cents).  What is also a damn shame is that kids today have to be so disaffected so young, because this is best enjoyed by a 7th or 8th grader (what we would have done with Grease!) who would be Too Cool for The Musicool these days.  The audience at our showing was mostly under 10, mostly girls, mostly unable to sing-along.

But boy howdee, could they bang a tambourine. 

The owner of the Regent -- an exurbent Boomer with a fleece jacket featuring the dogs' poker table -- provided each participant with a bag of supplies:  tambourine, glo-sticks (for the rooftop fireworks), spoon (for sugar), tiny mug (for tea party on the ceiling), and tuppence (for choking on).  The film comes with a few instructions, but the tambourines caught on right away.

Props missing were cannon (for chiming the hour on a film that runs 139 minutes), rotten eggs for throwing at the Prime Minister, the Time Warp, and rum punch (hic).  But the kids held up fine.  There was one meltdown as Mary Poppins prepared to leave (after the longest week in cinema history).  Or maybe the poor tyke finally figured out what suffrage was. 

Best synopsis ever, from imdb:  "A magic nanny comes to work for a cold banker's unhappy family."
(Do not confuse with "A failed novice comes to work for a bitter captain's unhappy family."  That opens in December) .

At the earlier showing, the 2nd grader in full Jolly Holiday get-up no doubt won the costume contest.  At our showing were 2 boys who made knickers by shoving their pants into their socks, and 20 other kids who just took the owner up on his offer to walk across the stage.

He read us several interesting trivia points, which 8th graders (ok, Dodie and I) would have enjoyed -- then we would have stayed after and begged him to screen Oliver! next.  The little ones weren't listening, but we adults enjoyed the tip of looking for men in drag in the Nanny Applicants' line.

If it has been a while since you watched this film straight through, particularly with 20 5 year-olds, you'll want to prepare them for the long talky bits of insufferable Mr Banks.  You'll want to prepare yourself for how LONG the Jolly Holiday is.  I chose "I Love to Laugh" as my bathroom break.  You'll want to be fully refreshed for the Dance of the Chimney Sweeps. 

On this Small Business Saturday, this is the event we chose - and you can still get in on Rolf and Lisl's turn in the gazebo.  The Regent is a fantastic independent venue of music, theatre, comedy, and film in the heart of Arlington, MA. If you can't get here, activate the closed captions on your own home theatre and dream up your own props for any of the films mentioned above, or perhaps Wizard of Oz,  Newsies, or Hello Dolly.  The kids love Dolly Levi.

This is my favorite Mary Poppins bit on the Internet.  It has been around a while, but still delivers.




Hope you're enjoying National Blogpost Month.
Here's another NaBloPoMo participant for you to enjoy.
http://www.swearypoppins.com