People who attended the first week’s 70mm screening of Marty Supreme at the Hollywood got to take home not only a poster but also a box of Marty Supreme orange table tennis balls. (Never wear black again.) So. Much. Fun!
There was also a local table tennis club tabling, so I brought home their flyer.
All of this went to my friend S. North, who actually plays ping pong.
After dropping Matt, Linda, and Rick off at the airport, I went to Ikea, and then I had planned to hang about Hollywood for a bit of time before my 2:30 move showtime.
I discovered that unless one is eating (or seeing a movie, but it wasn’t yet time for my movie) there’s not a ton to do on a Sunday in Hollywood. The Rite-Aid closed and turned into a Planet Fitness and the antique mall is closed on Sundays, Ray’s Ragtime isn’t where it once was, and the clothing store I thought I would check out had gone out of business and were moving their naked mannikins into a U-Haul.
I ended up wandering slowly through Trader Joes and then took a tiny street behind the Hollywood Theatre that I hadn’t walked down before.
And what did I find? Lockbuster? What might this be?
In the tiny storefront was a huge display of VHS tapes. When I got closer, I saw that the labels were top-notch. Who wouldn’t want a “vaguely British/Hitchcock” category.
Or a “holy pursuits” category that included both Excalibur and Monty Python’s the Holy Grail.
This label elicited a bark of laughter:
And I also enjoyed the “movies that look like this” category as that packaging was very familiar to me and I had forgotten its existence.
On a return visit to this window, a passerby informed me that this is an escape room, pulling the “Lockbuster” name into focus.
In elementary school, I purchased 40 Presidents Facts and Fun at a book fair. It was one of those books that had an outsized effect on me.
First of all, I can tell you immediately that Ronald Regan was the 40th president, because that’s where the book ends. Also, it shored up my interest in olden days stuff. And for some reason, the title has always delighted me. Most of the time when someone is referring to a president by number, I will think, “Forty Presidents Facts and Fun!” and feel a squee of glee.
In lieu of reading while I am awake in the middle of the night, I’ve taken to memorizing the presidents in order. And that got me to thinking about 40 Presidents Facts and Fun.
I had given my copy away, but it was time to welcome it back into the fold. I found a copy on Thriftbooks, and paid about five dollars more for it now than I did back at the Scholastic book fair.
My copy has arrived, and I have started reading. Verdict? This was not a book that prioritized good prose for young people. The sentences are short and choppy, and the profiles vary depending on the length of the presidency (which makes sense; there’s not much to say about William Henry Harrison’s short time in office) and how popular the president in question was when the book was written. The Andrew Jackson bio was quite lengthy in a way I don’t think it would be today.
It’s also bizarre what the text focuses on. I know, for instance, that John Adams was very fat, and that John Quincy Adams, was nearly as fat as his father. Not something that adds a lot of knowledge about the president.
When I finish reading, I’m looking forward to finding the modern equivalent of 40 Presidents Facts and Fun and seeing what the similarities and differences are.
I’ve passed the Columbia Gorge Model Railroad club’s building many times. Every December they have a show, and every December I make a mental note to go to the show. And then I don’t. Last December, I made a task in my calendar for November to buy tickets, and voila! I am now attending the show.
The ticket taker encouraged me to do the scavenger hunt, and I’m glad she did. It was fun to find so many little details.
Here we have Union Station and a few other Portland buildings. The lights changed so the sun went down fairly regularly; here is an evening shot.
I loved that this drive-in was showing a movie.
It was also fun to watch the people operate the trains.
In this cute streetscape, a Santa rode a bicycle around the building on a loop. It’s not only the trains that move!
This coal car filler was malfunctioning, so some assist was given.
This was a fun visit, and I’m glad I finally bought the ticket.
I didn’t know the that Pearl District had a tree lighting until the Low Bar Chorale advertised in their newsletter that they were performing. Being a fan of both the Low Bar Chorale and free things, I invited the singing friends, and Jeff, Kelly, and Laurie attended with me.
We had a fun time singing along to Low Bar Chorale winter standards including “Hazy Shade of Winter” (Bangles version) and “December” which sounds remarkably like Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” but with a few changed lyrics.
There were some fun little munchkins who skipped around the square at intervals. And the turnout was good.
Before the lighting:
And after!
It was a chilly, fun sing-along. And Kelly was relieved that “All I Want for Christmas Is You” was not among the song selections.
I sent Boise tea reports to a tea-drinking friend. The previous day at the bacon restaurant, I received a paper cup with water and one tea bag, while the coffee drinkers had ceramic mugs and unlimited refills. Tea discrimination!
At this family style restaurant I got a ceramic mug, a hot water pitcher (that they refilled) and THREE tea bags. Tea appreciation!
Because of the way the calendar fell this year, I was in Boise the last day of October and the first weekend of November, which meant different things were available than when I visit around the 20th of October.
We stopped by the Eagle Holiday Bazaar, a staple of my childhood. It had all sorts of things, none of which I brought home. It was fun to see the creators creating in between helping customers at their booths.
What I discovered is that at Eagle High School, seniors each get their own parking spot. This was not a thing when I was in high school. We just grabbed whatever space was available.
And what’s more, their spaces are decorated. I thought perhaps by the students, but my tea-drinking friend said it might be the parents. Apparently someone wanted to call out Deuteronomy 4:29 (“But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul,” according to the first Google search result).
Someone is into the lord. Either the student or the parent.
This post brought to you by Sara’s game of “Send Me the Most Idaho Picture” while I was visiting in Boise.
I didn’t send her a picture of the Don’t Tread on Me license plate I saw in the wild because I was driving at the time, but I did tell her about it. Then I looked up when that plate had gone into production. Answer: relatively recently.
That sent me down a path of looking at ALL the Idaho plates available, which are many, some of which are pictured here.
I’m from the era when there was one plate: the white and green Famous Potatoes plate. In 1990, we could get the centennial plate, which is what most of the above plate are based on. And that was what you got. I don’t mind that people can pick their plates, and that organizations get a cut, but I do miss the uniformity.
Most interesting discovery: There is a Pearl Harbor Survivor plate available in Idaho. I’m guessing the number of people who have that plate is in the single digits, if not zero. There are only 12 survivors left nationwide.
The Guardian has a new game called Film Reveal in their Guardian App. You get three actors and three categories and then must guess a movie that fits the nexus of the two. The less common your guess, the higher your score.
Here’s a finished one:
It’s very interesting to see what category is hard. Sometimes it will be an actor I can’t picture in any movie, much less in a specific category. Sometimes, I will get stuck on just one film the person is in, and can’t for the life of me think of another.
I’ve also learned that it’s best to look at the different categories before committing a movie to a specific one. I might be able to think of several two-word titles, but only one film between 1990 and 2000. If I’ve committee that one film to the two-word titles, I gnash my teeth.
This was a particularly good score that I got at the very end of the puzzle day.
I kicked of my vacation with a trip to Portland Playhouse to see their latest production.
It’s 1940s gentrifying Detroit, and will the Paradise Club survive? Netta McKenzie, Mikell Sapp, Lester Purry, and Cycerli Ash put us through the paces of this engaging show. It required a few of the actors to act like they were playing instruments in parts, and they did a good job with that tricky task.
I also enjoyed the set design. There’s a hidden room that appears later on.
While there was not as much tap dancing as I would have liked in Anything Goes, this was a very fun musical! It had a great Art Deco set and costumes (rented from the Utah Festival Opera and Musical Theater, so you might get to see them too), memorable songs, and fun shenanigans.
It was a lovely afternoon at the theater.
