Keys

Johnny Staccato is an odd duck in TV Land. It started in 1959, when Peter Gunn had been on the air for a year, and it seems to have given itself the challenge of out-Gunning Gunn. Thus while one show featured a private detective who hung out at a jazz club and dated the chanteuse, the other had a detective who actually sat in with the band. John Staccato, played by John Cassavetes, was the pianist at Waldo's, alternating with John Williams. Yes, that John Williams. And it was pretty vanguard jazz, aspiring to Dave Brubeck/Sonny Rollins levels of sophistication. 

Cassavetes apparently didn't like the show, which may be one reason why its only season ended in March rather than May. It probably doesn't say much about the quality of the show, since he doesn't strike me as someone who'd want to be tied down to any TV show. He did still direct several episodes.

The quality of the episodes varies, but it has a pretty good batting average. Cassavetes's twitchy intensity was well suited to playing an eccentric gumshoe, believe it or not. They could also pull in some impressive guest stars. The second episode is an entirely obvious murder mystery, but features Martin Landau in a key role, providing a cool to Cassavetes's hot. And yes, offscreen wife Gena Rowlands shows up, in an episode that really drives home how different air travel was during the Eisenhower era.

Digging that crazy sound

"Art of Noise" refers back to both a Futurist manifesto and a British electronic group most influential for the fact that they really weren't a band at all. Currently it's also an exhibition at New York's Cooper-Hewitt museum. Some of the old music players are quite striking, suggesting in a few instances a fictional history a la Steampunk or Dieselpunk. 

I read a review of this show in the hard copy edition of the New York Times. The article suggested that the era of owning music is ending. Could well be, but if you're able to resist this trend, you probably should. Consider that there are words that there are words artists or record companies could want to censor out, or feel pressured to do so. Or perhaps worse, feel a need to insert words that weren't there. Or, say, the single edit of a song is such a hit that the album version eventually disappears. A world of streaming-only music probably would be quite a bit smaller by comparison.

More scenes from the end of the Internet

I was recently locked out of my email account. It had happened a couple of times before and blown over after a couple of days. This time it was looking like more of a long-term thing, and in the event it lasted the better part of a week before I got in touch with the provider and restored usage.

Why did it happen? It seems to fall under the broad category of "suspicious activity." I've gotten a number of phishing emails, to be sure. Everybody has. And I wouldn't be surprised if someone else had gotten these phishing attempts but dummied up to look like they're from me.

But it also may have thrown the system out of whack if I logged in from something other than my home computer. The library, say. An increasing number of websites get paranoid if you log in from someplace other than your home computer. They might require you to log into your email and respond to something they just sent you. But your email provider might get a little freaked by that as well, and send a request to confirm your identity.

This can complicate things in terms of editing a wiki or commenting on a blog. It may, in fact, prevent you from doing these things at all. Luck of the draw. But people expect a certain amount of mobility in connection with the internet. Take that away and they might start losing interst.

Why do I keep this blog? This is why.

A bird, nesting, right over the doorway.

I first saw the bird in the nest a couple of days ago, above the door I generally use to get to the sidewalk. The bird didn't move, so I figured it must be artificial. Some kind of garden decoration somebody had planted up there either for a gag or because they just liked the way it looked. Although the nest was a little messy for that.

But today I came back and the building's Russian handyman pointed the bird―which looks like some kind of columbiform―out to me. It's real. She's real, and had a chick next to her. Maybe there's a daddy bird out there getting food for them? We don't know. 

Late afternoon, early evening, we had a thunderstorm. I went downstairs to look at the bird through the little window over the door. This time I did see her head move. And later on, at night, her head was turned so she could look inside. 

How could this not be a blessing?

You beat everything, you know that?

Here's another story from while I was out getting breakfast. A man―he was black, and that's a relevant detail for reasons I'll make clear―was sitting with a young woman and talking to her. From context I don't think she was his daughter, but I don't think they were an item either. Maybe a niece. He was telling her about The Andy Griffith Show, and he was a big fan. When he talked about Deputy Barney Fife I said "Don Knotts" and he was glad to have someone else who knew about the show. Which the waitress did as well. 

At this point it feels like anyone writing about The Andy Griffith Show for a magazine or a website would have to keep an arm's length from it. They'd call it out for its overly rosy portrayal of the Jim Crow South, or for its lack of characters of color. From what I understand Griffith was a desegregationist and didn't want the cast to be all white, but the network thought they understood the South better than he did and overruled him. Of course if Mayberry had been a friendly integrated town, someone would be complaining about that, too.

Anyway, my point is that while the internet is everywhere and seemingly in everything, people in real life are still different.

Well-nested

Matryoshka, those Russian nesting dolls. You ever think about them? Sure you do. Ever wonder if they're still made by hand? Well, someone has to ponder things like that.

Actually, the process, if this video is any guide, is still refreshingly physical. Of course these dolls are huge. Real statement dolls.

Proof

With the realization that I can be kind of a broken record on this topic, I'll keep it brief.

Do you remember "15 Days to Slow the Spread"? I do. In at least one business that was closing down for that period of time on government orders/strong suggestions, I remember saying "See you in a couple of weeks." Because as dismal as the idea of a central authority ordering all face to face social activity suspended was, at least they'd put a time limit on it.

Of course the fifteen days came and went. Without a word of explanation, the suspension was extended. Now there was no fixed endpoint, and no admission that there ever had been. Anyone who spoke or acted with the expectation of being allowed to return to their regular life was shamed into silence.

That's why, outside of some limited hangout, there will be no reckoning on the COVID era. Nothing actually went wrong. It was an experiment, and at root it had nothing to do with masks or vaccines, very little to do with COVID itself. The object was to see how much the population would tolerate gaslighting, Orwellian memory-holing, and leonine contracts. A lot, it turns out. Experiment successful.