A special opening shout-out to Owl Chatter friend Pennsylvania Sandee, who is not at all blobby, but responded to our piece on this year’s Blobfest by noting she and hubby Jeff used to live near the Colonial Theater in Phoenixville. She recommends their backstage tour. (Phil! You hear that? Put it on your list.)
At 63A today, the clue was “Divisive pizza topping” and the answer was OLIVES. I agree with Rex’s take: Hey, are OLIVEs really “divisive?” Anchovies, sure, that’s canon, but OLIVEs? More than other toppings? Weird. OLIVEs rule, though it’s true I rarely have them on pizza. If I found them on my pizza, however, I would not mind. “Divisive?” You folks are weird.
Jeez Louise, this one looks good. We had excellent pizza at Nomad Pizza in Hopewell, NJ, last Saturday, especially the Pear and Gorgonzola pie.
John Mayall died at age 90 on Monday, the godfather of the British blues, and mentor to Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor of the Stones, and many others. He’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the “musical influence” category. Phil took this shot of him for us a few years ago when Mayall was performing in Seattle at age 85.
And here’s some of his early sound.
Mayall’s two marriages ended in divorce but he was married to his second wife for 30 years: a blues performer herself, Maggie Mayall, who helped manage John’s career. He had six kids and six grandchildren, all of whom, I would bet, are well-versed in the blues and probably play a pretty mean guitar. Rest in peace, John.
This poem from today’s Writer’s Almanac by Dick Davis is called “A Monorhyme for the Shower.” It’s an intimate peek at a happy marriage that made me feel that I should maybe look away.
Lifting her arms to soap her hair
Her pretty breasts respond—and there
The movement of that buoyant pair
Is like a spell to make me swear
Twenty-odd years have turned to air;
Now she’s the girl I didn’t dare
Approach, ask out, much less declare
My love to, mired in young despair.
Childbearing, rows, domestic care—
All the prosaic wear and tear
That constitute the life we share—
Slip from her beautiful and bare
Bright body as, made half aware
Of my quick surreptitious stare,
She wrings the water from her hair
And turning smiles to see me there.
So the wife steps out of the shower as the husband steps in and they hear the doorbell ring. The husband says, “Can you run down and see who it is?” so she wraps a big white towel around herself and goes down to see who’s at the door. It’s their neighbor, Bill. He takes one look at her and says, “I’ll give you $300 if you let that towel drop.” She thinks for a second and then, voila. He hands her the money, she wraps the towel around herself again, and goes back upstairs. The husband says, “Who was it?” and she says “Bill, from next door.” And he says, “Good. Did he say anything about the $300 he owes me?”
Back to that Blobfest for a moment, Frank Bruni’s “For the love of sentences” feature includes this sentence from the NYT by Emmett Lindner: “In Phoenixville, Pa., where much of ‘The Blob’ was shot, thousands of fans gathered at the 25th annual Blobfest over the weekend to celebrate with ooze and ahhs.”
Also in the NYT, food critic Pete Wells wrote about his retiring and recalled a colleague’s caveat that every lofty Times job is rented formal wear, not permanent threads: “It’s time to return the tux. I’ve had the trousers let out a few inches, but a tailor can take them in again. As for the stain on the jacket, that’s just pork fat. I think it adds character.”
Hold on. D’oh! Can you just relax for a minute with Phil’s friend Larissa? I gotta go check on the soup. Larissa is from Brazil and is as talented as she is pretty.
OK, thanks Larissa. I’m back. My brother and sister loved Jean Shepard. He told stories on the radio and infused my family with his personal style of off-beat humor. I’d be hard pressed to identify it among all the strands of nonsense here in Owl Chatter, but I’m sure it’s in there in good measure. He was born on this date in Chicago in 1925. The one story of his that was made into a movie was The Christmas Story (1983). It’s about a boy who wants a BB gun for Christmas, even though every adult in his life says he’ll shoot his eye out.
For now, I’m just going to steal this material from The Writer’s Almanac. And I’ll see what George and I can dig up on him in the coming days.
“The stories Shepherd told on-air were always improvised, but he later wrote them down and published them in collections like In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash (1967) and Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters (1972). He said: “Some men are Baptists, others Catholics. My father was an Oldsmobile man.”
Happy birthday, Shepard.
“Wrong window. I’m a sea lion. You need an otter.”
Happy Anniversary, kids! Hard to believe it’s been a year already. Here’s a lesson on how to feel like you’re all alone with your babe while the eyes of the whole world are on you. Hold on tight.
We’re going to let Larissa play us off tonight with Eric Clapton’s heart-wrenching song Tears in Heaven, about the death of his 4-year-old son Conor.
See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 