Doing the Barnes Dance

Meyer Lansky, the Secretary of the Treasury for Organized Crime who had a distinctive Lower East Side Yiddish accent and cadence to his speech, liked to meet other people who sounded like he did. Meyer passed away in Miami in 1983, but would stop by and talk to people who he detected sounded like he did from the old neighborhood. The sound of their voices made him homesick.

When he heard what he detected was New Yawk talk from people outside  a café or inside a restaurant, he would like to chat them up and tell them how nice it was to meet people who sounded like he did. Not everyone in South Florida came from New York.

Transplanted New Yorkers are everywhere. Whether it was true or not, I seem to remember someone saying in the 1950s that 1 out of 8 people in the United States could claim they were born in Brooklyn. This does seem remarkable, but possible nonetheless considering that Brooklyn has always been the most populated borough.

As if to further prove the New York origins of people, consider the person I know who moved to a nice town in Western Connecticut. They were a lifelong New Yorker, but have recently settled in a picturesque New England town.

A recent visit to see them resulted in one of those stories that just had to be a blog posting. The town has a busy main street with traffic lights and blinking WALK DON'T WALK  icons. Some places in New England have zebra-style crosswalks in the street with instructions to drivers to let pedestrians in the crosswalk cross the street. As a New Yorker, I know I'm never comfortable with the honor system of expecting drivers to slow and stop.

But this town's main street is a little busy, so they have directional signals at the corners for the pedestrians to press to alert the computers that someone wants to cross the street. An automated voice tells them to WAIT. Such a system can be found in a lot of communities. There is one here where I live in Nassau County. It's state of the art.

The story goes that after crossing the street in somewhat a cater-corner fashion, not adhering to automated WALK icons, my friend was met on the other side of the street by a man who made a comment.

Whether they actually saw the jaywalking transplanted New Yorker or not, they commented to them that, "you don't see anyone jaywalk around here." My friend replied that they just moved into the area from New York. The man explained that he was from Bayside, Queens. near "Frannie Lew."

Anyone from Queens knows that "Frannie Lew" is shorthand for Francis Lewis Boulevard, a busy thoroughfare. Francis Lewis Boulevard is named in honor of a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Thus, two transplanted New Yorkers had a momentary bond over jaywalking, something they both knew something about. What are the chances of that? Pretty good, since Transplanted New Yorkers are everywhere.

But what is jaywalking? I always knew it was a reference to crossing a street without paying attention to traffic signals. Crossing between parked cars is a favorite type of jaywalking, as is just plain not waiting for the WALK indicator or scooting past an expired WALK indicator to get to the other side of  the street. New Yorkers like to keep moving, even if it imperils their life. Okay, but how did it come  to be called jaywalking?

Turns out it has nothing to do with the gait of an imagined blue jay crossing a street. Google tells us Jay refers to an un-lawabiding rube who drives his wagon on the  wrong side of the road, or any pedestrian who doesn't adhere to traffic rules. Guilty.

Being the sometime New York City historian that I am, I remember when Henry Barnes became traffic commissioner in NYC. He came to New York in 1962 and served under two mayors, Robert Wagner and John Lindsay. His 1968 obituary tells us he passed away passed away at 61 on the job, suffering another one of his heart attacks.

Apparently he was a bit of a pugnacious (the obit says irascible) guy, but did introduce many features into the flow of New York  City traffic that are still in existence today. I didn't know it was he who made Fifth, Madison, and Avenue of the Americas (6th Avenue) one way thoroughfares, much to what was then everyone's displeasure.

What I remember most about Barnes was that he introduced legal jaywalking at the intersection of Vanderbilt Avenue and 42nd Street by programming the WALK signs to simultaneously give pedestrians the right of way to cross Vanderbilt Avenue and 42nd Street at the same time.

The intersection is right outside Grand Central Terminal. Vanderbilt Avenue is a short block that flows north from 42nd Street to 45th Street. There is not a lot of traffic on Vanderbilt. I think it is a two-way street. 

This innovation in pedestrian crossing was tried in Australia before New York. It was derided on the evening news and was nicknamed the Barnes Dance. I think the signals to this day allow the WALK signs at this intersection to give the two-way right of way.

New Yorkers are so oblivious to traffic signs that I doubt anyone crossing that intersection today—whether jaywalking or not—realizes its history as the first legalized jaywalking in New York City.

Newspaper protocols in the 1960s required the reporter to give the exact address where something happened, Thus, when Barnes had his fatal heart attack at work we were told it was at Traffic headquarters at 28-11 Bridge Plaza North, in Long Island City, Queens, (still there) hard by the Queens entrance to the bridge now known by three names depending on when you were born: The 59th Street Bridge; the Queensboro Bridge; The Ed Koch Bridge, named after a former, now deceased mayor.

Likewise, at the end of the obituary was learn not only the name of the funeral parlor where Henry Barnes was being waked, Frederick Funeral Home at 193rd Street and Northern Boulevard, Flushing (it's still there), but where Mr. Barnes lived: 79-33 215th Street, Bayside, Queens.

The Möbius Strip lives on. We're all connected. The man who stood on a Connecticut street corner and remarked that no one there jaywalks is from Bayside, and Henry Barnes lived in Bayside.

You can't make this up.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

Where Do I Vote?

In Nassau County where my wife and I are registered voters, we always get a postcard reminding us what districts we live in and where we can go to vote. I don't know if there a similar system in place in India, but people know when and where to vote, even if you live on an island of 90 people in the Arabian Sea, in the Gulf of Kutch, that boasts no schools, no medical facilities, few toilets, and spotty cell phone service, Ayad Island off the Western Coast of Gujarat in southern India. As usual, The Wall Street Journal's A-Hed piece delivers to us one of those wonderful rare global facts.

Here in the states, we go to the polls. In certain parts of India where the population lives remotely—to say the least—the polls come to them. In Ajad Island's case the poll workers arrive by boat to allow the 40 registered voters from a population of 90 to cast their vote in elections.

Aside from the A-Hed, there is a delightful YouTube video of what is known as Mid Sea Voting. The fingers these people are displaying are marked as having voted.

Notice the rifle a poll worker is carrying. Snakes are often encountered. Poll workers sleep overnight on the island in tents, and some choose to sleep on a roof rather than lay on the ground because of the snakes.

The WSJ reporters Shan Li and Rajesh Roy, tell us in the informative A-Hed piece that in India the are 5.5 million voting machines for one billion voters, in what is the world's largest election by votes cast. And by law, each voter must have a polling station within 1.2 kilometers of their home. Ajad Island sits 33 km. offshore from Salaya Port, so in order to comply with its own laws, India has to have the polling station come to them, even if it's only for 40 voters.

The upshot of this obligation to provide a means to vote for all means there are millions of people who are enlisted as election workers to deliver voting machines for polling dates that run from April 19 to June 1. This means gaining access to tiny islands as well as to remote villages in the Himalayas. Imagine mountain climbing as a requirement to be an election worker.

To me, the only romantic thing about Ajad Island where  people raise goats and chickens is when the election workers come. "We live a lonely life." says a 35-year-old woman, Fatima Sanghar. I'd agree.

But traditions are hard to break. Even a 22-year-old fisherman who moved to the mainland arrives by boat as well to vote where he was born. Saddam Ali tells the reporters, "it is our duty to cast a vote even if it inconvenient."

I guess he's not getting in touch with the India Board of Elections and changing his address.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

Ivan F. Boesky

Ivan F. Boesky passed away the other day at 87, and my reaction was one I sometimes have: you mean he was alive yesterday?

Anyone my age and even slightly informed will remember the name Ivan Boesky, the king of 1980s Wall Street who amassed a fortune through illegally obtained insider trading and other applications of the Black Arts of investing.

I have a friend, a retired surgeon, who is one of The Assembled at the race track. For a while he was doing so-called "day trading," trying to make money in the market through quick buying and selling. At some point he gave it up, telling me the only way to make money in the market is to have insider trading information. Ivan Boesky would have agreed, but he didn't put that in his book, "Merger Mania: Arbitrage: Wall Street's Best Kept Money Making Secret." Ivan kept the secret to himself until he couldn't, trading it for a lighter prison sentence.

If it wasn't for the above picture showing Ivan in a helicopter flying over 1980s Manhattan with the Twin Towers in view, I probably wouldn't be writing the posting. But the sight of the Twin Towers so many years after the terrorist attack and collapse, made me nostalgic for my employment in the North Tower, One World Trade Center where I worked on the 29th floor and eventually made my way down to the street on 9/11.

You only see the Towers now in old photos or old TV shows or movies where it is prominent in the background. There's a new generation growing older who have no connection to 9/11 or even knowledge of Ivan Boesky.

The print edition of the NYT for Boesky's obit had the photo in black and white, despite being their able to print in color. The online edition is always more colorful and contains photos the print edition doesn't. I look at both.

Ivan was a restless guy. He was born to make money, so eager to do so he never even finished college. At the height of his legendary gains was the buyer  of insider information in exchange for briefcases full of cash, $150,000 to $200,000 in Benjamins, usually from Mike Milken who worked on junk bonds at Drexel Burnham Lambert and on whom Boesky later informed on by wearing a wire in exchange for cooperating with the Feds. Martin Siegal, at Kidder Peabody & Company was also the recipient of Boesky's bribes.

Interesting—at least to me—was that in the mid-1960s I worked as a clerk at Burnham and Company on Broad Street for a few months. In those days, Wall Street back offices were just beginning to be computerized. Most trading was accomplished by the actual receipt of paper security certificates delivered back and forth by "runners," usually retired guys who made a few bucks. The settlement period then was 5 days.

Every generation produces scallywags, traders who skirt the rules thinking they have all the answers on how to get wealthy—filthy rich—before anyone can stop them. At his height, Ivan was boasting a $3 billion portfolio ($8.7 billion in today's money). 

Unlike Bernie Madoff, who took public money, Ivan had partners who hooked in with him for 40% of the gains, while he took 60%. They in turn had to absorb 90% of the any losses. What a sweetheart.

Boesky actually did make a graduation speech where he told his audience that "greed is healthy." Hollywood couldn't resist this guy's story and made the movie Wall Street starring Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko (read Boesky) who makes a speech to a group of people telling them that "greed is good." It was the Gettysburg Address for investors in the 80s.

Michael Douglas won an Academy Award for Best Actor in the 1988 film that also starred Hal Holbrook, Charlie Sheen, and Darryl Hannah, Gordon's side piece.

As the Feds were closing in, Ivan chose to wear a wire when he dealt with Mike Milken, who the government wanted more than him. In exchange for  his cooperation Ivan served 18 months of a three-year sentence and paid a $50 million fine as well as agreeing to $50 million in restitution for ill-gotten gains. (He later was able to deduct $50 million from his income tax.) He spent his incarceration at what then would be called "Club Fed," a minimum security prison, Lompoc, in Santa Barbara County, California.

No mention is made in the obituary of Ivan squiring around mistresses. In 1962 he had married Seema Silberstein, whose father owned the Beverly Hills Hotel and who was wealthy in her own right. After his stint at Club Fed at 53, his wife of 30 years sued for divorce. Ivan settled.

He pleaded poverty and got from her a settlement of $20 million (down from the $100 million he originally wanted), annual payments of $180,000 and a $2.5 million California home. He remarried, lived in La Jolla, California, and had a daughter.

If I ever need one, I want his lawyer.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

New York Rangers

At this point in my life, it is impossible to watch a Ranger playoff game without feeling a flood of emotions, either elation or resigned disappointment.

And playoff games are what I mostly watch these days. Complete games. Throughout the season I might tune in a bit to watch the artistry of the play, and catch up on the names of the players, but it's the playoffs that gain my full game watching attention.

I go back. Way back to the Old Garden on 8th Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets where my father took me to my first Ranger game in the late 50s, the game Jacques Plante the Montreal goalie went off for stitches and came back wearing a goaltender's mask, the first player to do so. The game was delayed a good bit because in that era they didn't dress two goaltenders. Times change.

Coaches in that era were also the general managers, and there were only six teams in the league: Montreal, Toronto, Boston, Detroit, Rangers and Chicago. Rangers and Boston were door mats, and there was only two rounds for the playoffs.

You didn't have three assistant coaches behind the bench, and you didn't draw up plays on a white board. Over the boards like pirates and score.

The old garden was built for boxing, with perfect views from any seat of a boxing ring, not a hockey rink. In the side balcony, the visibility of the ice dropped as soon as you were seated in anything other than row A. Side balcony was $1.50, and end balcony was $2; fifty cents if you were a high school student with a GO card.

When the proposed new garden was unveiled it was said there would be no obstructed seating. You'd see the whole ice. The new garden of course had no steel girders in the way, but the promised perfect views weren't a reality. Corners were obstructed. There was a lot of criticism of the new garden, but being on top of Penn Station was a planning coup.

Until there were a few revisions to the new Garden which opened in 1968 and is now the oldest arena  in the NHL—but hardly shows its age—getting in and out of bathrooms was like getting on and off a crowded subway car when only half the door opens. There was only one entrance, so exiting and entering was only through one doorway. Talk about congestion.

One year in order to get playoff tickets a friend of mine and I slept outside with hundreds of others to get to the box office when it opened. We did, but after that I decided to go for two season seats, Section 333, Row M, seats 5 and 6 that went for $5 a game. You were guaranteed playoff tickets being a season ticket holder. A king.

I think I held the season seats for 11 years, eventually moving down a bit into what were called the Yellow seats. In that era, the seats were color coded based on their proximity to the ice. Red were the lowest, then orange, yellow, green and blue, the so-called mezzanine, but really the balcony. Way up.

The Ranger teams of the 70s were great teams, and I saw the Stanley Cup paraded around the Garden ice in 1972. Unfortunately, it was being held aloft by the Boston Bruins who the Rangers  played well enough against, but who had the league's best player in Bobby Orr, and a roster full of others who were also great.

One year the Rangers only lost two home games at the Garden. There was no five minute overtime/shootout format then, so many games could end in a tie. One year the Philadelphia Flyers tied 24 times, earning the title The Philadelphia Tires.

Friends of mine from work, usually Andy, or my father accompanied me.  One pivotal playoff game against the Chicago Black Hawks went three overtimes, with the Rangers prevailing on an OT goal by Pete Stemkowski. That was a raucous evening. The Garden sold out of beer.

In that era, as the Billy Joel song goes, I drank a lot of beer, and spent "a lot of take-home pay." Eventually I sublet my seats to someone from work who went religiously. I had gotten married, and our first born came in 1978. Going to games twice a week was not in the cards.

In the middle 70s that Ranger General Manager engineered a trade with Boston that still hurts. Jean Ratelle, the smooth skating and shooting center of the Goal-a-Game (GAG) of Vic Hadfield and Rob Gilbert was traded to the boston Bruins for Phil Esposito, the prickly center. The defenseman Brad Park was gone and Ken Hodge came to the Rangers. Neither team prospered as a result of the trade.

From there, the Rangers drifted into mediocrity, but made the finals in 1979, losing to Montreal in 5 games. By then I wasn't going to games, having sublet my seats.

I've never been other than a Ranger fan, although my ardor became more reasonable. In those years of constant disappointment, it was impossible not to take the losses and lack of playoff advancement seriously, personally in fact. Losing created moods.

Hockey in the New York area has never suffered from unpopularity. New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders and Ranger games are all on cable stations and the teams play to sold out crowds. 

Watching the Rangers play the Carolina Hurricanes in game six, being ahead in the quarter final round 3 to 2 was starting to look like all the years of disappointment were set to repeat.

The Rangers won the first three games of the round, two by overtime, but had lost the next two games to bring Carolina back into the picture. Game 6 was in Carolina, and behind 3-1 going into the third  period brought back all the feelings of disappointment.

Sure, if the Rangers lost, there would be Game  7 on Garden ice, but that didn't make any fan feel better. The Rangers squandered their advantage against the Vancouver Canucks in 1994 and had to prevail in a Game 7 at home. They did, and that time, from my living room with my family and far removed from my boast that if the Rangers won he Cup I'm buying the bar drinks, I got to see the Rangers hoist the Cup on Garden ice. Sam Rosen said, "the waiting is over." Left unsaid was that another wait had begun.

It was great to hear Kenny Albert do the play-by-play on TNT the other night. He sounds like his father Marv, who I used to listen to on radio do the Ranger broadcasts in the '60s, advertising Devoe paint. In that era, pre-cable, you got a Ranger away game on a Saturday night on Channel 9 with Win Elliot.

There have been a lot of different Cup winners since 1994. It's a 32 team league these days, and repeats are few and far between. Thirteen different teams have won the Cup since the 1994 Rangers, no one more than two in a row, with the Detroit Red Wings winning 4 times. There are good teams, but no dynasties.

With the Rangers behind 3-1 in the third period in Game 6, I felt my posture go into a sullen pose. My shoulders slumped. It reminded me of watching the 1986 Mets with 2 outs against the Red Sox in Game 6. The end is near.

The Mets of course won that game and went on to win Game 7 at Shea for their last World Series win after a day's rain out. Game 6 for the Rangers turned into a handshake lineup in front of stunned Carolina fans. The Rangers were possessed in the third period. I like to think the Ranger Coach. Pete Laviolette. told the Rangers during the second intermission they would have to walk back to New York from Raleigh if they didn't win. Maybe he did.

Chris Kreider's natural hat trick made him Mark Messier. Almost unfairly there's more to go. It's hard to believe he's 33 now, remembering him when he started and showed the promise he has delivered. The playoffs are only half over. The Florida Panthers are the next opponents, having knocked out Boston Bruins 4 games to 2. 

There are 4 layers of playoffs to pass through before winning the Cup. If all series go the distance, there can be 28 games played before someone gets to hoist the cup. No wonder it's Flag Day when it happens, June 14th.

Hockey remains my favorite sport. I'll watch baseball and football, and now even soccer because it reminds me of hockey. It's a simple game to watch, and the announcers are not yet encumbered with inane statistics like "velo" for velocity off the bat, bat speed, rotation spin on pitches, pitch location, and all the new Metric statistics like OPS. You would think the game is played in an M.I.T. physics lab. 

In hockey, you shoot, miss the net, hit the post, or score. Your team is a good penalty killing team, or a good power play team, or hopefully both, but generally that's it. You win, or you lose.

At 75, will I see the Rangers win a second Stanley Cup in my lifetime? It takes a lifetime to get there.

http://www.onofframp.blogpsot.com

I Must Say

I must say, I never expected to read another accounting of the 45' beached sperm whale that was blown to kingdom come with half a ton of dynamite off the coast of Oregon to aid in its disposal, and certainly not read about it in conjunction with a minor league baseball team in Oregon that has adopted an exploding whale logo as their mascot, and sold enough T-shirts worldwide to financially float the team. 

But, we live in an age of merchandising, or as they say, "merch," where the money in sports is not in tickets sales, TV deals, or advertising, but rather in what they can sell you to wear as authentic something or other.

Again, The Wall Street Journal's A-Hed piece has provided the basis for another posting, this piece appearing in Friday's paper, front page, as usual. The piece, titled: In Baseball, Sultry Is New Scrappy; Minor Leagues go for major raunch to draw fans; Baseball Mascots Get Ballsy is about creating team names that have snap to them. And are almost automatic double entendres for announcers to play with.

When I got to the part of the story that told of a minor league team in Oregon going for the nostalgic blow up to recognize that too much dynamite was used I knew I had heard of the story somewhere, sometime ago, and that I made reference to it in a posting. I was right. A November 15, 2022 posting riffed on the story that I read about in a Twitter (X) Tweet.

The A-Hed reporter Patrick Coffee tells us the Eugene, Oregon Emeralds tripled their merchandising revenue to $1 million last season when they rebranded themselves as the Exploding Whales. I kid you not.

The logo is a reference to an event in November 1970, when a coastal Oregon town, Florence, was faced with having to dispose of an eight ton, beached 45' sperm whale that washed ashore and couldn't be saved.  Disposing of beached whales is not really a science, and certainly a lot depends on how large they are.

The video link in the posting made by @RexChapman is priceless. The job of removing the whale fell to the highway department, and their man-on-the-scene freely admits he doesn't know if the half ton of dynamite will do the job so sufficiently that the remaining debris will be eaten by the seagulls. Nope.

Chucks of blubber flew a quarter of a mile and flattened cars in a parking lot. A second detonation was called off, and bulldozers were called in when the seagulls were not interested in organically disposing of the blubber. What good are they?

In all fairness, given the size of the whale, there would certainly be doubt on how to get rid of it. In 1970 the Internet could not be relied on for guidance on beached whale disposal. And the highway department likely had zero experience in disposing of whales. Blasting through mountains yes; whales, not so much.

Eugene, Oregon is 60 miles inland east of Florence. It has no ocean frontage, but that didn't prevent the general manger of the team, Alan Benavides from taking the opportunity of identifying with a novel event that apparently is still rooted in Oregon's history.

The A-Hed  piece leads off with the story of the Danville Dandies, a summer collegiate league team in Danville, Virginia, in the heart of their dairy farms, that has adopted a decked out bull that might he an attempt to create a hunky mascot that resembles a four-legged Times Square Naked Cowboy, or a Chippendale dancer with a bat, whose tight jeans are an advertisement for virility. 

There are other teams that have taken to renaming themselves with a little bit of implied spice. Take in California, The Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, an L.A. Dodger affiliate, is now the Chaquetas hoping to attract the Hispanic fan base.

What I first found interesting is that the spelling for Chaquetas is unlike the spelling for the bananas, Chiquita. Spelled either way, the definition of Chequeta is a young, Spanish female, hopefully fetching looking. Turns out, chaqueta in Spanish slang can also mean masturbation according to those who follow these things. Undeterred, the team chose to still call themselves the Chaquetas.

The team in Madison, Alabama, near Huntsville has combined Huntsville's aerospace nickname with slang for garbage-gobbling raccoons and branded themselves as the Rocket City Trash Pandas. They sold over $4 million in merchandise before their first game in 2021. Some people will apparently wear anything on their chest.

My son-in-law Tim has advised me that the NHL has embarked on a naming contest for the soon-to-moved Phoenix Coyotes to Salt Lake City. They will start play without a nickname, but will get to adopting one as the new  season progresses next year.

I did send @NH.com a link to my posting of April 25, 2024 where I offer possible names based on Utah's history. Also linked is a posting on Utah's flag, a bee hive with mountains in the background. I will be formally entering my suggestions to the NHL

I don't know much about Sharon, Massachusetts, but if they have a minor league baseball team, or are going to get one, I will suggest a naming, for whatever team sport they develop: The Exploding Tree Stumps. You have to be a real archivist to understand how this name might be appropriate, but you've come to the right person.

On May 15, 2012 I posted a blog about a tree warden who in that town in 1912 was using dynamite to remove tree stumps. The story went that he sat down on a stump for a break and somehow detonated the stick of dynamite in his back pocket. The theory was the dynamite came in contact with a stone, creating a spark.

It was not a thousand pounds of dynamite blowing up a beached whale, but the explosion was heard for a great distance, rattling windows and giving the undertaker in town a sure challenge.

Through the magic of Google earth it is possible to get a, aerial view of Sharon, MA, a small New England town of 19,000 not too far outside of Boston. There are a lot of trees. It is not known if the town erected anything to mark the unfortunate accident, but Thomas J. Leary might be buried in a local cemetery.  Probably near a tree.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

The Met Gala

Was it really three years ago that Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) wore her in-your-face "Tax the Rich Dress" at the Met Gala where there was nothing but rich people in attendance? The mind boggles.

She hasn't been asked back, and no wonder. The news snippet this morning reported that there were only two politicians at the gala, but didn't name them. Apparently, there is a bit of anonymity involved in getting an invitation and paying what might be $75,000 to attend wearing a dress that I would love to see a woman sitting down in and trying to eat a meal. I'll assume there's food for that money.

AOC took some understandable flak for what she was wearing, and who paid for her to be there. All has been forgotten, since she was re-elected with no problem from a district that includes the Bronx with western Queens. 

The gala is put together by Ann Wintour, the editor-for-life of Vogue magazine. Anyone who scrapes up against the news knows that Ann Wintour usually wears dark glasses when attending fashion runway shows from the front row (always). Does she have glaucoma? Why would you need to wear sun glasses indoors to what I'm sure is a colorful event? Well, maybe they're polarized lenses. No matter.

Does anyone know she's British? You never hear her talk, only see her staring out from her designer sunglasses with the same hairdo she's been sporting for decades.

The steps leading to the Metropolitan Museum make for a grand entrance, and the paparazzi are everywhere snapping shots of the over-the-top dressed women who try and get up the steps without tripping and doing a face plant on stone. That would have to hurt.

And sure enough, actress, singer Tyla wore a Dune inspired dress the color of three shades of sand. She had the foresight to have a Formula 1 pit crew ready to carry her up the museum's steps. Taking no chances, she said that was going to be the only way she was making it up to the entrance.

A gala has to have a theme, and Ann Wintour apologized for the confusing message she was sending to celebrate the Costume Institute's Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion exhibit. She refined the theme to be Garden of Time. What you do with that is up to you I guess.

And if Garden of Time might be a difficult theme to stay with, you have to give it to Jennifer Lopez, one of the many co-chairs of the event for her...well her more than suggestive dress. 

J-Lo, as her celebrity nickname and brand goes, chose something that put a beaded bull's-eye on a portion of female anatomy that I've heard British women of a certain age on Graham Norton's end-of-show closing segment called The Big Red Chair refer to as their "Lady Garden." 

And since the theme had to do with horticulture, Demi, Moore showed up in something that looked like what I might have growing on the side of the house.

And Zendaya, someone who I know nothing of, also adhered to the theme appearing in something that looked like she might have come straight from the garden center.

Easy to say the one-upmanship is played out, but fashion is an industry, and the gala somehow helps fund a museum of fashion, so I should kill the criticism.

Aside from the what I would imagine might be difficulties eating so attired, the practical part of answering a call of nature might prove difficult, finding the hidden zippers that might allow an escape. I would think a successful evening might be one where the only trip to the bathroom would be the need to fix their makeup.

I have to say I miss sitting in a doctor's office office that got all these fashion magazines and more that I could leaf through while I was waiting to get my ears cleaned. Covid put an end to the waiting room literature, and then the doctor retired.

My oldest daughter was getting Elle or Vogue years ago and the issues were so large and heavy that the bottom of the mail box sagged under the weight of all those photos of women dressed in outfits that I've never seen anyone in in person.

But then again, who would have me? I never knew Bad Bunny was a guy.

http://www.onofframop.blogpsot.com

The Cat Came Back

It is usually the guy who screws up, and when a small cat who doesn't meow much is packed  away in a 3'x3' Amazon return box weighing 30 pounds with 5 pairs of steel-toed boots and gets shipped from Utah to California to a return center and emerges 5 days later a little dazed, dehydrated, but otherwise okay it was the husband's fault.

Everyone loves a happy pet story, and the one of the cat who took their natural curiosity and managed to get sealed in an Amazon return box went viral as they say.

Mr. and Mrs. Clark developed the theory that the cat jumped in the box when the husband went to get some shipping tape to seal the box. As luck would have it, a seam in the box opened allowing air to circulate, and the mild weather kept the package from being in an overheated space.

A call from a veterinarian came to the Clark's on April 17 informing them their cat was now in California, 500 miles from their house. Huh?

Yep, Amazon opened the return box and out popped, or staggered Galena. Taken to a vet, a chip was found in its ear, and a call was made to the Clark's that their cat was on the West Coast recovering, but otherwise well.

The Clark's flew to California and were reunited with their cat, who seemed to know she was back in familiar hands. Cue the good news story.

For the second in a few months I started to hear the lyrics in my head to the New Christy Minstrels song "The Cat Came Back."

I made the lyrics the subject of  a recent posting when Randy Sparks, the founder of the 60s singing group passed away.

The song is about someone wanted to get rid of a stray cat that was keeping them awake at night and the inventive ways they tried to send the cat away and not come back to haunt them.

Of course the Clarks did not mean for Galena to be sent away, but it is a testament to how an animal can find its way home with a little help from luck and a chip in their ear.

In case you are not familiar with the song, here are the lyrics:

Old Mister Johnson had troubles of his own
He had a yellow cat that wouldn't leave its home
He tried and he tried to give the cat away
He gave it to a man goin' far, far away

But the cat came back, it just couldn't stay away
Away, away

Can you make a cat sound?
Meow, meow, meow

So he gave it to a woman going up in an outer space balloon
He told them for to take it to the man up in the moon
The balloon came down about 90 miles away

And where the woman is now, well, I cannot say

But the cat came back the very next day
The cat came back, we thought he was a goner
But the cat came back, it just couldn't stay away

Away, away

Is that a cat sound?

Meow, meow, meow, meow

So he gave it to a man going way out West
He told him for to take it to the one he loved the best
First the train hit the curve, then it jumped the rail
And nobody was left to tell the awful tale

But the cat came back the very next day

The cat came back, we thought he was a goner
But the cat came back, it just couldn't stay away
Away, away

The cat came back the very next day
The cat came back, we thought he was a goner
But the cat came back, it just couldn't stay away

Away, away

Meow, meow, meow

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