Friday5 for April 24: Come on in and cover me. Questions courtesy of Scrivener. Thank you!
1. What are you using for a face covering when you venture out?
During junior year of high school, I was hospitalized with H1N1 influenza and my nurses were nice enough to run down to the pediatrics ward for Hello Kitty masks.
Even on my teenage deathbed, I was absolutely adorkable.
Since the first weeks of quarantine I have graduated to plain surgical masks I borrowed from work because I sort of collect Hello Kitty stuff.
2. What’s a recent cover you like of a song you already liked?
Sekai No Awari. RPG.
I love how Saori, the woman playing the accordion, always seems bemused. What am I doing here with these idiots? How did I let them talk me into this?
Original Recipe:
And Extra Crispy:
Who does the girl wearing the Alice In Wonderland pinafore remind you of? Spooky. Except I was Dorothy Gale. You know. From The Wizard Of Oz.
Honorable mention: Chee Bur (Cheeseburger), The Cutest Rock 'N' Roll Band In The World. SCANDAL 瞬間センチメンタル / Shunkan Sentimental.
Very.
I was on my way home from visiting friends up north, remembered that I was low on Guerlain Vétiver (down to my last 500ml) and exited the highway for the factory outlet mall for the discount parfumer.
First stop, American Girl. Back then, American Girl did not have an Asian doll. So. Kaya, the Native American girl in her fringed buckskin dress and buy a few outfits for somebody's birthday. I always have a few presents ready-to-go because sometimes I can be forgetful about birthdays.
Hopped back in the car and drove to the other side of the parking lot. This sounds kind of like a sissy move but that parking lot was like ten acres. And it isn't set up like a shopping mall. As luck would have it, the perfume shop was closed. The store next door wasn't. They were having a big sale with boxes of merchandise on the sidewalk.
Pyrex bowls and lids assortment. Can go from freezer to microwave. Normally $44.95 on sale for $17.99. Such a deal. So. I bought five of them.
Now my sister Antoinette is The Queen Of Tupperware. She even has the rare Pickle Keeper in teal. Well, it's not teal but I forget the official Tupperware color. Honolulu Stinkin' Sunset. Whatevs. When new people come to her beautiful house (and it really is), she gives them a tour. Of the pantry. Of her Tupperware. And you better be oohing and ahhing like you are watching fireworks or she will take offense.
My sisters are much older than I; we've never been really close. Of course we love each other but I think the most valuable advice Tony ever gave me was, "Never let anyone borrow your Tupperware. 'Cause you're never gonna see it again." Which echoed my father's advice about lending tools and my mother's about books. And don't even think about crystal or china.
And it was a hard-learned lesson. One year at the neighborhood block party, a kid crashed his bicycle into the card table with the desserts. The tiramisus I'd made — both perfect in footed glass compotes — one with alcohol, one for children — were shattered glass and cake lying in the street.
So. Fast forward to my first Neighborhood Association Holiday Cookie Exchange. Oneupwomenship at the highest level of competition. Makes cheerleading look like child's play.
I instinctively knew the other ladies would be using Gladware and Ziploc disposable containers. Or chump resealable plastic bags with a printed holiday motif. Instead of searching the shelves at the Pick 'N' Save, I hunted the internet for Chinese restaurant takeout food boxes and found them in a transparent icy blue. Add some blue mylar and basic sugar cookies with icy blue sugar... Voilà! Disney Frozen cookies. All the little girls voted for me. That's the secret. Pandering to the vox populi. And I have won each succeeding year. To the point where I am thinking of withdrawing from "competition" and proclaiming myself emeritus like the emperor of Japan.
Point being that never, ever let anything leave the house that you are afraid you won't get back. The good stuff is for going to the beach or Christmas or the Fourth Of July with family.
When I make my famous seventeen layer salad to share at neighborhood parties, I put it in a disposable aluminum foil roasting pan. No more glass compotes. And it is a roasting pan from the Hawaiian delicatessen that I sent through the dishwasher.
At home, my food storage container storage system is nowhere as organized as my sister's. In a lower kitchen cabinet I put a ten gallon Rubbermaid Roughtote bin in which I toss the lids straight from the dishwasher. Sort of the same way I do the laundry.
And I took the precaution of writing my name on each lid in permanent marker. The smelly kind. In kanji. Just in case anybody gets any bright ideas.
4. When did you last cover for someone?
Very recently. Coronavirus. And just for the record, I hate working days.
5. In your residence, what has a special cover?
My 33⅓ LPs are stored in special Japanese sleeves which in turn are stored in special Japanese plastic covers which are placed in an oversized milkcrate.
I have a lot of 78s, too. I am talking about the thick records for my wind-up Edison record player. As in The Genius Of Menlo Park and elephant electrocutioner extraordinaire, Mr Thomas A Is For Alva Edison. They are in Japanese sleeves with the titles written in Sakura Pigma Micron archival ink.
Now here's the thing. The creek overflowed and flooded my parents' basement where the records were stored. Submerged. Twenty layers of shellac delaminated. Separated. Instead of disks, they looked like books with broken spines laying open. Heartbroken, I put the box of records in my parents' garage.
Two days later I got a telephone call from my father. "Ronnie! How did you repair all the Edison records?"
Magically, they healed themselves.
The Friday Five. Thank you!
1. Are books losing importance as a source of information and entertainment?
During my brief matriculation in the public high school system, I met classmates — adults — who could not read. Illiterate. Could barely write their own names.
This was not a new phenomenon. My city was known for its factories. But then factories started closing. Five thousand people out of work doesn't sound so bad out of a population of more than a million. But it doesn't work that way. Machine shops that support the factory close. Trains stop running. Florists and butchers and corner grocery stores go out of business. And about three dozen bars.
So. It's not five thousand. It's fifteen thousand.
For a couple of generations, people didn't pay attention in school. They thought they'd be working alongside their grandfather and father in a factory.
But the factories continued closing as manufacturing was outsourced to other countries.
And some kids were brought up by the people who lost their factory jobs and couldn't read.
2. Are e-books the death of paper books? Will paper books disappear?
Sayonara, MS Oosterdam. My only vacation photograph.
And being quarantined on my arrival home.
From my experience in the airports and on the two flights to San Diego and two returning, the tablet was much more convenient than lugging around unread issues of the New Yorker like I usually do. Didn't have to worry about lighting levels. Wasn't reaching for another magazine every forty-five minutes. My backseat tray seemed almost expansive with enough room for the tablet in its easel cover, miniature bottles of gin and can of tonic water.
I do not fly often and find being in the confined space of an airline seat very distracting.
This year I brought a universal programmable remote control and batteries, an extra long micro to HDMI cable and a forceps. The television in the ship cabins is mounted to the wall. I'm thought if I could reach the television inputs to plug in an HDMI cable and access the inputs with the remote I could watch stuff I've recorded on my tablet 'cause lugging around my laptop and a bunch of DVDs is a chore.
Will paper books disappear entirely? Perhaps. Probably. Not within my lifetime.
3. Should libraries focus on improving their technological resources rather than building a larger collection of paper books?
Libraries should be merged with museums.
When I was a junior in high school, our class was scheduled for a field trip! Yay! We were going to the University of Wisconsin — Milwaukee and to Marquette University, a Catholic school.
One of my teachers contacted the Jesuit priest at the school who was responsible for obtaining the J R R Tolkien Collection for Marquette. You know. The guy who wrote The Hobbit. The teacher knew I'd read Tolkien and gave me the high sign to brush up on things so I'd be on my toes when I was introduced to the priest.
Well guess who never showed up?
Point being that the Tolkien Collection was restricted. Just as the Special Collections in the downtown library for which I needed permission to research a school project. Libraries should archive the good stuff and rare books and digitize the other things.
FUN FACT: The special (restricted) collections at UWM are where they keep the Playboy magazines. So pervy underclassmen don't tear out the pictures.
On an associated note, for the past six years I have been trying to correct a mistake made by the New York Public Library.
Menu from a dinner party given by Mr Shiuzo Isukahara at Chamberlin's Restaurant in 1889.
Mmmm. Stewed terrapin. Yummy. That means turtle. And they had Saratoga chips. Or potato chips as we call them today.
Except his name is Mr Shiuzo Tsukahara. Tsukahara with a T. As in tsunami. Tsukahara was sent by the Imperial Department of Communications to the International Marine Conference in Washington D.C., October 16 to December 31.
So. What's the big deal?
These are the guys who shaped international maritime law.
And Japan was already considered a superpower.
If it isn't catalogued properly you may as well throw it away.
4. How important are early reading skills in a child’s academic performance?
I remember babysitting for my friend Spewgie's daughter, Spewgie Jr, before she was able to talk. I put her in my lap facing me. And made a clicking noise.
She answered me!
I made a series of clicking sounds. She repeated them. I made clicking sounds in different patterns. She repeated them.
Her smiling face beamed up at me.
Spewgie Jr started talking very early, has a vocabulary beyond her years and started reading. My nieces are the same way. And all of them are doing very well in school.
5. Are people who spend a lot of time reading fiction wasting their time which could be better spent doing more useful activities?
Probably. But it enriches our lives.
This food storage container story is terrific. I laughed aloud. I have a friend who calls his wife the Tupperware Queen, so maybe she and your sister should meet someday.
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DeleteThank you!
"If it's square it needs the air; if it's round it makes the sound."
Burp.
(That's a Tupperware joke. Really.)