Here’s something I never knew about! Fascinating story, this.
DUCK!!!
They call this fabric “duck”. I don’t know why, but they do. Duck is a canvas fabric made out of cotton, and the way it’s made it’s a lot tougher than, say, denim. And it can be a lot tougher. Apparently duck fabric has a grading system, with the lowest number indicating the heaviest and thickest duck cotton out there; that’s what you’d make sales for a yacht out of. At the upper end of the number scale is the lighter duck, for “light clothing”. Somewhere in the middle falls the duck used to make tough workwear like your Carhartt jackets and these Dickies overalls!
I just got these super-cheaply off eBay, and I like them a lot, even though they’re still really raw, which means they’re still really stiff and scratchy. They’re super comfortable, though (of course they are, they’re overalls!), and a new color in the palette is always nice.
Some more detail photos:
I only have three pairs in this shade of brown duck: these Dickies, a pair of Carhartts, and a pair by Berne. I also have a dark brown pair of duck Carhartts and a pair of black duck Carhartts.
Oh, and apparently it’s called “duck” from the original Dutch work doek, which refers to the fabric the Dutch sailors used for their clothes. The more you know!
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A Fine Addition to the Overall Discourse
I saw this video on TikTok the other day, and it amused me greatly. As the Official Self-Appointed Curator Of Internet Content Pertaining To Overalls, I am compelled to share it here.
Her name is Lani Baker Randol, and she is apparently a model and content creator from Texas. Personally, I think her outfit here is terrific–the overalls pair wonderfully with that striped button-up she’s wearing–but I would like to ask her husband, What trains is he riding?
Moving on….
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The collection grows….
For the first time in my life, I own a pair of Levi’s.
Overalls, of course.
The fit on these is damned near perfect! I knew these were out there but I always assumed they weren’t my size, until someone on eBay sold a pair with pictures of the measurements, demonstrated with an actual yardstick. At that point I thought, “Hmmm….”
And I love the burgundy color! Men’s overalls are almost exclusively blue, brown, or Hickory stripe these days. Those are all lovely colors, but this will be very welcome once we get to sweater season.
Meanwhile, another eBay seller had a pair of vintage Hickory stripe overalls by Key up for sale. I resisted these, since I already own two…but these had one nifty feature in particular: the elastic shoulder straps. On my other two pairs, the straps are Hickory stripe denim all the way down, so these looked really neat. I put a “watch” on them on eBay, figuring that someone else would beat me to the punch.
They lasted for something like three weeks.
“Fine,” I said. I actually got them about a month ago, and I’ve worn them a couple of times since, but I planned to wear them on our annual trip to Ithaca, NY for the Apple Harvest Festival. Yes, I plan my annual Ithaca outfit weeks, or even months, before the actual trip, because I’m geeky like that. The outfit was a new navy-blue Renaissance Faire shirt with those very vintage Key overalls, and wouldn’t you know it…I got three different compliments on the shirt, the overalls, and the entire outfit yesterday! That made me happy as a clam.
More on our Ithaca trip to come…but for now, I note that I saw more than a dozen people in overalls while we were at the Festival. If that’s not a sign from the heavens telling me that Ithaca is where we need to be, I don’t know what is.
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Something Blue
The prompt “Drop something blue from your gallery” was going around social media today, which seems as good a basis for a blog post as any, so:
I tend to contrast my overalls with my top more often than not–a dark top will call for lighter overalls, like faded denim or Hickory stripes, or vice versa–but sometimes I like to match it up. Today I wore my blue Ren-faire shirt with my blue Berne overalls, and I rather like the effect.
Time to feed the pets….
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Tabs. So many tabs.
I don’t even know how I end up with this many tabs open.
:: Pop-up Instagram bakeries during the pandemic.
This article is a couple years old, but it showed up on some feed or other that I follow, so here it is.
But working at the absolute capacity of their home kitchens, for a year straight, means burnout is very real. Multiple chefs I spoke to said their houses were full of pastry boxes and their fridges full of butter and freezers full of ice cream; they cooled cakes in stages on tiny counters and used stimulus money to buy equipment; their plants are long dead and their kitchens reek of fryer oil; their phone won’t stop binging, and when their oven died, they switched to steamed and boiled desserts. For all of them, home is no longer merely home: It’s the world’s worst commercial kitchen, with a bedroom attached. They welcome press, but they hope their landlord doesn’t see the photos.
:: The end of manual transmission.
I drive a stick shift. It’s a pain, sometimes. Clutching and shifting in bumper-to-bumper traffic wears you out. My wife can’t drive my car, which limits our transit options. And when I’m at the wheel, I can’t hold a cold, delicious slushie in one hand, at least not safely. But despite the inconvenience, I love a manual transmission. I love the feeling that I am operating my car, not just driving it. That’s why I’ve driven stick shifts for the past 20 years.
Honestly, I can’t see getting nostalgic about the stick shift. I drove one for years, and I do not miss it a single bit. How about you, folks?
I would endorse this either way, but the overalls are a cherry-on-the-top kind of thing.
:: A bad joke incorporating a pie in the face. I tip my hat!
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At the Ridge….
For the first time since Cane died last September, I went hiking at Chestnut Ridge Park yesterday.
Chestnut Ridge is an old park whose development by Erie County began back in the late 1920s, and a lot of the park’s original infrastructure, quite a bit of which still stands, was built by work crews of the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression. Chestnut Ridge is a very large park–at more than 1100 acres, it is 300 acres larger than New York City’s Central Park–and it covers a lot of rugged terrain, ranging from forested hills to steep gorges through which streams run. The most famous feature in Chestnut Ridge Park is the Eternal Flame waterfall, which is just that: a waterfall behind which there is a small grotto into which natural gas seeps from underground. This gas is almost always aflame, and if it happens to be out, you can literally reach in behind the water and relight it, if you’ve brought a lighter with you.
Chestnut Ridge was a common destination for Cane and I in our weekly nature walks and hikes, and we covered a great deal of the park’s terrain and trail system over our years of trekking there. My last visit to the Ridge with Cane was last July, I think…which was therefore the last time I was there at all. Shortly after that visit he started limping slightly, and that was the beginning of his end.
Yesterday was my first trip there alone in many years.
Being up there yesterday was many things. It was beautiful, obviously, and being in nature was honestly what the doctor ordered after what’s been a trying few months recently. I kept thinking, though, of the presence I was missing; I’d walk a hundred feet and suddenly realized that I hadn’t had to stop three times for a greyhound to smell this tree, that bush, this patch of dirt, that rock. When you’re used to walking those trails with one hand always holding a leash, it’s a bit strange when that hand is unoccupied. And when I made my way down to the side of the stream at the bottom of one of those gorges, there was no watching as Cane found a deep spot to lay in–you know, to cool off–and to drink.
I won’t be staying away from Chestnut Ridge this long again…but it’s not going to feel the same there again, is it?
Photos:
It was a good day, a good walk in the woods. There was even time for a touch of whimsy, like plucking a few wildflowers and wearing them in the bib of my overalls. One should always strive for a touch of whimsy. At least, that’s how I see it.
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Behold the Ritual Clearing of the Tabs
Yup, it’s that time again: When I look at Chrome and realize, “Wow, I have a lot of tabs open to stuff.”
:: On the oldest book in the world printed with movable type, and it’s not the Gutenberg Bible:
The oldest extant text ever printed with movable type predates Gutenberg himself (born in 1400) by 23 years, and predates the printing of his Bible by 78 years. It is the Jikji, printed in Korea, a collection of Buddhist teachings by Seon master Baegun and printed in movable type by his students Seok-chan and Daijam in 1377. (Seon is a Korean form of Chan or Zen Buddhism.) Only the second volume of the printing has survived, and you can see several images from it here.
Impressive as this may be, the Jikji does not have the honor of being the first book printed with movable type, only the oldest surviving example. The technology could go back two centuries earlier.
:: Why does everyone want to buy candy on Tiktok right now?
Causey’s most successful TikTok videos follow her as she packs old-school candies, like wax bottles filled with sugary juice and vintage candy buttons, into boxes for customers. Her videos also show off new offerings that she eats on camera: Think gummy Nerds clusters and chamoy-drenched dulces enchilados, or Gushers coated in chamoy syrup and rolled in Tajin seasoning. Her account features imported chewy Puchao candies and Pocky sticks from Japan, along with a slew of other Asian candies. There’s also weird stuff — sour candy that you spray in your mouth, candy shaped like unicorn poop, and gigantic gummies, along with nostalgic favorites like fizzy Zots and lemon drops. But Causey’s taste of viral success really began when the jelly fruits trend emerged on TikTok.
In countless videos on the platform, users would eat the jellies — a type of candy sold in fruit-shaped plastic capsules — by popping the capsule with their teeth, causing the jelly to burst in their mouth, often to comedic effect. The hashtag #jellyfruitcandy has racked up more than 27 million views, and for a while Candy Me Up was one of the few places that sold it.
The article goes on to describe “freeze-dried candy”, which is something I saw in a store in Toronto recently. I thought about trying it, but that stuff was expensive, at least in the store where I saw it, and I’d already dropped a chunk of money in an anime-and-comics store that very morning. Alas!
I find Tiktok kind of fascinating, and I hope it, or at least something very much like it, survives the current challenges. (I have to be honest here: I don’t get terribly worked up about the Chinese maybe “spying” on what I’m doing. If they think they can learn something insightful from the odd doings of a guy in overalls who lives near Buffalo, well, have at it, Hoss. Something needs to be done about the car-theft thing, though.)
:: V: The Original Series first aired 40 years ago. Wow.
I actually didn’t watch V the first time it aired. I don’t remember any buzz about it in school, and right around then all our geeky energy was laser-focused on the impending arrival of Return of the Jedi. I think I remember one kid talking about the V show that he’d watched the night before. Plus, V aired on NBC, which was at that point languishing in third place on the networks, and it’s biggest hits of the 80s had either just launched and had yet to gain traction (The A-Team) or hadn’t even come along yet (The Cosby Show), and in those days (wow, there’s a phrase I’m not keen on using to describe the 19-freakin’-80s), buzz was based pretty much on if you saw the commercials on the network you were watching at the moment. So, for me, V came and went very quickly, and I missed it entirely.
A year later, though, the sequel dropped, and that one, I saw. By then we were watching NBC a little (thanks, A-Team!), and I might have watched a movie that I wanted to watch on NBC’s weekly movie telecast, back when the networks actually televised movies. In fact, I think it was a movie, because I remember a long preview at the movie’s end–maybe five minutes long, maybe more–for the upcoming Big! Teevee! Miniseries! Event!, called V: The Final Battle. Now that I was properly briefed, I watched V: The Final Battle faithfully, and I was a big fan right from there. The original miniseries from the year before was re-broadcast soon after, and I was now fully briefed.
V: The Final Battle was produced by a different team than the original series from just a year earlier, which led to some differences in tone and story; the second series is much more action-oriented than the original and it doesn’t focus nearly as much on the allegory of fascism that the original did. Also, the second series features one of the most gobsmackingly bad endings I’ve ever seen, even for a thirteen-year-old kid. But the preceding five hours and fifty-five minutes of the six-hour miniseries was great, so if the ending sucked, I was willing to forgive.
V was a big enough hit that the two miniseries led to a weekly series later that fall (1984, I think), which started off strongly but then bogged down a bit. There’s some handwavey-stuff in the series opener explaining how the humans’ victory from The Final Battle actually wasn’t, and then a favorite character from the miniseries was killed immediately, and the show just wound up bogging down. There was a reboot many years later (ten years ago, maybe?) on ABC, but I didn’t watch any of it.
Oh, and The Final Battle boasted a wonderful 80s-synth score:
:: Ten Essential Songs by Gordon Lightfoot.
SO MANY BRILLIANT songwriters came out of Canada in the Sixties — legends like Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, and Robbie Robertson — that the talents of Gordon Lightfoot are sometimes overlooked by those who don’t know better. He never even appeared on a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ballot before his death at 84. That’s a raging injustice when you listen back to gems like “If You Could Read My Mind,” “Carefree Highway,” and “Early Morning Rain.” These songs earned him a sterling reputation as a songwriter’s songwriter, which you can see when you check the list of people who covered them: Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, and countless others. Or you can take it from Dylan himself, who famously remarked, “I can’t think of any Gordon Lightfoot song I don’t like. Every time I hear a song of his, it’s like I wish it would last forever.” Here’s a guide to ten of Lightfoot’s best songs.
:: Color Him Busy: A profile of heavily-tattooed actor Robert LaSardo.
In person, LaSardo comes across as a sensitive soul with a sense of humor. In an interview in his agent’s office he lifted his right forearm as if to prove it, and there, amid a roiling sea, is winsome Betty Boop in her flirty pose. “That’s my comic relief,” he said. He’s reluctant to make too much of the other tattoos — or as he prefers, “illustrations” — that cover both arms, his abdomen, neck, hands, fingers, back and legs. He’s even a bit self-conscious about discussing their significance.
LaSardo admitted the ink has helped him establish a 20-year career portraying thugs, drug dealers and gritty undercover cops. But he said landing roles through his tattoos was never his intention. “It’s my life story,” he said. “It’s the trip through my world.”
A bit of background here: a while back I found a YouTube channel that posts clips from the classic show NYPDBlue, and just this morning there was a clip that features a guest stint by Robert LaSardo. Now, La Sardo has been one of my favorite “Hey, it’s that guy!” actors for years–the proper term is “character actor”, obviously, but “Hey, it’s that guy!” or “Hey, it’s her!” works to convey the same idea. His work as a particularly nasty bad guy in CSI: Miami is a standout in my mind, but he’s always good when he turns up. A quick glance at his filmography reveals five different appearances on NYPDBlue, each time as someone different!
Actors like LaSardo tend to get lots of reliable work by being, well, not only good, but also professional and reliable. The linked article above, which I found on a simple Google search, is almost twenty years old, but LaSardo’s career does not seem to have slackened one bit since then.
:: Chicago Symphony Orchestra librarians know the score:
Shortly before each Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert is set to begin, someone discreetly walks onstage to place a score on the conductor’s music stand, then returns to retrieve it when that first piece is over — a process repeated for each selection on the program.Those brief, easy-to-ignore trips across the stage are the only times that audiences get a glimpse at the three staff members who work in one of the CSO’s most important if little-known behind-the-scenes departments — its library.
Located one floor below the Orchestra Hall stage, this windowless space serves as a repository for the music the orchestra owns and a work space for three librarians.
Here’s a fascinating article about a little-known facet of professional orchestra operations: the library and its librarians. The music they’re playing–the actual physical music, consisting of the conductor’s score and the orchestral parts for all the musicians–comes from somewhere, after all!
:: 30 fun facts about The Voyage of the Mimi.
In 1984, The Voyage of the Mimi debuted on PBS. The groundbreaking educational science series, part of the curriculum of many elementary and high school students (including this writer!), captivated kids throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, spawned a sequel, and kicked off Ben Affleck’s career.
If you’re my age, you may remember watching The Voyage of the Mimi, either in school or on PBS at some point. I’m honestly not sure when I first saw it, but it’s been on my radar for years, so I’m assuming it was in the 80s at some point. It’s a 13-episode series about a research expedition into the North Atlantic to study whales, aboard a ship called the Mimi. There’s a crusty sea captain, two research scientists, their graduate assistant (who is deaf), two teenagers, and the sea captain’s grandson, who was played by a young Ben Affleck, if you can believe that. The whole show is available to watch on YouTube, and it actually holds up pretty well, as period educational shows go. Each episode consists of fifteen minutes of story followed by a fifteen-minute mini-documentary that applies to that particular episode’s topic. I wish it was viewable in better resolution than YouTube’s max from eleven years ago.
Sadly, the Mimi herself fell on funding and ownership difficulties that led to her eventual scrapping (though she was a long-lived ship, originally built in the 1930s!), but I did get to see her once! We were on our honeymoon in May 1997 in Boston and New England, and we went one day on a whale-watching expedition that set out from Plymouth. On the way back in, the boat’s tour guide pointed out two ships anchored nearby: one was a replica of the Mayflower, and the other was none other than the Mimi. I wish I’d taken a picture, but this was in the days (there I go again) of film cameras and I don’t even think I took my camera with me on that trip. Alas!
There was a sequel series to Voyage of the Mimi that I don’t think I ever watched, and sadly, a proposed third series never managed to get funding. Anyway, I like to think that the characters from the show got together again for more adventurey science voyages in the future!
:: Finally, speaking of Tiktok, this particular creator has found an incredible pair of overalls. I’m actually envious of these! The Big Smith brand made a lot of funky-patterned overalls years ago, I’m assuming in the 1970s, and they do turn up on eBay and vintage shops now and again.
@mckailahanna I dont think youre ready for these bibs ✨ #cincodemayooutfit #cincodemayocelebration #cincodemayo2023 #cincodemayo2023 #vintageoveralls #bigsmithoveralls #bigsmith #bagguoftheday #conversehigh #summeroutfits2023 #size12summerfashion #bagguoutfit #vintagefinds #vintageetsy #midsizeoveralls #overallsoutfits @imogene + willie @Converse @BAGGU @Etsy ♬ original sound – McKaila Hanna
Wow!
That’s all for now. Keep on truckin’, folks! (Hoping to have a much-delayed Substack ready this weekend, too! I’m not nearly done with Rachmaninoff….)
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Overalls can change your life!
Dressing for St. Paddy’s, and seeing Paul Reiser
My observation of St. Paddy’s Day this year was limited to what I wore, as luck had it. The Wife and I went out for fish fry at a favorite joint (Frank Gourmet Hot Dogs, if you must kn0w–photo here, though it’s not the best work I’ve ever done in terms of food photos), and then we went to Buff State to see Paul Reiser doing stand-up. (I love Paul Reiser and he’s been one of my favorite people since “This is not my locker!” from Beverly Hills Cop back in 1984 or so and if you don’t like him, well, feel free to not tell me so.) His performance was a delight and we’re so glad to have seen him. Mr. Reiser is not an edgy comedian who swears a lot (though he did a little!); his comedy is more…well, I’m not sure how to describe it other than “the comedian next door”. There’s nothing in his act to which I could not relate on one level or another, but given how consistently everyone was laughing throughout, I have to admit deep admiration of his craft because he made everything really funny.
Oh! And also, the fact that he could be funny for a long show–he was on stage for about 90 minutes, and there were several times when I was convinced the “Thank you, good night!” moment was upon us, only for him to take the mike back out of the stand and keep right on going for another bit–to me gives the lie to all those comedians who have been caterwauling the last few years about how “cancel culture” means you can’t be funny anymore. Meanwhile, there’s Paul Reiser, just going about his business of…being funny. He even dissed chicken wings! I love that the man rolled into Buffalo and took shots at the chicken wing in his act. He didn’t pretend to love wings; in fact, he openly cast aspersions on them, calling them too bony and needing all that sauce to cover up their deficiencies. Hey, I disagree, but it actually is kind of refreshing to have someone come in to town and not genuflect to the local contribution to world cuisine. (Now, at one point he also mentioned Tom Brady in a somewhat positive light, but nobody in the audience booed, so there’s that.)
Anyway, it was St. Paddy’s Day. Even though it is an option of mine, I did not wear green overalls. Instead I rocked regular vintage blue overalls, but a pair with a green tag! Ooooh! This I paied with favorite plaid fleece sweater, and a green scarf. I think I had the green well-represented. Erin go bragh!
The overalls are by a brand called Ely, another of the old overall-makers of yore; they are almost identical to the Dee Cee brand that I also like a lot, primarily for the difference in the styling on the bib pocket. (Lee also adopted this kind of bib styling in the 90s; I should blog about those at some point, too….)
Oh, it was also a zero-proof day! That’s right, we didn’t drink at all on St. Paddy’s Day. Not for any particular reason, really–mostly because by the time we got home it was pushing 11pm and at that point we’re just thinking, “Meh, let’s have a bit of ice cream and get to bed.” This was a good choice, as we did not rise this morning until 8:30am, which is way later than I usually rise on weekends these days (though not so early as I used to rise when we had a greyhound who always had to pee no later than 7am).
Anyway, after a stressful week on a number of levels, last night’s activities were a much-needed respite. And now, the lake-effect is trying to do its thing again, so there’s that. We’re not supposed to get much out of this one, but we’ll see. I have always maintained that St. Paddy’s Day is my personal cut-off point beyond which I am officially Sick Of Snow, but this winter has been weird: if you take out the three storms that walloped us, the last of which is almost three months in the rear-view-mirror, this winter was actually really puny in The 716. (I realize that this observation has a strong whiff of “Yes, Mrs. Lincoln, but aside from that, did you enjoy your night at Ford’s Threater?”)
Back at it, as they say….