Ahhhh, Bridgerton. Never, ever change. Ever. I mean it. NEVER change.
I love this weird steam-fest boddice-ripper of a show so much.
(Also, if you get the reference in the title, you are my people.)
Something for Thursday
At the Pierce-Arrow Museum
A while back we visited the Buffalo Transportation Pierce-Arrow Museum in downtown Buffalo. We had somehow never managed to visit this attraction, but now that we have, I look forward to returning and I in fact think it may be one of Buffalo’s most under-known treasures. This museum began as a way for a local man, Jim Sandoro, to exhibit his collection of classic cars, but now it’s so much more than that. In addition to his collection of Pierce-Arrow vehicles, the museum is a fine collection of all manner of automotive memorabilia, including one car that really hit my sweet spot. It’s an amazing museum that should be better known as a local attraction than it seems to be.
I took a ton of photos during our visit, but frustratingly, my camera’s battery died just about a quarter of our way through. I have an extra, but alas–it too was dead! Yes, a goof-up on my part…luckily I still had my phone on me, thus proving the advice I often hear in the photography community: “The best camera is the one you have with you.”
As always, you can peruse all of my photos from that day in this Flickr gallery, but here are some standouts from a really good day:
Finally, the car that thrilled me the most: this little number, that happens to have featured in one of the greatest automotive stunts in movie history. Yes, this is the very car that James Bond used in The Man With the Golden Gun to maintain his pursuit of villain Francisco Scaramanga, by executing a full cork-screw jump over a canal. (No, we are not discussing that damned slide-whistle sound effect. Harumph!)
One particularly fascinating part of the museum is its reconstruction of a gas station that was designed (but, as far as I know, never built) by Frank Lloyd Wright. I did find the museum’s display of the gas station kind of hard to follow; at first I didn’t even realize that I was looking at the gas station at all. But the more I looked at it once I realized, the more I was honestly amazed. I was unable to get any photos of the station in its entirety that were to my liking, but here are the gas hoses, as Wright envisioned them: a gravity-feed system instead of pumps, I suppose.
If you’re coming to Buffalo, add the Buffalo Transportation Pierce-Arrow Museum to your list of things to see, folks!
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Tone Poem Tuesday
A composer with whom I am very unfamiliar: Manuel de Falla (1876-1946), who is often considered Spain’s greatest composer. In truth, I’m not sure I ever listened to any of his music until the other day when I listened to his ballet El amor brujo. The title translates to “Love, the Sorcerer”, and the ballet tells the story of an Andalusian Romani girl who is haunted by the ghost of her dead husband even as she tries to move on to another love.
From the outside looking in, the classical music of Spain never seems to get a lot of love. There’s a stereotype of Spain’s music basically being a lot of classical guitar and not a whole lot else. I honestly don’t know if that’s the least bit fair or not, but it does seem that the Germanic symphonic tradition doesn’t seem to have really taken strong root in Spain, for whatever reason. Geographic? Cultural? Both? I honestly don’t know.
This ballet is deeply colorful and dramatic, as a ballet should be; I was surprised to hear voices in it, and of course, the dance rhythms are present throughout.
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Doggos: an update
Hobbes (the greyhound) and Carla (the pittie) are both doing fine! Carla has been struggling with some arthritis in her joints, but last week she went to the vet for an injection of fluid into one of her troublesome joints, and she’s been doing really well since.
Meanwhile, you may remember that Hobbes got hurt last fall and has been struggling ever since. Well, his physical therapy has been going really well, and the next step is getting an orthotic that he’ll wear on the “bad” leg when he’s oot-and-aboot, which will help stabilize that leg. He uses that leg most of the time normally now anyway, but it’s not a hundred percent and we’re told the leg will never be a hundred percent again, but he can live a decent and normal life as a pet, which is the plan, anyway.
The other day we took both dogs to Knox Farm for a nice walk, which they greatly enjoyed, judging by their body language throughout.
Oh, and I also got a few nice photos of this bird, which makes me feel good about my ongoing progress as a photographer!
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Just a few links….
Time to ditch a few tabs:
:: We watched Smokey and the Bandit not long ago–it’s a comfort food movie–and I found myself wondering, after the scene in which the Sheriff bursts into a diner and orders a “Diablo Sandwich” which he consumes in about four bites, while chatting with another patron and never realizing that it’s the Bandit himself. I always figured the Diablo Sandwich was just one of those kinds of truck-stop things you order when you’re in a hurry, and you’re better off not really knowing what’s in it, because it’s probably tastes amazing but is also going to do terrible things to your insides. Here’s an article on the Diablo Sandwich. I still want one.
:: New York City was all set to inaugurate tolls to combat congestion on its streets, like other cities around the world have done. Then, Governor Kathy Hochul stepped in. I have to be honest here: at this point I really don’t know what I plan to do if Hochul stands for re-election in 2026. I have zero illusion that the Republican Party will have returned to anything resembling sanity by that point, at least to the degree that they might put up a candidate for anything whom I’d be able to vote for without vomiting, but from a policy standpoint, Hochul is terrible.
:: And finally, rocket thrust!
A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft aboard launches from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Wednesday, June 5, 2024, in Florida. NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test is the first launch with astronauts of the Boeing CFT-100 spacecraft and United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. The flight test, which launched at 10:52 a.m. EDT, serves as an end-to-end demonstration of Boeing’s crew transportation system and will carry NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to and from the orbiting laboratory. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)
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BUGS!!!
Earlier today on one of the Social Media Platforms, a friend and I noted the fact that the word bugs really does seem to be more inclusive of just insects, doesn’t it?
Or, when you refer to bugs, are you referring to just the six-legged critters only?
I definitely fall in the former camp. I mean, take the horrific Attack of the Giant Bugs scene in Peter Jackson’s King Kong. Some of those beasties are boasting well more than six legs, but they are all terrifying bugs. If it’s got more than two legs, and it’s got an exoskeleton, and if it would freak me the hell out to have it crawling on me, well, that there’s a bug. (I do except spiders from this. Spiders are always spiders, and I try not to kill them, but if they’re on me, well then, all bets are off and my instincts–which are set to “GAHHHH KILL IT WITH FIRE BECAUSE IT’S ON ME!!!”–take over. Sorry, spiders. I can’t override that.)
And yes, this post is really an excuse to post one of my favorite bits from Calvin and Hobbes. This is when he produces a “report” on bats based on a single “fact” that isn’t even a fact (that bats are bugs), his audio-visual aid is a tracing of the Batman logo, and he thinks he’s guaranteed a good grade because he put his report in a clear plastic binder. Ah, Calvin!
“BATS AREN’T BUGS!”
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It’s the weekend. Here’s a cat.
Something for Thursday
The Discourse ™
I’m not generally one to get moved about The Discourse, and how people can’t talk to one another anymore and all that stuff…but this clip from The Daily Show, in which John Stewart talks to a former Republican Congressman with whom he has little in common, is certainly a good model for the way The Discourse probably would go more frequently, if we lived in a healthy country.