Monday, December 16, 2019
Saturday, December 14, 2019
Vanilla Feminism
Taylor Swift: I’d Be ‘The Man’ If I Were A Man
Well, you’d be the tedious man.
Actually, since you’re so corporate, you’re more like Mr. Jones in Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man”.
Well, you’d be the tedious man.
Actually, since you’re so corporate, you’re more like Mr. Jones in Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man”.
A day in the life when you work with musicians
An e-mail exchange, initiated after 10pm:
Dude: Dude, I just bought a (third-hand) guitar at a pawn shop with your name on it. What can you tell me about it? (Sends photo.)
Us: From what we recall, it was given to a charity for auction about thirteen years ago. It’s made out of high-quality walnut and we put the best hardware we had at the time into it. If you purchased it for under $500, you got a deal.
Dude: Dude, it has a small crack in the neck. What should I do?
Us: Those guitars were designed to be serviced easily and with a variety of aftermarket parts. The neck bolts on with four screws and a face-plate. If you see an aftermarket neck you like, odds are it will fit easily and you can replace it very simply yourself.
Dude: What are its dimensions?
Us: Well, since every guitar is handmade, I’d have to take it apart and measure it to be exact. In general, the neck should have a 42mm width.
Dude: Don’t you make necks?
Us: We don’t make bolt-on necks anymore. We make fitted necks that are proprietary to the guitar’s design. Aftermarket necks are a better price and similar quality to anything we would have made, anyway. Let me see if I have something leftover from those days and, if so, I’ll let you have it. [The neck ordinarily retails for $99]
Dude: Dude, your customer service sucks. YOU SHOULD FIX THIS FOR FREE.
Us: So did Picasso’s. Besides, you’re not a customer. A customer is someone who gives us money for our labor and services. Be patient and I’ll get back to you.
Dude: DUDE, YOU HAVE NO INTEGRITY AND THIS SAYS A LOT ABOUT THE QUALITY OF YOUR WORKMANSHIP!
Us: So, you don’t want the free neck, then? You know, because of integrity and all.
Dude: [crickets]
Well, Her Parents are Communists
Greta Thunberg tells cheering crowd 'we will make sure we put world leaders against the wall' if they do not tackle global warming as she attends climate protest in Turin
If you scratch a militant environmentalist, you’ll find a totalitarian. Green is the new red.
If you scratch a militant environmentalist, you’ll find a totalitarian. Green is the new red.
Friday, December 13, 2019
Everything Old is New Again
Yukio Mishima: Japan’s Cultural Martyr
I've always been fascinated with Mishima, but my Japanese students in the '80's and '90's were embarrassed by him and would just shake their heads when I mentioned his name. With an increasingly hostile and militant China threatening the Pacific Rim, with or without the help of our National Basketball Association, the Japanese are beginning to re-discover the need for their samurai past and its values.
Thursday's Place: The Golden Lamb Inn
In 1871, a prominent attorney*, Clement L. Vallandigham, decided to engage in a dramatic ploy to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that his client was innocent of murder. Since Vallandigham’s alternate theory was that the victim had accidentally killed himself with a pistol as opposed to having been plugged by his client, Vallandigham practiced what was to be his courtroom demonstration repeatedly while in his comfortable quarters at The Golden Lamb Inn in Lebanon, Ohio. In order to make the demonstration as realistic as possible, Vallandigham made sure that the gun he was using was loaded.
Ultimately, while practicing his summation, Vallandigham successfully proved that the victim could have accidentally killed himself. Vallandigham did so by accidentally shooting himself to death with the loaded pistol.
It may have been the first example of the notorious “Ohio Man” syndrome, where events collide in such a way as to make even a Roman farce appear more realistic. [See "Florida Man"] The fact that this occurred at The Golden Lamb, the state’s oldest hotel still in operation, just gave it all a certain splendor.
Founded in 1803, the year that Ohio became a state, the venue is signified by the facsimile of a lamb rendered in gold paint, designed to be recognized by those who could not read. While originally a log cabin that also served as the first owner’s residence, as the town of Lebanon grew, situated as it was on the coach road between Columbus and Cincinnati, the inn became a more stately and comfortable house, with multiple floors and a tavern and stables adjacent. This was aided considerably when the Lebanon was named the county seat and the courthouse was built directly across the street in 1805.
In those early days, guests would find a menu that boasted what was still standard, buckeye fare even in my childhood: Deer, beer, cornbread, and apple butter. Since bears were a plentiful nuisance in the area, they were added to the menu, too. As the state was growing with Eastern states’ population moving to lush farms that were free of rocks and filled with loamy soil, The Golden Lamb became a meeting place and clearinghouse for information, organization, and occasional political mayhem. The first inter-continental roadway, the Lincoln Highway, which would eventually extend from Atlantic City to San Francisco, was plotted over a hot dish of bear at the inn.
As the Shakers were making their peaceful, non-violent presence known in Lebanon, they would provide the inn with the comfortable chairs and sturdy tables that would be enjoyed by the diners and guests, some still in use to this day. This would become all the more necessary as the inn would become a meeting place for the bellicose realities of a growing republic, serving as the staging area for soldiers, beginning with the War of 1812 and continuing through to the U.S. entry into World War I. To entertain the numerous guests, the inn began to offer musicals, freak show acts, and singers and performers of various types and quality. This necessitated the construction of a stage and, thus, The Golden Lamb became the area’s first theater.
DeWitt Clinton, surveying for his canal system, several English lords on a hunting trip, and many of Ohio’s remarkable, early politicians and orators would make their way to the inn. [In the late 19th century, William Clements, a Methodist circuit horseback lay preacher related to The Coracle, would also spend some time there; just not in the tavern.]
Notoriously, Judge Charles R. Sherman, the father of General William Tecumseh Sherman, would die in his sleep while a guest at the hotel, leaving his nine-year-old son in the temporary care of strangers. Over the years, Charles Dickens, Samuel Clemens, James Garfield, Rutherford B. Hayes, Warren G. Harding, Ulysses, S. Grant, William McKinley, Martin Van Buren, William Howard Taft, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Horace Mann, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush have all been guests.
[As Ohio has produced eight U.S. presidents, all but two have stayed the night.]
Because of this association with the movers and shakers [and Shakers] of the burgeoning Midwest, to this day no politician striving for office, even on the national stage, can afford to skip a visit to The Golden Lamb. The inn has hosted virtually every potential nominee for president from both parties since the late 19th century. In fact, within the Buckeye State, it is considered unlucky not to stop there and enjoy, if not a hot plate of bear, then the inn’s “Couscous, Mushroom & Vegetable Cobbler”.
So complete is the inn’s association with national politics, that its current owner is also a U.S. senator.
If you are a fan of bucolic, almost-hidden small towns of charm in the Midwest, Lebanon should not be missed; and, if staying there, while there is a perfectly serviceable Holiday Inn down by the interstate, The Golden Lamb does allow one to interpenetrate with a great deal of early, and not so early, American history and flavor. At less the $150 a night, it’s a bargain.
The fact that the inn is supposedly haunted by some of its former guests and, hence, popular with obtuse television ghost hunters, just makes the whole proposition that much more piquant.
*To our knowledge, Vallandigham was the only person to run for a U.S. governorship while hiding out in a foreign country. He was in Canada shortly after The Civil War, mainly because he supported the Confederacy and Ohio was a pro-emancipation state.
Thursday, December 12, 2019
On Second Thought, I Don't Miss Australia All That Much
A Melbourne childcare centre has ditched Santa and replaced him with a 'Sustainability Pirate' so 'everyone feels welcome regardless of their beliefs'. pic.twitter.com/Pb6geTUC9D— Sunrise (@sunriseon7) December 11, 2019
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
All Ahoo
Work, health, and travel realities are messing up what was once the rhythm of production for The Coracle, so we apologize if postings are more random than usual. No place or biography this week, at least not yet, but we'll get things together eventually and post what we have when we have it.
( "All ahoo" is an old Royal Navy expression indicating disorganization on deck.)
( "All ahoo" is an old Royal Navy expression indicating disorganization on deck.)
Tuesday, December 10, 2019
Monday, December 9, 2019
Sunday, December 8, 2019
This is Priceless
A thoughtful person makes reference to the work of C. G. Jung and the poorly educated media children, who don't know what he's talking about, cram his statements into their tedious identity box.
He’s spent more than half a century in Hollywood, but Billy Dee Williams was still surprised.
The legendary actor — the essence of black masculinity with his velvety-smooth, bedroom-ready voice, which carried over into a ubiquitous Colt 45 malt liquor campaign in the 1980s — gave an interview to Esquire magazine about his role as smuggler Lando Calrissian in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which lands in theaters Dec. 20.
In that interview, the 82-year-old actor said, “And you see, I say ‘himself’ and ‘herself,’ because I also see myself as feminine as well as masculine. I’m a very soft person. I’m not afraid to show that side of myself.” Media outlets — so many media outlets! — picked that quote up and ran with it. Williams, they reported, is gender fluid. People praised him. Oh, how they praised him.
Thing is, Williams has no idea what that means.
Saturday, December 7, 2019
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