I'm off to do some research on the ground in Iowa. Then Wisconsin. With just a touch of Minnesota dusted on my arrival and departure. I'm hoping to do more with Twitter this trip as way of quicker updates and commentary. You can follow me over yonder @ emaggie. This is all the more alluring as a distraction thanks to my brand new iPhone. Which arrived as a result of my old iPhone (a rotary) seemingly throwing itself under the bus at such a time as the new model's arrival. Coincidence? I think not. But whenever I ask Siri wassup with that, she just snickers.
Who knew "Happy Days" was actually, um, interesting?
I still listen to "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" as a podcast. This morning during a gorgeous run I buzzed through yesterday's show, in which the celebrity interview once more put me in the way back machine. Henry Winkler as the Fonz on "Happy Days" was an icon who struggled mightily to find other roles after the show originated the term "jump the shark" in the 70s. But after being generally quite entertained by the interview with Henry (the dude was on fire), I looked for the actual details. It started simply with checking that the "shark" episode aired in September of 1977 - as the premiere episode in just the fifth season of "Happy Days". Amazingly, the show went on for another seven seasons. You think you know a show - actually I was pretty sure I'd soaked up every possible detail of that seminal Wisconsin show I grew up watching like homestate homework - and then a random connection after all these years gets a guy Googling. To a disorienting effect. Do you remember Fonzie's struggles with his family history - that he was possibly Jewish on the show (I've long since known that Winkler's proudly Jewish in real life)? But beyond that, Mickey Dolenz would have gotten the role if he'd not been so tall (Winkler was cast because he was more on the level with the other actors)? Or that the censors originally denied him a leather jacket because he would look like a "hoodlum" (that sounds like the 1950s, not the 1970s)? Maybe I'm just an easy mark today. Still, consider my mind duly blown.
Until the next page turns...may your own daughter's first soccer league gameday feature a 7 to 1 thumping delivered not received. Not that any of us parents are supposed to be paying attention.
Until the next page turns...may your own daughter's first soccer league gameday feature a 7 to 1 thumping delivered not received. Not that any of us parents are supposed to be paying attention.
Not just checking for era-specific undergarments
One thing that was true of Septembers not that long ago was the pop culture roll-out of new network TV shows. I'm extra sensitive to this dated concept even to this day, because I grew up in a house with no chance of cable TV (we lived WAY too far out in the country). We got the big 3 networks (FOX was but a feisty upstart with no long-range presence in northern Wisconsin when I went happily away to college). Plus the snowy hint of a channel that sometimes morphed into PBS. Try explaining that to them goldarn kids these days. So this lingering toehold on life in the 1970s and '80s causes me to still look to those new Fall shows in hopes of, I don't know, maybe identifying with something? Almost always an empty proposition, especially with the way TV seasons are split and an endless array of something better being out there a few clicks away. In all, I maybe watch one row of shows off our DVR these days. Still, if I had to put money on a winner this year, I'd go big obvious - "Pan Am" on ABC. Good origin story (as a concept, via it's creators), great case study for an era (the "jet age" and all the hipness it employs even if they've somewhat disingenuously eliminated everyone's cigarettes), and the most awesome logo in a long history of iconic design greatness. Personally, I'll be fascinated to see if something of that era works on one of the old networks where they consistently play it safe. I think it might land well in a growing retro strip. The comparisons to "Mad Men" have flown around constantly even though that trope's about as tired as Andy Rooney's eyebrow wrangler. My final question is, how authentic will the costuming really be? If you're looking for the hint at my underlying angle, there you go - wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
Until the next page turns...may the excitement surrounding tonight's NFL Season Opener not pull you away from at least acknowledging that President Obama deserves our attention during the pre-game.
Until the next page turns...may the excitement surrounding tonight's NFL Season Opener not pull you away from at least acknowledging that President Obama deserves our attention during the pre-game.
Let the Months be your guide
The start of the school year has me thinking about continuity. That ol' chestnut - the more things change, the more they stay the same. We brought our own daughter to her first day of First Grade this morning much like families all across the country are doing or recently have done. So goes this time of year. For me, continuity is a touchstone not only of these special family moments but the overall structure of Pelting Out. I'm using a timeline that extends across decades, but not in anything like a yearly chronological sense of time. Instead, I'm hanging everything off an eternal monthly calendar. What happens in September, stays in September - whether we're talking 1917 or 2011. That, for me, has allowed narrative threads to be strung between what would otherwise be hard to connect periods of history. When I frame my thinking using the months of the year, I can consider what my Grandfather Harry might have thought on my family's then nearly 40-year-old homestead in northern Wisconsin in September of 1917. Then, just maybe, I can present the parallel with what's going on as I enjoy Seattle's beautiful extended summer. Much like what I experienced for the first time when I arrived here for graduate school nearly 20 years ago. The trick will be to do that over the whole arc I've set up for Pelting Out. Narrative non-fiction is, after all, an exercise in storytelling that requires structure and (hopefully) a unique point of view.
Until the next page turns...I hope you saw your own child skipping into the classroom this morning.
Until the next page turns...I hope you saw your own child skipping into the classroom this morning.