The Rock Island Line Was a Mighty Fine Line

Yes it was, though maybe mostly in memory; the company went belly-up around 1980. Artifacts still remain, however. For the next several years, you’ll still occasionally see freight cars (covered hoppers mostly, but a few boxcars too) left unrepainted for all the years since. They all are in the last paint scheme that touts the railroad as “The Rock”. Brave words even if “The Rock” turned out to be tuft not basalt. IIRC, there’s a 50 year age limit to such rolling stock so congratulate yourself if you see one.

And then there is this promotional ephemera that I rediscovered while cleaning out the hall closet. (Yes, it’s time for that again; I’ll be moving in the next few months as I’m being gentrified… again. Where, you ask? Don’t know yet. Not far I hope.) It’s an eight page booklet with plenty of space for notes on your railroad adventure.

This was given to me by my grandpa, Lawrence Dziekan, probably in the late 1960s though I have no memory of the occasion. Today I feel sad about that but I was remarkably oblivious to adults until I was well on my way to becoming one myself. There’s no changing the past even as it becomes ambiguous with distance.

But one of the things that I do remember about Grandpa is that he was very much into calligraphy. It was Parkinson’s Disease that eventually killed him. This was in the days before l-dopa as a treatment and I have the impression calligraphy was his effort at fighting back. So Grandpa filled a few of the pages with some of his lettering. It’s not his best work but not bad also; I thought it worth preserving and sharing, provided you forgive the one typo.

And there’s mystery as well! Who is “Mrs. Clairie Peiton”, the baby sitter? And those strange feel-good verses! I doubt that I’ll ever know the story nor will you ever know the story. We’ll just have to make one up.

Here’s Grandpa:

And to end this post, here is “The Rock Island Line” from the Library of Congress’ “Treasury of Field Recordings” with Kelly Pace as the lead vocalist. Now arriving on track 2:

Donovan’s Brain?

Photo by Roman.

Donovan’s Brain is the title of a 1942 sci-fi / horror novel by author and screen writer Curt Siodmak. According to Wikipedia, it’s been made into movies more than once, including a 1953 production that shares the title. I saw the movie once ages ago and actually have a 1969 re-issue of the book, but I remember almost nothing about it except that it probably could also be classed as detective fiction.

Disembodied brains have been a constant trope of horror and fascination in the sci-fi and fantasy genres probably as long as folks have been writing such stuff. It would be an interesting compare and contrast of the treatments of that plot device by various authors. I mean, consider on one hand the heads preserved alive in C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength or the intelligences embodied in light in Arthur C. Clarke’s The City and the Stars and Against the Fall of Night. In the face of the mighty productivity of the authors of popular fiction, the bibliography alone would be a significant project.

And, of course, what do zombies want? Brains…

One lunch time when my Dad was working a day shift, Mom asked if I’d like something different for lunch: baked calf brains. Dad was one of those meat and very salty potatoes sort of guys so this was not something he’d have cared for… But I was game. No, it did not taste like chicken. As I recall, Mom’s production tasted like meatloaf, a meatloaf of sincerely alarming appearance.

I think I finished my serving but I’m certain I did not ask for more.

I was inspired to suspect that many of my fellow children had meatloaf for brains and alas that nothing since has challenged that prejudice.

Though to be fair, we all have meatloaf brains. *

On the other hand, maybe the photo is of a very large wad of used chewing gum…

But really, the photo above is not someone’s discarded higher or lower functions but what looks to be the result of maybe a full can of spray foam, the kind of stuff used to seal rodent holes. Was that the intent here? They could have done as well with less, especially if steel wool also blocked the hole. But this overkill makes for a much more interesting photo, yes?

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* For an interesting perspective on this, see “All People Are Created Educable, a Vital Oft-Forgotten Tenet of Modern Democracy” over at Ex Urbe.

The Old Family Home

Photo by Roman.

Our old web was never worth all that much. Mom always said that it never caught anything but dust and Dad and Dad was barely enough to sustain a clutch of eggs. You’d think a window web would prosper but no, it was a waste land. I had a whole passel of sisters when we hatched but now there’s just me. When you live in a desert, you make do. Between Mom and me, my sisters lasted a while. Dinnertime was always a family affair.

Nothing is left. Time to move on. Thanks Mom. You were great.

— Yip

Happy Mother’s Day

I figured it was time to reshare this old classic from Doron Max Hagay:

My Home

This short animation, directed by Phuong Mai Nguyen, written by Phuong Mai Nguyen and Patricia Valeix, is told from the point of view of the child, but the focus is the mother. It’s not the usual sentimental single mom cliché.

N’Djekoh

Mother’s Day is coming. This short animation by Suki is apt:

The Triplets of Belleville

I have mixed feelings about movie trailers. With DVDs, I usually watch them without the sound. It’s better that way, usually. And music videos… need I repeat that I don’t like ’em?

That said, I was visiting Roy Edroso’s blog recently, part of my weekly list of reading. If the name sounds familiar, Edroso was a columnist for the late Village Voice where he covered and made fun of the conservative commentariat. He still does that on his blog and he has a newsletter you can subscribe to… which I would do if Social Security paid more than the rent… but what I was getting at is: His post for Friday, April 26, had embedded music from one of my favorite films, Sylvian Chomet’s The Triplets of Belleville.

When it was first released in 2003, something resembling the following clip was used as a trailer.

I was instantly hooked and actually went to see it at an actual movie theatre. However, some folks could easily freak out over this particular presentation, so SONY is using this as the official promo:

Unlike most movie trailers, you’re not likely to learn just what the movie is all about from either of these. But you will get a taste and, yes, the movie has a sweet, sentimental and totally bizarre story to tell.

It was also released on DVD and you may be able to find it in that format — I’ve not checked — but it is available online from Amazon Prime Video, Vudu or iTunes.

See it.

Milkweed

This is a water color done by my mother. In some ways, it is a bit crude, but there is also a sense of depth, at least in the original.

Milkweed, water color by Ann Roman.

Landscape

In her later years — about the time I left for college as I was an accidentally late child — my mother took up painting. She started with paint-by-numbers kits, but eventually went on to copy scenes from magazines. This is one of her works, done in acrylic.

Landscape by Ann Roman.

The Head Vanishes!