Continuing Education

I wish I could continue my education and procure CE credits for taking the following subjects:

1. Surfing-I want to learn
2. Morse Code-I want to become more proficient and apply it to #3
3. HAM radio operation-I want to learn
4. I would like to take my skills in turntable repair and apply the "round and round" to 16mm, 8mm and Super 8mm repair
5. I need to learn more guitar chords
6. It would be cool to continue my voice lessons
7. Would like to pick up more sewing,needlepoint and knitting skills
8. Transistor radio repair-I am halfway there
9. Upholstery-want to learn this!!!!!!!!
10. AMP repair
11. Anything having to do with the culinary arts

Okay, so I would like to learn all these things but I am a busy girl. I haven't uploaded all the items I have made. I am part of a women's health group and my neighborhood association which has been busy, busy, busy this year with the Wal Marts and all. Then there are friends I haven't been able to hook up with in months! I haven't been to the coffee shop down the street in EONS! and I crave their Chai Lattes all the time. I am now wasting 10 minutes just posting this but I thought you'd be interested? Oh well Que Sera, Sera....

I can appreciate this story

One of America's last typewriter repairmen
By Michael Birnbaum,

Manson Whitlock peers into the typewriter on the table. It's a big avocado-green IBM Selectric from the '60s. Something is jammed and pieces are scattered around the machine. Eventually, he finds what he's looking for – a screw has fallen in, causing the type mechanism to stick. Out goes the screw. Using a spring-hook, an implement that looks like it could come from a dentist's office, he reassembles the typewriter – plastic cover plates, the metal paper tray that directs paper onto the main roller, and the cylindrical rubber platen itself. Then he taps some keys, examining how each letter moves.

"Good enough. For government standards anyhow." He draws a smiley-face on the repair order, and calls the client on his old black rotary phone.

Mr. Whitlock is 90, and though he looks younger, his tweed jacket, silk tie, and sweater betray him as a man from a different era. His face is lined and friendly, crowned by thinning combed-back hair that recalls Lyndon Johnson's without the grease. The ring and pinkie fingers of his right hand are gnarled, but that doesn't keep him from his job.

Whitlock probably has been repairing typewriters longer than almost anyone in the US. When he started in 1930, Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight was a fresh memory, Herbert Hoover was president, and the Empire State Building was under construction.

Whitlock's Typewriter Shop is jammed with tools, books, machines, and memories that have accumulated over the past 77 years. After his 1990 "retirement," when he moved upstairs from the larger storefront below, Whitlock filled a dumpster with typewriters and flotsam. Still his shelves are laden with repair catalogues, a bust of Mark Twain (the first author to turn in a typed manuscript), "A Treasury of Jewish Humor," and the 1978 New Haven telephone directory. There are boxes full of platens, type-balls, type-slugs, and typebars.

And of course there are the typewriters themselves, in various states of cannibalization. Some gleam as they might have in 1920. There's an old black Underwood – the kind you'd see in a Howard Hawks movie. A German sky-blue Olympia built like a tank. Seven strains of electric Smith-Corona, four breeds of IBM Selectric, and one exotic Oliver No. 5, its typebars clustered like mouse ears on either side of the roller.

Whitlock says that he has repaired around 300,000 typewriters in his career. The avocado IBM was job No. 300,001. "If you put the typewriters I've repaired end to end, it would take days to drive past them," he boasts. Cars are as modern a motif as there is in his life – a painting of his old 1953 Jaguar XK120 decorates his living room (he sold the car itself to pay his late wife Nancy's medical bills).

"Typewriters don't go vroom, vroom," he concedes, noting that's one reason his two sons didn't follow him into the business.

But even cars might be a little too modern for Whitlock: "Airplanes, automobiles, television, computers; they've changed the world too quickly. It was nice 75 years ago!"

Whitlock has outlived most of his contemporaries – both the typewriters and the people. His older brother, Reverdy, is the only one of Whitlock's five brothers still alive. Reverdy and Manson worked together at their father's general store, which was a New Haven institution long before either was born.

Clifford Everett Hale Whitlock started his business out of a bike garage next door to the Skull and Bones tomb (the exclusive Yale secret society). At 15, he ambitiously billed himself "bookseller to Yale." Manson's name, too, came from ambition – he was named after a bank executive so that his father could "stand in good" with the bank, he says. A promotional pamphlet from this era shows the shop, dark and wood-paneled, every inch the ancient general store. It aimed to anticipate all needs, advertising, "Yale Men, your Telegrams will be received till 8 p.m. at Whitlock's Book Shop."

By 1930, when Manson started working at his father's store, it had moved to Broadway Avenue, New Haven's main commercial block. The store always had a big typewriter section, with window displays of the mouse-eared Olivers. Sometimes a company representative would come and awe onlookers by "drawing" pictures with the No. 5. He taught young Whitlock how to draw a line of soldiers across the page using an 'O' for the head, a slash for the body, hyphens for arms, and a caret for legs. "It was pleasing for little minds," Whitlock reminisces. He was interested in mechanics, so when the time came to work in the shop, he gravitated toward typewriters. He was never formally trained. He says he learned by "osmosis."

Reverdy Whitlock took over the family bookstore in the '40s. The brothers didn't get along very well, and the split was acrimonious. Reverdy recounts coming to the store one Sunday to find Manson loading typewriters into an old wood-paneled station wagon and moving them to a storefront around the corner. Manson just smiles ruefully and says that he has a much better relationship with his brother now.

The move allowed Whitlock to expand – at its height, the store stocked 400 to 500 machines and employed six mechanics. Success enabled Whitlock to keep the older manuals to himself and delegate the electric typewriters to others.

A 1910 Oliver is the oldest machine that Whitlock keeps in his shop today. Despite its ears, it is fairly conventional compared with other early typewriter designs. There was the Hammonia, Germany's first writing machine, which looked like a bread-slicer. The Blickensderfer No. 5, which had keys that stuck out in all directions, making it look, in Whitlock's words, "sort of like a centipede." And, best of all, the Williams, which had a "grasshopper" type-action in which a jointed typebar kicked up, over, and down onto the platen roller.

Today, despite his former objections, Whitlock works mostly on electric and electronic typewriters (electrics are mechanical but run by a motor; electronics have computer chips). That's all people bring. There isn't any point in keeping manuals other than for decoration and company.

One afternoon, Whitlock lets me take apart an electric Smith-Corona. Its motor connects to a spinning ridged shaft. A key, when pressed, catches onto a ridge of the shaft, whose spin kicks the typebars forward against the page.

Whitlock tells me to remove the typebars, which look like spring-loaded frog legs. I try one, and he says "Never force anything." Right. I try harder. "You're forcing!" he says, taking it in his fingers and, with a flick of his wrist, disconnecting the bar from its linkage to the key.

I take the next typebar and flick my wrist. Nothing happens. He takes it and humiliates me again. I end up having to use two hands to remove the bars one by one.

Whitlock tells me to look at the escapement, the jumble of gears that moves the carriage from one letter to the next. He tells me how it works; I'm completely lost. He smiles and tries to phrase it differently. I poke at the escapement with my screwdriver. He prods it too, didactically, and presses the spacebar a few times. Finally I understand: It resists the carriage's tension; it doesn't actually cause movement. A few days after I destroyed his typewriter, he tells me that if I'd come 20 years ago, he'd have given me a job.

After my repair lesson, I want a typewriter of my own. I tell him that I've been looking for one on eBay. He has never used or even seen the Internet, but he has heard of the site and is intrigued.

So, disregarding the first thing he ever told me – "You work a typewriter, a computer works you" – I bring in my shiny silver laptop and we sit down to scope out the market.

"I'll be darned," he says, when 1,782 items pop up. "Let's see that Remington. Remington Rand No. 5. Clumsy, not as nice a feel as Royals."

I ask if he can see the computer well enough. "It's got such a clear screen!" he marvels. "I had thought it would be blurry like a TV!" He smiles and looks at the $10.49 Corona No. 3 I've clicked. "Goodness gracious. Unbelievable. They were made during the First World War. The last one I had I sold for $100. Surprising that they're so cheap."

He takes a shot at moving the mouse around. "Underwood – hmm, that's not old, '40s or '50s. They're calling that an antique?"

It's as though eBay is an electronic Metro-North for Whitlock, who used to go to New York City pawnshops weekly to buy old hocked models.

The next day I bring my computer again. The wireless connection flickers, then sputters out – eBay won't load. I fiddle with it the way he fiddles with typewriters – pressing buttons, shaking it, cajoling it. Whitlock asks if there is a cattle prod button to startle it into compliance. I give up; there's nothing I can do to fix it.

Whitlock looks at me. "Well, it was neat," he says quietly. "But I'll stick to typewriters."

Burlesque

Funny Face and Gypsy are my favorite musicals. Audrey is untouchable and I love Natalie Wood but remember Faith Dane?
Faith Dane was in the Gotta Have a Gimmick number and played Mazeppa (looks like a young Tony Curtis in drag). It is one of my favorite scenes ever because it is burlesque and because of Faith Dane.

When I read Chateau Marmont it was written that she would annoy everyone with her bugle, often. The part of Mazeppa was a stroke of luck for the thirty something who had been trying for years to make it in show business. She played the part during the entire run of the musical and then the movie but after all that was Gypsy was over, she was out. She married a politician and "took off" with her bugle in politics. I love her!

Speaking of burlesque one of my travel destinations is the Exotic World Burlesque Museum since I read about it in 1995. I always thought it was cool that burlesque made a comeback of sorts but after seeing a few of the shows it just isn't what it was. How can it be? People now cannot capture the essence or be like people then, generations ago, no matter what. We are all a result of our time and our era is written all over our gestures, movement, gaits etc....However, it's still tres cool, of this time, popular and a refreshing alternative to the pole dancer.

When I wanted to know more about anything I went to the library. In the days pre Internet, finding information on old burlesque dancers wasn't easy. The names I looked up in the card catalog and even periodical Guide(serious research) were Lili St Cyr, Ann Corio (taken from an encyclopedia entry)and Gypsy Rose Lee. All I could find was the book The G String Murders more encyclopedia entries. The day I found the LP How to Strip for Your Husband at the library, I thought this is it, maybe this will clue me into more. I was twelve and the librarian didn't want to let me hear it but I kept telling her it was only music secretly hoping, somehow, there would be more.

The attraction had been the costumes I saw in Gypsy then the dancing, it was glamorous. What I wanted to know was who were these women, where and how did they grow up, how much more was there to burlesque and was the woman up the street with the feathered fans on her wall and the fluffy robe and all the make-up once one of them? She was old, old,old to me and I felt she was tres interesting but too shy to ever ask her if she was in show business. Turned out she was involved in carnivals and that's all I ever found out. I was in ballet and Lili St Cyr had been a ballet dancer per the encyclopedia entry. Ann Corio was Catholic and so was I. Costumes, dancing, glamour, all appealing to tweens.

Here It Is Burlesque was a book published in 1968 and was missing from the San Antonio Public Library holdings in 1983. UGH! Del Rio would do inter library loan from the San Antonio Public Library. In 1979 a video based on the book had been released but no dice. It wasn't until I came to Austin that I was able to procure a book on Minksy and the burlesque. That started a collection of burlesque music, books and cds and at one time costumes.

Now Funny Face I saw when I was eight and that started the entire facination with Beats, beatniks and existentionalism but that's another post.

Side Note: Now they even have Shimmy Magazine!

Boredom at Work Inspires Memoirs

So the work software is down for the next few days and until a committee gathers to designate "busy" work we have nothing to do. I may be posting dozens of boring memoirs from now until 4/29. For some reason I am getting a flood of memories from when I was kid. Maybe it's because I have a birthday at the end of the week, in any case, humor me:

One of the things I remember in Catholic school was the snort stuff up your nose fad. Really interesting comment on society at the time. Kids were snorting Kool-aid, ground up Tylenol, sugar, flour even chalk up their noses. I wasn't one of them because I had common sense enough to know better. That lasted maybe a month before we had the principle come in and give us a talk. This was the early 80's.

Some of those same kids, a few months later, had gross, bloody, gangrene looking scabs on top of their hands playing a game called man or mouse. It was a guy game. Basically a boy would let some other kid (rarely female)scratch the hell out of his hand until it bled and there was no skin left to prove he was a man not a mouse. The mice were females or males unwilling to participate, probably neurosurgeons now having possessed so much intelligence, common sense,backbone and conviction at such a young age. That ended up in a lecture with just the principal, just the guys.

There was carry a horned toad in a shoe box and bring him to school fad. Again, I didn't participate since I wasn't about to touch anything not flufy and cute. Wow, when I think of how they are extinct today and how some kids seemed to have a new one in a box for a full two years straight, YIKES!

After Grease was released on VHS the kids at my school had this join a club fad. There were several all girl and all boy clubs. Everyone had a decorated index card with a top secret club name and their favorite color, favorite this or that...primitive myspace if you will. Being the non joiner that I was (still am), I didn't participate. I think at the time I was digging a hole behind the coke shed where the asphalt had parted. I had found some trinkets there so there had to be more. I managed to engage a few in this, I wasn't totally alone. The nuns came down on the whole club thing. The hole we dug reached two feet before it was discovered and cement poured into it.

Hard to believe we still played marbles in the schoolyard from Kinder until 3rd or 4th grade. This was the early 80's, that was an ancient game. Wonder if it was just a Del Rio thing. I got to use marbles my grandfather had used when he was a kid in the 30's. Never lost one either.

There was the bring your boom box to school fad. I remember playing marbles and hearing Another One Bites the Dust and Devil Went Down to Georgia. That didn't last long, imagine every kid in school with music blaring at recess, from Kenny Rogers to Kiss (the nerd I was, I brought in Elvis, Connie Francis and the Beatles). Other fads I participated in were the Chinese jacks, regular jacks and Chinese jump rope fads.

Since the school yard sat under pecan trees we had pecan picking and eating season (you'd smash the pecans with your dirty old shoe on the dirty old asphalt and then eat the bits, yeah, from the ground) that coincided with drinking more cokes (had a coke shed with two coke machines, a quarter! and a nail to punch the coke can on so you could drink it from the side. Yikes, rusty old nail polluting your drink. Well, we had TAB there so, lose, lose situation for some). Coke cans all over the schoolyard attracted bees so there were tons of bees (I hear these insects are on their way out too, sux.) and tons of kids with allergic reactions from being stung. For awhile those kids weren't allowed outdoors ever then they got wise and got rid of the coke machines.

Because it was a Catholic school it attracted all sorts of religious cooks and we'd have Chick Tracts thrown at us and into the school yard. Hey Comics! What's this 666 on the forehead thing, creepy. Those would get confiscated and we'd get a lecture to calm down the freaked out kids.

I remember we were all into playing every record backwards not just the Heavy Metal stuff and while stuck indoors when it rained kids would take the class turntable (those heavy grey ones) and put on a record and play it backwards and we'd swear we heard all sorts of devil messages. Teachers didn't know what was going on. Once they caught on, week long lectures by the religion teacher and a visit from the principle. There was even a book on the subject or what looked like one and we all had to sit through that. Rodney? You probably remember more.

For some reason people walking by the school would hand out candy to us kids in the school yard (chain link fence near downtown area and an HEB) and we'd take it. YIKES! Then again we had a jungle gym over asphalt, a bunch of old wood boards with long nails sticking out of them behind the coke shed where everyone like to hang out (only 2 feet of space, if that, between this shed and the back wall of HEB, nice place for rats and scorpions and bats that was the attraction), and huge, old, splintery see saw that sent more than one kid home with a 3 inch splinter in their belly when they tried to slide down it.

Remember:

Skylab?
I was eight but I remember hearing about it being unstable and debris hitting the earth. I would ask my mother if it would fall in Del Rio and would imagine it crashing on a field near my grandparent's home. My lil sister was born in June and I forgot all about Skylab falling until it did in July in Australia and over the Indian Ocean.

I had found a few pieces of what was probably welded lawnmower parts but it looked cool enough for me to pretend it was a part of Skylab. I'm sure plenty of kids had their share of believed Skylab pieces.

Three Mile Island?
I remember my mom being freaked out because she was pregnant with my sister and wondered what the impact could be. She was a rather large sized baby and is the tallest in the family but that's about it.

PattyHearst?
I remember the news being on all the time (small black and white tv) and my mom telling me what could happen if I didn't hold her hand and about kidnappings and brain washings and cults (topic of cults and brain washings and cults came up again with Jim Jones. I think this is why I am not a joiner.) something about not licking stickers or stamps not even the Green Stamps I enjoyed licking and putting into the books,and being too rich and on and on...I was only UGH! I was only three (four when she was arrested)! Obviously made an impression on me because I went into kindergarten knowing what brainwashing was. I remember some lil girl repeating the same sentence over and over and telling her to stop brainwashing us because we had not had lunch yet.

I also liked wearing an old Vietnam War beret I picked up somewhere and a toy machine gun. Although I think that was more influenced by WWII movies and documentaries I would watch (Grandfather a WWII Vet so all this was around me at a very young age) and maybe even That Don Rickles Show-C.P.O. Sharkey, for some reason I really dug that show. Anyway there is a photo of me somewhere with me wearing my school uniform a beret that is way to big for my head and a belt of toy bullets for my toy machine gun. How did that happen? I really was a doll and tea set girl, must have been someone elses.

Wide World of Sports?
I remember the sport's commercials that would run, gymnastics, figure skating and surfing. I also remember Dorothy Hamill, got my haircut to look like her. Didn't work if you had curly hair. It was cut and style perfectly at the salon but it was a wreck after I got home and napped. Until it grew out there were a few times my mom was told, "Oh you have two boys?".

Missing List:

Braniac, really dug that band, sad * Shows like Dick Cavett *A lot of music in town but eh, no band has really seduced my ear enough to make it out * Honey bees-all that news about the honey bee crisis is a worry * $2000 in salary *A few movies, been busy need to catch up * The ability to stop cussing: Those who know me well know I have a casual sort of foul mouth. Nothing I am proud of and something I need to correct now that my friends have children. There was a time I never uttered such things but it slowly evolved over time here in Austin. I want nothing more than to break this habit and just use more intelligent adjectives and adverbs, clean, classy, no more potty mouth * This was of interest and I missed it: On Sat 4/14/2007 at 9PM, New York musical Artists David Aaronand Adriano Morez along with WaxMachine will be doing a special show at the Brooklyn Lyceum that will include works inspired by the cut-up technique of legendary author William Burroughs****************Don Ho: Tres sad******************

Listing Minutiae

IN:
The old hood

Houston: People are so much nicer there compared to Austin, dig the restaurants and museums

The Menil and Cy Twombly Gallery (I would move to Houston just to hang here. I've been hanging at Elizabet Ney waaaaaay too long)

O & P House:Inspiration

A really well made horchata

Sophia and her big brown eyes

Fennel

The Sing Glees

Nice, unpretentious strangers who treat you like they know you

Galveston: Dig the beach, fresh seafood and the grit

Pouty Day at the beach:45 degrees with a strong, chilled wind, grey skies, huge waves and no one there

East Beach

Olympia Grill-Galaktoboureko(Austin needs a really good Greek restaurant)

Casey's

Col Bubbies Army Surplus and their $9.95 sweaters

Embroidered Oaxacan dresses from Juarez (10Q OO)

La Hacienda

Being off the radar,under the table,covert

Surf Music

OUT:
Darest I mention the Blanton Museum here. I noticed it had water stains on the ceilings and walls

Austin's price of housing

Being land locked and no fresh seafood

Pretentious
Main Entry: pre·ten·tious
Pronunciation: pri-'ten(t)-sh&s
Function: adjective
Etymology: French prétentieux, from prétention pretension, from Medieval Latin pretention-, pretentio, from Latin praetendere
1 : characterized by pretension : as a : making usually unjustified or excessive claims (as of value or standing) b : expressive of affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature
2 : making demands on one's skill, ability, or means : AMBITIOUS synonym see SHOWY
- pre·ten·tious·ly adverb
- pre·ten·tious·ness noun

Bobo, Yuppie, Trustifarian watering holes

Homegrown one man shows-What a bore

Shameless self promotion-YAWN.

Being a helot

In search of cool useless things

I have always wanted but have no practical use for the following:

1.Vintage Stock Ticker Machine: I could watch one of those things for hours. I find it relaxing to hear it tick and spit out the numbers. But where do you get the ticker tape and what to do with it aside from using it in an art project. At least it would force me to create. Oh the pressure. Still, Cool thing to have lying around.

2.In keeping with the glass dome theme, however not nearly as "useless" is a small, glass dome weather station. It looks like a ticker machine but isn't as dynamic.

3. A really complex antique music box. In the age of Ipods and things being smaller,taking up less space but holding the max a big music box is pretty useless. Even one that plays several tunes is "useless" but I dig them. I like the sound, I admire the mechanics of it all. As if you haven't noticed, I'm wowed by somewhat primitive (comparatively) mechanics.

4. A HAM radio. With the internet it's now "useless" to a point and it's a hassles with the whole radio operators lisence and it does take up a significant amount of space but it's so uber cool.
BTW I saw a truck driver using a cell and he looked silly, even stupid. I'm used to truckdrivers = CB radios. I don't care, truckdrivers should use CB radios or a cell that looks like a CB radio.

5. My own radio station and frequency on AM. Yeah, I would totally dig my very own lil radio station, again, I know this is possible with a computer and a service but it's not the same. To have records (78's 45's, 33's) from floor to ceiling, tapes, cds and the entire set up to transmit on XTER (should it be in Mexico) or KWNT from the US and be able to play whatever and broadcast all over all entirely on the level with the FCC, not pirate (ugh! the worry and the fines and the loss of equipment). Have friends do their own shows, spend weekends working the station. Wowsers, the power of broadcasting in this manner still appeals to me. Ever since I was a kid working with walkie talkies, a Fisher Price turntable and a small but powerful transistor radio. Working for Voice of America still appeals to me too. UGH the voices on the radio these days-something revolutionary can still happen there.

6. More useless would be a telegraph unless you want to practice Morse code for no good reason. I used to own a straight key but that was lost,stolen,taken, what have you. I learned Morse Code as a kid from a library book. I still know some,um, well acquainted that is, it ties in with the whole HAM radio thing.
..-. ..- -. -.- / ... --- ..- .-.. / -... .-. --- - .... . .-.

It also ties in with a facination with code in general. When I was a kid I was always wanting to return from Summer vacation with some cool skill (cool in my book, not yours or theirs)and learning Morse Code was one of them but there was a Summer I tried to learn Navajo. All pretty useless when you consider I could of learned Latin or Greek?

Drive In?

Want to go to a Drive In movie?

Spring begins snow cone season in Austin!

I love Raspadas! In Mexico they are made from real fruit (guayava, limon, naranja, vanilla, mango, papaya, fresa, coco y pina) and add sweetened creme to them, sooooooo good. Nothing beats a Mexican raspada! NOTHING! But alas I am far from mexico so:

Snow cones are yummy, Casey's New Orleans Snowballs are the best in Austin. I like that they use creme and offered sweetened creme a few times I was there. The only thing better than snow cones is gelato and I love the selection at Mandola's. Spring in Austin is tres sweet. Now if I can find a really great flan nearby I'd be uber happy.

Du Jour, Du Jour

Interests Du Jour:
1. Attempting, exquisite, intricate crochet and pulled thread work
2. Creating new scarves and scarflettes and hats
3. Katherine Anne Porter and Antonieta Rivas Mercado
4. Cantinflas and his films
5. Vintage Mexican Items (not just dresses)
6. Reading, sewing and sorting all weekend
7. Casa Chapala
8. Fried Green Tomatoes from Billy's!
9. The Tiki Lamp comeback
10. Take a Chile y Limon rimmed glass and squeeze half a lime into it, then add a shot of tequila (or two), Fresca (the real stuff) and ice= Frescazit-O!
Have it with cold jicama drizzled with lime and sprinkles with Guajillo Chile.
11. Baybel Cheese! It's sooooooooo good!!!!!
12. Small, older homes are "IN" . Apparently the mansions of the future are less than 1000sqft!
13. Loquats are ready for picking in West Campus!
14. Did you know in England basil was expected to bring good luck to a new home?
15. The Green Ray