McHuston Booksellers

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Tag: main street (Page 75 of 104)

Can you dig it? The machines did…

October 4, 2013 /

Crazy.

I’ve been playing some old standards on the guitar lately, inspired by my brother-in-law Dennis, the guitar virtuoso. It just occurred to me how prophetic “What a Difference a Day Makes” has turned out to be.

The yellow-metal dinosaurs are sleeping now, but they were in full digestive onslaught when I arrived at the shop this morning. The parking spaces in front of the store?

Gone.

I was able to catch a hungry dino-bot in action just outside the door, as you can see in the image. By mid-afternoon, the entire west-side block of parking was gone. Orange fence in place. Narrow strip of pavement serving as a sidewalk – left in place.

Not many using it.

I believe more people opened the door and stuck their heads in when I moved downtown, even before I even had a sign up or the boxes of books unpacked. Not a complaint here, though. Just an observation. I realize that it’s going to be thin chapters before getting back to the action sequence and the book is completed. (Really stretching for that one, huh?)

My neighbors down the block seem to have survived, and I’m guessing MSTavern will, too. There were cars parked at distances around the intersection, since their regular parking spots near the door are set-off with perimeter tape to protect the wet cement.

Here’s the part I like: With the exception of the first lady in the door, who quickly floated up and down the aisles like a ghost on the haunt before darting outside – the folks who braved the construction and crossed the threshold all bought something. I’ve had days when I could not race to the bathroom quickly enough because of all the store traffic (well, I DID make it on time, after all!) but they simply nodded on their way out, or mumbled something by way of goodbye – without so much as a price check. I LIKE the ratio of browsers to buyers!

What a difference a day makes!

The street project has been officially extended by a month. The mid-October deadline has become a mid-November finish. I don’t expect the yellow mechanical-dinosaurs to be in front of the shop for that long. The contractor is doing his best, and the consensus (while admitting some merchant whining) is that they are moving pretty quickly.

I walked across the street to the bank’s sidewalk. Impressive, is what I am thinking. Nice brick planters, complete with an irrigation system to keep the soon-to-be-installed landscaping alive and well. They are readying the street lamps for installation in the next block, which will be outfitted with electrical outlets to accommodate vendors who need to power up cash registers, fans, or phone-chargers during street festivals and fairs.

I’ve said it all along – the sooner the construction begins, the sooner it can be completed. Well, they have started.

The daily prep schedule will have to be adjusted, obviously. I wondered about making my daily batch of hand-mashed potatoes, but did it anyway. Good thing, too. Wound up selling all of them with the Bangers & Mash and Shepherd’s Pie. Overdid the soup and stew, but thankfully I don’t mind eating my own cooking. Monday, I’ll mentally refigure the recipes and try again.

The parking may be tough for now, but your patience is appreciated. The project is going to be worthwhile in the long run. I’m in it for that.

Don’t be scared by sleeping yellow dino-machines. Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main Street, Broken Arrow OK!

Google this. I mean – search using Google brand search engine.

October 2, 2013 /

Suppose you’re a famous artist and people want to buy your stuff, just because your name is on it. Then some knock-offs start signing their paintings with your name, just because they sell better that way. Who you gonna call? The signature police?

You gotta protect what’s yours, even if it’s just your name.

Just heard a television commercial for Band-Aids. Oops. Make that: BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages. Sometimes it is hard to remember that the little strip that we attach to our boo-boos isn’t called a Band-Aid. It is a bandage. Technically, it is an “adhesive bandage” if it is the peel-and-stick kind.

On the commercial, the kid is singing the old jingle and I can mentally sing along because it’s the same thing I’ve heard since I was a kid scuffing up my elbows in bicycle crashes. Here’s how it goes:

I am stuck on Band-Aids, cuz Band-Aid’s stuck on me!

Except, that isn’t how this kid sang it. His version had one more word: Brand. “I am stuck on Band-Aid’s brand, cuz Band-Aid’s stuck on me!” Still works musically. Half-notes instead of the whole-note. In doing that, the company protects its registered® copyright.

Hopefully.

Here’s the thing. If a company’s name becomes identified as its product, the term becomes generic. Here’s an example.

Aspirin.

In a lot of countries, even to this day, that would be in big letters as the brand name for a product – acetylsalicylic acid. As in Aspirin brand Pain Reliever. In the US, it has become Bayer® brand aspirin. Because in the US, Aspirin® did not protect the name from becoming generic.

Here are a few others: linoleum (maybe the first one to become generic, in 1878 (note that none have a capital letter in front, which they all would have had as a brand name); thermos (1963), dry ice, escalator, videotape (already pretty much obsolete), cellophane, and – get this – heroin.

Heroin was trademarked by Bayer® Company back in 1898. They got distracted for some reason and failed to protect the brand name. Who’d ’a thought?

There are plenty of others. Kerosine. Lanoline. Except, these days, they are kerosene and lanoline. No CAPS. Generic terms, assimilated into the language collective. It is fu-tile to resist.

There are some companies that have battled the Big-G in keeping their name off the generic list. Some are continually misused.

“Will you hand me a kleenex?”

No. Sorry. It’s a Kleenex® brand facial tissue.

“Well, then. Will you xerox this for me?”

Nah. I can photocopy it on the Xerox® brand copy machine.

In our part of the world, we don’t often hear people ask us for a soda pop. Don’t even hear those terms separately. As in, Let’s get a soda. Or – wanna get a pop?

Mostly, we hear, “Ahhhhh, Ma. We weren’t doin’ nothin’… We was just out gettin’ a coke.

No. It’s a Coke® brand soft drink, bottled by Coca-Cola®. And it stays that way only as long as the company continues to run advertising that makes it clear that the name is a brand name associated with a product. Nothing generic.

And – just so you think of this when you see the Band-Aid® brand adhesive bandage commercial, print it out and stick in on the fridge with some scotch-tape (or Scotch brand cellophane adhesive tape), or – just use a post-it® note. Ooops. Post-it® brand self-sticking note.

Meanwhile, I’ll get a brillo pad® and some clorox® and clean up the Book Shop®.

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main, Broken Arrow OK!

Bligh’ me, yer a smart one Weazel!

September 30, 2013 /

Suddenly, Pat hurls himself at the maniac Weazel!

Can’t ask for much more excitement than that, don’t ya know… In fact, before even hitting Page 1, there’s a scary pop-up in which Connie must peel potatoes or lose his ears. Sounds like my childhood! Zowie! (Kidding there, Ma…)

Almost eighty-years ago, a young fellow named Milton moved to New York City. The kid could draw. Got himself a job with the Associated Press in the features department – that’s the bunch in charge of comic strips. The head of a competing art syndicate liked Milton’s work, and hired him to draw a comic strip he had envisioned.

It hit the papers in 1934. Terry and the Pirates.

Loads of action and adventure. Great artwork. Terry was a cabin-boy type on the ship of the worldly Pat Ryan, who had some outlandish confrontations with Dragon Lady, the Pirate Queen of the Orient.

Milton Caniff drew the comic strip for a dozen years, but – back in those days – the publication rights and ownership of the character belonged to the syndication group. Caniff was paid a salary for his efforts.

As anyone who has ever hoisted a Dilbert coffee mug will realize, there’s Gold in them-thar Marketing Rights.

Caniff quit adventure on the high seas and traded it for adventure in the clouds – leaving Terry and the Pirates and creating his own strip called Steve Canyon. The high-flying Air Force hero appeared in newspapers nationwide, enjoyed by millions of readers. He continued the comic until his death in 1988.

A year after Terry and the Pirates made its debut, Caniff wrote and illustrated a hardback book version, complete with three “Pop-Up” pictures. It’s not politically correct these days, but its Oriental dialogue-affectations might be compared to the dialects in Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer adventures.

Needless to say, the book is scarce in any condition. With all three pop-ups completely intact, it’s a rare find and nice addition to the shop’s offerings.

I’ve long been a fan of the newspaper comic strips. As a kid, I aspired to draw that sort of thing for my living. (Bligh’ me, yer a smart one Weazel! …another pipe dream, busted.) I remember admiring artwork like The Spirit, another action hero drawn by Will Eisner – a contemporary of Milton Caniff.

I still read the “funnies” in the Tulsa World, but the artwork just isn’t the same. You can click on the image to compare the portraits of Steve Canyon and “Dilbert” – the creation of cartoonist Scott Adams. (The humor in the Dilbert strip is as sharp as anything out there, and particularly sharp on the modern office culture.)

But it ain’t Terry and the Pirates:

THEN, out of the South came the great terror of the China Sea – TYPHOON!

Here that wind, Limey?” exclaimed Weazel. “We strike now!

And how they struck! They cut the ropes on all but two of the lifeboats, scuttled the ship, took command of the entire crew at the point of guns! Dmitri carried out his foul part of the scheme, too. Drawing a gun, he shoved Mr. Drake, Normandie, and Terry, who had come to warn them, into a closet and tied them up.

Suddenly Connie remembered something. He ran to the place he had hidden the life preservers. “Yipple Dipple!” he exclaimed. “Come now lickity-skip!”

It doesn’t get much more exciting than that, huh?

Come visit, lickity-skip!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main Street, Broken Arrow OK!

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