McHuston Booksellers

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Tag: paperback (Page 32 of 40)

Panning planning.

May 2, 2013 /

A two-hour drive for a Hideaway’s Pizza? Crazy, maybe. To be sure, it wasn’t planned. I’m one of those who sometimes acts on a whim rather than thinking it over. The drive was back in the day when Stillwater had the only location, and I was recalling fond memories of it to the passenger in my car.

Me: We really ought to go get one.

Passenger: Okay.

Me: How ‘bout them Cowboys?

So, we hit the highway and drove and drove. It was a time of conversations between friends about important things – because everything seemed important, or at least magnified in intensity and perceived with a flourish.

The pizza? It was good. We knew it would be. Even if it had been bad it would have been good, for all the effort put into sitting down in that little restaurant and having it presented to us.

Some of my capricious decisions haven’t turned out so well. It hasn’t stopped me from acting on little-considered ideas.

Planning is part of the fun, I’ve been told numerous times. A variety of responses have always popped out of my mouth to that one.

Planner: You know planning is half the fun.

Me: Sure. It doubles the disappointment when the plan falls through.

Planner: You just have to make an alternate plan, just in case.

Me: A plan for a failed plan?

Planner: Right.

Looking ahead with anticipation is one thing, but I’m better known for stopping (while admittedly lost) to find a road map that will explain which highway is the one we should have turned on forty-five minutes ago.

The cliché is something like this (always abbreviated, and trailing off in a near-whisper while looking at someone’s failed endeavor): The best-laid plans…

The rest of it, usually omitted because we don’t know what the heck it is supposed to imply, goes like this in another abbreviated form: The best-laid plans of mice and men…

Scottish poet Robert Burns is credited with the saying, which concludes: The best-laid plans of mice and men often go astray. Besides his writing, Robbie Burns also kept a garden and once plowed through a nest of mice while tilling. He figured the mouse probably assumed it was a safe spot to build a nest, but – as he noted – plans often go astray.

Which brings me to my point.

Early last week, when emails were being exchanged among the Rose District merchants about First Thursday plans (the night we all keep our businesses open later), it was noted that the day’s forecast included a high of 82-degrees, sunny skies, and balmy breezes. A perfect evening for outdoor strolling, shopping, and listening to the outdoor concert by the band hired especially for the event.

The emails solicited replies from other store owners about their own plans.

Ahhh. There’s that planning thing again, the virtue I’ve been accused of not possessing in the least. In truth, I didn’t have an etched-in-stone event. Playing it by ear – that’s me.

Sunny skies? Ahhh, no. High of 82-degrees? That was yesterday. Strolling and listening to the outdoor music? Jogging in place might be the better idea, in order to keep from freezing up.

As I sit here typing, the day’s high has likely come and gone. Temperatures are expected to fall into the low forties by late afternoon. Sunshine? No. They’ve changed that plan to a possibility of freezing rain or snow. Snow!

We may see some record low temperatures by tomorrow morning, but snow in May in Tulsa County?

I’m not planning on it. So, come visit!

McHuston

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

Book’em Danno.

April 19, 2013 /

Books have been written about plots and counterplots, conspiracies, and terrorist attacks. I have shelves lined with them. Books have been written, both factual and those built from the imaginations of their authors.

Whether the young men accused in the Boston Marathon bombing are guilty of executing that event, or not, is a matter for the courts, at least for the surviving brother. Without question, they have already been tried in some corners of the media. Other corners will assume them innocent on grounds that authority figures will resort to any measures to bring about a conclusion, including fabricating evidence to support charges.

What cannot be denied is this: we are living in a world consumed with immediacy, social connectivity, and the capability for relentless recording and dissemination of video.

Whether we agree with the practice or not, we – as citizens – have events of our daily lives recorded with remarkable regularity. Look up at a traffic-lighted intersection. Chances are, there is a camera in place, the focus set on your vehicle and recording your activities at that moment.

Moments later, your actions will be caught by another camera at another intersection. And it isn’t just traffic. Store owners and those who have been victimized in particular, are increasingly adding cameras to their electronic loop of security protection. Admittedly, there are areas that cannot rationalize the cost of cameras versus the relative low crime risk. What it amounts to is this: you may be able to run red lights with reckless abandon in rural America without risk of being recorded and/or prosecuted for the violations. (It’s also a lot less risky to run a red light in rural America.)

The idea that a terrorist crime could be committed in a major metropolitan area without some camera being in the vicinity is almost far-fetched. A relative in Chechnya was quoted as saying the accusations against his sons for the Boston explosions amounted to science fiction. It remains to be seen whether those sons are the ones responsible for the bombings, but it would be science fiction to believe (in our current state of technology) that activities at major public events could escape being captured by video.

Not just a random camera.

Look at Facebook. Pictures. Videos. Public. Private. Shameless and shameful. It is proof without question that the lives of the public in general are being recorded from almost every angle imaginable. All day. All night.

There are corners of the world that don’t have the same reverence and respect, adulation, envy, and accumulated indebtedness owing to the world of the cellphone. The US is not among them.

Whatever we may believe about privacy and our own lives, we should have – by now – learned that someone is taking our picture right now either for something we are doing, or something someone is doing nearby. We may only be in the background, but there we are, ready for computer enhancement and identification. Tagging, Facebook calls it.

Even as those who disagree with the technology will complain, they will also have to admit that there is some small measure of reassurance that the risk of being recorded may give pause to some who might consider conducting attacks like the Boston Marathon bombing.

On one hand, it is remarkable that within the course of a business week, an anonymous assault can result in the identification and arrest of a suspect. On the other, it is almost astonishing that anyone in the techno-savvy part of the world could believe it possible to slink away into the shadows without being captured – with authorities completing what was begun by the cameras.

The Rachel Ray of Radio…

April 4, 2013 /

iPads. uTubes. iScream uScream. We all scream for ice cream. Then, we whip out our iPods and other such devices. Digital downloads. MP3s. Streaming from the Cloud. That thing called radio is still around, but it is a lot different than it used to be.

For one thing, there weren’t as many stations. FM – in the big scheme of things – was a late-comer to the party. But when it crashed onto the scene, it changed everything.

I’ve mentioned before that I find all sorts of things tucked into the pages of books that come into the shop. (Everything except money…) Today, it was a small, bookmark-sized calendar for 1934. On the back was a listing of radio stations that carried a cooking program called Pet-Milky-Way, “Broadcast direct from the PET MILK KITCHEN.”

The host was Mary Lee Taylor, a nutritionist and home economist for the PET Milk Company. Her program debuted in 1933 on CBS radio and, over time, became the longing running cooking program on radio. Her fifteen minutes aired twice a week, originally on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and was available to listeners in Oklahoma City and beyond on KOMA radio.

(Waaay back when, my friends and I called that radio station “coma” because we believed it was our job to be smart-alecky. We worked hard at it, but the pay was below minimal.)

Mary Lee later had the show evolve into more than just cooking tips. “The Story of the Week” featured the lives of a young married couple named Jim and Sally Carter. A soap opera for the kitchen crowd. When the hi-jinks and drama were over, Mary Lee would sit down at the microphone and present a complete menu that featured recipes using PET Milk. (I feel compelled to explain that PET Milk is a condensed product – evaporated milk – that comes in a can and was popular in the days before refrigerators. I know some folks use it still, because I see it on the shelf at Reasors. These days, I suppose it is used in baking and other specialty recipes.)

People liked her cooking tips, so she wrote a cookbook. She offered free recipes by mail. Chances are, one of your grandmothers sent off for one, or knew someone who did. In 1948, the show moved from CBS to NBC radio, still back in those days when the big national networks had a radio presence.

She kept at it until 1954, completing more than two decades broadcasting from the Pet Milk Kitchen. One of the original foodies, I suppose. The Rachel Ray of her day. Truth is, she wasn’t Rachel Ray or even Mary Lee Taylor.

Her real name was Erma Proetz.

The Mary Lee Taylor thing was her radio pseudonym. Something that she just baked up – I guess.

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