Daphne Eftychia Arthur, guitarist+. Read.
Another day of Jackson County Fair pictures before ... probably another day of Jackson County Fair pictures! We'll just see what happens.
Here's a medium-size rabbit enjoying some privacy behind the bag of hay.
And here's a very small rabbit enjoying some privacy by looking directly at me.
Sprawled-out Californian gathering some solar power.
Here's a fine-looking rabbit taking on a pose to match the rectangle of the cage surrounding them.
Pretty sure this is the face of a rabbit.
Couple shorthaired black rabbits just sitting up together, telling secrets.
Hotot wishes you to know they ANGY cotton ball. But Hotots always look like ANGY cotton balls.
Rabbit who looks a bit like Colombo chatting with a rabbit who looks a bit like Roger.
This is a rabbit proud to have accomplished this much in life.
Meanwhile, outside the rabbit barn, there's stuff going on, like golf carts and horses. And say ...
I knew they had horseshoes, but horse boots is new on me.
And also horse ankle braces too, it looks like.
Trivia: In directing the city design for Philadelphia, William Penn --- a Quaker --- rejected as immodest naming city streets after himself or other people. Instead the streets would be numbered, with the cross streets named after ``things that Spontaneously Grow in the country'', such as Cherry, Chestnut, and Mulberry Street. Source: The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power, Dierdre Mask.
Currently Reading: Archaeology, May/June 2025, Editor Jarrett A Lobell. The articles are all interesting and the advertisements are all kind of creepy weird, like, ``status'' watches and stones on the ``brink of extinction'' and meteorite-ore rings.
As the subject line, quoting the 1980s jingle for the Westchester County, New York, fair suggests, I'm sharing pictures of the 2024 Jackson County, Michigan, fair.
And here's a horse enjoying their temporary accommodations and having a bag full of hay and the triumph of a bunch of ribbons plus a little statue. And say, what is that fancy aqua one with the side ribbons? Computer, enhance!
It's a 4-H Hippology Master and I guess Hippology makes sense for the term, but it sounds like making fun of horse studies.
Not sure who was supposed to be in this barn but they certainly cleaned up well!
I'm all but certain this is the place to find rabbits, though.
There's always educational panels around the animal exhibits; here's one about changing litter and doing so with less waste, which is possible because most rabbits pick a spot where they want to pee and stick to that. (Rabbit pellets are really not a problem; they're odorless and don't smoosh or anything.)
A couple Californian rabbits give me the cold shoulder to chat amongst themselves, probably about me.
Californian here looks at me and is not pleased that I'm being such a bother.
Totally different Californian also not seeing where I get off thinking I'm all that.
Here's a rabbit a couple cages down too busy being cool for me.
Tongue! Got a picture of one Californian's tongue, grooming their roommate.
I can't swear this Californian spent the night before in wild revelries but if I said they did, would you dispute my assessment?
Here's the cover for a bunny's acoustic guitar covers of Clash songs.
Trivia: The 2,751 Liberty cargo ships manufactured during World War II would, if lined up end-to-end, reach over two hundred miles. Source: Box Boats: How Container Ships Changed The World, Brian J Cudahy.
Currently Reading: Archaeology, May/June 2025, Editor Jarrett A Lobell.
Next thing was the Jackson County Fair, which I went to on my own because bunnyhugger was visiting her brother.
The fairgrounds you access through this building, which as a community recreation center I suppose was saved in the 80s.
Among the first things I saw and did not understand: Dan Dan The Farmer Man driving around. I never saw what his deal was.
Here's the carousel. They switched to tickets being pretty cheap but rides taking a gobsmacking number of tickets in trade.
The teacups ride for kids is a mere nine tickets, though.
Pharoah's Fury is a twelve-ticket ride. I like this kind of swinging ship ride; bunnyhugger is less fond of them .
Redemption games offered a couple models of space alien to win, either inflatable or plush as you like.
A Dragon Wagon kiddie coaster, which I could probably have ridden if I wanted to bang my knees up enough.
Another Ring of Fire, 12 tickets. Note that you're not able to bring a hat on the ride, which does leave you suspended upside-down for a while.
You may think, well, all the adult rides are 12 tickets, right? Nope! The Ferris Wheel is a big 15 tickets.
And the Himalaya is also 15 tickets, which I find interesting pricing because I'd rate the Ring of Fire a more intense and exciting ride than the Himalaya.
Can't tell you how many tickets the Starship 3000 (a Gravitron ride) was. But here's a photo along some midway.
And now into the horse barn. The entrants create their own heraldic symbols for their horses that are neat to see.
Trivia: English banks and private investors put something like £150 million in loans and £200 million in stock subscriptions to Latin American companies and projects in 1823 and 1824. Source: A Nation of Deadbeats: An Uncommon History of America's Financial Disasters, Scott Reynolds Nelson. The crash came in 1825.
Currently Reading: Michigan History, March/April 2025, Editor Sarah Hamilton. Also some tiny insight into why Kalamazoo used to be called the ``celery city''; apparently it's where the crop first got planted in the United States and pitched as a food rather than a medicinal plant.
Next thing in our adventures? Another night at Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum. I took fewer pictures than I really should have so, sorry. But here's what I have.
Pinball Row. Note that the Venom game is updating, one of those little surprise things pinball games can do now, even if it's minutes before a tournament where this game is going to be played. Fun!
The other half of Pinball Row, going back to the Revenge From Mars that still had my pre-Covid grand champion score (and would through January, when this location closed).
And of course I put up a killer game of Attack From Mars, but not in tournament play. Just for fun. What's the fun in doing something really well just for your own gratification?
Some of the Chuck E Cheese bird animatronics.
Oh yeah, also had a killer game of Toy Story 4, again where it didn't do me any good but be fun and get me on top of the daily high score board. Also more games should turn on the daily high score board.
In the back, near the women's bathrooms, was this array of pictures of Riverview Park (I believe Chicago) along with many ride and redemption tickets for it.
Other stuff in back, including a bunch of posters for mutoscope movies, not all of them about mutoscope salesmen stealing away businessmen's wives.
Another typical view of Marvin's. A slightly dated promise of souvenirs, some old (reproduction?) freak show posters, a Mister Peanut that looks off-brand, some neon, and a black-and-white picture of some kind of store.
Further along that area there's a lighthouse, flags of the world, and a coin-op mechanical (nonfunctional, I think) of a woman in an electric chair.
And here's our old friend the Cardiff Giant!
Behind the counter you can see part of an old magazine or newspaper print ballyhooing the giant. It's weird that it's obscured by the ticket redemption station.
And then a sign for Marvin's advertising itself.
Trivia: In stowing gear for reentry the Gemini 4 astronauts put the used film cassettes in the middle food box. The cameras, some refuse (including three defecation bags), the exerciser, and some other small bits of gear were put in the left-hand aft food box. McDivitt kept the EVA suit sleeves, blanket, and launch day urine bags underneath his legs against his seat. Source: Gemini 4: An Astronaut Steps Into The Void, David J Shayler.
Currently Reading: Michigan History, March/April 2025, Editor Sarah Hamilton. With an article on the time Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy recorded a show in Decatur, where it turns out he came from.
Since my last reading post:
Nobody Cares, by H. J. Breedlove. This one is good, but dark: it's dedicated this to Black Lives Matter, and fairly early on I got to the first mention of Missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. It's also book 3 in the Talkeetna series, with further developments in the friendship-turning-romance of Dace and Paul.
The Disappearing Spoon, by Dan Kean: a history of the periodic table, with a bit about each of the currently-known elements and the people, or groups of people who discovered them. Someone recommended this after I mentioned liking Consider the Fork, but the two books have almost nothing in common.
The Electricity of Every Living Thing, by Katherine May: a memoir, about walking and what happens after the writer hears a radio program about Asperger's and thinks "but that's me." (I don't remember where I saw this recommended
Return to Gone-Away, by Elizabeth Enright: read-aloud, and a reread of a book I read years ago. Sweet, a family's low-key adventures in an obscure corner of upstate New York. As the title implies, this is a sequel; read Gone-Away Lake first.
Beautiful Yetta, the Yiddish Chicken, by Daniel Pinkwater, a short picture book that we read aloud after Adrian and I realized Cattitude hadn't read it before. Conversation in three languages, with translations (and transliterations) for the Yiddish and Spanish. Not Pinkwater's best, but fun.
Thimble Summer, by Elizabeth Enright, because I enjoyed rereading the Gone-Away Lake books. Several months of a girl's life with her family on a farm. The plot and adventures are relatively low-key. I liked it, and am glad I got it from the library.
Also, it looks as though I didn't post about the summer reading thing here. It started June 1, and the bingo card has a mix of kinds of books, like books in translation, published this year, or with an indigenous author; some squares with things like "read outside" and "recommend a book"; and some that go further afield, like "learn a word in a new language" and "try a new recipe." Plus the ever-popular "book with a green cover." (OK, last year it was "book with a red cover.") I do a lot of my reading on a black-and-white kindle, so I don't know what color the covers might be. Therefore, I walked into a library yesterday, looked at their summer reading suggestions, and grabbed a book with a green cover.
I just found out that Peter David, one of the legendary writers of the comic book field (and novels, and TV, and other stuff, but I knew him first and foremost from comics) passed away last week.
For posterity, here's my comment on the locked post where I found out about it. (The Kickstarter "blog" for The Babylon 5 Preservation Project, which ran a long obit.) Also includes a few extra footnotes in italics.
Damn -- I had missed that Peter had passed. Not a surprise under the circumstances [he's been quite sick for quite a while], but he'll be much missed. He was one of my favorite writers for most of my adult life.
I was at that "Three High-Verbals" talk at MIT [in Kresge, October 6, 2001], which was the second time I got to meet him. (The first having been after Universicon at Brandeis University, many years before. We wound up commandeering my living room for the after-party, resulting in Peter sitting in my easy chair for hours, telling stories to about two dozen college students sitting around him on the floor.)
Anyway, that was one heck of a memorable talk. Peter read his beautiful, sober But I Digress column about 9/11. Neil read "My Crazy Hair" (demonstrating that yes, Neil could read the phone book and people would happily listen). And Harlan picked a fight with the audience about how the Internet was destroying society, and proceeded to argue with them for half an hour. It seemed very true to each.
Once it was all over, we got to the signings, and I came up to Peter with a Trek fanzine that my wife had picked up at a NY convention in the mid-70s. [This was Jane's first-ever SF convention -- she wheedled her father into taking her into NYC for a Trek con when she was a teenager. I don't remember exactly how old she was at the time, but I vaguely remember it being '74.] Peter's eyes practically bugged out, and he yelled for Caroline [his wife] to come look. Turned out that his piece in there was the first thing he'd ever had published anywhere, and he hadn't seen a copy of it in decades.
That signed zine is buried somewhere in my stacks; I've been looking for it since his heart attack. I still rather regret not having just given it to him at the time...