Today I went to Grinders to partake in the He’Brew Happy Hour and to meet the founder of the Shmaltz Brewery Jeremy Cowan. I have no idea why I did that: I am not a giant beer fan and when Jeremy introduced himself and tried to blind me with scientific beer-speak I acted like he was speaking Chinese and ordered a beer because it was on special. I ended up with a Coney Island Sword Swallower and I am pretty sure it was a beer.
While the beer was good and Jeremy Cowan was very nice and stopped by to talk to me when he was leaving, my trip to Grinders was even more delightful because I met the former proprietor of “George’s Cheese and Sausage Shop” and Hy-Vee Hall-of-Famer George Detsios.
George Detsios and Jeremy Cowan
I remembered reading about him here and there and even having a commenter on this blog suggest trying out George’s goulash at Grinders on Mondays. I talked to George for more than 30 minutes about his life, travel, his job at Hy-Vee, his old shop and his weekly Hungarian cooking at Grinders. By the time we were done taking I knew what I will be doing next Monday.
On Monday, March 23 between 5 and 6pm you are welcome to join me at the Grinders for goulash cooked by George Detsios.
After a beer or two be prepared for some Hungarian singing and possibly dancing.
I had this article saved up for some time but only now got around to translating it.
To the best of my knowledge, the Star Wars were never shown in the Soviet Union, at least not in the wide distribution. Certain people always had access to the Western movies, the legendary uncensored versions, which included sex and violence and images of the Western lifestyles that were so detrimental to the psychological well-being of the Soviet people. For the rest of us, the press published articles like this, to nip the desire to see the banned movie in the bud. Even though some people could have read a much better review (links to the Google-translated version) in the limited distribution of the Amerika Magazine, in the pre-VCR era there just were no other options for and average Soviet Citizen to see the movie an decide for himself.
Published under the heading “Mass Culture -77” in the box tiled “Their Sensations”
Cosmic Movie Horrors*
by Yulia Warshavskaya
This summer a new wave of the movie mania washed over the American movie theaters. As reported in the press, the movie Star Wars directed by an American director George Lucas beat all the box office records: it made sixty million dollars just in its first month of release. From morning to midnight the Star Wars is being shown in the crowed theaters. To get in, one either needs to stand in line for several hours, or buy a ticket from a scalper for an unheard price of $50.
Following the monsters, mass catastrophes and giant sharks, American movie screens are overtaken by the horrors on a truly cosmic scale – terrifying tyrants terrorizing our Galaxy. They are being fought by the characters of the movie, a round-faced princess, a country boy, an old knight of the Round Table, an ape-man and two robots. One of them – huge and gilded Tripio possesses human speech, the other one – Artwo-Detwo – looks like an automobile and communicates with the “star signals”.
The plot, as reported by the French weekly “Express”, is fairly primitive.**
But to further terrify the audiences the creators of the movie employ the most menacing weapon ever – the laser beam – which the movie characters use to fight like a rapier. The screen is constantly filled with horrifying monsters – a lizard-man, faceless gnomes, a live mummy, whose head is covered with rubber tubes, fantastic animals…
Along with this blood-curdling “masterpiece” which director George Lucas calls a “Western of the future”, several parallel commercial operations were undertaken. Ballantine Books published a novel with the same title; Marvel Comics, a publisher specializing in comic books, divided the screenplay into six parts and started publishing a million copies every month. Other classic attributes of mass culture followed – pins, shirts, promotional posters, soundtrack. And closer to the New Year the stores will be filled with toys – miniature Artwo-Detwo making the same noises as its prototype, as well as the gilded Tripio. The famous laser sword is not invented yet, but it’s in the works.
In the near future the next episode of the Star Wars will be released, but, most likely, it will be as mediocre as it will be profitable. It’s not surprising at all. Mass viewer often “bites” on these “pieces of art”, so the life outside of the theater walls feels a lot safer…
* amateur translation mine
**obviously the author did not see the movie and has to cite another publication
This post is brought to you by the Johnson County Central Resource Library’s new awesome microfilm reader.
Also brought to you by the library’s outstanding raise-deserving personnel.
The Iran Hostage Crisis was well-covered in the media, with reports and dispatches published and broadcast on a daily basis during the 444 day ordeal, but in the last few days before the Algiers Accords were brokered, the hostage news were back on the front pages of every newspaper.
*all the images should be readable, if you care to do so just click to enlarge.
People used to be easily amused. A ride on a painted horse in a circle could’ve been a high point of some Midwestern kid’s year. The sights, the sounds, the smells of carnival rides became the cherished memories people carried through their lives. Even I remember when a carousel ride wasn’t lame, but, of course, I am much older than my physical age.
Few days ago a Russian writer and a blogger passed away. One minute he was discussing something pedestrian, like finding chemicals to develop photo-film, and the next minute he was found dead on his own porch. By some cruel twist of fate his last words weren’t something profound, something to be passed around as quotes for generations, but something really insignificant like the location of the nearest photo supply. His last post is still gathering comments, where in the beginning people refused to believe the rumors about his death and continued to talk photography. He was popular but not hugely so during his lifetime, thousands of people read his blog and judging from the tearful comments many felt a connection with him. Strangely, so did I. Strangely, because his blog wasn’t really about anything, just his life and observations, mostly short blurbs about being a writer, living in a remote Russian village where he moved few years ago, few photographs, infrequent stories. Nevertheless, maybe for the first time, I found myself tearing up about a person I’ve never met. 46 years old, small child, so much more left unsaid and unwritten.
To me a sudden death like this is always tragic; something unfinished about a person dying in the middle of a conversation, or coaching a baseball game like one of my co-workers, or in a car accident, or on the way to work like my father. No time to say good byes, to reflect on one’s life, to tell someone your deepest secrets before you go. One minute you have a purpose in life, and the next you are neatly packed in a body-bag with a ID tag on your big toe.
What’s left of us when we are gone? People used to leave diaries, neat stacks of letters, photo albums, trinkets and tchotchkes, old wedding gowns, family jewelry and crystal. With every new generation the amount of physical memories shrinks; no one has time or room or desire to move the old junk around, so it gets sorted out multiple times until it fits in a small shoe box somewhere in the back of a cabinet. I still remember the day we were ripping up old photos so we can get our luggage under the weight limit.
My father left two folders of his writings and newspaper clippings, a photo album, a stethoscope and a blood pressure monitor. Even less will be left when I go. This site will disappear when I stop paying for hosting, in a year this space will be filled with links to erectile dysfunction medicine sites. There is no written correspondence and only few photos where I was coaxed into the frame, and even those are not in print form. Nothing material. No grieving widow, no beautiful woman shedding a tear and thinking “he was so good in bed”. No article in the Wikipedia, no chemical element, no star, no book, no restaurant chain. My whole life can fit on a thumb-drive. At least my kid won’t have to haul around a dusty trunk of my moldy possessions.
So what’s the choice here – to drop everything and discover a chemical element, name a star, write myself into the Wikipedia? Suddenly become amazing in bed? Or just continue filling up the thumb-drive of my life with insignificant drivel? Every time someone dies, people project the death upon themselves and sometimes make changes – starт buckling up, or eating better, quit smoking, spend more time with kids, learn something new, have more sex, travel – there are many things we realize we could be doing better or different or not at all.
It’s just unfortunate that it takes one’s death to reevaluate one’s life.
