Ellen Hoch
Yesterday (Thursday, December 21) Linda’s friend Ellen Hoch visited.
She was apparently passing through, so stopped at the West Bloomfield post-office just as Linda was about to go to lunch.
Together they came to our humble abode.
I don’t know if I have this right, but I think Ellen Hoch was once Linda’s boss, but it wasn’t Simon Legree and his unworthy peons.
They were the crew that determined West Publishing’s print-product.
Kind of like Frank Brown at the mighty Mezz. The mighty Mezz looked good because of Frank Brown. Frank Brown overlooked the input of the mighty Mezz.
It was different than West because the mighty Mezz had color printing. West had only black, but 89 bazilyun subheads and styles — which was what Linda was programing: so that a massive amount of content would flow into place with the right indents and text-styles.
It was the old waazoo: what you saw on the ‘pyooter-screen wasn’t necessarily what came off the press.
Frank Brown jumped through all kinds of hoops to make the mighty Mezz look good.
In the days before ‘pyooterization (paste-up), Frank was the head of paste-up. —So even then what we looked like was somewhat determined by him.
He had high standards — and so did I. We weren’t looking like no cheap-shot.
I remember on 9/11/01 when the Twin-Towers fell, Frank was consulted by the Executive-Editor, and they dumped just about the whole A-section (national); eight pages.
Even the front of the local-section (B) got dumped, replaced with local reaction.
“Notice how I didn’t feel the least bit uncomfortable about Ellen visiting,” Linda said.
“That’s because I’ve been to her house and it’s a dump.”
“Well believe you-me,” I said; “CG’s house is a disaster.”
Detritus is piled in huge disorderly piles all over.
A particular vignette stands out.
Charlie’s ‘pyooter is buried in a nook of detritus; heaping piles of paper every-which-way. I was fiddling FlagOut.
I looked over-my-shoulder toward an open window (no air-conditioning; and it was July), and saw a black wedge-shaped Bose Wave-radio on a dusty wooden antique table next to a filthy, marinara-stained, black-plastic cordless telephone.
The radio was covered with a think patina of oily dust. It sure didn’t look like the ads.
“Happy with that?” I asked. (Our ancient Aiwa boombox would eventually need replacing.)
We never did buy Bose radios — their shape was a detriment.
We bought PAL-radios instead, and they’re nowhere near as filthy as Charlie’s Bose.
His wife Elaine was embarrassed. She’s an Academic-Dean or something at some North Jersey college; yet the place was a shambles.
But I didn’t bat an eye.
Compared our place is the Taj Mahal. And I got magazines stacked in piles.
She was apparently passing through, so stopped at the West Bloomfield post-office just as Linda was about to go to lunch.
Together they came to our humble abode.
I don’t know if I have this right, but I think Ellen Hoch was once Linda’s boss, but it wasn’t Simon Legree and his unworthy peons.
They were the crew that determined West Publishing’s print-product.
Kind of like Frank Brown at the mighty Mezz. The mighty Mezz looked good because of Frank Brown. Frank Brown overlooked the input of the mighty Mezz.
It was different than West because the mighty Mezz had color printing. West had only black, but 89 bazilyun subheads and styles — which was what Linda was programing: so that a massive amount of content would flow into place with the right indents and text-styles.
It was the old waazoo: what you saw on the ‘pyooter-screen wasn’t necessarily what came off the press.
Frank Brown jumped through all kinds of hoops to make the mighty Mezz look good.
In the days before ‘pyooterization (paste-up), Frank was the head of paste-up. —So even then what we looked like was somewhat determined by him.
He had high standards — and so did I. We weren’t looking like no cheap-shot.
I remember on 9/11/01 when the Twin-Towers fell, Frank was consulted by the Executive-Editor, and they dumped just about the whole A-section (national); eight pages.
Even the front of the local-section (B) got dumped, replaced with local reaction.
“Notice how I didn’t feel the least bit uncomfortable about Ellen visiting,” Linda said.
“That’s because I’ve been to her house and it’s a dump.”
“Well believe you-me,” I said; “CG’s house is a disaster.”
Detritus is piled in huge disorderly piles all over.
A particular vignette stands out.
Charlie’s ‘pyooter is buried in a nook of detritus; heaping piles of paper every-which-way. I was fiddling FlagOut.
I looked over-my-shoulder toward an open window (no air-conditioning; and it was July), and saw a black wedge-shaped Bose Wave-radio on a dusty wooden antique table next to a filthy, marinara-stained, black-plastic cordless telephone.
The radio was covered with a think patina of oily dust. It sure didn’t look like the ads.
“Happy with that?” I asked. (Our ancient Aiwa boombox would eventually need replacing.)
We never did buy Bose radios — their shape was a detriment.
We bought PAL-radios instead, and they’re nowhere near as filthy as Charlie’s Bose.
His wife Elaine was embarrassed. She’s an Academic-Dean or something at some North Jersey college; yet the place was a shambles.
But I didn’t bat an eye.
Compared our place is the Taj Mahal. And I got magazines stacked in piles.
posted by BobbaLew at 2:55 PM
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