MR WRONG: Swelter in place
Indignity Vol. 4, No. 117
COLUMN DEP’T.
MR WRONG: This Raging Summer Heat Has No Chill
HERE IN BALTIMORE, Maryland, home base city of the Mr.Wrong column, it is very hot. Dammit, I shoulda done that like a real News thing with a “dateline” thing! OK, do-over, I’m gonna Do-Over The Right Thing, stand by:
BALTIMORE, JULY 11, 2024: Here in the home base city of the Mr.Wrong column, it is very hot. It’s mos def not as hot as in Las Vegas, Nevada,
or in Clovis, California,
but it’s really fuckin’ hot! Not Science Fiction hot, but like, Science Fact hot.
Generally when it’s hot I think about the Major Motion Picture Do The Right Thing, which is about Police Brutality, and yesterday I saw a kid here in Baltimore trying to open up a fire hydrant, which is totally a scene in the Spike Lee joint. Some kids open up a hydrant and fashion a nozzle and start having fun, the way kids always do, they figure out the fun part of the shittiest situation. They don’t know any better, they are young and inexperienced as to the ways of the world, so any adversity becomes a challenge to find fun. I remember when the streets in my hometown of Schenectady, NY, would flood in the summer rains and all the kids on my block would go out swimming in the middle of the street where it was like four feet of water, not thinking about how the sewers were backing up into the streets, yuck! Good times though, I don't think I got trenchmouth or ringworm or anything, or a brainworm, yow!
So, “spoiler alert” or whatever, but in Do The Right Thing, it’s super hot, and everybody goes kinda crazy from the heat, and the cops murder Radio Raheem.
Today it was almost under 90 degrees, so I figured it’d be OK to spray on some sunscreen and put on a hat and go for a walk. I stopped at the supermarket on my way home and there was a security guard out in the vestibule, as per usual, but this one was outfitted to the teeth. I never saw so many devices and cuffs and straps and weapons, everything black, which, I guess is the Tactical color? At least dude wasn’t in camouflage, oy. If that Security person was not in the air conditioning of the supermarket, I think they probably woulda been having heatstroke, with all the gear they were wearing.
Any time I see somebody in a Security detail out in public, I always think about how the ideal Security person should be like 300 lbs., heavily armored, and of a very deliberate temperament, kinda laid back, slow to anger, and because of their imposing size, generally not afraid of anybody. The biggest problem with cops is they get all jacked up and they are afraid that somebody wants to kill them, which is sometimes true, but it’s not all the time, they need to be cold-blooded about it, not flipping out on adrenaline and emptying their weapon’s clip into somebody who they were pretty sure they thought had a gun, you know? If they put cops in serious armor they’d feel better about themselves, I think. Of course there are genuine sick fucks who joined the force to use it, and they need to be screened out. You need people who are like sharks, dead eyes, doll’s eyes, but not in a mean way, they are supposed to protect and serve, you know? I think I mighta got overheated on my walk.
Anyway, next week here in Baltimore it’s gonna be Science Fiction hot, and that’s a fact. Be cool!
The MR. WRONG COLUMN is a general-interest column appearing weekly. No refunds. Write Wrong: wrongcolumn@gmail.com.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City to Lenox, Massachusetts, to New York City, July 10, 2024
★★ Streaks of white stretched across the western sky. The air was sludgy and the sun needed hardy any height in the sky to start the sidewalk baking. There was no level of exertion low enough, not even waiting at a crosswalk, to keep the sweat from coming out. The subway train's air conditioning was underperforming, as was the system in the car rental office. Once again, though, the haze subsided before the Harlem River. The growth all around was fat and succulent, not withered by the heat; tall trees by the side of the parkway stood fully engulfed in ivy; a guardrail nearly vanished in a floral print's worth of burgeoning wildflowers. The shadow boundaries of clouds raced north in the roadway, running ahead of the car and then falling behind. Beyond, the cumulus was piling up. Tan cattle with black faces lazed on a hillside beside a back road. In town the sun came and went and came again, forcefully, in the time it took to sit down on a bench and eat a meal's worth of an oversized danish. The clouds were heavier over the ride back south; somewhere around Beacon a scattering of raindrops hit the windshield, so sparse at first they seemed like insects being killed. Before there was a chance to sort out the headlight and wiper controls, it was gone. By the approach to the city, so were the clouds. The Hudson glittered and that was all that could be said for the grimy view. On a corner by a hydrant, a shirtless man had set up a folding chair with a towel in it and was reclining with his shins higher than his shoulders, performing sunbathing, with a tallboy in a brown bag in one hand. A breeze stirred in the cross street but the breeze was hot and damp too.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
CLICK ON THIS box to find today's Indignity Morning Podcast.
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of a sandwich selected from Mrs. Ericsson Hammond's Salad Appetizer Cook Book, by Maria Matilda Ericsson Hammond. Published in 1924, and now in the Public Domain and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
Egg Sandwich With Cheese a la Blenda
Sandwich d’Oeuf au Fromage à la Blenda
For Six Persons
Two hard-boiled eggs, ten slices of bread, three tablespoons of butter, Spanish pepper for decoration, a quarter of a pound of Philadelphia cream cheese, cayenne pepper and salt.
How to Make It. Stir the butter; add the cheese to the butter and stir it to a cream. Take away two spoons of it [cheese] for decoration. Add the eggs that first have been finely chopped, cayenne pepper, and salt; spread the mixture on five of the slices of bread, put the other five slices of the bread on top of the spread ones and press it down firmly, then cut out the sandwiches with a heart cutter. If the slices of bread are large they should make ten sandwiches. Arrange them in the form of a ring on a platter and decorate them all around with the creamed cheese and with a rose of it in the center with a round piece of truffle on the top. This is served with a salad for afternoon teas or as an appetizer.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
MARKETING DEP'T.
Supplies are really and truly running low of the second printing of 19 FOLK TALES, still available for gift-giving and personal perusal! Sit in the crushing heat with a breezy collection of stories, each of which is concise enough to read before the thunderstorms start.
HMM WEEKLY MINI-ZINE, Subject: GAME SHOW, Joe MacLeod’s account of his Total Experience of a Journey Into Television, expanded from the original published account found here at Hmm Daily. The special MINI ZINE features other viewpoints related to an appearance on, at, and inside the teevee game show Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, and is available for purchase at SHOPULA.
