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Sarah's going to be home all next week. She insists she has nine days off from school, though I prefer to think of it as five. At any rate, we'll be together for nine. The pool at the Y should be open again by then, and she'll probably be in a mood to go back. She's been going to the Adventure Center there several times a week, which is good, as she gets to run wild for a while. I now sit in the lobby and do crossword puzzles, but have excavated and washed my jogging pants, thinking I might take her suggestion and exercise instead.

I exercised yesterday, at about this time. Went for a walk around the neighborhood, roughly a mile's worth. Dogs called "Hey! Hey!" after me, and once in a while, a car went by. I miss sidewalks. After lunch I went to the music store by the canal and bought an inexpensive piano tuner (Korg CA-30). In the afternoon, I spent some time on the middle octaves of the piano in the living room, with some success. I played through the Durand Valse that I have recently boiled down from five pages (with some awkward page turns) to three pages (with one easy turn) by notating when to play what. It comes down to Intro, A1, A2, B, A2, B, A2, C1, C2, D1, D2, C3, A2, B, A3, Coda (the different numbers mean that the last measure differs -- in the case of D, it's a repeat that does four measures for D1, and eight measures for D2). Printing it was harder, because the HP gives me more than I ask for, in the form of ghostly repeats of stuff from higher up on the page.

(Anybody know how to make it quit that? It's a Color Laserjet 2605dn. If I run a cleaning page before each page I print, the copy is clean until the last two or three inches, but there's always some ghosting at the bottom of the page when I print in black. One web page said you have to dismantle the machine and clean a mirror inside. Please don't make me do that. Sliding the cleaning slider back and forth is good exercise.)

We'll probably be going to Colorado at the end of May/beginning of June. First time in five years. It kind of grinds on me that I don't get out there more often. I'm getting old, and five years is too long to go without seeing my friends.

Sarah's roller skating has improved wonderfully in just two monthly sessions at the Y. The first time, she couldn't stay on her wheels for a half minute, but she persisted. The second time, she started off about the same, but by the end of the evening, she was good for a few minutes at a time. When they started dancing, she joined right in, doing the gestures for YMCA and the Chicken Dance and the Hokey Pokey (for our UK readers, that's a version of the Hokey Cokey, which somebody apparently got paid money for). I am so proud of that kid sometimes. We looked for a roller rink here, but the one in Macedon is closed because a pipe burst and warped the floor, and the one beyond Clifton Springs takes 45 minutes to drive to. Sonali's mom says there's one in Henrietta, and I plan to go out and look for it, because Sarah and I have rollerskate fever.

I keep meaning to put some of the 1979 photos I've been scanning where the "Lost Fort Collins" web site can get them. I think I'll put them on flickr and send them a link. (Some time goes by. Lunch is eaten. Photos are uploaded.)

I think I'll show some slides. )
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About thirty years ago, my sister and I were watching Starr Yelland, who hosted Denver's "Dialing for Dollars" movie weekdays from three to five. Yelland seemed almost embarrassed as he recounted the unusual circumstances of today's movie. They had shown it a while back, and it got such a response, they found themselves practically obliged to run it again. And he seemed to think it was an odd movie. We watched raptly as the movie unfolded: it was a 1964 Czech musical take-off on Western movies, and it was called Lemonade Joe.

Liminodavy Joe, as it is known, was the tale of a tall, straight-shootin', lemonade-drinkin' cowboy and his crusade against whiskey drinking, and it went by so fast we hardly knew what we were seeing, but we were amazed. Years later, we still talk about it. Years later, I still look in vain for it in the movie section of the TV listings. I wasn't the only one.

The same broadcast was watched by a pair of beady eyes belonging to my future pal Randy. He, too, obsessed upon the picture, and he tried in vain to describe it to people. Then, just before Cathy and Sarah and I journeyed out to Fort Collins, my old home town and now home of Mister Randy, the good fellow was looking at videos at the public library and what should he see but Liminodavy Joe, on a spanking new VHS tape. Randy says he practically pushed someone aside when he saw it. He checked it out and saved it -- yes, that's what a great pal I have, he saved it for a day or two -- and we all watched it together a couple of times. First we went to my old roommate Sam's place and watched it on his 45-inch screen. It was incredible! Better than I remembered!

For one thing, I didn't really remember how many musical numbers there were. Considering the economics of local TV, maybe some of them were cut for time and mildly risque content. We were all gobsmacked by the constant invention in the movie. It was a 1930s stage musical in Czechoslovakia, but a lot of the funny bits were pure cinema -- simple trick shots and sight gags you couldn't do on a stage every night. One of my favorites was just a shot of Joe looking over a cliff and leaning at a purely gravity-defying angle. Watching it again last night (yes, dear reader, I am truly rich) I was delighted by the scene where two of the villains are talking over dinner at the saloon's bar. One of them expresses misgiving over some of the other's -- his brother's -- evil deeds. As the misgiver looks away, the evil brother quietly snags the far glass and pours something into it from a compartment in his ring, then idly swirls it briefly as he looks innocently over at the dancing girls. Then, without ever putting it down, he drinks it down in a gulp and emits a "bromo" belch.

I was able to watch it last night because when we came home from Colorado, we ordered it from Amazon or Facets. It came soon after, but there was a piece of plastic loose inside the case, broken off of the supply reel. It sat around a while before we sent it back, and they took some time with it, but it came this week, and life is good, you know?

I have found mention of a cheap DVD for sale in parts Bohemian, but I can't find the "buy now" tab. I'd gladly spring for it. Our VHS is subtitled, which is a nice change from the TV version we saw before -- I think it works better this way. The DVD is wide-screen, has additional scenes, and is partly dubbed and partly subtitled. Whatever. I want it!

I also want to see if I can talk a local group into putting this show on. I see it's been translated into English, and it's a recent translation that (I believe) takes advantage of the movie for some of the humor.

I will return to the topic. Interested parties can look online and find out more about this great cinematic experience. Learn some of the great lines at fan sites. Note the name of the lead actress and google for a picture of her -- hot stuff. Mostly, be jealous of me, or the whole experience loses a little of its sparkle. Hah!
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