Beautiful Brighton
Lucky Jim, Two Taquerias, Sam Cooke, Rocky Colavito, Number Nonsense
Welcome to my weekly newsletter. This issue includes savory and sweet St. Louis specialties, the first novel by Kingsley Amis, two taco tastings, the King of Soul, a slugger with a powerful arm, and an odd ordinal. I hope you like the picks and pics.
Last night’s Book Club Counterprogramming was held in Brighton, Michigan. Downtown Brighton was beautifully lit with Christmas lights. We did a two-stop taco crawl and then went to David Esper’s home to play euchre. David and Diane Esper moved from Northville to Brighton but are still actively connected to their Northville friends. I was impressed with the look and vibe of downtown Brighton.
Roger is assistant coach for Gonzaga College High School’s basketball team. Ranked Number 2 in the country, they traveled to Miami over the weekend and faced Number 1 Christopher Columbus High School of Miami. Gonzaga appeared to have won at the end of the second overtime, but a clock operator error nullified a buzzer beater, and they ended up losing in the third overtime. We were able to watch the game on the NBA app, and it was thrilling.
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Fave Five 114: Beautiful Brighton
Finest and Funniest (Lucky Jim), Two Taquerias (Happy Taco, El Arbol Taqueria) Soulful Singer (Sam Cooke), Cleveland Crusher (Rocky Colavito), and Number Nonsense.
Fave Five List: St. Louis Specialties
Next week Barb and I will stop in St. Louis on our way to California. We will have lunch with many of our St. Louis friends. It’s always great to see them and get some St. Louis food.
I believe that St. Louis has more local food specialties than any other city. Here is a list of ten that I have enjoyed.
Concrete (at Ted Drewes Frozen Custard)
Ted Drewes passed away on August 26 at the age of 96. His legacy is the best frozen custard and the most efficient food service operation anywhere.
Once when we were buying our Christmas tree at Ted Drewes, they were selling novelty gifts made with a standard yellow cup but filled with actual concrete. Barb bought one thinking it was a normal concrete, and I had to save her from trying to actually eat it.
Book Best Bet
I got this book from my mom and liked it a lot.
From Amazon: A hilarious satire about college life and high-class manners, this is a classic of postwar English literature.
Regarded by many as the finest, and funniest, comic novel of the twentieth century, Lucky Jim remains as trenchant, withering, and eloquently misanthropic as when it first scandalized readers in 1954. This is the story of Jim Dixon, a hapless lecturer in medieval history at a provincial university who knows better than most that “there was no end to the ways in which nice things are nicer than nasty ones.” Kingsley Amis’s scabrous debut leads the reader through a gallery of emphatically English bores, cranks, frauds, and neurotics with whom Dixon must contend in one way or another in order to hold on to his cushy academic perch and win the girl of his fancy.
More than just a merciless satire of cloistered college life and stuffy postwar manners, Lucky Jim is an attack on the forces of boredom, whatever form they may take, and a work of art that at once distills and extends an entire tradition of English comic writing, from Fielding and Dickens through Wodehouse and Waugh. As Christopher Hitchens has written, “If you can picture Bertie or Jeeves being capable of actual malice, and simultaneously imagine Evelyn Waugh forgetting about original sin, you have the combination of innocence and experience that makes this short romp so imperishable.”
From Wikipedia: First published in 1954, it was Amis's first novel and won the 1955 Somerset Maugham Award for fiction. The novel follows the academic and romantic tribulations of the eponymous James (Jim) Dixon, a reluctant history lecturer at an unnamed provincial English university. Time magazine included Lucky Jim in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.
Kingsley Amis
From Wikipedia: Sir Kingsley William Amis CBE (April 16, 1922 – October 22, 1995) was an English novelist, poet, critic and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, short stories, radio and television scripts, and works of social and literary criticism. He is best known for satirical comedies such as Lucky Jim (1954), One Fat Englishman (1963), Ending Up (1974), Jake's Thing (1978) and The Old Devils (1986).
His biographer Zachary Leader called Amis "the finest English comic novelist of the second half of the twentieth century". In 2008, The Times ranked him ninth on a list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. He was the father of the novelist Martin Amis.
Restaurant Recommendations
Happy Taco 912 E Grand River Ave, Brighton, MI 48116
Birria, Pastor, and Asada tacos
Asada torta
El Arbol Taqueria 140 W Main St, Brighton, MI 48116
Elote: grilled corn on the cob, chipotle lime mayo, cotija, pico, cilantro
Chicken Tinga taco: chili grilled chicken, pickled jalapeno, shredded cabbage, cotija, cilantro
Marvelous Musician
Sam passed away 60 years ago today. I first heard other singers' versions of many of his hits, but eventually I listened to Sam's originals. I love both his gospel and his pop songs. What a soulful singer, and what a beautiful voice.
From Wikipedia: Samuel Cooke (born January 22, 1931 in Clarksdale, Mississippi; died December 11, 1964 in Los Angeles) was an American singer and songwriter. Considered one of the most influential soul artists of all time, Cooke is commonly referred to as the "King of Soul" for his distinctive vocals, pioneering contributions to the genre, and significance in popular music. During his eight-year career, Cooke released 29 singles that charted in the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, as well as 20 singles in the Top Ten of Billboard's Black Singles chart.
Cooke was born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago with his family at an early age. He began singing as a child and joined the Soul Stirrers before going solo and scoring a string of hit songs including "You Send Me", "A Change Is Gonna Come", "Cupid", "Wonderful World", "Chain Gang", "Twistin' the Night Away", and "Bring It On Home to Me".
Cooke's pioneering contributions to soul music contributed to the rise of Aretha Franklin, Bobby Womack, Al Green, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and Billy Preston, and popularized the work of Otis Redding and James Brown. AllMusic biographer Bruce Eder wrote that Cooke was "the inventor of soul music" and possessed "an incredible natural singing voice and a smooth, effortless delivery that has never been surpassed". Cooke was ranked No. 3 in Rolling Stone's 2023 list of the "200 Greatest Singers of All Time" and No. 28 on Billboard's 2015 list of the "35 Greatest R&B Artists of All Time".
In 1964, he was shot and killed by Bertha Franklin, a motel owner in Los Angeles with a prior criminal record. Franklin was later convicted in 1979 when she was found guilty of second-degree murder following another similar shooting. The courts at the time of Cooke's death ruled in favor of Franklin, stating that his death was a justifiable homicide. Cooke's family and many fans worldwide have since questioned the circumstances surrounding his death and the lack of a proper investigation. Forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril H. Wecht argued in 2017 that his death was not a justifiable homicide.
You Send Me
Television Appearances (Compilation)
Interview with Dick Clark in 1964
My Playlist
Sports Star
Rocky passed away yesterday. He was a much-beloved slugger, especially in Cleveland.
I got to see Rocky play for the New York Yankees in 1968, the final year of his career. I vividly recall the Sunday doubleheader against Detroit when he was the winning pitcher in the first game and hit a homer in the second. The Yankees won all four games that weekend, but the Tigers went on to win the World Series that year.
I also remember his distinctive batting stance:
It wasn't just the stance, but the whole ritual. Before entering the box, he would place the bat behind his neck and across his shoulders and do a stretch. Then as he took the bat from behind his neck, he would cock his neck from side to side. When he began his practice swings, he paused longer than usual to point his bat directly at the pitcher and then slowly moved the bat to his final cocked position just above the shoulder level.
My late brother-in-law, David Olszewski—a lifelong Cleveland Indians fan—never got over the trade that sent Rocky to the Tigers in 1960. Rocky was a fan favorite in Cleveland, Detroit, and New York.
Rocky Colavito, All-Star Slugger for Cleveland, Dies at 91 by Richard Goldstein of The New York Times
Cleveland GM Frank Lane thwarted Colavito’s quest for significant salary raises, and, two days before the opening of the 1960 season, he outraged Cleveland’s fans by trading Colavito to the Detroit Tigers for outfielder Harvey Kuenn. Kuenn, the league’s batting champion in 1959, was three years older than Colavito and had hit only nine home runs that season.
Colavito went on to hit at least 35 home runs in three of his four seasons as a Tiger. Kuenn played only one season for Cleveland before he was traded to the San Francisco Giants. “I loved Cleveland and the Indians,” Colavito told The Plain Dealer of Cleveland in 2010. “I never wanted to leave.” And he insisted that he had never put a curse on the team. As he put it, “Frank Lane did.” Either way, Cleveland still hasn’t won a World Series since 1948.
New York signed him in July 1968 when he was released by Los Angeles. In his first game as a Yankee, he hit a three-run homer in his second at-bat against the Washington Senators before a sparse Yankee Stadium crowd of 11,503. In August, he pitched two and two-thirds innings in relief against the Tigers in the first game of a doubleheader, taking over in the fourth inning with Detroit ahead, 5-0. He yielded no runs and one hit and got the victory when the Yankees rallied to win, 6-5. He hit a home run in the second game of a Yankee doubleheader sweep.
From Wikipedia: Rocco Domenico "Rocky" Colavito Jr. (born August 10, 1933 in The Bronx, New York; died December 10, 2024 in Bernville, Pennsylvania) was an American professional baseball player, coach, and television sports commentator. He played in Major League Baseball as an outfielder from 1955 to 1968, most prominently as a member of the Cleveland Indians, with whom he established himself as a fan favorite for his powerful hitting and his strong throwing arm. Colavito also played for the Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Athletics, Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, and New York Yankees. At the time of his retirement in 1968, Colavito ranked third among AL right-handed hitters for home runs (374) and eighth for AL games played as a right fielder (1,272).
A nine-time All-Star, Colavito averaged 33 home runs per year for his first eleven seasons, exceeding 40 home runs three times and 100 runs batted in six times. He is the fifth player in the history of the American League (AL) to have eleven consecutive 20 home run seasons (1956–1966). In 1959, he hit four consecutive home runs in one game and, was the AL home run champion. He was also the first outfielder in AL history to complete a season without making an error.[3]
After his playing career, Colavito worked as a television sports color commentator for WJW (TV) before returning to the playing field to serve as a coach with the Indians and the Kansas City Royals. In 2001, Colavito was voted one of the 100 greatest players in Cleveland Indians' history by a panel of veteran baseball writers, executives and historians.[1] He was inducted into the Cleveland Guardians Hall of Fame in 2006.
Picture Pun
Opened on the 3th but closed on the 4rd. Apparently, quality was not job 1nd or 2st.
Apparently, this problem is spreading. Here is a 2th example:
