davidd's A DOLL A DAY 2024

[davidd]

Sunrise is always early in my world!

Did you see Comet A3 a couple of weeks ago, since you are usually still awake during the hour before sunrise? I was not able to spot it before sunrise, but it was visible tonight (and briefly last night) shortly after sunset.

---

13 October - A Doll A Day 2024:

.

Radio Days (or Nights)

.

Today while I was attending to random chores and tasks a memory popped in to my mind from my middle school / junior high years about listening to the radio. A depressing memory, 'natch, as my memories from that era tend to be.

In those days the popular radio station among junior high and high school students was a contemporary rock music station called KZEL. KZEL was not a Top 40 station, it tended toward... I don't even know what the style was called. Significantly less commercial than Top 40. Maybe it was AOR (Album Oriented Rock), but I'm not sure.

Today I found myself thinking about the time I decided to try listening to KZEL. I wasn't in to rock music. I wasn't really in to any music. Sometimes I used to play 78rpm records from the 1930s and 1940s on an old radio-phonograph at my grandparents' house. I knew more about Spike Jones & His City Slickers than I did about whatever rock and pop groups were current.

I was an exceptionally un-cool kid.

For a couple of weeks I tried to learn how to be cool by listening to KZEL while doing my homework, or if I didn't have any homework, while sitting at my desk in my room doodling randomly with Flair felt-tip markers.

In the evenings KZEL played more obscure music than they did during the day. I think the phrase today is "deep cuts," rarely played songs from albums that were popular, mixed in with tracks from more obscure groups.

I remember going to school and trying to talk to some of my... friends? Acquaintances? To some of the people I knew who were definitely more cool than I was, people who listened to KZEL.

My attempts to break the Cool Barrier failed to overcome my inherent squaresville drippiness.

I also remember when a lot of radios still had vacuum tubes. Most radios had transistors or solid state circuitry, but some older radios had tubes. The tubes would emit a warm glow, like a dim lightbulb, from the back of the radio.

Today, tube radios (or "amplifiers" and "receivers") are held in high regard by "audiophiles" and can be quite ex-pensive.

(Image: 1/6-scale dollhouse diorama)



13 October - A Doll A Day 2024

P.S.: I know some forum members are interested in such things -- I just came in from looking at Comet A3 from my back porch. Pretty decent view tonight; somewhat faint and not totally sharp due to atmospheric haze, lingering twilight, and bright moon, but definitely visible almost directly to the east, with a distinct nucleus and a long tail pointing straight upward.