Of Men and Machines
Man’s dependence on mechanical devices was chaotically demonstrated again the other day in a huge market in San Fernando Valley.
A motorist rammed into a power pole outside the store, disrupting the electricity inside. Suddenly the customers were groping around in semidarkness, grabbing cabbages when they wanted lettuces.
Amid frantic phoning to get the power restored, a few crank handles were found to operate the registers manually. The rest of the cashiers had to get back to basic pencil-and-paper arithmetic.
All in all, it was a harrowing reminder that life without juice is not sweet.
|
::
IT IS A TRUISM that a man can get into deep trouble if he ventures out of his element. you know the old saying — fish should swim, birds should fly, man
should sit.To carry the thought a step farther, a rewrite man should be content to sit at his desk, tenderly plucking at the keys of his typewriter, ecstatic with creativity.But, no. After hours the other day newspaperman Jim Peck was telling several colleagues about the benefits of yoga. He assumed the lotus posture, which is folding one leg inside the other. Clears the mind and relaxes the body, he said. And on him it looked good. So newspaperman Jack Springer tried it. He was jamming one leg inside the other in quest of peaceful inspiration when something popped. The doctor said he didn’t break anything, only sprained a knee cartilage, and should be all right in a few weeks. As for yoga, don’t mention it to Jack. That’s a wicked-looking cane he limps around with. ::
NATURALLY
::
THIS ONE requires a little delicacy, maybe even subtlety. First you have to keep in mind the TV coffee commercial showing a little paisano exclaiming, “Agite la lata!” meaning “Shake the can!” We pan to a certain sheriff’s substation where a shapely secretary works. Whenever she gets up from her desk to file a report or check something the trusties call out enthusiastically, “Agite la lata!” She hasn’t caught on yet. ::
LIVESTOCK NOTES — A small girl in a pet store in the Echo Park section ran in from another room crying, “Mommy, the big chicken said ‘Hello!'” It did, too, Margaret Landacre reports, only it was a parrot . . .And a Hollywoodian was telling Mary Kitano about his Scotty which has bitten five persons. Had he been sued? “No,” he replied, “I took out insurance after he bit the first one. But luckily the others he bit were friends. Of course, they aren’t friends any more!” . . .Bill Eberline reports from Compton: “We have an old cat whose hip bones stick way up, like the fins on a modern car, when it sits down. I’m afraid the poor cat will be out of style when the new car models come out this fall.”
:: LITERARY NOTES — Edward Gibbon is said to have written the classic “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” in a hospital. It’s Don Quinn’s theory that he started it just after the nurse stuck a thermometer in his mouth and said, “I’ll be right back,” and finished it as she returned . . . Anyone else beginning to get the feeling that he doesn’t care who or what Jack Paar likes or dislikes?
:: MISCELLANY — The Executive Suite, new unit of the Helen Edwards personnel agency on Wilshire Blvd., to be launched with a champagne party tomorrow, has a
bubbling fountain — presumably to tranquilize waiting clients . . . Grammarians, prepare to groan. A Pacific Telephone pamphlet has the line, “So you can easily phone anyone you choose, no matter where they live.” Singular, plural — who cares any more?
|
ladailymirror.com 