Backstayges and Roys
I finally realized what the group trips of Succession remind me of: the group trips of Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife, the Bob and Ray radio-serial spoof.
Prune latte
M’m! M’m! Good?
“Anthony! Anthony!”
I remember “Anthony! Anthony!” not so much from the commercial as from Bob and Ray’s radio repurposing of it.
Bob and Ray’s House of Toast
Buttered on the far side or the near side.
A Bob and Ray motto
PUISSANCE WITHOUT HAUTEUR.
Five radios
I remember my first transistor radio, a Zenith with a leather case and an earphone that looked like a hearing aid.
Myth appeal
I admire Bill Griffith’s willingness to reference American ephemera with little or no explanation.
An endless, roiling sea
Roil, in all forms, a vogue word.
Tie cleaning in New York
A detail from Gay Talese’s New York: A Serendipiter’s Journey.
“Anthony! Anthony!”
Mary Fiumara was the voice in the Prince Spaghetti commercial.
Bob Elliott (1923–2016)
That such gentle lunacy flourished on the airwaves is a wonder.
Mary Backstayge marigold seeds
“In the spring of 1974 Mary offered free marigold seeds to her fans. I wrote in of course.”
Mark Trail recycles
James Allen, working in the Jack Elrod tradition.
From the Waxed Paper Institute, Inc.
It sounds like a Bob and Ray creation, but it was real.
Sherwin and Zerbina and Bert and Harry
“I like Bill Griffith’s approach to things. Does he worry whether people will get it? No. But someone will.”
Bob and Ray and Komodo dragons
News of a new Komodo dragon exhibit at the Bronx Zoo made me think of Bob and Ray.
Prune shake
I’m surprised to see that the prune shake served at the House of Toast in Bob and Ray’s Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife has some basis in reality, or at least a basis in some copywriter’s imagined reality.
The toast sandwich
Bread, butter, toast, salt, pepper, really.
Radios
Radios I have known
The folks who live in the mail
A few days ago I found myself fascinated by the names attached to the junk that pushes its way into my "mailbox" (that's a metaphor; I'm spe...