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kurtblumenau.bsky.social
"smokey stevenson"
@kurtblumenau.bsky.social
890 followers 380 following 11K posts
https://sabr.org/authors/kurt-blumenau/

It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black.
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kurtblumenau.bsky.social
CHRISTMAS TIME IS HERE
HAPPINESS AND CHEER
modest detached home, light in color, sits under a fast-darkening late afternoon sky in which the moon is visible. The front gutters of the house have had some basic strands of holiday lights strung to them, just an hour or two ago, by the old man of the house hung in the window of a back door are five large snowflake lights, blue and white in colour. The sky out the window is darkening, like a just-before-5-pm-in-late-November colour (quel coincidence)
November 29, 2025 at 9:46 PM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
Woo hoo! My score, which started at 1 this morning, has settled down to a 0. Been a while since I kalsomined the Grid.
Immaculate grid baseball trivia puzzle showing the names and faces of nine players
November 29, 2025 at 6:29 PM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
BOSS PANCAKES RIDES AGAIN
A mixing bowl with a bunch of pancake batter and a whisk in it. I made a lot of pancakes when my kids were growing up but I don’t get much call for them lately. Visiting younger son - who used to call me Boss Pancakes - asked for them and I am over the moon Three pancakes in a cast iron skillet, with a few skinny little sausage links off to the side. The sunlight hits the far corner of the pan in such a way as to make one of the ‘cakes look much lighter than the others. For goodness sakes, look at those cakes
November 29, 2025 at 1:44 PM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
#RIP Bob Starkie of Aussie legends Skyhooks, seen here in the promo film for 1976’s “This Is My City,” shot on the roof of a 16-story building.
I adore Starkie’s look - Rickenbacker guitar, long rock n’ roll hair, shades … and a wetsuit, complete with flippers.
Caucasian male with long brown hair and shades, wearing a blue wetsuit complete with flippers, standing on top of his amp and playing guitar while also performing on the roof of a tall building. (You might want to make the reader repeat that a few times so you can get your head around it fully.) one of the young man’s bandmates is visible at right, singing into a mic and playing bass Young Caucasian male with long curly brown hair and shades plays a Rickenbacker guitar. He is standing on the roof of a 16-story building and you can see other tall towers behind him
November 29, 2025 at 1:50 AM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
"hello, I am jazzin' the sport game" should be the new "hello, I am doing a sports"
logo printed over a sports column in 1920 in the Arkansas Democrat newspaper of Little Rock, Arkansas. The logo proclaims that you are reading Jazzin' the Sport Game, by W.N. Stone.
November 28, 2025 at 8:49 PM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
this man is roughly 36 years old
Cincinnati Reds manager Sparky Anderson shown on his 1970 O-Pee-Chee baseball card. Sparky famously went gray at a young age and looked a good 15-20 years older than he really was at any given point. Dude could manage some, though
November 28, 2025 at 3:21 PM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
OTD 50 yrs ago, that no-account Lank Botkins is about to cause some trouble for Steve Roper and Mike Nomad.
November 28, 1975, installation of the old comic strip Steve Roper & Mike Nomad. Hard to describe the action without knowing who the characters are but some guy named Lank Botkins is buzzing the doorbell of a young woman who doesn’t know him and that bodes ill
November 28, 2025 at 12:57 PM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
Screen grab of KISS’s “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” video, with Paul Stanley grabbing the mic. Closed caption says: 🎶 MMM, YEAH 🎶
November 27, 2025 at 11:32 PM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
Blueberry pie sits on a red tablecloth. Several slices have been cut out of it and crust-bits litter the tablecloth. The interior is a deep blue that would bestir Van Gogh to new heights Closeup of flaky brown pie crust and deep blue blueberry interior. Some blueberry blood stains the pie pan.
November 27, 2025 at 11:30 PM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
My great-grandma made these hot pads (inside every grape is an ollllllllld Seven-Up bottlecap.) Most of the time they sit in a drawer, but today we needed two hot pads of the same height, and only these would do. Grossmutter saves Thanksgiving!
Two homemade hot pads sit on a granite countertop. They look like bunches of grapes - one green and one purple. Each “grape” has a bottle cap inside it and you can rest hot things on them to protect the surface underneath.
November 27, 2025 at 7:03 PM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
What they took from us.
Photo from the November 29, 1931, North Adams (Massachusetts) Transcript shows a parade balloon that’s a weird caterpillar type thang. It’s part of “Boston’s big Thanksgiving Parade,” a thing that no longer exists
November 27, 2025 at 5:03 PM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
Turkeys trotted.
Middle aged Caucasian male enjoying can of beer after turkey trot 5k. Sign behind him says reserved parking mayor
November 27, 2025 at 1:33 PM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
Update: not State Fair perfect, but not catastrophically effed up either. I declare victory and turn off the oven.
Baked blueberry pie with a brown top. Pie juices are running out one or two of the holes in a charmingly picturesque fashion. Just like yer nana’s
November 27, 2025 at 2:19 AM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
Arven‘t done a fruit pie in an age. Wish me luck!
Blueberries in a prebaked pie crust, dotted with butter Pie topped with a top layer of crust, with a few steam holes slashed in. When he was a small boy, my older son once said, “if you don’t like crust, you don’t like pie,” and this continues to be repeated as gospel to this very day. I hope I didn’t fuck up the crust. Or the pie
November 27, 2025 at 1:27 AM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
Birds are just
Rules and regulations to me
Me
Dead turkey in a plastic bag in the fridge. Somebody else is allegedly “dry brining” it, whatever that is
November 27, 2025 at 12:02 AM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
the challenge for me is to dress in a way that keeps me warm, while also wearing my race shirt from 2001 as the outermost layer as a shameless flex to the youngs
back of a long-sleeved shirt (white). Logo has a big blue turkey running with an American flag. Words say: 7th Annual Turkey Classic Road Race 2001 Run Early ... eat all day! Thanksgiving Day, Framingham, MA
November 26, 2025 at 4:54 PM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
meanwhile, Boston-area audio chain Discount Records is going 110% with its Stanley Clarke promotion. Free records! Free posters! Free hi-fi set (Stanley not included)!
three screenshots from the November 25, 1975, Boston Phoenix alternative newspaper, advertising a chain of stores called Tech Hifi and Discount Records. This portion of the ad shows fusion bassist Stanley Clarke holding a copy of his Journey to Love ad, and declares that the first 100 people buying any component or system of a stereo at Tech Hifi stores get free copies of Clarke's two latest albums this portion of the ad shows a Stanley Clarke Journey to Love poster (it's a headshot) and promises that the first 900 people who come into Tech Hifi stores will get a free poster, without so much as buying a new needle and this portion of the ad notes that Discount Records will hold a drawing November 30, 1975, for a free hi-fi set (receiver, turntable and two speakers.) The obliging Mr. Clarke is photographed sitting behind the hi-fi setup, concealing his long legs as much as possible (he is rather lanky)
November 26, 2025 at 3:33 PM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
This week 50 years ago in the Boston Phoenix: Sure, the big arenas in town are busy, but check out the smaller rooms.
all four ads in this post are from the Boston Phoenix alternative newspaper dated November 25, 1975. All are black and white and are text-based. This one promotes a free concert by Terry Riley at Cambridge's Sanders Theater. Oddly, the date of the concert is Nov 24, one day before the issue date of the newspaper ad for the Unholy Modal Rounders' weeklong stand from Nov 24-29 at the Inman Square Men's Bar in Cambridge. I think I have a recording of one of these shows ad for a Boston club called the Sugar Shack. Upcoming attractions include Betty Wright, Bobby Blue Bland, Willie Hutch, Tavares, and the Manhattans. By happenstance I was just listening to Bland's landmark Two Steps from the Blues album in the car yesterday Ad for a drum clinic to be held by famous jazz drummer Louis Bellson at the EU Wurlitzer music store on Newbury St, Boston. The ad goes hard: "Words are unnecessary to describe the merits of this clinic -- so the facts: Monday nite Dec 8th"
November 26, 2025 at 3:23 PM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
The skyline converses with itself
Two adjoining posts on my feed, with contradictory text as to whether something seems good or not
November 26, 2025 at 1:59 AM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
There was a time when Americans could count on newspapers to stand up for their interests.
beginning of article headlined The CB Rip-Off, outlining how the FCC, scammers, and US Congress are all taking advantage of American CB users. This ran in the October 11, 1976, Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle. The logo above it -- a cartoon of a man happily gabbing into a CB set -- suggests that this was perhaps part of an ongoing series of CB-themed articles
November 25, 2025 at 2:49 PM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
pleased to meetcher, Tuesday
(and a bunny too)
Nice pinkish-purple sunrise above a series of yards and bare trees Rabbit sits in cold yard in the early morning. Almost everything in the photo is some shade of dull brown
November 25, 2025 at 11:40 AM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
Thank God for small-town newspapers. The Wellsville, New York, Daily Reporter closes the loop with a scoop: Corning's school board wouldn't let the proposed New York-Penn team use their baseball stadium.
news clipping with a few words highlighted in green indicating search terms. the article reports that the Corning, New York school board declined to allow a proposed pro baseball team to use the school district-owned Corning Memorial Stadium. reasons included the team's lack of an affiliation with a major-league team, and the fact that the ballpark was already in heavy use by the community.
November 25, 2025 at 2:18 AM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
Well, shucks, an attractive gal at home in the world of baseball. She's "curvaceous," too, the AP says.
Associated Press story from January 1963 about Anne Holt, the president of the minor-league baseball team in Corning, New York. Headline says "Attractive Gal At Home in World of Baseball." Aw, shucks, how about that, reader? (Which paper gave us this gem of a headline? Some idiot provincial rag in the sticks? Try the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.)
November 25, 2025 at 1:50 AM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
IT'S MY DAY, BITCHES
statue of legendary Pacific Northwest skyjacker DB Cooper at the Seattle Museum of Flight. He is a caucasian male, maybe about 5'10", wearing a dark business suit and a parachute and carrying a brown bag with money poking out of it. He also has a pair of sunglasses that he is rakishly adjusting with his right hand, and an expression that hints at a smile
November 24, 2025 at 1:59 PM
kurtblumenau.bsky.social
Back where we started
Here we go ‘round again.
Bowl of microwaved oatmeal sits in middle of white stove with black burners visible on either side. Reader, I have found store brand oatmeal to be preferable to Quaker (which I bought ‘cause it was on sale.) after eating my oats I will pull my weight like a scottish pony
November 24, 2025 at 12:07 PM