Barber Shop

I first heard Chris Barber’s recording of Sidney Bechet’s “Petite Fleur” about 40 years ago on a favorite LP of mine, “Roots of British Rock.”

Hugh Laurie, who I know from “Blackadder,” but you may know from “House,” talks about, and with, Chris Barber.

This is a little Paul McCartney ditty…

… that Barber recorded. It’s on another favorite LP.

This Year’s Model

Colleen Corby in the October, 1963 issue of Seventeen magazine. Vermeer couldn’t have done any better.

Colleen Corby’s uniquely lovely face was seen everywhere throughout the Sixties. On magazine covers, in catalogs from Sears and Montgomery Ward, and on the pattern books my older sisters had when they were into sewing. Although those markets were for girls, Colleen’s presence was so ubiquitous that legions of boys had a crush on her, and most of us didn’t even know her name.

Colleen’s Wikipedia page says, “Two weeks after walking into Eileen Ford’s modeling agency (ostensibly to look for a summer job), Corby was sent on her first modeling assignment.” This reminds me of Grace Kelly starting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, at the same time my mother was graduating. A few weeks later Grace went to a photo session with a boyfriend who modeled men’s fashions. The photographer took one look at Grace and he took pictures of her instead. One of those photos with Grace soon appeared on the cover of Good Housekeeping magazine. My mother didn’t have that sort of luck. She didn’t have Grace’s looks. What other woman did?

Prue wasn’t looking for a modeling career, she was spotted on the street. That’s also how it happened for Annie Little. There’s a documentary, Chasing Beauty, with a segment showing a scout for an agency in search of the next supermodel.

A legitimate scout hands over a business card, and if the prospect she’s spotted isn’t with her parents she says something like, “If you’re interested, have your mother call the office.”

I had a girlfriend in college who had done some modeling. She had a smart and memorable explanation of how to get started in modeling, in those pre-YouTube days and before social media. “You walk in the door, no portfolio, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. They will either tell you to take a seat or say no thanks.”

Print-Out

One of my responsibilities during the first half of my career in technology was deciding on peripheral devices the company’s customers — hospitals — could use with our software system. Peripherals included things like terminals, modems and printers.

The first widely successful laser printer was Hewlett-Packard’s LaserJet. I got my hands on one right away after it was introduced in 1984. 8 ppm at 300 dpi for $3500, or about $9000 today, and competitors entered the market.

Some years later our biggest customer was interested in laser printers made by a very big corporation. One printer ran at 12 ppm, the other at 16 ppm. The faster model cost significantly more money. They looked identical, and by accessing the hidden service menu I discovered they were exactly the same printer. The less expensive model was set to wait between each page. The setting could be turned off, and suddenly the 12 ppm printer was spitting out test pages at 16 ppm.

If this sneaky bit of profit padding secrecy got out I’d be forced to admit I knew about it, or claim ignorance and appear incompetent. Not a good place to be, but nothing came of it, and I suspected the technicians at the hospital chain who were pushing for support had figured it out anyway.

Back in those days technical support was provided remotely via dialup modems, and I was also in charge of that bit of technology. CompuServe and AOL, and the early ISP’s, had cabinets filled with modem cards that answered incoming calls. We mostly used ours to dial out to customers. I could dial into a hospital and target a particular printer to send commands and generate test printouts. Ideally, somebody would be on the phone with me to describe what they were seeing on paper.

Some printer problems were in our software, but others were caused by printer firmware changes that were released without my approval. Way back then, a printer could do only what the firmware allowed, but the firmware itself couldn’t be changed without physically opening up a unit and replacing a chip. Today, firmware can easily be changed remotely.

Manufacturers continue to be sneaky in chasing a dollar, and they take advantage of their ability to send instructions en masse to printers remotely. With that in mind, listen to this Planey Money podcast.

It’s a Platter of Fact

Before records became a popular music medium again, good used turntables were cheap. This durable Pioneer PL-112D, for example, was an impulse purchase I made a long time ago.

Zombies under Stones

Because it’s endlessly fun to futz with audio gear, I bought a new belt for the PL-112D and pulled it out of storage.

Grado Green with Grado Black stylus

This latest exercise in retirement time wasting was done to see if increasing the tracking force of a Grado cartridge from the fixed P-mount setting of 1.25 grams to ~1.70 improves tracking.

Well, whaddaya know? It works. The distinctly annoying sibilance in George’s vocal on “Within You, Without You” is gone from my 1970’s British Parlophone pressing of Sgt. Pepper.