October 18, 2026 – Keith Robertson

“Porch Season”

Kenny had a concert to attend on Tuesday evening and so handed off the “trivia pack” to me for my role as substitute scribe.

Some interesting questions:

“Name one of two people nominated for over 50 Oscars.” I was pleased to pull the composer John Williams from my memory banks.

“What was the company that launched a mail order compacted mattress in the 2010s?” Nic knew “Casper”, which I have not heard of.

“What cat has the longest tail?” Jack knew “Maine Coon.” I never heard of that either. The opposite would be the Manx from the Isle of Mann.

The half timer: Pick the original four Monopoly tokens from this list:

Battleship
Money Bag
Iron
Scottie Dog
Thimble
Top Hat
Wheelbarrow

We got three – picking the Scottie instead of the Battleship.

The final question was very hard:

How many Roman Emperors were there prior to 1 AD?
Number of planets with moons?
Number of teams to win the English Premier League?
Age of Harrison Ford in the original Raiders?

We were in first place by 9 with 99 points, and so bet 12 and were not confident. Here are the answers:

How many Roman Emperors were there prior to 1 AD – 1
Number of planets with moons? – 5
Number of teams to win the English Premier League? – 7
Age of Harrison Ford in the original Raiders? – 38

Second place – that’s four weeks in a row with either first or second place!

Diana was quite frustrated on returning from yoga on Wednesday morning. The continued activity to set up the massive wedding reception tent had a semi-truck blocking Magazine Street for quite a while. We heard that the family donated $1 million to Audubon park to help offset all the disruptions.

Kenny invited me to lunch with his friend Orissa on Wednesday. We chose the Rum House and had a very enjoyable chat. It’s always fun to meet someone new and interesting. You may remember that I enjoyed Orissa’s book a few weeks ago:

Meanwhile, Diana and Kara were enjoying a beautiful day at the Sunnie’s pool.

Not to be outdone, the guys gathered at St. Joe’s to celebrate Thom’s birthday. He’s giving an animated update on how he injured his ribs, followed by some clarifying details from Kenny.

I had a second invite of the week to meet some more of Kenny’s eclectic band of friends. This time Phil and Harold (tennis friends) met us at Gattuso’s in Gretna.

Phil’s son is the proprietor and so we got great service and a full tour of the establishment after lunch. Harold was an interesting character – a very good keyboard player who also writes songs and sings. He played me a song that sounded very professional. I look forward to seeing his band. I should mention that he’s also finishing up a novel.

Heavy traffic on the bridge back over the Mississippi meant that I arrived home just as Sandi was coming to meet us on the porch after her Mahjong session across the street at the Chicory house. We migrated from our porch to meet up with Nic on the lovely Columns porch.

And I’m not getting any better at selfies.

We teased Bill and Shanie, spending time in Sacramento, with views of the gorgeous weather and their empty seats on Friday evening.

It’s almost time to see how the Saints do in New York against the Giants, with the Cowboys not playing until later this evening.

I admit it – I did a poor job of reading this week. No good reason why. I continued to work through “The Steps” by Sylvester Stallone.

A paragraph that Will can relate to:

“I wouldn’t come out down the birth canal, so a member of the medical staff used forceps to pull me out. There are certain risks to that. Bad placement on the baby’s head can cause lifelong injuries, such as skull fractures, brain trauma, facial eye trauma, and my type—paralysis and permanent disfigurement. They accidentally crushed a nerve that partially paralyzed the left side of my face, and that changed my life forever. I was left with this crooked mouth and a permanent slur. So be it.”

On self educating on how movie dialogue works:

“Most of the time, things at the theater were peaceful, and I was able to focus on the films. I watched hundreds of films multiple times. I also started recording them. I bought a secondhand tape recorder and taped the film’s dialogue, then went back to my room after my shift and wrote it all out in notebooks. I’d think, Why does this moment work, and that one does not? Why does the audience laugh here? Why does the audience get upset there? I would perform a “cinema autopsy” on a daily basis. Sometimes the answers I sought came easily because the movie I was dissecting was great and the screenplay flowed beautifully. Like the movie M* A* S* H, which I must have seen at least seventy-five times. Then there were the movies, some of them by very good directors, that failed to move people. I remember we showed an indie film called The Rain People by a young director named Francis Ford Coppola. One night he came in to check on the crowd. “How’s the film doing?” he asked. “Okay,” I answered. “Okay? Mind if I look inside?’ “Sure.” “

And Coppola’s reaction:

“IT’S INTERESTING TO THINK ABOUT FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA’S journey. Here was a man who was completely devastated by the rejection of The Rain People, one of his earliest films, but two years later he made The Godfather. A masterpiece. I still wonder if it was the lessons he learned from The Rain People that helped him make such a great film. Lessons, lessons, lessons.”

About the wonderful New York Public library:

“WHEN I NEEDED MORE STIMULATION, I WENT TO THE New York Public Library. It’s an awe-inspiring building. When you walk up the steps, you are dwarfed by the immense facade. It’s massive. It looks like a cross between a bank and a temple, which is fitting when you realize it houses more than 52 million volumes. When I heard that figure for the first time, from a guard I was talking to one day, it hit me like a ton of bricks: 52 million books, manuscripts, letters, photos, and papers! How many millions of people spent months and years of their lives tapping into their imaginations and their personal experiences to put their thoughts on paper? This was going to be my second home. Initially, my visits to the library were a refuge from the craziness of city life. I would enter through the doors and step into a realm of complete silence. TRANQUILITY. The fifty-foot ceilings and the eerie silence made me feel like I had entered the Vatican of Intellectual Pursuits. The Vatican of Words. I loved it.”

Have you ever heard of Pavlov’s Dog as it relates to music? Yes – there was a progressive rock band by that name in the early 70s – I believe I have at least one of their albums in my collection. The lead singer with the very high voice died last week:

David Surkamp dead at 73 – Pavlov’s Dog