Page 28 January 31, 2014
DAN’S PAPERS
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Island Idol, a Shellibration I confess, I love American Idol. I think it’s wonderful that somebody gets a shot at a dream. The show certainly has grown. This year they auditioned 75,000 singers. I’m assuming that their screening process has improved, because an alarming number of people think they can sing, and it may be true on their planet, but not this one. Shelter Island has always existed in its own world, and has its own version of American Idol. “Island Idol, I’m telling you, Max, it’s an idea whose time has come. We set up a competition, sell ads and clean up.” “We don’t have enough singers for a competition, Pete. There’s maybe a dozen good voices here—not enough, I tell you.” “We don’t need good singers. That’s the beauty of my idea. You know how some people shatter glass with their voice?” “Yeah, so...” “So we do it Island style. We have a contest to see who can hit a note that can crack a crab shell.” “Hey, I think you got something there, Pete. You know Brenda, Jack’s wife? You can hear her from any deer blind on this island.” “I’m thinking we could have it at Crescent
Beach. We could line the crabs up along the shoreline—sponsors could decorate their crab and sell tee shirts with slogans like ‘We Back our Crabs’ or ‘Crabs—Lets Give Them Something to Talk About!’” “You’re getting it now, Maxie. Who on this Island doesn’t love crabs? This is the only place in the world a guy can come home with crabs and get gratitude.” “Prizes, what can we do for prizes?” “What, are you kidding me? How about a hundred ferry tickets for first prize?” “Yeah...how about a hundred gallons of gas for second prize?” Fast forward three months... “And we all want to thank Pete and Max for organizing this event. Now to business. Our first contestant, Susan Swack. Susan, stand behind
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By sally flynn
iShellibrate
the line, which is 25 feet from the first crab—wait, why is that crab moving? Where’s Pete?” “Right here, what’s up? Hey, why is that crab moving?” “Pete, why are they all moving? I thought you and Max got dead crabs, just the shells for this competition?” “Our bad, everybody. Max got live crabs and it looks like they’re making a break for the water.” “Alright Islanders, the screaming to crack a crab shell contest has been amended and the crab boil is on! We need volunteers for butter and beer runs! And everybody else, grab these crabs before they figure out what’s going on and start to pull out their iShell phones and get on their Fritter apps and warn each other! Be careful, they travel sideways to outwit our frontal assaults—they may be crustaceans, but they are clever! Butter on everybody!”
Rock and Rolling Through the Decades The other day, while driving, I heard the absolutely wonderful early ’50s sound of a Bo Diddley song. It was unique to its times with its driving African rhythm and made me realize how much we’ve changed from the early days of the ’50s. Cars of the early ’50s were rather conservative post-WWII designs, and many of them were powered by prewar engines that were certainly sturdy studies in practical and safe engineering. Most Chrysler and Ford products still ran flathead cast-iron cylinder heads, and Chevrolet still had its trusty old “stovebolt six” powering its products. GM was starting to get frisky with overhead valve V-8 engines with their higher priced offerings, the Oldsmobile and Cadillac, but they were still in postwar chassis and bodies. In 1953, Chevrolet stunned the automotive world when it introduced the new Corvette. It was a beautiful sports car made out of a new space-age plastic called fiberglass. The future was around the corner. For Detroit, 1955 was a pivotal year. Chevrolet introduced a new V-8 engine (whose basic design is still in production today). Ford wowed everyone with its new twoseat Thunderbird, and Chrysler showed the world it could produce the most powerful car
in America, the Chrysler 300. All the cars of 1955 were so different from the early cars of the ’50s. They almost, like a lightning bolt of change, hit all the design studios of every manufacturer at the same time. It was truly amazing and the world took notice. Soon, Detroit products were watched by every car manufacturer in the world. Detroit inspired wraparound windshields, which appeared on many cars in Europe. One big trend, of course, was the tail fin that first appeared as a modest appendage on the 1949 Cadillac. Ten years later, the tail fin morphed into the stupendously tall tail fins of the 1959 Cadillac. Why this design element caught on has always been a mystery, but eventually, virtually every car had tail fins. Why, even the staid British Bentley grew a What’s your car style? small pair. We also forget how many wild two-tone paint jobs were offered on cars as the ’50s wore on. Pink and white was fairly popular. So was chartreuse. Another common silly visual design detail on late ’50s iron was an over abundance of chrome. It was everywhere. On dashboards, around windows, and festooned over the bodywork. There were especially large chrome bumpers that were so big they could
have worked as a cow catcher. In my memory, the grand champion of chrome and fat bumpers was the 1958 Oldsmobile. On a sunny day, you not only had to wear sunglasses to drive an Olds convertible, but you needed to protect your eyes from sun glare to just look at one. As the ’50s wore on, cars got crazier and louder with highway presence—twin radio antennas, prominent dual exhausts poking through bumpers, gas caps hidden under taillights or behind license plates and super size whitewalls. Some details were even silly, like metal wire curb feelers jutting off the passenger side lower bodywork to tell dummy drivers when they were close to the curb during parking. The only problem with the “jet age” modern look of all these cars is that most of them were still running on old prewar chassis. Most ’50s American cars had primitive solid rear axles, and many still had drum brakes. Plus they all rode on bias ply tires designed in the late 1920s. To sum up, they looked great, but the handling was lousy. The ’50s started with Diddley and ended with Elvis. The ’60s were around the corner and so were the Beatles. Automobile design calmed down and has improved ever since. I wish I could say the same about the music. Bigstock.com
By BOB GELBER