June 9, 2011

At the Kafe Kohoutek...

DSC01551

... it's all so unexpected.

(The photograph is something the camera took on its own, as I was sliding the cover closed. It looks like comets so I called this café post "Kohoutek" after the wonderfully overhyped comet that seemed, at the time — do you remember? — to symbolize the lameness of Gerald Ford. I wrote Kafe Kohoutek instead of Kohoutek Café for this café post — a "café post" is just an open thread — because there used to be a really cool restaurant here in Madison called Kafe Kohoutek. That was back in the '90s. The name was a wry reference back to the fizzled comet, 90s nostalgia for the 70s. And here I am now, in the 10s, reminiscing about the 70s and the 90s, all because my camera had a mind of its own.)

34 comments:

Original Mike said...

I made a point of going to a dark sky site in order to observe Comet Kahoutek. Not the brightest comet mankind has ever seen, that's for sure.

mccullough said...

Looks like your camera had a flashback

X said...

remember when the 90's were going to make the 60's look like the 50's?

traditionalguy said...

You may need to sit down for a while.

Triangle Man said...

That photo could be enlarged and used to pacify an unruly crowd.

deborah said...

Mood music for Kafe Kahoutek:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTxma3wyrjU

ricpic said...

The Eye Outsmarts The Mind

What the camera saw
Is what we would see
If we did not name things:

The world is nothing but
Lights and darks
On feathery whispering wings.

Lucius Septimius said...

Kahoutek was a great disappointment; the photo is far more interesting.

Oldest boy is with me visiting the Illinois/Wisconsin borderlands. The 45 degree change in temperature has him rather confused.

edutcher said...

Ford wasn't that lame in some respects. As I once said here, the Nixon pardon got the country away from the whole 'Nam-Nixon thing quicker than the Demos would have liked - they would have loved to have milked an impeachment trial through the election.

And this from someone who thought Ford was dead wrong doing it at the time.

PS I know I mentioned there hadn't been a cafe in a day or so, but you didn't have to put up one just for me... ;)

MadisonMan said...

I was out of town when Kahoutek tried to make a run of it. That location just doesn't work, IMO. And the cutesy Kafe rather than Cafe. Ugh.

I think I may have eaten at Crandalls when it was there, though. I much preferred the Crandalls on the square. I never go to the drive-in place out Middleton way.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Gerald Ford? Damn you are old! :)


wv= tantinge

LarryK said...

I remember Kafe Kahoutek (where Williamson Bicycles is now), and the comet! The Kafe was much cooler, with all kinds of weird elements that didn't quite go together (like a giant mural of a train on one wall, and plants on each table that could have been in The Little Shop of Horrors).

sorepaw said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Strelnikov said...

I remember the satirical article in our campus paper headlined, "Comet Kahoutek Puts on Dazzling Display in Night Sky". The accompanying photo was completely black.

Anonymous said...

Weiner Condoms

Ann Althouse said...

Thanks for the spelling correction. Fixed.

Anonymous said...

Blogger Lucius Septimius said...

Kahoutek was a great disappointment; the photo is far more interesting.

Kahoutek was HUGE disappointment. Almost as bad as Geraldo and Capone's vault.

Smilin' Jack said...

Kahoutek was HUGE disappointment.

Well, I'm sure the dinosaurs would have preferred it to the one they got.

Titus said...

I went to "Amish Country" in Columbia County in Wisconsin, north of Pardeeville.

Little did I know Thursday is their day of rest or for weddings.


I saw 4 Amish total and none of their businesses were open. The bakery is only open on Friday and Saturday.

I was hoping to see some hot Amish hog. Are they cut or uncut?

These small towns in Wisconsin are so fucking depressing. They have like 20 boarded up businesses, one local bar with the owners living on the second floor and a post office and a tea party sign and a for sale sign on every other house.

The cars they drive look like their are a danger to be on the road.

Sad.

How are you?

Steve Austin said...

When I was a kid, they always talked about the upcoming return of Haley's Comet in the ensuing years. I believe it made an appearance in fall of 1985. Terrible letdown. Could hardly see a thing.

Different story with Hale Bopp in the spring of 1997. That was spectacular. And of course we had that Packer cult leader in San Diego to kick off the arrival.

Trooper York said...

"And of course we had that Packer cult leader in San Diego to kick off the arrival."

What? Original Mike is from San Diego. That explains it.

Anonymous said...

"...it's all so unexpected."

Hillary Clinton spokesman denies claim of World Bank job switch

Now, you have to say that this is creepy.

JAL said...

Reminds me of Bissage. :-(

If you have registration on .se, that means when the next Bissage disappears, you might be able to ascertain his/her status.

Assuming someone will answer the email and at least clue people in. A casual (couple emails a year if she wasn't coming east)friend in the midwest died a year and a half ago, and I thought she was busy.

Family didn't have the heart to send out an email to her list, I guess. (It was sudden and awful for them all.)

Hasn't someone witten about this electronic age dilemma?

See what your blurry serendipitous car photo has done?

JAL said...

The picture, I meant.

Not Hillary going to The World Bank and not telling her spokeperson she was leaving.

(What was that comment doing on this thread? Heh?)

wv flopwent
Don't ask which thread that belongs on.

Anonymous said...

This is a cafe thread, no?

Anonymous said...

Oops! My bad, my browser wasn't refreshed.

JAL said...

NYTNewYorker, right, and for that you don't need forgiveness.

:-)

gadfly said...

A excellent demonstration of the Weiner Self-Portrait technique.

Thank you.

The Crack Emcee said...

Save that one. I'll use it for a CD cover one day, if you'll let me.

Or I'll just "steal it" for my blog and say "Fuck you, Annie!"

ROTFLMAO!!!!!!

Karl said...

As long as we are going nostalgic*

I remember the Hale-Bopp comet as a disappointment. Mostly because it was barely fn visible in mill-town. It was hyped as a big deal.

The heavens gate dude - Herff Applewhite - kinda looks(ed) like Ron Paul.

* When I was kid you could buy a monkey at Ben Franklin - no shit. A real live monkey that would wreck all your stuff then die of pneumonia within a month.

Known Unknown said...

Weiner Condoms

Is it just me, or do you not love the entreprenurial spirit of Americans?



WV: muslymee <-- Google is running out of words.

sarge said...

sarge here no mention of sarges gud buddy eddie ben elson?
wtf?

Issob Morocco said...

More a Cafe Disco rather than a Disco Cafe.

A. Shmendrik said...

Perhaps the funniest thing I can recall in The National Lampoon Magazine was in a 1974 issue - within a 3-4 page pulp paper insert in the magazine which was formated to resemble a newspaper. I believe it was entitled "News on the March", and it had outrageously satirical articles pretty much like The Onion. In the issue that addressed Kahoutek they had photograph in the "above the fold" position, beneath which was a caption which read something like "Mt. Palomar Observatory image of Comet Kahoutek blazing across the western sky, taken on Feb. 11 at 8:34:56 pm MST, using Panatomic-X film, taken at an aperture of f/22, and exposed for 25 seconds." And, of course, the caption was just beneath a perfectly black rectangle.