It's been a while since we've had a Mystery Guest segment from What's My Line?, so let's correct that.  And we'll do so in a charming way, with Oscar-winner Eva Marie Saint, who is funny and charming and self-effacing.  You can jump right to the segment at the 20:50 mark. 

This comes from 1958 when she was making her classic North by Northwest -- and what I particularly love (as a writer and because it's so her), when Alfred Hitchock's name is mentioned in the conversation at the end, she makes sure to give credit to the screenwriter Ernest Lehman.  It's also worth noting that while host John Daly refers to her at one point as "Mrs. Hayden", they had been married for six years at that point – and had another 59 years go go, being married for 65 years until Dr. Hayden passed away in 2016.  Happily, she is still around at age 94.  .  (six years at that point, 59)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwcfsmR9SzM

I go into more detail here about all that because I had the chance to not just meet her about 15 years ago, but talk with her for a while, and she was an absolute, utter joy.  (And from what I've since been told by others, that's who she is.  And it's how she comes across in this clip.)  The odd thing -- and I must embarrass myself to tell this properly about how lovely she was, but then I've told the story here before, so the embarrassment is already out there -- is that we talked for almost 10 minutes and for most of that time...I had absolutely no idea who I was talking to.  Just having a nice, friendly conversation.  It was at a "viewing party" for a friend who had written a TV movie being shown that night, and I was sitting on a sofa when she came over.   In fairness to myself, I'm terrible with faces, and have a very light case of "face blindness," I think.  And she was 80 years old, not the 30-year-old Eva Marie Saint we recall from her stardom years.  Yes, I should have known better, but I didn't.  So, to me, I was just talking with this sweet, friendly lady without an ounce of showiness who was asking far more questions about me than I of her -- and I was asking her plenty of questions -- and just talking about things in general.  Finally, as we neared the end of our conversation, thank heavens it at last clicked in with me and I realized, "Oh, my God, this is Eva Marie Saint!!!"  So, at least I did figure it out while talking with her.  Just barely, but it counts.  And she was an absolute treat.  

​As you'll see in this video.

Thanks to prompting from Eric Boardman, he reminded me of a terrific article written by Neil Tesser -- longtime jazz expert and broadcaster in Chicago, and Google Chicago music critic -- about the history of the Amazingrace coffeehouse on the Northwestern campus, which I referenced at length last night.  Though this is at far more length, meticulous and fascinating.  It was written for the Fall, 2011 issue of Northwestern magazine and is as definitive a piece on the legendary music spot as you'd want to find.  With Steve Goodman on the cover, no less...  It's a wonderful telling for those interested.  And happily, thanks to archives and the Internet, you can find it here.

I'll just add one more thing -- the article's author Neil Tesser, along with my NU roommate Jim Backstrom and myself, did a Sunday morning humor-music radio show together that included sketches we wrote (often during the show -- hey, this was college...) and performed, Sunday in the Cellar, broadcast from the basement of Annie May Swift Hall.

I'm going to end my little Bob Gibson/Shel Silverstein detour with something from Bob Gibson only, and one that's a personal treat.  I've told the background to this before, but not the conclusion, which only crossed my paths a few months ago.

Years back, on the campus of Northwestern University, they started up a little coffeehouse in the old Scott Hall student union called Amazingrace (started by a collective known as the Amazingrace Family) which built up a reputation and started to attract a pretty respectable lineup of performers, finally getting its own space on campus in a Quonset hut.  I remember seeing the legendary Odetta there, for instance (and yes, she was tremendous, filling the space with her power and artistry).  And checking its Wikipedia page -- yes, it was impressive enough to have a Wikidpedia page -- among the many performers who played there were Phil Ochs, David Bromberg, John Hartford, Mimi Farina, Ry Cooder and more.  Occasionally, they'd sponsor even larger concerts at the school's Cahn Auditorium and McGaw Hall (the basketball venue), like Taj Mahal, Leo Kottke, John Prine, the Grateful Dead and Steve Goodman.

Eventually Amazingrace grew to the point that it moved off campus and had a long and successful run elsewhere in Evanston, closer to Chicago, and had such national acts as Randy Newman, Jimmy Buffet, The Persuasions, Emmylou Harris, and Doc and Merle Watson. (My favorite line in the Wikipedia article is about how "The audiences came to trust the venue, and it was not unusual for a patron to show up, buy a ticket, and only then ask who was playing."

(I am very certain that longtime reader and folk music aficionado Eric Boardman could fill in many holes here and tell the Amazingrace story amazingly better.  But you'll have to leave it at this, especially since I've wandered off the path, though like to add perspective...)

Anyway, to bring this back to the point of all this, I saw Bob Gibson play there in the Quonset Hut version -- he's even quoted in the Wikipedia piece.  And was a joy.  At intermission I went up to him and requested one of my favorite songs of his that he not only recorded (as did others), but also wrote, "The Train To Morrow."  He face lit up at the mention of it, but he said, "Wow, I haven't thought of that song for  years.  I'd have to go re-learn it before I'd dare tackle it." 

That's the background.  But taking the story up to date, as I was searching for videos for this "fest," I was SO glad to find a video of him from a few years after that exchange where he's on stage and singing "The Train to Morrow"!!  I have absolutely no idea if my mention of the song jogged him into relearning it and bringing it back into his repertoire.  I doubt it, but I'm going to go with "Yes," anyway.

And as you'll see, it is such a convoluted tongue-twister of the song, I completely understood why he had to go back and learn it before trying to sing it -- even being his own song -- without it being fresh in his mind.  But it's so wonderful, and I'm glad he did.

Well, I made it back.  Still decompressing a bit, and lots of CES work to catch up on -- in particular, I now have to dive in to all my notes to start writing my annual Really Long overview article about the show.  I always enjoy writing it...but always dread starting -- going through my notes, structuring the piece and tracking down graphics and such.  And knowing how long it will take.  But once I start, it's fairly enjoyable.  At the moment, I'm in the "dread" state.

I did do my laundry though already.  This may not seem like much of a big deal, but after decades having to use laundromats or my building's one machine when others weren't using it, it's really special to have an actual washing machine now in my new home and being able to dump everything in the machine, push Start and ignore it all as I get back to work.  Huzzah.

I also came back to an email scam.  It was a semi-concerning one because of the threat it made and because it used my real email address to send me the threat, saying my email and computer have been hacked, so send money and we'll give you the special code to clear it.

What made it less concerning are a few things.  First, it was address to "Dear Stranger:  You don't know me but I've hacked into..."  and if they had all the personal information they had, they'd likely address me by name.  Second, I got two of these, and one was from an account I set up by never send out new email from or log into accounts with.  So, they couldn't have gotten the information about me the way they said they said, while watching a video online.  And third, the video I supposedly was watching was from an adult site, so this was a form of blackmail, too, saying they'd release it to my friends -- but happily I felt thoroughly comfortable knowing I've never visited an adult site or watched one of their video.  Still, it's disconcerting.

I was assuaged by three reasons.  One, what I noted above.  Two, from an article I found online describing this same in detail.  And three, checking with my computer Big Guru Ed Bott, who quashed it and said he got these things all the time.

If you're interested in the scam and the letter, if only to be prepared in case you get such a scam email (forewarned being forearmed, and all that), click here to read more about it.

​And now, I got back to decompressing...

Some random Las Vegas thoughts.
​
Security at the Consumer Electronics Show is a joke.  It began after 9/11 when they started checking all bags coming into the show.  While I suspect that's fully unnecessary, I understand why they do it, so fine if it either gives the perception of safety or the reality of it.  But the actually checking of bags is borderline meaningless.

One day, they looked in my bag and passed me through -- great, except the bag had three additional compartments.  None of which got checked.  Another day, the guard did look  in several of the compartments.  But in  one of these I had some hardware in a smaller bag, which was clearly there to see.  But whatever was in that bag -- obvious as it was -- wasn't checked.  Another day, I just walked it.  In fairness, it's a tough deal -- maybe 150,000 people attend during the week.  But surface checks to appear you're doing something is just silly.  So, they get an A for intent, and a D- for implementation.

Several years ago on his Diners, Drive-ins and Drives show on Food Network, Guy Fieri visited a pizza restaurant in Las Vegas, Naked City Pizza.  I marked down the name at the time and figured I'd try it on a trip to CES if it was convenient.  As it happens, I had a free day, and one of their three or four branches was somewhat nearby, so I went.  The pizza was fine -- fairly tasty but nothing special, a fairly bready dough, a thin but tasty sauce, and basic cheese.  To be clear, I didn't get the pizza he ate on the show.  That was a pretty loaded one, and it may have been delicious.  But since I had the foundational pizza that overlapped what the special pizza had, I have a good tasting of how it was made.  And...it was fine.  The toppings combination may have taken it to another level, but this was not special pizza.  It was -- well, you know -- fine.

For many years, I've said there are pretty much only two things I like about Las Vegas:  buffets and free self-parking at casino/hotels.  Last year, a few Las Vegas casinos started charging for self-parking.  Most people I talked to -- visitors and casino workers -- disliked the inroad.  This year, it got ratcheted up: almost every casino on the Strip now charges.  I understand the reasoning.  But it still seems counter-productive.  Casinos dearly want people to stay at the casino and do everything to attract them and not leave.  When you charge people and put a clock on when they'll owe more, that pretty much defeats the purpose.  So, we're down to there's one good thing in Las Vegas:  lots of buffets

Well, I made it here to Las Vegas.  Leaving on Sunday morning helps make the drive much easier and faster.  Virtually no traffic in the Los Angeles area which is usually the first 40 minutes or so of the trip.  I even made it in time to catch the end of the Chargers-Ravens game.  And plenty of time to relax before the Bears game started.  And that was while taking it relatively easy without generally blasting well-past the speed limit when going through the desert, when you're being passed at 78 by those zooming well-over 90.

By the way, as I learned last year, Sirius/XM radio makes the long trip through the desert so much more enjoyable.  I listened to MSNBC almost the entire way, only on occasion switching between a few other channels and once popping in one of my own CDs.

I'll probably have to leave my hotel room before the game ends, though, to get to that CES Unveiled event in time  -- though I have Verizon's NFL app which will allow me to listen to the end of the game in on the drive to the Mandalay Bay where it's being held.  (The app includes the live video stream, but I'm just going to guess it's not a great idea to watch while driving...)

Well, it's that time of year -- CES is upon us.  I'm off to the Consumer Electronics Show today, driving to Las Vegas.  I left early for two reasons.  The first is "early" by the clock -- the Chicago Bears have their game in the playoffs today at 1:30, and I want to get to my hotel in time to watch. I should be there by now, and hopefully the Bears did well.  And then I head off again because of the second reason for being there early.

This second "early" is by the calendar.  There have always been two evening events I enjoy going to:  Pepcom's Digital Experience and ShowStoppers.  These are where an organization takes over a huge ballroom, gets about 100-150 vendors to show up and invite the press to attend.  Plus a buffet.  Can't forget that.  (Both shows are very good, and it just depends on which has better vendors that year -- but ShowStoppers always has a FAR superior buffet...)  There's a third show that I've never gone to, called CES Unveiled.  It's very similar to the other two and run by CEA which puts on the Consumer Electronics Show -- and I've always been interested in going, but it starts two days before CES begins, so I've always passed.  This year I decided, what the heck, and RSVP'd.  And that's tonight.  So, we'll see.

Anyway, I don't know if I'll have access to Internet access later in the day, so this may be the last not for the day.  But if I do get online and am not exhausted, then I'll pop in.

As for the rest of the week, I'll post here about the ongoings of the show.  I'll be pretty much out of touch with news and politics, so probably not so much on that. And the timing of things will be random, when I can get to the press room and off the show floor and gotten my work out of the way.

I do have a pretty good sense what the big themes will be for the show this year already though.  That's because my Inbox has been inundated with two particular technologies.  And subsequent tech articles have largely confirmed this.  Both are related to one another, though one will surprise you.  The first is artificial intelligence (the sort of thing that used predominately in Smart homes, but also elsewhere).  The other is -- robots.  Yes, robots.  Go figure.  To be clear, just because these will have a particularly big presence at CES doesn't mean they'll be making their way into the consumer world with as much prominence.  I don't consumers are ready yet for robots, but I do suspect they're part of the future.  And artificial intelligence has been developing strongly over the past few years.

Another area of interest this year will surprisingly be mobile phones.  That's because of two advances -- one huge, the other could be but is still wait-and-see.  That's a development from Samsung for foldable screens.  I've seen it demonstrated in the past as a sort of beta to come, but now it's going to market.  What this does is allow your small phone screen to double in size, without increasing the size of the phone.  The other advance is something I've written about in the past -- 5G connectivity.  This is a massive development, and it's now here with a couple of service providers.  Verizon and AT&T, though very limited in very few cities.  But this is a major, massive change from the 4G broadband you have now, not an incremental one.  The short version -- it's like the different between sending a message from New York to Los Angeles by train...and using email.  More on this later, but here's a fairly detailed article I wrote about it from the IFA tech show in Lisbon in April, 2017.

​Back soon-ish...

The other day, I noticed a few billboards around town promoting an upcoming two-part miniseries on the History Channel for a production called Project Blue Book.  You may have seen them yourselves in your own towns, or seen ads for it.

Project Blue Book was a program created by the U.S. Air Force to study the phenomenon of Unidentified Flying Objects, and it was run by a civilian astrophysicist, Dr. J. Allen Hynek.  The mini-series focuses on Hynek and an Air Force officer who assists him. and is about what happens when Hynek begins to suspect that he is being used by the government.

I mention this all for a very specific reason.  It's not that I'm especially interested in UFO's.  Rather, that when I was at Northwestern, I took.an astronomy course, "Highlights of Astronomy" which was taught by an eminent professor there -- J. Allen Hynek!
​

What a great, long, odd day it was yesterday when an Northwestern alumni friend and I drove down from Los Angeles to San Diego to see the beloved NU to play in the Holiday Bowl -- and then back again after the game.

(A lot of friends through we were nuts to want to drive back, but I had no interest to spend New Year's Eve in a San Diego hotel and then miss most of the bowl games on New Year's Day.  We also figured that with the game likely to end before 8 PM, there shouldn't be an issue with traffic.  Most concerns on New Year's Even come closer to midnight as being have been drinking all night and switching between parties, and on side streets.  Not driving from San Diego to Los Angeles at 8 PM.)

The game began at 4 PM, though we had tickets for the official Northwestern "N Zone" tailgate party which began at 1 PM.  But my friend was wary of traffic on New Year's Eve day, and wanted to leave early -- which he kept pushing earlier.  I thought traffic would be fine, but was fine with leaving early, guaranteeing that you'd beat the traffic.  And if you're there early, so beat.  Even incredibly early.  We were there incredibly early.  

We left at 8:30 in the morning, and it took less than two hours to make the drive.  So we had 2-1/2 hours before even the tailgate party began!  The game was still 5-1/2 hours away.

The tailgate wasn't really at the back of a car, but under a huge tent, which turned out to be a good thing because while San Diego is known for it's glorious weather, always around 70 and sunny, I am sure the city's Chamber of Commerce was beside themselves for the national TV coverage.  There was nothing glorious about the weather, starting out around 58-degrees and rainy.  (Thank you for the tent!  A nearby corporate tailgate party had lots of tables and chairs, but zero tent.  I suspect theirs was far less comfortable...)

Very good barbecue -- brisket, chicken, potato salad, barbecued beans, well, you know -- for which I dd my best to get my money's worth.  The NU band and spirit team showed up, and ESPN host of Pardon the Interruption Michael Wilbon -- a Northwestern grad and trustee  -- hosted, and there were several speeches.  Happily, I ran into my good pal Morty Schapiro (the president of Northwestern) who...okay, maybe not a good pal, but an email buddy who I've met a few times, and his wife Mimi Rothman Schapiro (a Writers Guild member whose written half a dozen TV moves for Lifetime, most notable a biography of Olympic skater Oksana Baiul), had a nice visit and he invited us to sit at one of his tables right up from.  This is Wilbon on the left and Morty on the right.

We then headed over to the stadium -- where there was still an hour-and-a-quarter to go before the game would begin.  But the weather at least cleared up, and if it wasn't warm and sunny, it at least was not raining anymore, so that was something.

And then the game finally began.  

And alas, that whole "it at least was not raining anymore" thing didn't hold up.  Though the "it wasn't warm" did.  Ah, the glorious weather of San Diego.  For the next three hours, it rained on-and-off throughout, and the temperature dropped to the lower 50s.  (Yes, I know that sounds balmy for the winter climes elsewhere, but San Diego doesn't drop that low often, and it was raining.  And you're just sitting there.)  Happily, it was never a hard rain, often fairly light.  And coming from Chicago, I knew to dress in layers.  Also helpful -- every seat had those big, stupid foam rubber "We're #1" fingers.  And they made wonderful leg covers at you sat there, especially since so many people around us left for cover, so spreading out three of them was quite a bonus.  Stupid for cheering, wonderful for rain protection...

​And then there was the game.

Not to worry, I won't go into many details, but it can't go without mention -- because what followed was remarkable.  Utah came into the game ranked #17 in the country, and a seven point favorite over #22 Northwestern.  And in the first half, they were pummeling NU.  It wasn't just that Utah was winning 20-3 at the break, but Northwestern couldn't do anything.  That's not much hyperbole.  Though they had okay passing yards, they were -6 yard rushing.  No, that's not a typo.  They lost six yards running the ball in the first half.

And then came the majestic third quarter.  Northwestern outscored Utah 28-0.  And no, that's not a typo either.  Utah's highly-rated defense hadn't given up a touchdown in seven straight quarters.  But in the third quarter alone, they gave up three.  The fourth Northwestern touchdown came on a defensive fumble recovery and return.  It seemed like Utah was shell-shocked.  Meanwhile, Northwestern and its fans were euphoric.  And at the end of three quarters, NU had erased the deficit and was now 31-20.  And then, the team played very well but protectively in fourth quarter, and held on to win by that score.

Just look at that third quarter.  I was not a-lying...

By the last few minutes, what with the chill, rain and depressing score, the Utah side of the field had pretty much been cleared out of fans.  A lot of the NU side stayed through it all.  Cheering wildly to the end.  It did make leaving the stadium easier.  (Though in fairness, getting there 5-1/2 hours early and finding a great parking spot for leaving made it a whole lot easier, too...)

And then, after a few screw-ups trying to get back to the freeway, we returned in even less time than the trip down.  The drive was a breeze, and I was back home by 10:15 PM, and able to celebrate bringing the New Year in.  Though plenty of celebrating had been done during the game.

Huzzah.  Great day, wonderfully fun day, and very odd.

​Happy New Year.

I'm heading off in about a half-hour to drive down to San Diego to watch the beloved Northwestern play the despised and hated Utah in the Holiday Bowl.  

The game is schedule to start at 4 PM, which you can all watch on Fox Sports, though don't worry there won't be a test.  We're getting there early, however, because we also reserved a spot at the N Zone Tailgate Party beforehand.  Packed with fun and frivolity, no doubt, but also food.  The important Three F's.

Though we plan to drive back after the game (yes, I know, a busy, long day, but spending New Year's Eve in a San Diego hotel is really not my idea of the way to fly), I don't expect to be writing anything else for the rest of the day -- but not to worry, I've scheduled something that's already written to auto-post in the early afternoon for New Year's Eve..  And we'll be back here on the site tomorrow.  So, have a wonderful New Year and a very Happy Holiday...Bowl.