And if you miss it this time, don't let it fret your mind

[austin_dern]

But what to do after Wawa, which didn't get us near the end of the day? We drove eastward to the Freehold Raceway Mall, which is a fairly large shopping mall and a place I do go fairly often since it has that splendid combination of DVD stores, a Borders (and a Barnes and Noble across the highway), and an Apple store, and that means there's almost always something fresh that I find interesting. And I like the atmosphere of people being generally rather contented, or cheery.

We discovered too that the comic book shop which had been opposite the food court and which I'd found a reasonably healthy, shopper-friendly place had moved to temporary quarters in the food court wing. I like the new location but it turns out they're leaving the mall altogether and setting up in a strip mall down south a little. I hope I remember to ever stop in. In the meanwhile bunny_hugger and I compared various comic books, costumes, all sorts of things which we'd enjoyed as long ago as months in the past.

The real high point of the mall, though, is a two-deck carousel which has always been there but which I had never rode because I'd never had particular cause. bunny_hugger is among other things a carousel enthusiast, and I'd been promising to photograph it, but never managed to. This, then, gave the chance for her to take pictures of the ride, and to point out to me all sorts of interesting traits I'd never consciously noticed, such as the pivot system used to let the animals rise and fall, or that on the longer poles are little ``flower pots'' which themselves rotate while the carousel rotates.

The carousel itself has an equestrian, horse-racing theme, which it turns out is rare -- apparently martial and hunting themes are common, but having the horses posed as if they were racing is less popular. That's counterintuitive to me, but I suppose carousel makers have a fair idea what the markets want. The raceway connection is because there is an actual horse-racing track across the highway and south of the Barnes and Noble. And a Chilis.

Trivia: On 31 July 1914 the London Stock Exchange announced it would suspend trading until further notice, the first time in history it had done so. Source: The Great Game, John Steele Gordon.

Currently Reading: The Go-Go Years: The Drama and Crashing Finale of Wall Street's Bullish 60s, John Brooks. Unanticipated consequences of learning more: the book is causing me to like H Ross Perot a bit. Specifically, allegedly, he was confronted with a bunch of late-60s protestors wanting donations to help fund the revolution, and Perot said, all right, what's the projected budget and how long is it going to take? They weren't expecting that answer, but what a great one to give.

Comments

[xolo.livejournal.com]

martial [...] themes are common

The word 'carousel' originally referred to a sort of mounted free-for-all that would be staged as part of a jousting tournament.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

"Carosello," the Little War. >:)

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I had no idea that was the derivation. I don't know why but I'd failed to wonder about where it did come from.

[spaceroo.livejournal.com]

So all we need to take it full circle is to set up a pair of counter-rotating carousels, hand out some jousting poles, and award points for hitting other merrymakers rather then snatching the brass ring...

[xolo.livejournal.com]

YES!!! >:D

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I don't know if there's a way to research that in Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. They tend to settle at things like Gravitron and those coasters that consist of going up a tenth of a mile and then falling back again.