Mr. ZIP’s Windy Day

[Click for a larger book.]

“Young readers will love the interactive lift-the-flap element as they join Mr. ZIP for one windy adventure! Mr. ZIP and his trusty sidekick B. Franklin start their day in the mail room. Then it’s time to begin the mail route”: it’s Mr. Zip’s Windy Day, written by Annie Auerbach, illustrated by Laura Catrinella, available from the United States Postal Service. I’ve secured a copy with which to introduce the very young to the magic of the mail.

Imagine: a super-secret code that makes things get to your house faster.

Thanks, Diane.

Related posts
Messrs. Zip : Mr. ZIP : Snail Mail : A ZIP Code promotional film

Domestic comedy

“If we had a dog, and if we put our mailbox down by the front step, then the dog could get the mail for us.”

“Those are two pretty big if s.”

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)

Neologism of the day

It’s alread :

alread \ˈȯl-ˌred\ or \ȯl-ˈred\ adverb
1 : prior to a specified or implied past, present, or future time : by this time : previously

2 → used as an intensive

I heard what sounded like a newish word in a fragment of conversation: “Mom, twice alread?!” Aha: yet another shortened form? No, the speaker had said “all red.” Her mom had exercised strenuously and, for a second time, was red in the face. But I would still like to make alread happen.

Pronunciation may vary, with stress falling sometimes on the first syllable, sometimes on the second. In the conversation I heard, stress fell on the second syllable: “Mom, twice all-RED?!” Or, for instance:

“The race has ALL-red started!”

“All right all-RED!”

I like alread way more than totes and adorbs put together.

Pronunciations, definitions, and that last exclamation from Merriam-Webster.

More made-up words
Alecry : Fequid : Humormeter : Lane duck : Lane-locked : Misinflame and misinflammation : Oveness : Power-sit : Plutonic : ’Sation : Skeptiphobia

Helen Vendler (1933–2024)

The New York Times obituary begins: “In the poetry marketplace, her praise had reputation-making power, while her disapproval could be withering.” I find it hard to imagine that anyone who spent a lifetime reading and writing about poetry would appreciate such a summary of her work.

[Learning from this obituary about Vendler’s early life lets me understand why she turned down a speaking invitation from what she called a “non-secular” institution.]

Pretty Proustian

Vladimir Nabokov, Glory, trans. Dmitri Nabokov and Vladimir Nabokov (New York: MacGraw-Hill, 1971).

Not just the moment of involuntary memory but also the shifting mountains, reminiscent of the church steeple in Combray.

Venn reading
All OCA Nabokov posts : Nabokov and Proust posts : Proust posts (Pinboard)

Ernie Bushmiller, man of his time

[Nancy, May 28, 1955. Click for a larger view.]

“The Ballad of Davy Crockett” first aired on television on October 27, 1954. Recordings followed in 1955. From late March through most of April of that year, Bill Hayes’s version was the number one song in the United States. The Disney movie Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier was released on May 28, 1955. And Ernie Bushmiller was keeping up a fad.

Wikipedia has an article about the song and the “Crockett craze.” The details in this post are therein.

Yesterday’s Nancy is today’s Nancy.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

An improved tube

The narrator characterizes Martin Edelweiss’s mother Sofia as an “Anglomaniac” who discourses on Boy Scouts and Kipling. Thus the house toothpaste.

Vladimir Nabokov, Glory, trans. Dmitri Nabokov and Vladimir Nabokov (New York: MacGraw-Hill, 1971).

And there was such a slogan:

[“We couldn’t Improve the Cream, So we Improved the Tube.” Colgate advertisement, Ladies’ Home Journal, October 1908. Click for a larger view.]

Related reading
All OCA Nabokov posts (Pinboard)

No small step

I think that Hi-Lo was taunting the reader. Trixie was “almost ready” to take a first step yesterday — those words appeared in her thought balloon. But no step today: Hi is at work.

Related reading
All OCA Hi and Lois posts (Pinboard)

[The F on the boss’s chair is for Foofram, as in Foofram Industries.]

Trixie walks?

I’m not sure if Hi-Lo is toying with us. It could be that Trixie is just standing up.

Related reading
All OCA Hi and Lois posts (Pinboard)

Look, reader, no glasses

I put a new photograph of my unglassed and several-years-older face in the sidebar. RSS readers, you’ll just have to click through.