“I Have a Dream” draft

From The New York Times (gift link), news of a handwritten draft of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech:

King’s draft had long been assumed to have been discarded. But more than six decades later, it has surfaced from a desk drawer of a former aide, Edward T. Clayton, and will be auctioned at Christie’s in January.

The auction house said it expected the document — the only handwritten final draft of the speech known to survive — to fetch more than $10 million. The proceeds will benefit the King Center in Atlanta and other philanthropic causes chosen by the consignor, the aide’s widow, Xernona Clayton.

Spread across a table at Christie’s offices in Manhattan last month, the document looked unassuming — just seven pages filled with blue ink and the rusted ghost of a paper clip in the upper left corner. But the $10 million-plus price, if reached, would put it in a stratosphere associated with rare copies of the nation’s founding documents.

Peter Klarnet, Christie’s manuscript specialist, said that when he first saw it, his jaw hit the table.

“This is the most important manuscript I’ve ever had the honor to handle,” he said. “I can’t imagine anything better.” He paused, before adding: “That I wouldn’t have to steal out of the National Archives.”

Drafts are tremendously useful for anyone teaching a course in writing: evidence that writing doesn’t just, as they say, “flow.” The page and partial page visible in the Times article would make useful exhibits for their sheer volume of crossouts.

As the Times notes, the draft does not contain the words “I have a dream.” Everyone should know the role Mahalia Jackson played in getting that part of the speech spoken.

“The Moon Is Low”

“The Moon Is Low” (music by Nacio Herb Brown, lyrics by Arthur Freed) debuted in Montana Moon (dir. Malcolm St. Clair, 1930), a pre-Code western starring Joan Crawford and Johnny Mack Brown. You can hear an instrumental version over the opening credits. Brown sings at bit, as does Crawford. Later in the movie there’s a full chorus from Cliff Edwards (aka Ukulele Ike, aka the voice of Jiminy Cricket). If you want more, here’s a 1930 version by a Roger Wolfe Kahn and His Orchestra, complete with the verse.

And now for something completely different: a 1940 recording by Fats Waller and His Rhythm: Gene Sedric, tenor; John Hamilton, trumpet; John Smith, guitar; Cedric Wallace, bass; Slick Jones, drums. As I make my way through Waller’s complete recordings (twenty-five CDs, JSP Records), this number jumped out as exceptional: it’s an instrumental; tenor and trumpet get two choruses apiece, and it’s hotter than hot. From Drew Kent’s liner notes:

One often remarks at Fats’ willingness to tackle the mediocre, but his sidemen were just as creditworthy. “The Moon Is Low” is dealt with so briskly and expertly by the band that any negative impressions are dispelled.

And how.

Related reading
All OCA Fats Waller posts (Pinboard)

Recently updated

Waller Razaf Costello & Batiste: One video disappeared; another takes its place.

Enter the cobbler

[108-13 and 108-17 Atlantic Avenue, Richmond Hill, Queens, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click either image for a much larger view.]

Just a small moment from a day in Queens.

Drop the -ing , and Electric Shoe Repair, like Electric Soup Kitchen, sounds (to me anyway) like the name of a short-lived rock group. Let’s title their one album Lace . O’Sullivan is a name with a stronger basis in reality. Humphrey O’Sullivan, a Massachusetts printer who tired of long hours on his feet, invented the rubber heel.

You’ll have to click for a much larger view to have any idea of what I’m writing about.

A gas station would later occupy this corner. Then nothing. Then a laundromat. The empty corner space is now a parking area.



Related posts
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard)

Two Millers

“If it wasn't for President Trump, the United States of America would not exist right now”: Stephen Miller, speaking at Mar-a-Lago yesterday.

Tim Miller, in conversation with Nicolle Wallace: “They’re his two favorite words in the last month, ass and caulk .”

Elaine said the other day that we need to begin speaking in terms of Earth Three. Things around the current occupant are too weird for Earth Two.

*

And now, having written this post, I am reading that the current occupant says that he has offered the job of press secretary to Dana White, CEO and president of Ultimate Fighting Championship.

A postmaster on the job

Or off the job: “He’d arrive late, leave early, play bridge, and work on his fiction — all while losing mail or simply throwing it away”: William Faulkner, postmaster.

Related reading
All OCA Faulkner posts (Pinboard)

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, is for me just right — not too easy, not too difficult. I started with an educated guess: 54-A, four letters, “Pickford contemporary.” That must be a woman of the silents, no? And then 50-D, “Delhi dairy drink.” The toughest parts of the puzzle: the the northeast corner and the central south. Ken Paxton and Susan Collins had trouble up and down there too.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-D, five letters, “Word from the Spanish for ‘courtyard.’” A giveaway, perhaps, but I learned something.

6-D, ten letters, “Concern of some codes.” There’s great variety in this puzzle’s answers, and here’s one example.

11-D, nine letters, “A number of legislators.” From the northeast corner. I had to reread the answer to make sense of it, and then reread the clue to make sense of it.

14-A, ten letters, “Heroic posture.” See 6-D. This answer is out of the way and slightly startling.

17-A, ten letters, “Experience the real physical world.”Important!

21-D, three letters, “Driller designation.” I wonder how many other solvers thought DDS.

22-A, seven letters, “Where Faulkner went, and was once postmaster.” And it went as you might expect.

34-D, eight letters, “Cheeky monkey!” Does anyone ever say this?

36-A, five letters, “Support for many a retirement.” I took a guess, correctly.

37-D, four letters, “Tenor touring since 1957.” And he still has it.

43-A, eight letters, “Top artisan.” I had to convince myself that the clue fits the answer. It does.

56-A, ten letters, “Evinces indecision.” From the central south. One answer fits; one doesn’t.

My favorites in this puzzle: 52-D, four letters, “Not-quite-last exam” and 53-D, four letters, “Color of piecrust.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Vanishing credits

There’s a clever touch in the opening credits for the British television series Professor T , beginning with the second season (2023). Professor of criminology Jasper Tempest lives with OCD — thus the credits show surgical-gloved hands aligning the items on a desk: hairbrush, record brush, replica brain, crime-scene photographs. Finally, a quick dusting.




[Click any image for a larger view.]

There are five six-episode seasons, all available from the PBS app, with a sixth season in development. The series combines criminology (a different case in each episode) with the private lives of the principal characters. Therein lie familial troubles and, sometimes, deep trauma. It’s a series worth watching.

You can see the opening credits, minus the vanishing names, at YouTube.

Also from this series
A Moleskine sighting : Revising or correcting

EXchange name sighting

[The Night Holds Terror , dir. Andrew L. Stone, 1955. Click for a larger view.]

Another pay phone filling the big screen. EMpire was indeed a Los Angeles exchange name. In other words, it fits the picture, which is set in and around LA.

Related reading
All OCA EXchange name posts (Pinboard)

Nancy rewritten

I’m not a fan of Caroline Cash’s Nancy . The art and lettering are not to my taste. And there’s been some wild revisionism: Aunt Fritzi is now bi, and she has a girlfriend named Phylis. And Phil Fumble, the boyfriend of Ernie Bushmiller’s Fritzi, is living in West Hollywood. Nudge, nudge.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)