An NYRB cover

Adolfo Bioy Casares, Asleep in the Sun, trans. Suzanne Jill Levine (New York: New York Review Books, 2004).

The cover is a detail of a William Wegman photograph, Beach Scene (1996). I think it’s the greatest New York Review Books cover of them all. But you have to read Asleep in the Sun to know why. And you shouldn’t take this cover literally.

Related reading
A handful of Bioy Casares posts

Dianas

Lucio Bordenave has agreed to have his wife Diana, aka the missus, taken off to Dr. Reger Samaniego’s Psychiatric Institute. In her absence, her lookalike sister Adriana María has moved in. The aged relative doña Ceferina is still on the scene. And in Diana’s absence, Lucio has taken in a dog whom he names Diana.

Adolfo Bioy Casares, Asleep in the Sun, trans. Suzanne Jill Levine (New York: New York Review Books, 2004).

It’s impossible to describe what goes on in this novel without giving too much away. Suffice it to say that it combines domestic comedy and mad science into a surreal allegory of national and sexual politics.

Related reading
A handful of Bioy Casares posts

Recently updated

Morning becomes Ernie Bushmiller: Now with a link to a New Yorker piece about A Morning with Ernie Bushmiller.

Recently updated

“You can do either” Now with a suggestion that Iran could destroy Los Angeles or San Diego. And other mishaps.

“You can do either”

Via Aaron Rupar:

Q: Why are you telling your supporters to vote by mail if you think it’s fraud?

A: They’ll vote by mail or vote in person. I’d rather have them vote in person, but they can vote by mail if they want, because we seem to have no choice, because, ahh, a lot of people wanna vote by mail but a lot of very good people also wanna vote in person. You can do either. What we’re concerned about is there seems to be a lot of cheat — not seems to be, there is a lot of cheating in vote by mail.

Q: Where? Where’s the evidence?

A: I’ll tell you what: start off by taking a look at California. Take a look at —

Q: There’s no evidence in California.

A: Take a look at — no evidence, with millions and millions of ballots? You are fake news.

Watch this clip and the others that Aaron Rupar collected this afternoon and you’ll see a man who cannot respond to questions coherently and who falls back on empty stock phrasing: “We’re looking at it very strongly.” “It will all work out very well.” It’s gonna work out very well.” His response to a question about pneumonic plague shows him pretending to scientific expertise. When asked a question about María Corina Machado returning to Venezuela, he doesn’t even attempt to answer.

Help.

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October 6: This post now looks a bit nitpicky in light of his suggestion last night that Iran could destroy Los Angeles or San Diego (NYT gift link). And there were many other problem spots in his discourse. I am creating a new Pinboard tag: OOHFM. (Out of his, &c.)

The New York Times offered a curiously delimited headline: “Fury in California After Trump Suggests Iran ‘Take Out’ L.A. or San Diego.” Fury everywhere there are clear-thinking people, even in downstate Illinois.

Writing and thinking

I wish I had missed this one. In The New York Times (gift link), Joe Cruz, a professor of philosophy and cognitive science, opines: “I’m a College Professor. Writing Isn’t as Important as We Think.” See? He’s a professor. So he must know stuff.

And he begins by fabricating straw people, with the assertion that “Most college professors I know believe that students learn to think — critically, creatively, reflectively, tenaciously — only by writing.” Only by writing? I don’t think so. I don‘t know anyone who thinks so. Why discount the value of writing by leading with a false premise? As you might suspect, AI soon enters the argument.

Natalie Wexler offers a carefully reasoned response: ”Yes, Writing Does Advance Thinking.” As someone who has again and again not figured something out before sitting down to write, I must agree.

I like the Leuchtturm motto Denken mit der Hand: think with the hand. Or in a formulation that Wittgenstein approved, “I think with my pen.” The pencil is also a means to advancement.

Jeff Tweedy annotates Woody Guthrie

In The New York Times (gift link), Jeff Tweedy annotates Woody Guthrie’s “America Singing,” a prose piece published in the Times on April 4, 1943. An excerpt:

I think we need to get better at defining the stakes we face today. Because, while the people who are systematically dismantling our institutions and violating Americans’ rights don’t wear the uniforms of the Fascist Party, the consequences of their actions are similar to the ones Guthrie feared.

Guthrie’s piece, which I can see in its original form in ProQuest but not via the Times itself, appeared on a page titled “Music of the Times,” otherwise devoted to classical music. That might explain Guthrie’s seemingly out of the blue reference to “real honest classical music.”

The condescending subhead the Times added to Guthrie’s piece: “Author of ‘Bound for Glory’ Recalls What The Plain People Sing.”

Related reading
A handful of OCA Woody Guthrie posts (Pinboard)

Morning becomes Ernie Bushmiller

A Morning with Ernie Bushmiller, a play about the celebrated cartoonist, soon begins a six-performance run in Brooklyn. More information at BroadwayWorld.

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The New Yorker has a much longer piece about the play: “Ernie Bushmiller’s Sunday Morning, Live.” I didn’t know that Bushmiller was the butt of a joke on Saturday Night Live.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

”Dine at the Ritz”

[27 Union Square West, Manhattan, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

I like the cheeky sign: “Dine at the Ritz.” Yes, let us dine at the Ritz, after which we can have our press conference at the Four Seasons. Just don’t bring along any gangsters.

Here’s another view of this Ritz, with the candy store and a shoeshine parlor to the side. A five-story building owns this corner today. A later Ritz Diner at 1133 1st Avenue appears to have recently closed. That restaurant’s website gives the address as 1079 1st Avenue, which is the address of another diner under the same ownership, the Tramway. Mixing up those two establishments would be considerably less embarrassing than mixing up one Ritz or Four Seasons with another.

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

”Are we having beer yet?“

[Zippy , October 4, 2026. Click for a larger view.]

On Friday, Zippy became Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon . Yesterday he turned into Lee Marvin, and he continues in that role today (in Point Blank ?).

When I read the dozen comics I read daily, I close read. So I embiggened to see what’s on Zippy Lee’s bottle: Google Zippy Lemon Ale . Yes, it was real, 7.2 ABV (strong), available in Idaho and Washington. What did Bill Griffith ask for as compensation for the use of Zippy’s likeness? Two six-packs. The story is behind the link just above.

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)

[The post title is part of the beer’s logo.]