Elaine and I were idly wondering about the origin of the expression hot mess . And lookit: Emily Brewster of Merriam-Webster explains.
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Michael Leddy“Orange Crate Art” is a song by Van Dyke Parks and the title of a 1995 album by Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson. “Orange Crate Art” is for me one of the great American songs: “Orange crate art was a place to start.”
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Nancy, October 19, 1950.
“Who are we as a country?”
Michael Leddy
Don’t look for premiums or
coupons, as the cost of
the thoughts blended in
ORANGE CRATE ART pro-
hibits the use of them.
Comments are welcome, appended to posts or by e-mail. I moderate comments to keep out spam, so please be patient.
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Words to live by
Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in the face of certain defeat.
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
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Νέος ἐφ’ ἡμέρῃ ἥλιος. [The sun is new every day.]
Heraclitus
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Every day is a new deal.
Harvey Pekar, “Alice Quinn”
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Nos plus grandes craintes, comme nos plus grandes espérances, ne sont pas au-dessus de nos forces, et nous pouvons finir par dominer les unes et réaliser les autres. [Our worst fears, like our greatest hopes, are not outside our powers, and we can come in the end to triumph over the former and to achieve the latter.]
Marcel Proust, Finding Time Again
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Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try.
Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living
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I don’t really deeply feel that anyone needs an airtight reason for quoting from the works of writers he loves, but it’s always nice, I’ll grant you, if he has one.
J.D. Salinger, Seymour: An Introduction
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I’m not afraid to get it right
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Sufjan Stevens, “Jacksonville”
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L’attention est la forme la plus rare et la plus pure de la générosité. [Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.]
Simone Weil, in a letter
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
*
Νέος ἐφ’ ἡμέρῃ ἥλιος. [The sun is new every day.]
Heraclitus
*
Every day is a new deal.
Harvey Pekar, “Alice Quinn”
*
Nos plus grandes craintes, comme nos plus grandes espérances, ne sont pas au-dessus de nos forces, et nous pouvons finir par dominer les unes et réaliser les autres. [Our worst fears, like our greatest hopes, are not outside our powers, and we can come in the end to triumph over the former and to achieve the latter.]
Marcel Proust, Finding Time Again
*
Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try.
Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living
*
I don’t really deeply feel that anyone needs an airtight reason for quoting from the works of writers he loves, but it’s always nice, I’ll grant you, if he has one.
J.D. Salinger, Seymour: An Introduction
*
I’m not afraid to get it right
I turn around and I give it
one more try
Sufjan Stevens, “Jacksonville”
*
L’attention est la forme la plus rare et la plus pure de la générosité. [Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.]
Simone Weil, in a letter
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Nancy, October 19, 1950.
comments: 2
No one wonders idly. I wondered not idly about the journal and text as cited by Emily Brewster as from 1899, when the date is found from a year earlier. The poem which followed was interesting though Ms. Brewster did not allow the viewer to see more. Curiosity struck.
From P. J. Conlon's text about the public's perception of strikes in Illinois and Missouri and those issues surrounding said strikes from the "Machinists' Monthly Quarterly" of 1898:
"It is therefore the tactics of the employer to at once rush into print with an ex parte statement of the cause of the strike, and, if possible, poison the minds of the public against the workmen. But if the dear public would only stop to consider the seriousness of the affair to the average worker and dwell upon the fact that his income has been cut off, and his little children and wife suffer with the workman. That before submitting to such a condition there must have been something radically wrong with the conditions under which he was working. I say if they would only stop to consider this before forming an opinion perhaps the wage-earners might win; but no, they believe everything they see in the newspapers. If the newspaper says the sky is painted with green chalk that is what goes. Verily, I say unto you, the public is a hot mess. It reminds me of a little poem I once heard, and will herewith quote:
A little boy, while leaning down to drink,
Fell In a stream, and soon began to sink;
A man in passing heard him as he cried
For aid, and, running to the river side,
Began to scold the boy with all his might
For getting into such a dangerous plight.
'Oh! save me— save me first!' the child replied,
'And then there will be time enough to chide'."
Is the public a hot mess? What is the hot mess changes from time to time, month to month. 'Save first, chide later' seems to have been so often inverted with name calling such that facts are obscured by the noise and tensions of some hot mess -- the public itself.
Given that Conlon counseled that newspapers should not be so easily believed, for the public as that hot mess is only made hotter by the "green chalk" of any year from before 1898 until years from now. Today's green chalk comes in many colors and flavors and Armageddon is not arrived. In Conlon's time, ironically, Pulitzer had his child labor issues. Now the name means an award to those apparently still writing about green chalk skies. And the public is still a hot mess.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Thanks for sharing what you found. For anyone curious to see the source, it’s at the Internet Archive.
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