Masking, still masking

An item of interest:

Are you still masking? If you are, please tell me so I don't feel so much like a fucking alien freak. I was called 'hysterical' today because I am still concerned about COVID. That was fun.

— Mask and Vax, please!🌵 (@J__Possum) May 28, 2022

As Boing Boing reports, this tweet resonated with many readers. (Look at the numbers.) With me too, but I’m not worried about feeling like “a fucking alien freak.” I don’t care what anyone thinks. I give no fucks. Or rather, I do give a fuck — about not getting COVID-19 or giving it to someone else.

When Elaine and I went shopping today, we saw, for the first time, no one else wearing a mask. And we live in a county in which only 45.2% of the population is vaxxed. And only half of those people are boosted. And I should care that someone thinks it’s strange to be wearing a mask?

Ten movies, two seasons

[One to four stars. Four sentences each. No spoilers. Sources: Criterion Channel, TCM, YouTube. ]

From the Criterion Channel’s Ida Lupino feature
The Hard Way (dir. Vincent Sherman, 1943). Reportedly based on the life of Ginger Rogers, with Lupino as “Mrs. Helen Chernen,” determined to make a star of her kid sister Katie Blaine (Joan Leslie), with predictably destructive results. I wonder what would a contemporary audience would have made of Katie’s singing and dancing and acting. I think it’s only passable, and that might be the point, because the movie is full of the sadness of being not good enough: a hokey vaudeville act (Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan), a faded star who seems to be further fading with every moment of rehearsal (Gladys George, who nearly steals the movie). It’s true: “The world’s full of murderers.” ★★★★

The Man I Love (dir. Raoul Walsh, 1946). How could I not love a movie that begins with Ida Lupino “singing” (dubbed) “The Man I Love” in an after-hours jam session? That’s in New York, but everything else happens out in Long Beach, where that singer, Petey Brown, visits her sisters and brother (Andrea King, Martha Vickers, Warren Douglas) and finds problems galore, including a brother-in-law with PTSD (John Ridgely) and a neighbor (Dolores Moran) who forsakes her husband and children for a gangster and nightclub-owner (Robert Alda). A further complication is the presence of San Thomas (Bruce Bennett), a tormented jazz pianist whose presence helps explain the title. Too easy a resolution, but great atmospherics in nightclubs and a crowded post-war apartment. ★★★★

Lust for Gold (dir. S. Sylvan Simon, 1949). Two quests for gold, present and past, with the present search framing the past. Lupino is at the center of things, a baker in the Old West who betrays her husband (Gig Young) for a man (Glenn Ford) who’s driven to uncover a fabled cache of gold hidden in Superstition Mountain. In the present, a young adventurer (William Price) has taken up the search. A powerful, unusual story, with origins in Arizona legend, overtones of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Double Indemnity, and gripping scenes of hand-to-hand combat on cliff edges. ★★★★

Woman in Hiding (dir. Michael Gordon, 1950). All noir, all the time: Lupino plays Deborah Chandler Clark, the heir to a sawmill, presumed dead by everyone except her husband (Stephen McNally), who knows that his attempt to kill her failed. Deborah asks a genial newsstand clerk (Howard Duff) to help her — but can he be trusted? And can Selden’s ex (Peggy Dow) be trusted? The final five-minute sequence in the dark empty mill (cinematography by William Daniels) is worth waiting for. ★★★★

Women’s Prison (dir. Lewis Seiler, 1955). Lupino here is the sadistic warden of the women’s side of a co-ed prison; Howard Duff (now Lupino’s real-life husband) is a compassionate doctor; Cleo Moore, Jan Sterling, Phyllis Thaxter, and Audrey Totter are the principal inmates. Much better than the title might suggest. My favorite moment: Vivian Marshall impersonating Lupino — or is that just a dubbed voice? My favorite line: “You’re the psychopath, Amelia, believe me.” ★★★★

While the City Sleeps (dir. Fritz Lang, 1956). Here’s the one I was waiting for, but I was disappointed. It’s like Executive Suite crossed with a hunt for a psychokiller, with the indolent heir to the Kyne media empire (Vincent Price) offering a plum position to the underling (James Craig, Thomas Mitchell, George Sanders) who gets the killer’s identity first. Dana Andrews is a Kyne television commentator with no interest in advancement; Lupino, a writer (for the Kyne newspaper’s women’s page?). The messy lives of the Kyne men (one of whom, Craig, is barely present), their significant others, and Lupino exhausted my interest well before the movie’s end. ★★★

[The Criterion Channel has another four Lupino movies already familiar to our household: They Drive by Night, High Sierra, Moontide, The Big Knife. For Peter Ibbetson, Out of the Fog, and The Sea Wolf, see this post.]

*

One Girl’s Confession (dir. Hugo Haas, 1953). Having seen three Haas movies — 1, 2, 3 — we thought we should add another and become the Center for Haas Cinema Studies. One Girl’s Confession is another weirdly good B-movie, with Cleo Moore as the blandly named Mary Adams, a bad girl who steals thousands, almost commits murder, and nevertheless wins the affection of café owner Damitrof (Hass) and fisherman Johnny (Glenn Langan). Haas’s bother Pavel was a composer (killed in Auschwitz), so it seems no coincidence that this low-budget effort has a superior musical score, by one Václav Divina. An oddly touching scene with Burt Mustin helps the viewer to understand tree roots. ★★★ (YT)

*

Lou Grant (created by James L. Brooks, Allan Burns, and Gene Reynolds, 1978–1979). In the second season things get better still, with greater character development and storylines that remain contemporary: prescription-drug abuse, Latin American dictators, the murder of sex workers, racial disparities in crime coverage (consider Gabby Petito), racial disparities in school funding, veterans and PTSD, a Ponzi investment scheme, and the persecution of illegal immigrants. The strongest episodes: “Hit,” with Allyn Ann McLerie as a mother trying to track down the driver who killed her son, and “Skids,” with Lou encountering an old friend now on Skid Row. Most touching moment: Billie and Rossi sharing a bed and talking (and that’s all they do). With Ed Asner, Mason Adams, Daryl Anderson, Jack Bannon, Linda Kelsey, Nancy Marchand, and Robert Walden. ★★★★ (YT)

*

Lou Grant (1979–1980). More great TV, though the show’s conscience becomes wearisome, with a social issue as the flavor of the week (captured in a one-word episode title), taken up and then forgotten: job discrimination against gay men, prisoners’ rights, children’s rights, corporate takeovers of newspapers, the lives of urban Native Americans, access to mental-health care, wildfires. The most disturbing episode is “Censored,” in which a town censors and burns library books and textbooks because “They’re experimenting with our kids”: but here it’s one town, and in 2022 it’s entire states at work. The best episode of the season is an anomaly: “Hollywood,” a faux film-noir with George Chandler, Laraine Day, Howard Duff, Nina Foch, Margaret Hamilton, John Larch, Paul Stewart, and Marie Windsor. ★★★★ (YT)

*

Don’t Be a Sucker (1945). A short film from the Department of Defense. After a man addresses a streetside crowd, railing against “Negroes,” Catholics, Masons, and “alien foreigners,” a Hungarian-born listener (Paul Lukas) explains to another man what he witnessed as a professor in Berlin: “I’ve heard this kind of talk before, but I never expected to hear it in America.” A moving and eeerily relevant defense of cultural pluralism. Felix Bressart and George E. Stone make brief appearances, and Lloyd Nolan narrates. ★★★★ (YT)

*

The Killer Is Loose (dir. Budd Boetticher, 1956). The bank robbery is an inside job, and suspicion falls on mild-mannered teller Leon Poole (Wendell Corey). When his wife is killed in a police raid of his apartment, Poole vows to kill Lila Wagner (Rhonda Fleming), the wife of the detective who fired the fatal shot, Sam Wagner (Joseph Cotten). Cotten is undistinguished here, but Corey, the archetypal beta male, has his finest hour as a psychokiller. My favorite moments: the milk, the bathrobe and boots. ★★★★ (TCM)

*

The Long Wait (dir. Victor Saville, 1954). From a Mickey Spillane novel. For anyone who remembers the short, sometimes snarky comments that accompanied movie listings in the New York Times TV listings: a comment on this movie might read “Too long.” Anthony Quinn plays an amnesiac bank teller, wanted for murder, searching for the real killer, and trying to figure out which of four women is his now-unrecognizable wife (she’s had plastic surgery). One of the least coherent movies I’ve ever seen, though there is, I’ll admit, something worth waiting for: a striking scene near the end, utterly different from the rest of the movie, courtesy of cinematographer Frank Planer. ★ (YT)

Related reading
All OCA movie posts (Pinboard)

Mystery actor

[Click either image for a larger view.]

The sunglasses make him look a lot like George Shearing, but I think he’s still recognizably himself, sort of. What do you think?

Leave a guess, or several, in the comments. I’ll drop a hint if it might help.

*

A hint: In a long career, this actor played a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Also a bartender.

*

It’s a tough one. The name is now in the comments, but you’re still welcome to guess.

More mystery actors
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SMASH

The latest episode of the BBC podcast Just One Thing encourages the listener to “Enjoy Oily Fish.” I learned an acronym from this episode: SMASH, for salmon, mackerel, anchovies, sardines, and herring.

Related reading
All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard)

“Tenants”

America is suffering because the left spent decades attacking the role of God in our society, attacking the church, attacking the nuclear family & the importance of fathers raising their sons. We need to reject the atheist mission of the left & embrace the tenants of our faith!

— Mary Miller (@Miller_Congress) May 26, 2022

Is it Christian nationalism yet? By Jove, it is.

Samuel L. Perry, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Oklahoma, has a helpful checklist.

Come November, I hope Mary Miller gets an eviction notice.

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

Memorial Day 1922

[“Whole City to Pay Honor to War Dead: Ceremonies Planned Today for Every Part of New York, with Fair Weather Predicted.” The New York Times, May 30, 1922.]

Another Times article (May 28, 1922) notes that forty-nine widows of men who fought in the War of 1812 were still then living, as were seventy-three veterans of the Mexican-American War (1846–1848).

A Brooklyn public library

A few years ago, when I was asking my mom for memories of her Brooklyn childhood, I wrote this down:

As a girl, Mom walked to the Boro Park library on Saturday mornings. It was on 13th Avenue, toward the higher street numbers.

And there it was, between 52nd and 53rd Streets:

[Brooklyn Public Library, Boro Park branch, 5211 13th Avenue, Brooklyn, New York, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

The 1940 telephone directory gave me an address. The Archives gave me the photograph. Should you need to call the library c. 1939–1941, the number was WIndsor 6-7050. The library’s double-wide storefront is now split betweeen Lane Card and Gift Shop and Hoffy’s (computers, electronics, &c.)

When we were kids in Brooklyn, the Boro Park branch of the Brooklyn Public Library was here. And still is. But the Boro Park branch no longer has its copy of Alvin’s Secret Code.

Related posts
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by Matthew Sewell, his second Stumper this month. I found it exceedingly difficult — opacity and misdirection afoot — which means I enjoyed it immensely. I began with 19-A, eight letters, “Pianist’s flourish.” And that gave me 8-D, four letters, Macbeth excerpt. (I’m wise to that trick.) And then I struggled. I worked out the northeast corner first; the southeast, last. Oh, that southeast corner.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-A, nine letters, “De-stress.” The hyphen may be meant to help, but I doubt it.

9-D, five letters, “They’re not square.” OWERS? No.

10-D, nine letters, “The Rock and Hulk Hogan.” They’re not persons!

13-A, ten letters, “Woolgathering.” A beautiful answer.

25-A, six letters, “Stateless?” A bit strained.

26-A, five letters, “Snaps.” The answer makes me think of the New York Daily News. Got a cigaret?

31-A, nine letters, “The Wizard of Oz, for one.” I can think of others.

36-A, three letters, “Pater Noster pronoun.” Did anyone else think the answer would be in Latin?

38-D, eight letters, “Loire Valley wine.” The big snag in the southeast. Is this name common knowledge?

40-A, ten letters, “Hot dipping sauce.” I think the clue is meant to misdirect, but I may be wrong.

50-D, five letters, “City in Germany.” Really sneaky.

59-D, three letters, “Funny.” So you think funny is an adjective?

63-A, nine letters, “Packing slip reviewers.” I overthought slip.

My favorites in this puzzle:

7-D, three letters, “Dose folks.” I missed its cleverness while solving, having gotten the answer on crosses.

54-A, letters, “Minimizer in music.” The clue suggests at least two other plausible answers and freshens a familiar crossword answer.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Mary Miller, lying

Congresswoman Mary Miller (R, IL-15) questioned (context unknown) Dr. Miguel Cardona, Secretary of Education. I assume their conversation followed the massacre in Uvalde, Texas. Miller shared an excerpt from the conversation on Twitter, so she must think it went well. But all I see in it is a crazy quilt of lies and irrelevancies ending in a self-own: “Right.” I am willing to go into detail:

For 2 years, Democrats Defunded The Police and kicked police out of schools. Today, I pushed Biden's Education Secretary to support police in schools. School resource officers are critical to keeping schools safe, but the Defund The Police movement did lasting damage. pic.twitter.com/qNKHfr5t3p

— Rep. Mary Miller (@RepMaryMiller) May 26, 2022

My transcription of the exchange:

Miller: The Democrats definitely supported defunding the police for two years. They painted it on the sidewalks of burning cities. They shouted it while burning down police stations in Minneapolis. Vice President Harris herself raised money to bail out the rioters. And your favorite leftist TV stations have covered it all. All Americans saw it. And so now, what I want to know: You represent the Biden administration. Has the Biden administration changed their stance? Do they still support defunding the police, or do they now say school resource officers belong in the schools? We would like to know.

Cardona: I’m not sure if you were present at the State of the Union [she wasn’t ], but the president said we need to fund the police more, not defund the police. I recall that, sitting there, and it felt pretty strongly that there was a clear message there.

Miller: Right. I call that hypocrisy. I taught my children that, uhm, you know, what you do is more important than what you say.

A few observations:

~ It is simply untrue for two years Democrats as a group “definitely” supported defunding police and that they “kicked police out of schools.” Miller doesn’t acknowledge a police presence at the elementary school in Uvalde.

~ It is simply untrue that “they” — Democrats — painted slogans and burned down police stations.

~ The slogan Defund the Police did appear on streets in Milwaukee and Washington, D.C. — and in Hamilton, Ontario, and perhaps elsewhere. But the more memorable and visible slogan by far, painted on streets, not sidewalks: Black Lives Matter. The context for both slogans — the police murder of George Floyd — is interestingly absent from Miller’s narrative.

~ “Vice President Harris herself raised money to bail out the rioters”: Snopes rates the claim that Harris bailed out rioters as “mostly false.”

~ All cable news covered the protests, non-violent and otherwise, that followed George Floyd’s murder. If “leftist” TV stations alone (she must mean CNN and MSNBC) had covered protests, “all Americans” wouldn’t have seen them.

~ Miller’s response to Cardona — “Right” — is a self-own to remember. Faced with an assertion that she’s wrong about the facts, all she can do is say “Right” and keep going.

~ About actions and words: What you do and what you say are both important, and as any student of speech-act theory knows, to say often is to do. What Miller says here is dishonest nonsense, painting all members of a political party with a broad brush, attributing to them actions they had no part in. (I recall Bob Dole’s characterization of World War II as a “Democrat war.”) What Miller has done during her time in Washington: nothing of substance for her district or her country. She pushes The Big Lie, engages in stunts (refusing to wear a mask, signing on to ludicrous legislation that goes nowhere), foments against trans kids in the “wrong” bathrooms, and votes consistently on the wrong side of every issue: against aid to Ukraine, against money for infant formula, against a bill to stop price-gouging for fuel, against the Congressional Gold Medal for police who defended the Capitol on January. I could go on, but I already have in a May 2021 post.

~ What Miller refuses to say anything about is the need for legislation to limit access to guns. She touts her support for the Second Amendment, which she regards as permitting unimpeded access to firearms for all. When I called her office today, I asked the fellow who answered the phone (who, I suspected, was getting many calls) what Miller would say about portable nuclear weapons (a hypothetical I’ve borrowed from Bryan Garner). Would they be permitted under the Second Amendment? The fellow on the phone said that he couldn’t speak for the congresswoman. Nor was it professional for him to give an opinion, he said. “I hope you get a shitload of calls today,” I said. “Please don’t say that,” said he.

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

[Derek Chauvin’s attorney Eric Nelson had that same odd habit of saying “Right” after a witness contradicted him.]

Aaron Rupar collecting

On Twitter, Aaron Rupar has collected today a number of Republican comments on the latest school massacre. The comments are either absurd (“When 9/11 happened, we didn’t ban planes”) or wholly evasive.

Elsewhere, there’s Ted Cruz’s non-response. And Mary Miller’s idiotic, mendacious self-own, not that anyone beyond IL-15 cares enough about Mary Miller to be appalled by anything she says.

“Better than the one that I’m in”

Donald Evans, talking to the Paris Review about his postage-stamp art (creating stamps from imaginary countries):

“It was vicarious travelling for me to a made-up world that I liked better than the one I was in. I’m doing that now too. No catastrophes occur. There are no generals or battles or warplanes on my stamps. The countries are innocent, peaceful, composed. Sometimes I get so concentrated in these worlds 1 get confused . . . it’s hard to get out.”

The blurred scans accompanying the text are a disappointment. You can browse the full-color pages of Willy Eisenhart’s The World of Donald Evans, which approximately quotes this passage, at the Internet Archive. Or visit (even if only online) the current Tibor de Nagy exhibit of Evans’s work.

And here is an extended introduction to postage-stamp art: What Is Faux Postage? (Read, Seen Heard).

[Re: catastrophes: Donald Evans (1945–1977) died in an apartment-building fire.]

College enrollment down

“While elite colleges and universities have continued to attract an overflow of applicants, the pandemic has been devastating for many public universities, particularly community colleges, which serve many low- and moderate-income students”: “College Enrollment Drops, Even as the Pandemic’s Effects Ebb” (The New York Times).

What would I do if I were a high-school kid thinking about college? I’d go, for sure. I think I’d want to study user-interface design. My son thinks I’d be good at that.

Inara G. and Van Dyke P.

I recommended the Inara George–Van Dyke Parks album An Invitation to a friend last night. And then I found this 2015 performance, which I hadn’t seen before.



[Left to right: Van Dyke Parks, Inara George, David Piltch.]

The songs: “Opportunity for Two” and “Come Along” (Parks), “Dirty White” and “Family Tree” (George).

And here are a handful of songs from a performance last week.

Music is my respite and refuge.

“Ten hours to Chicago”

Nella Larsen, Quicksand (1928).

I discovered only this morning that the 1928 Knopf edition of Quicksand is available from Google Books as a free PDF or e-book. Marginal notes here and there — dynamics of authority, paradox — but they disappear not long into the novel.

HCR on “the right to bear arms”

“Today’s insistence that the Second Amendment gives individuals a broad right to own guns comes from two places”: Heather Cox Richardson gives a short lesson about the history of a peculiarly American idea.

Red flags

David French: “Pass red flag laws. Now. Give families and police a chance to remove guns from the people who tell us they’re dangerous.” Found via The New York Times.

Our household’s representative in Congress, Mary Miller (R, IL-15), has touted, loudly, repeatedly, her opposition to red-flag laws. Here she is, proclaiming her opposition and boasting about her A ratings from the NRA and Gun Owners of America (a organization that deems the NRA too willing to compromise).

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

“Why are you here?”

Senator Chris Murphy (D, CT) on the Senate floor not long ago:

“What are we doing? Why are you here, if not to solve a problem as existential as this? This isn’t inevitable. These kids weren’t unlucky. This only happens in this country, and nowhere else. Nowhere else do little kids go to school thinking they might be shot that day.”

[Fourteen Eighteen Nineteen children, a teacher, and another adult and two teachers were killed at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas today.]

Herschel Walker voting

MSNBC has a camera (why?) on Herschel Walker as he votes. He’s taking a very long time, just standing in front if the machine, and I think it’s reasonable to wonder: Does he know how to use a voting machine?

The last pay phones in NYC?

This story is getting considerable attention: “Last street payphone in New York City removed” (CBS News ). And yet:

While there are no more freestanding, public pay phones left in New York City, LinkNYC says they could still exist — on private property. There are also four “Superman booths,” or full-length phonebooths left in the city, but it is unclear if their phones are in service.

That’d be easy for someone for someone to check, no?

In 2009 Scouting New York tracked down those four booths, all on West End Avenue. Google Maps shows them still standing in August 2021, complete with pay phones. Working ones, I hope.

And now I’m kicking myself for not photographing the New York Public Library’s phone booths when I was last there.

A handful of pay phones
A Blue Dahlia pay phone : A Henry pay phone : The Lonely Phone Booth : A Naked City pay phone : A subway pay phone, 1932 : Chicago pay phones : “If your coin was not returned”

[Yes, the CBS headline has payphone; the article, pay phone.]

SFW on the shelf

Take a look at this tweeted photograph of Bryan Garner’s bookshelves. Can you spot the book by Sally Foster Wallace, David’s mother?

This 2013 post, a review of Quack This Way, a transcribed conversation between Bryan Garner and David Foster Wallace, has links about the Garner–Wallace connection. This 2020 post has some sample sentences from SFW’s book.

Related reading
All OCA Garner posts : DFW posts (Pinboard)

[The book is Practically Painless English (Prentice-Hall, 1980), above the three blue volumes, lower right.]

Domestic comedy

An ordinary evening. We were watching yet another Lou Grant episode, “Boomerang” (January 19, 1981). The opening scene: a busy hospital, doctors and nurses speaking Spanish. I called the theme of the episode (not derivable from its title) forty-four seconds in, when the camera zoomed in on a respirator, the manufacturer’s name in all caps: defective medical equipment. And then:

“Yes, Michael, you’re brilliant. You’re a genius at watching television. You can quote me.”

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)

[“Yet another”: these episodes aren’t going to watch themselves. And if you haven’t watched, it was a really good show.]

Mary’s and Rhoda’s apartments

Computer-modeled tours of Mary Richards’s and Rhoda Morgenstern’s apartments. The presence of elements never seen on The Mary Tyler Moore Show itself — bathrooms, a fourth wall — makes me want to call the Epistemology Help Line.

Thanks, Steven.

Related reading
All OCA MTM posts (Pinboard) : I envy Mary Richards

Grain, oil, and pastries

News from way out west:

A professional outdoorsman in Utah is facing felony criminal charges for allegedly helping Donald Trump Jr. shoot a bear illegally during a guided hunting expedition. Wade Lemon of Wade Lemon Hunting hosted Trump for the outing in May 2018. According to the Utah Department of Natural Resources, Lemon illegally baited the bear for Trump with “a pile of grain, oil, and pastries.”

“A pile of grain, oil, and pastries”: is it certain that Mr. Lemon wasn’t trying to help Don Jr. make contact with his dad?

Phonics redux

In The New York Times, an article about phonics and reading instruction: “In the Fight Over How to Teach Reading, This Guru Makes a Major Retreat.”

A related post
A story from my literacy tutoring

[Ask the average college student to read aloud, and you’ll understand the importance of instruction in phonics.]

Mozart in Lviv

“We understood why musicians must not keep silent”: Natalia Dub, an audience member for a performance of the Mozart Requiem in Lviv, Ukraine.

Lambini & Sons

Lambini & Sons (The Far Side ). As the son of a tile man, I had a clipped-from-the-newspaper copy on my office door for years.

Related reading
All OCA tile posts (Pinboard)

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by Stan Newman, composing as “S.N.,” as in “iSN’t easy.” Today’s puzzle is one of the most difficult Stumpers I’ve seen. I started last night with 11-A, four letters, “Does one’s part” and 14-D, nine letters, “‘Home on the Range,’ e.g.” Half an hour later, I gave up with the puzzle half complete. When I started again this morning, I suddenly saw the right answer for 24-D, eight letters, “On which numbers are written.” And that gave me four other answers, and fifteen minutes later, I was done.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-D, five letters, “The way of the world.” Even with the last three letters, it’s hard to see.

3-D, five letters, “Easy going.” You need to notice that it’s two words.

9-D, nine letters, “Advances in elevation.” A tough one.

12-D, nine letters, “Gorbachev predecessor.” Yes, that name is hard to pull up. (Unlike Gorbachev’s.)

13-D, “It’s in the bag.” Nifty.

20-A, six letters, “Repository of Lost Legends site.” I thought it had something to do with gamers.

30-A, eight letters, “Carry-ons regulated by the FAA.” Deceptive? Not deceptive? Deceptive.

32-D, nine letters, “One use for a horsehair.” I knew it, I knew it.

34-D, nine letters, “Of hiking, biking, etc.” I wanted OUTDOORSY.

42-A, seven letters, “It may suit you.” A fine clue for an out-of-the-way word.

47-D, six letters, “Denounce.” The answer came to me after I closed my MacBook last night.

53-A, five letters, “Something to rest on or reel in.” Funny to think of these two possibilities together.

56-D, five letters, “It’s slashed for all.” I understand the intent, but I don’t think the answer fits “all.”

58-A, six letters, “Top with a joke, say.” OUTWIT? No.

59-D, four letters, “Doctor’s order.” I can think of at least four plausible wrong answers.

67-A, ten letters, “Suitable for Champion magazine?” Perhaps in name only? But even if you don’t quibble about that, the answer doesn’t quite fit the clue. One of two clues about this magazine. It would have helped if I had heard of it.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Roger Angell (1920–2022)

What a wonderful writer, about baseball (which I know nothing about) and assorted other subjects. The New Yorker has a piece about him by David Remnick. The New York Times has an obituary.

One of the regrets of my teaching life is that I never found an occasion for asking students to read Angell’s 2014 essay about old age, “This Old Man.”

A handful of posts about Roger Angell
An excerpt from ”This Old Man“ : “The dream of a nine-year-old boy” : Notebook man : On Don Zimmer : On Trump’s tweetsOn voting

[P.S. to the Times: This Old Man, the book, is not “a collection of essays about aging.”]

New directions in chicken soup

Add smoked paprika to your bowl, a little or a lot. Yow!

You may need to follow up with a small dish of ice cream to cool your lips.

*

November 4: I can now say that I agree with Joe (see comments). Hot sauce in chicken soup is a good thing. Elaine and I added some Louisiana Hot Sauce to our bowls last night. (It was a long time between chickens.)

House hyphens

Consider the name of H.R. 7688: the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act.

Shouldn’t that be the Consumer Fuel Price-Gouging Prevention Act?

Shouldn’t that be the Consumer Fuel-Price Gouging-Prevention Act?

Shouldn’t that be the Consumer-Fuel-Price Gouging-Prevention Act?

Or — and why not? — the Consumer-Fuel-Price-Gouging-Prevention Act?

I can understand why the bill’s sponsor may have chosen to skip the hyphens.

Related reading
All OCA punctuation posts (Pinboard) : The Hammacher Schlemmer crazy making hyphen shortage problem. : Living on hyphens : Mr. Hyphen and Mr. Faulkner : One more from Mr. Hyphen

Some Miller votes

Representative Mary Miller (R, IL-15) has tweeted thoughts and prayers for Ukraine. Yet she voted last week against H.R. 7691, Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2022. The bill passed, 368–57.

Miller has also tweeted about the scarcity of infant formula. (Never mind the reasons.) Yet she voted on Wednesday against H.R. 7790, the Infant Formula Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2022. The bill passed, 219–192.

Miller has also tweeted about the cost of fuel. (Never mind the reasons.) Yet she voted yesterday against H.R. 7688, the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act. The bill passed, 217–207.

Despite what I have read — in reliable sources — about Illinois redistricting, it’s now clear that my household will still be part of IL-15 in the upcoming election, and our representative come November will be Rodney Davis or Mary Miller. The horror.

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

[GovTrack.us is far better than house.gov for following bills and votes.]

Griffy and Lippy and Sluggo

In today’s Zippy, Zippy is on vacation in downtown Duluth. (Fresca, take note.) Griffy is stuck with Zippy’s “diametrically opposite” twin Lippy. What to do? Griffy’s suggestion: “Wha’d’ya say we read a lot of old ‘Nancy’ comic strips & question th’ hidden subtext of Sluggo?”

[“Beating Around the Bushmiller.” Zippy, May 20, 2022.]

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts : Nancy and Zippy posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard)

Elaine Fine, “Adoration” arranger

The online music-magazine Van (as in Beethoven) has an article by Felix Linsmeier about Florence Price’s “Adoration”: “Das Über-Orgel-Stück”. Or in (Google’s) translation, “The Over-Organ Piece.” The German title is a translation of Elaine’s characterization of “Adoration” as a “super-organ piece.”

The article credits Elaine as “wohl die Pionierin der weiten Welt der Adoration-Adaptionen” — “probably the pioneer of the wide world of ‘Adoration’ adaptations.” Elaine has arranged “Adoration” for violin, viola, cello, flute, clarinet, and tuba (each with piano), six violas, violin soloist and orchestra, string orchestra, and orchestra. She’s made all her arrangements of this (public domain) composition available at no cost through the IMSLP.

It’s good to see Florence Price’s music getting new attention in the twenty-first century. And it’s good to see an arranger — especially this one — get some recognition for her work. Give the composer some. And give the arranger some too.

Here, from 2020, is Elaine’s first arrangement of “Adoration,” for violin and piano, with the eminent violinist Augustin Hadelich at the piano and thirty-seven other musicians.

Free COVID-19 tests, round three

I’ve mentioned it to several people who didn’t already know, so I’ll mention it here too: third shipments of free at-home COVID-19 tests are now available to U.S. households.

Was it ever thus?

We are in a train compartment. Bing Crosby is on the radio. From the musical short I Surrender Dear (dir. Mack Sennett, 1931):

Mother: “Will you please shut off that noise?”

Daughter: “Noise? Mother, that’s Bing Crosby.”

Noise! Was it ever thus? Yes, it was.

For an approving take on the singer, here’s Roaring Lion’s “Bing Crosby.” And here’s Van Dyke Parks’s recording of that tune, released on the album Discover America fifty years ago this month.

Garfield, with, without

Here’s a strip that I think is better minus thought balloons but with Garfield.

[Garfield, May 18, 2022. Click for a larger view.]

But maybe not:

[Garfield, May 18, 2022. Click for a larger view.]

There’s also a Marie Kondo version, with Garfield and Odie in a box on a faraway shelf. Or maybe they’ve gone to the Goodwill:

[Garfield, May 18, 2022. Click for a larger view.]

No more Garfield for me after today. My tolerance is limited. Maybe yours too.

Previous examples
Thoughtless : “Look at me” : Odie with sunglasses : Sofa, Jon’s back

In search of lost LA

Art Donovan (Jack Bannon) asks questions. Charlie Hume (Mason Adams) answers. From the Lou Grant episode “Hollywood” (December 17, 1979):

“When did they get rid of the orange groves in the Valley? Whatever happened to the eucalyptus trees along Melrose? Why do I sound like a ninety–year–old man?”

“You know, what surprises me is that so much of the town is still here. Remember those donut places shaped like coffee mugs? I saw one the other day. Now it's dry cleaner shaped like a coffee mug. But you see, the old LA is still here just under the surface. But you gotta look for it.”

It’s a singular episode: a miniature film noir, with George Chandler, Laraine Day, Howard Duff, Nina Foch, Margaret Hamilton, John Larch, Paul Stewart, and Marie Windsor.

A pencil sculpture

A Minneapolis man is sculpting a giant no. 2 pencil from a dead tree. Sixteen feet tall, to be sharpened away, one foot a year.

Related reading
All OCA pencil posts (Pinboard)

A BFD, I hope

In The New York Times this afternoon:

The Justice Department has asked the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack for transcripts of interviews it is conducting, which have included discussions with associates of former President Donald J. Trump, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

The move, coming as Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appears to be ramping up the pace of his painstaking investigation into the Capitol riot, is the clearest sign yet of a wide-ranging inquiry at the Justice Department.

Garfield minus Garfield

I somehow got to thinking about Garfield minus Garfield, a self-explanatory strategy for greater reading enjoyment. Does it still work?

[Garfield, May 9, 2022. Click for a larger view.]

[Garfield, May 14, 2022. Click for a larger view.]

I think so.

Previous examples
Thoughtless : “Look at me” : Odie with sunglasses

Mystery actors

[Click for a larger view.]

The fellow on the far left is a real mystery. I have no idea who he is. But the other two should be familiar to anyone who’s spent a healthy (?) amount of time in front of a warm TV.

Thank goodness I can still screenshot movies on a Mac.

Leave your best guesses in the comments. I’ll add hints if they’re needed.

*

The name of the boy in the middle is now in the comments. A hint for the man on the right: he’s probably best known for a long-running role as a minister.

*

The name of the man on the right is now in the comments.

More mystery actors
? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ?

FSRC: annual report

The Four Seasons Reading Club, our household’s two-person adventure in reading, has finished its seventh year. The club began after I retired from teaching, so the year runs from May to May. In our seventh year we read novels, novellas, short-story collections, graphic novels, non-fiction, a Socratic dialogue, a children’s story, and a poem. In alphabetical order:

Hans Christian Andersen, The Snow Queen, trans. unknown

W.H. Auden, “Musée des Beaux Arts”

Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room, Go Tell It on the Mountain

Honoré de Balzac, The Memoirs of Two Young Wives, trans. Jordan Stump

Ronald Blythe, Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village

Emmanuel Bove, My Friends, trans. Janet Louth

Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Charlotte Brontë, Villette

Jerry Craft, Class Act, New Kid

Robertson Davies, The Salterton Trilogy: Tempest-Tost, Leaven of Malice, A Mixture of Frailties

Henry James, The Turn of the Screw and Other Ghost Stories

Tove Jansson, The Summer Book, trans. Thomas Teal

Robert Musil, Intimate Ties: Two Novellas, trans. Peter Wortsman; Young Törless, trans. Mike Mitchell

Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

Gary Paulsen, Hatchet

Jed Perl, Authority and Freedom: A Defense of the Arts

Plato, Gorgias, trans. Walter Hamilton and Chris Emlyn-Jones

Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

Anna Seghers, The Dead Girls’ Class Trip, trans. Margot Bettauer Dembo

Gilbert Sorrentino, Aberration of Starlight

Art Spiegelman, Maus

Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Treasure Island

Adalbert Stifter, The Bachelors, trans. David Bryer; Motley Stones, trans. Isabel Fargo Cole

Kathrine Kressmann Taylor, Address Unknown

Eudora Welty, Thirteen Stories

Now it’s on to Nella Larsen, Passing.

Here are the reports for 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021.

Streaming screenshots

If you use a Mac, you may have noticed that it’s no longer possible to take a screenshot with commercial streaming services. With Safari it's been impossible for some time. And now it’s the same with the Brave browser — there’s just a black rectangle where a screenshot should be.

I cannot find a Safari extension that will bring screenshots back. But there is a fix with Brave: add the Chrome extension Screenshot Tool.

I would guess that this extension works with Chrome itself, but I don’t (won’t) use Chrome. If anyone can verify that Screenshot Tool works there, please do. And if anyone has a fix for Safari, please share.

I’ve found little discussion of this problem — and no solutions — online, so I hope this post is helpful to some movie fanatic somewhere.

“America is minorities”

A soapbox speaker addresses a small crowd, presenting himself an “American American,” or what Tucker Carlson would call a “legacy American.” The speaker rails against “Negroes,” Catholics, Masons, and “alien foreigners.” A Hungarian-born professor listens with dismay: “I’ve heard this kind of talk before, but I never expected to hear it in America.” When the speaker is done, the professor talks at length to another spectator who thought the speaker made “pretty good sense” — at least until he mentioned the Masons. From the 1945 Department of Defense film Don’t Be a Sucker :

“We must never let ourselves be divided by race, or color, or religion, because in this country we all belong to minority groups. I was born in Hungary; you are a Mason: these are minorities. And then you belong to other minority groups too. You are a farmer; you have blue eyes; you go to the Methodist church. Your right to belong to these minorities is a precious thing. You have a right to be what you are and say what you think, because here we have personal freedom. We have liberty.

“And these are not just fancy words. This is a practical and priceless way of living. But we must work at it. We must guard everyone's liberty, or we can lose our own. If we allow any minority to lose its freedom by persecution, or by prejudice, we are threatening our own freedom. And this is not simply an idea: this is good hard common sense.

“You see, here in America it is not a question of whether we tolerate minorites. America is minorities. And that means you and me. So let’s not be suckers. We must not allow the freedom or dignity of any man to be threatened by any act or word. Let’s be selfish about it. Let’s forget about we and they. Let’s think about us.”

[The orator: Richard Lane. The professor: Paul Lukas. Both uncredited. A 1945 audience would have immediately recognized both.]

Gnome Bakers

[316 E. 59th Street, Manhattan, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click either image for a much larger view.]

I’ll let this New York Times article (1990) tell the story of Gnome Bakers. The Times mentions a papier-mâché gnome that once sat atop the roof, leaning against the chimney (“Unusual Breads & Rolls”). The word “Energy” is spelled out vertically above the small window between the dancing gnomes. Now there’s a sentence I could never have imagined writing.

Here, from 2015, when 316 E. 59th was for rent ($14,000 a month), are photographs of the building’s exterior and interior, with a nice glimpse of the rooftop gnome as seen from the entrance ramp to the Queensboro Bridge. Slow down, you move too fast. You got to see the gnome at last.

Nowadays 316 houses a chiropractor’s office.

Thanks, Brian.

Related posts
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives

Today’s Mutts

Today’s Mutts.

Buffalo

From The New York Times:

His writings were also riddled with racist, anti-immigrant views arguing that white Americans are at risk of being replaced by people of color, a common trope on the far-right known as the “great replacement” theory.

I can already guess what Tucker Carlson might say about it, if he dares to say anything about it: What this young man did was wrong, &c. And I never encouraged anyone to, &c. I condemn in the strongest possible terms, &c. But what happened in Buffalo should not make us close our eyes to, &c.

I fear that’s how it will go.

[The Times reports that the killer learned about “replacement theory” from 4chan.]

Egghead paperbacks

“Wouldn’t it make more sense,” Epstein asked, “to sell twenty copies of The Sound and the Fury at a dollar than one hardcover copy at ten dollars?”

In The American Scholar, Mark LaFlaur writes about Jason Epstein and “The Birth of the Egghead Paperback.”

A related post
The Eighth Street Bookshop (A 1961 advertisement)

224 > 205

From Business Insider: Jen Psaki held more formal press briefings during her fifteen months as White House press secretary (224) than the defeated former president’s press secretaries held in four years (205).

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Stella Zawistowski, is about half as difficult as the last two Stumpers. Difficult, yes, but not sitting-at-the-kitchen-table-for-half-an-hour difficult. I began by filling in five letters of 14-D, seven letters, “Disgorge.” And the last letter made 33-A, six letters, “Nethermost” easy to see. 51-A, four letters, “French Toaster Sticks brand” was a gimme (though not a breakfast food I’d choose for myself), and that made 42-D, seven letters, “Largest Arab country by area” and the rest of the southeast corner relatively easy to work out. The toughest part of the puzzle: the northeast corner. 11-D, five letters, “Where to grab your spears”? My first thought was of asparagus.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-A, seven letters, “Acting appallingly.” Improves a familiar crossword word.

8-D, six letters, “Fancy footwork.” Not really. Footwork is in the origin, but the word’s meanings in English leave the feet behind.

19-A, five letters, “Take over.” A bit forced.

30-A, three letters, “How Timon of Athens originated.” If I understand this clue, the answer is exceeedingly forced.

36-A, four letters, “Use soap and water.” A word I learned from reading Nabokov.

36-D, eight letters, “Order to proceed.” A nice clash between the dignity of the clue and the abandon of the answer.

37-A, six letters, “Brit billiard player’s outerwear.” I don’t know why I know this word.

37-D, seven letters, “Hard to hobnob with.” Why bother?

45-A, seven letters, “‘Eighter from _____’ (casino dice roll).” Sounds like something from a Frank Sinatra–Dean Martin movie.

53-D, four letters, “Call it.” It wouldn’t hurt to have added a pronoun.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

“Indefensible”

Twenty-five paragraphs into a twenty-nine-paragraph Washington Post article about Samuel Alito’s (virtual) appearance at George Mason University: the news that Alito called the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which protects LGBTQ persons from workplace discrimination, “indefensible.” Or rather, he called the use of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a basis for the decision indefensible:

While he said he wasn’t defending past actions, Alito said it was clear Congress at that time allowed and practiced discrimination.

“It is inconceivable that either Congress or voters in 1964 understood discrimination because of sex to mean discrimination because of sexual orientation, much less gender identity,” Alito said. “If Title VII had been understood at that time to mean what Bostock held it to mean, the prohibition on discrimination because of sex would never have been enacted. In fact, it might not have gotten a single vote in Congress.”

In other words, past discrimination justifies continued discrimination.

That is what’s indefensible.

Sunshine of my mondegreen

I’ve been mishearing the words since the Atco 45 rpm days:

It’s gettin’ near dawn, when light grows a tiger’s eye

No: “when lights close their tired eyes.”

And:

I’ll stay with you till my seeds are dried up

No: “seas.” Though “seeds” makes a sort of sense.

I’m glad I finally thought to check the lyrics.

My own personal mondegreens
“And Jupiter collides with Mars” : “Blowin’ through the chasm in my mind” : “Sweet Loretta Modern”

“Music from Nancy”

[“Music from Nancy,” by Steve Sweet, Steve Cunningham and Jesse Poimboeuf.]

Thanks, John.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

Separated at birth

  [Chico Marx and Robert Walden. Click either image for a larger view.]

We were watching Lou Grant, and Elaine saw the resemblance.

Also separated at birth
Claude Akins and Simon Oakland : Ernest Angley and Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán : Nicholson Baker and Lawrence Ferlinghetti : William Barr and Edward Chapman : Bérénice Bejo and Paula Beer : Ted Berrigan and C. Everett Koop : David Bowie and Karl Held : Victor Buono and Dan Seymour : Ernie Bushmiller and Red Rodney : John Davis Chandler and Steve Buscemi : Ray Collins and Mississippi John Hurt : Broderick Crawford and Vladimir Nabokov : Ted Cruz and Joe McCarthy : Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Gough : Henry Daniell and Anthony Wiener : Jacques Derrida, Peter Falk, and William Hopper : Adam Driver and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska : Bonita Granville and Cyndi Lauper : Charles Grassley and Abraham Jebediah Simpson II : Elaine Hansen (of Davey and Goliath) and Blanche Lincoln : Barbara Hale and Vivien Leigh : Pat Harrington Jr. and Marcel Herrand : Harriet Sansom Harris and Phoebe Nicholls : Steven Isserlis and Pat Metheny : Colonel Wilhelm Klink and Rudy Giuliani : Ton Koopman and Oliver Sacks : Steve Lacy and Myron McCormick : Don Lake and Andrew Tombes : Markku Luolajan-Mikkola and John Malkovich : William H. Macy and Michael A. Monahan : Fredric March and Tobey Maguire : Elisabeth Moss and Alexis Smith : Jean Renoir and Steve Wozniak : Molly Ringwald and Victoria Zinny

“Striking similarities” between commencement speeches

At Duke University, a commencement speech that bears “striking similarities” to one delivered at Harvard University eight years ago.

One way to ensure that your commencement speech will not bear striking similarities to someone else’s commencement speech: don’t carefully “reword” (as they say) passages from that other speech.

The awkward question to ask: How likely is it that this commencement speech marks the first time the speechmaker has taken someone else’s words and ideas, made slight alterations, and presented the result as her own work?

*

May 13: Here’s a side-by-side video comparison.

Related reading
All OCA plagiarism posts (Pinboard)

“Coming back as a cat”

William Russ, sixty-one, gravedigger:

Ronald Blythe, Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village (1969).

Also from Akenfield
Davie’s hand : Rubbish : “Just ‘music’” : “Caught in the old ways” : “The blue rode well in the corn” : “I began in a world without time”

A pencil truck

In Somerville, Massachusetts, a giant (non-working) pencil atop a truck.

Another vote from Mary Miller

My (nominal) representative in Congress, Mary Miller (R, IL-15), was one of fifty-seven House Republicans to vote yesterday against additional emergency appropriations for Ukraine. There’s something about Mary.

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

Heather Cox Richardson’s latest

“Socialism — it starts with democracy”: so says a Republican candidate for governor of Michigan. Today’s installment of Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American is a must-read.

Lou’s who

The Tribune ran an article about an NCAA investigation into the “Los Angeles University” football program. Readers got angry. And now Lou (Ed Asner) has a security guard, Frank (Mike Henry), outside his house. From the Lou Grant episode “Sports” (January 10, 1978):

Frank: “I’m here to protect you.”

Lou: “Against who?”

Frank: “Cranks, weirdos. Say, isn’t that ‘against whom’? I mean, I know you’re an editor.”

Lou (resignedly): “Against whom.”

Frank: “I’ve been taking Business English at night.”

Lou: “You’re doing great, Frank. Come on, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

Related whoms
Fritzi Ritz : Hallmark : Mutts : Peanuts : Shirley Temple : Some Came Running

Mystery actor

[Click for a larger view.]

I think it’s a tough one — tough as in I have no idea. How about you?

Leave your best guess in the comments. I’ll add hints if they’re needed.

Thanks, Brian.

*

Here’s a hint: this actor is best known for a role in a television series. And known, really, only for that role, beginning in the 1950s and extending into the 1960s.

*

The answer is now (sort of) in the comments.

More mystery actors
? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ?