NYRB sale

New York Review Books is having a summer sale: buy two books, save 20%; buy three books, save 30%; buy four books, save 40%. I would like to see “buy ten books, save 100%,” but I know they have to draw the line somewhere. The sale ends on Monday the 24th at midnight Eastern — that is, right before Monday becomes Tuesday. Again, they have to draw the line somewhere.

My first NYRB book: Céleste Albaret’s Monsieur Proust. There have been at least a couple of dozen since. The press has greatly expanded my possibilities of reading. Long may it wave.

Recently updated

Sondheim Blackwings at auction Now with a link to the auction catalogue.

“How's Your Mom?”

I am always behind on This American Life. From an episode that aired in February: Janelle Taylor addresses the question “How’s Your Mom?” Likely to be helpful to anyone close to a person with dementia.

Turn on your hazard lights (again)

[Now that it’s summer, I’m repeating advice that I shared in 2011 and again in 2023. Pass it on.]

If you’re driving on a highway and the traffic suddenly slows or stops, and the vehicles behind you are at some distance:

1. Turn on your hazard lights.

2. Leave significant space between you and the vehicle in front of you.

3. Keep checking your rear-view mirror.

4. After someone has come up behind you, turn your hazard lights off.

If someone is coming up behind you and not paying full attention, your hazard lights might catch their eye and prompt them to slow down or stop in time. If not, the free space in front of your vehicle might lessen the severity of a collision.

I called the Illinois State Police to ask what they thought about using hazard lights in this way. A desk sergeant said it was the right thing to do and added the second and third points. I do those things without thinking and wouldn’t have thought to add them. I've added the fourth point for clarity.

Drivers of big rigs appear to make a habit of using their hazard lights in this way. Laypeople, not so much. Thus I’m repeating myself.

[Thanks to the reader who noticed some words missing.]

Gibbous

[Click for a larger view.]

I took this photograph on Tuesday night. It’s no great shakes — I was just struck by the black-and-whiteness of the sky and the waxing gibbous, not quite full, moon.

From Merriam-Webster:

The adjective gibbous has its origins in the Latin noun gibbus, meaning “hump.” It was adopted into Middle English to describe rounded, convex things. While it has been used to describe the rounded body parts of humans and animals (such as the back of a camel) and to describe the shape of certain flowers (such as snapdragons), the term is most often used to describe the moon: a gibbous moon is one that is between half full and full.

One more for Juneteenth

From my friend Stefan Hagemann. Let it be a surprise.

Sondheim Blackwings at auction

Gunther at Lexikaliker sent the news that three boxes of Stephen Sondheim’s Blackwing pencils have sold at auction for $6,400.

Like Stephen at pencil talk, I noticed the difference between the words on the pencil — “Half the pressure, twice the speed” — and the words on the box — “Write with half the pressure, twice the speed.” To my ear, what’s on the pencil sounds so much more modern.

Right before seeing the news of the Blackwings, I saw a short video sent by my friend Joe: “Most of the lead in your pencil ends up in the bin.” Sharpening one of those Blackwings would be some pretty expensive sharpening.

*

June 20: There’s a catalogue (free) with all lots. This page shows some of the winning bids — e.g., $25,600 for four thesauruses. Amazing, astonishing, marvelous, incredible.

The Merriam-Webster’s Second that I mentioned in this post doesn’t appear in the catalogue.

Related posts
Sondheim with a Blackwing : Sondheim’s writing habits (Blackwings and legal pads) : All OCA Blackwing posts (Pinboard)

Chatbots and Russian propaganda

A wiretap at Mar-a-Lago? A Ukrainian troll factory working to influence American elections? Axios reports that “the leading AI chatbots are regurgitating Russian misinformation.”

Willie Mays (1931–2024)

“An exuberant style of play and an effervescent personality made Mays one of the game’s, and America’s, most charismatic figures, a name that even people far afield from the baseball world recognized instantly as a national treasure”: from the New York Times obituary (gift link).

Juneteenth

There’s still — still — no stamp. But there is a flag, designed by Ben Haith. And an explanation.

[Click for a larger image.]

The nineteenth is Juneteenth.

Related reading
All OCA Juneteenth posts (Pinboard)

Margie in 1952

I had occasion to look at a 2021 OCA post about the Remington Rand Photocharger, a long-gone piece of library technology that I remember from my Brooklyn childhood. When I followed that post back to a short film from the Brooklyn Public Library with a glimpse of the RRP in action, I was startled to see our friend Margie King Barab, then Margie Lou Swett, in a scene with high-school students, or “high-school students,” sketching costume plates in the library. In 1952, Margie was a twenty-year-old actress and singer in New York City. Her high-school days were back in Nebraska.

[From The Library: A Family Affair (1952). Margie appears at the 10:25 mark. Click for a larger view.]

A 2020 OCA post has much more about Margie’s television appearances and about a Naked City episode with characters who appear to be modeled on Margie and her first husband, the writer and raconteur Alexander King.

You can see if I’m seeing things by looking at screenshots from an episode of Naked City in which Margie appears uncredited. Or compare the screenshot above with a Carl Van Vechten portrait of Alex and Margie King. That’s Margie, for sure, in the Brooklyn Public Library and in the Naked City elevator.

Related posts
Seymour Barab (1921–2014) : Margie King Barab (1932–2018)

“We did not lose it”

Manya Lodge (Mady Christians) is happy that the house of women she’s moved into is to be run as a democracy. Helen Stacey (Patricia Collinge) tries to help her finish a sentence. From Tender Comrade ( dir. Edward Dmytryk, 1943):

“Once in Germany we had a democracy, but we —”

“You lost it.”

“Nein. We did not lose it. We let it be murdered — like a little child.”

Another of those moments from 1940s movies that feel so relevant to our time.

Recently unpdated

Trump’s “bing” It turns out that Goodfellas is among Donald Trump’s favorite movies.

Eleven movies, one series

[One to four stars. Four sentences each. No spoilers. Sources: Classic Film Time, Criterion Channel, DVD, Max, a theater (imagine!), YouTube.]

The House of Fear (dir. Roy William Neill, 1945). Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and Doctor Watson (Nigel Bruce) are off to Scotland to investigate the strange doings at Drearcliffe House, the castle home of seven unmarried men who call themselves the Good Comrades. One by one they’re being killed, each receiving an envelope containing orange seeds — seven, then six, and so on. I always find the logic at work in a Holmes story hilariously improbable. And I must wonder how useful Holmes is anyway: his presence at Drearcliffe does nothing to prevent the Comrades from being knocked off one by one though no one seems to have a problem with that. ★★ (YT)

*

He Who Dances on Wood (dir. Jessica Beshir, 2016). A short portrait of Fred Nelson, a man who tap dances on a wooden slab under a Central Park bridge. (He likes the sound.) A lovely portrait of a man for all seasons (literally, dancing in all weathers), doing what he does for the happiness of it, no money invited. Here is the Manhattan I’d like to visit again. ★★★★ (CC)

*

Hair Wolf (dir. Mariama Diallo, 2018). A satiric commentary on cultural appropriation, with white women coming to a Black salon in search of dreads. The twist: the women are quasi-zombies, sucking the life out of Black culture. What’s a stylist to do? Another of the many short, easy-to-overlook movies at the Criterion Channel, and one that won a host of awards. ★★★★ (CC)

*

Daughter of Darkness (dir. Lance Comfort, 1948). Emily (Siobhan McKenna) is a meek, virginal Irish servant-girl working on an English family’s farm. But she has a past — and when that past shows up in England, murder is in the air. A spectacularly creepy Gothic story, with a burning barn, a church organ playing in the middle of the night, and a vicious dog wandering in the rain. Look for Honor Blackman (Goldfinger ) as a farm daughter. (CFT) ★★★★

*

The Man in Grey (dir. Leslie Arliss, 1943). It’s a Gainsborough melodrama, beginning in a London auction house in 1943 and moving back to the nineteenth century to tell the story of two girlhood friends, Hesther and Clarissa (Margaret Lockwood and Phyllis Calvert), the first of whom runs away from school for love, the second of whom enters into a loveless marriage with “the man in grey” (as a portrait will depict him), the Marquess of Rohan (James Mason), who was seeking a partner to serve as his “brood sow.” A fortune teller warned Clarissa in girlhood not to trust in the friendship of women, but when she and Hesther cross paths in adulthood at a performance of Othello (Hesther playing Desdemona to Stewart Granger’s Othello), the friendship is rekindled, with complications to follow. A lavish production that moves awfully slowly. Hint: look closely at the actors in the opening auction-house scene. ★★★ (CC)

*

The Violent Years (dir. William Morgan, 1956). A quartet of high-school girls start by robbing gas stations, and things get much worse from there. The screenplay is by Ed Wood, which helps explain the heavyhanded screenplay (a judge lecturing parents) and general weirdness (the scene with the couple in the car). As a movie, it’s hilariously bad, so bad that as trash cinema, it deserves four stars, one for each villainess. My favorite line: “These aren’t kids; these are morons.” ★★★★ (YT)

*

Tender Comrade (dir. Edward Dmytryk, 1943). Four defense-plant workers with husbands and a son in military service pool their resources to rent a house and pay a live-in housekeeper (a German immigrant whose husband, too, is also fighting the Nazis). Ginger Rogers and Robert Ryan star, with Madys Christians, Patricia Collinge, Kim Hunter, and Ruth Hussey as the house’s other occupants. Highly uneven, with hokey dialogue, stretches of dismal propaganda, and moments of utter pathos — and I shudder to think how the moments of pathos must have struck audiences in 1943. Screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, with a title not from Communism but from Robert Louis Stevenson. ★★★ (TCM)

*

Song of Love (dir. Clarence Brown, 1947). A love triangle with music: Robert Schumann (Paul Henreid), Clara Schumann (Katharine Hepburn), and Johannes Brahms (Robert Walker). Great music (with Arthur Rubinstein filling in at the piano), great costumes and sets. It’s difficult for me to imagine the emotions on display here making the right impression on at least some 2024 moviegoers (I recall some of my students laughing during the Homer-Wilma bedroom scene in The Best Years of Our Lives.) A great thing about this movie: it manages to suggest — on film — the magic that sometimes happens with live performance, as when Clara plays a final “Träumerei.” ★★★★ (TCM)

*

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (dir. Wes Ball, 2024). An extended struggle between rival ape clans, with the occasional human being to complicate matters. So many overtones: from the Iliad, with the cry “For Caesar” echoing “For Patroclus,” to On the Waterfront, with a hero battered as his comrades look on. Visually stunning, incoherent at times, far too long, and screaming sequel as it ends. The best scene, for me: not one of the many spectacular chases or fights but the discovery of the reading primer. ★★★ (T)

*

The Walls Came Tumbling Down (dir. Lothar Mendes, 1946). It’s The Maltese Falcon on the cheap. A priest dies, and a newspaper columnist (Lee Bowman), a semi-mysterious woman (Marguerite Chapman), and several bad guys (George Macready) search for the Bibles that hold the answer to the whereabouts of a missing Leonardo painting of Joshua at the battle of Jericho. Yet another movie billed as film noir in which everything is bright as day. One surprising plus: the use of a dictionary to disarm a gunman. ★★★ (YT)

*

Mind Over Murder (dir. Nanfu Wang, 2022). A six-part documentary series about the Beatrice (Nebraska) Six, three men and three women wrongly convicted in 1989 of the rape and murder of an elderly widow, Helen Wilson. Five of the six charged believed that they had participated. The story that unfolds features a self-styled local hero, a sheriff’s department psychologist, a craven district attorney, a shoddy laboratory analyst, the six men and women convicted, and family members of the victim. What most struck me: a dramatization of the case, staged by a community theater group with a script drawn from official transcripts, seems at first an unnecessary distraction, but it proves to be the emotional high point of the movie, a living lesson in the power of tragic drama to produce catharsis. ★★★★ (M)

*

Crashout (dir. Lewis R. Foster, 1955). An ensemble movie, with a motley group of escaped convicts, the six of thirty-eight who have survived a prison break: an autocratic leader (William Bendix), a wise guy (Arthur Kennedy), a religious fanatic (William Talman), a self-styled ladies’ man (Luther Adler), a basic brute (Gene Evans), and a younger man convicted of murder for what he says was an accident (Marshall Thompson). Their travels — away from prison, but never to true freedom — bring them into contact with a country doctor (Percy Helton), roadhouse denizens, cops, a railroad conductor, and two women who complicate their lives, a failed music student (Gloria Talbott), and a farm woman (Barbara Michaels) with a child out of wedlock. It’s a brutal movie, even by modern standards, and never less than compelling. My favorite scene: the train, with sandwiches. ★★★★ (YT)

Related reading
All OCA “twelve movies” posts (Pinboard)

The Proust aisle, revisited

I saw Wal-Mart’s madeleines again and had to try some. (This time they had a future expiration date.) These madeleines are not bad. In fact, they’re surprisingly good.

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard) : Madeleine (With the beginning of the key Proust passage)

[I prefer the traditional hyphenated spelling: Wal-Mart.]

A joke in the traditional manner

For this day, a joke in the traditional manner: i.e., a dad joke. My dad, James Leddy, was making them before anyone called them dad jokes. (Merriam-Webster’s first known use: 1987).

Why was the car going so slowly?

The punchline is in the comments. Happy Father’s Day to all.

More jokes in the traditional manner
The Autobahn : Did you hear about the cow coloratura? : Did you hear about the new insect hybrid? : Did you hear about the shape-shifting car? : Did you hear about the thieving produce clerk? : Elementary school : A Golden Retriever : How did Bela Lugosi know what to expect? : How did Samuel Clemens do all his long-distance traveling? : How do amoebas communicate? : How do birds communicate with distant family and friends? : How do ghosts hide their wrinkles? : How do worms get to the supermarket? : Of all the songs in the Great American Songbook, which is the favorite of pirates? : What did the doctor tell his forgetful patient to do? : What did the one snowman say to the other? : What did the plumber do when embarrassed? : What do cows like to watch on TV? : What do dogs always insist on when they buy a car? : What do ducks like to eat? : What happens when a senior citizen visits a podiatrist? : What is the favorite toy of philosophers’ children? : What kind of pasta do swimmers like? : What’s the name of the Illinois town where dentists want to live? : What’s the worst thing about owning nine houses? : What was the shepherd doing in the garden? : Where do amoebas golf? : Where does Paul Drake keep his hot tips? : Which member of the orchestra was best at handling money? : Who’s the lead administrator in a school of fish? : Why are supervillains good at staying warm in the winter? : Why did the doctor spend his time helping injured squirrels? : Why did Oliver Hardy attempt a solo career in movies? : Why did the ophthalmologist and his wife split up? : Why does Marie Kondo never win at poker? : Why is the Fonz so cool? : Why sharpen your pencil to write a Dad joke? : Why was Santa Claus wandering the East Side of Manhattan?

And from very young joke tellers: a joke in a neo-traditional manner and a joke in a non-traditional manner.

[My dad gets credit for the Autobahn, the elementary school, the Golden Retriever, Bela Lugosi, Samuel Clemens, the doctor, the plumber, the senior citizen, Oliver Hardy, and the ophthalmologist. Elaine gets credit for the birds and the Illinois town. Ben gets credit for the supervillains in winter. The snowman joke is by an unknown hand.]

Aquacity and originality (Bloomsday)

From the “Ithaca” episode of Ulysses. In the early hours of June 17, 1904, Leopold Bloom washes his hands and invites Stephen Dedalus to do the same. The catechetical narrator of this episode reports Stephen’s response: no, he is hydrophobic. He hates “partial contact by immersion or total by submersion in cold water” and last took a bath in October. He distrusts “the aqueous substances of glass and crystal” and “aquacities of thought and language.”

James Joyce, Ulysses (1922).

Related reading
All OCA Joyce posts (Pinboard)

[Bloomsday : “the 16th of June 1904. Also: the 16th of June of any year, on which celebrations take place, esp. in Ireland, to mark the anniversary of the events in Joyce’s Ulysses” (Oxford English Dictionary ).]

SIGNS

[135 Lawrence Street, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

If you click for the much larger view, you’ll see that this photograph is huge. Many signs to read. And there’s a guy up at the window. I’m most drawn to the painted sign and the signboard on the side of the building. That wall, now blank, remains. Half Moon Hotel, or the infamous Half Moon Hotel, built in 1927, was a Coney Island attraction. In November 1941 — most likely after this photograph was taken — the Half Moon was the site of what seems to have been a defenestration. I’m sure though that the chef would have still been offer post-defenestration shore dinners.

Davega was the name of a New York City retail chain. If you look closely, you can see that the nearest Davega outlet was at 360 Something. That would have been 360 Fulton Street, a three-minute walk away.

[Click for a larger view.]

Many signs here, too, but no sign of swim suits, at least not that I can see. There is a reflection of a Thom McAn sign in the Davega window.

If you’re wondering about the large building behind the Lawrence Street storefront, that was the headquarters of the New York Telephone Company. Today it’s the BellTel Lofts, a condo building. No sign of the NYTC.

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

Trump’s “bing”

It's a small thing, but I think I've discovered the source for Trump's strange "bing" habit. Here is a compilation or Trump moments. And here — wait for it — is Joe Pesci in Goodfellas.

In each case, we see a storytelling entertainer, the center of attention for all those around him, able to intimidate and mess with people, and capable of sudden surprising violence. I haven't seen Goodfellas (dir. Martin Scorsese, 1990) in years, and I'm not really sure that the resemblance to Pesci's Tommy DeVito would play out in a coherent way. But who needs coherence when it comes to Trump? I saw this brief scene by chance and immediately thought of him.

I do know that Tommy comes to a bad end (whacked), which might click with Trump’s penchant to see himself as a victim. At any rate, it's not surprising that Trump would identify with a mob figure.

Am I seeing things here? Your thoughts, reader, are welcome.

*

June 17: Several reputable sources, e.g. this one, from 2012, and this one, citing a 2016 source, name Goodfellas as one of Trump’s favorite movies. Elaine and I watched it last night, for the first time in many years. The picture of outer-borough guys who are able to do or get anything they want is telling.

Today's Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by Kate Chin Park, whose last (and first?) Stumper appeared on April 6, and prompted me to write “Please, more KCP Stumpers.” And now that I’m quoting myself, I’ll add that this puzzle, like that one, is “a solid sender, difficult, misdirective, punny, and blessedly free of trivia and strain.” I looked around for a place to start and hit on 45-D, five letters, “Mes después de Navidad .” And then jumped around, here and there. 1-A, which felt like an impediment to any chance of succeeding with the puzzle, was the last answer I filled in.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

1-D, four letters, “Malfunction message.” A recent puzzle helped here.

5-D, six letters, “Bowls, for instance.” Nicely misdirective.

9-D, eight letters, “Ultimately plain?” NOFRILLS fits but isn’t it.

14-A, nine letters, “Campus coveralls?” An answer that I didn’t understand even after finishing the puzzle. My only excuse is that I’d call them something else. Elaine explained it to me.

23-D, eleven letters, “Deactivating but preserving.” A wild answer.

24-D, seven letters, “Candy striper?” The ones I thought of appeared in young-adult novels.

35-A, fifteen letters, “Cap wearer’s sassy slogan.” I thought first of what might be written atop a mortarboard. Highly unexpected.

43-A, five letters, “Puzz to crack.” An easy anse.

47-D, five letters, “Storms with precipitation.” It’s a trick.

49-D, four letters, “It’s from the Greek for ‘pie.’” I did not know that.

57-A, five letters, “Be a bumbler?” Groan.

58-A, nine letters, “Waiting periods.” The answer made me smile out loud.

My favorite in this puzzle is that initial impediment: 1-A, eight letters, “Outpay, but not outearn.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Word of the day: tire

Why, our household wondered, are those things on cars and trucks and bicycles called tires?

The Oxford English Dictionary answered our question, or nearly did. It’s probably because the tire was originally regarded as “the ‘attire,’ ‘clothing,’ or ‘accoutrement’ of the wheel.” The first tires were, of course, metal rims. The OED definition of the modern tire begins on a startling, beautiful note: “an endless cushion of rubber, solid, hollow, or tubular.”

The dictionary would appreciate my adding that tires are also found tricycles, prams, wheelchairs, light horse vehicles, &c.

Avoiding the d-word

In The New Yorker, Susan Glasser writes about Donald Trump, who turns seventy-eight today: “If ever there were a case for age-related diminishment of a candidate, Donald Trump is it.”

Glasser politely avoids the d-word. But it must be said, as Drs. John Gartner and Harry Segal say, again and again, on their podcast Shrinking Trump, that there is a difference between aging and dementing: one major-party candidate for president has a brain that’s aging; the other, a brain that’s dementing. As Gartner and Segal also point out, psychopathy gives dementia cover: the former guy always says crazy things, right?

You may have seen Tamara Keith veer away from any consideration of the d-word on the PBS NewsHour this past Monday. After a brief compilation of odd remarks from Trump’s June 9 Las Vegas rally (excluding the death by shark/death by electrocution bit), Amna Nawaz asked for comment:

I just want to point out all of those remarks were within one 10-minute window.

Tam, for all his calls for President Biden to undergo some kind of cognitive test, it’s clear to say Mr. Trump’s remarks are not at all coherent in these rallies.

And Keith:

Mr. Trump’s remarks have never been super coherent in his rallies. I’m not sure that I can weigh in on how much they have veered in the last couple of months, but this split screen [Trump/Biden] has always been there, will always be there.

They are different people. And the people who stood in 110-degree weather to see that speech got what they came for. They got the greatest hits. They got some surprising things that they weren’t expecting, because the teleprompter went out, which just made it a little bit more fun.

Yeah, fun.

No master builder

The narrator’s father is an architect.

Anton Chekhov, “My Life: The Story of a Provincial,” in “Peasants” and Other Stories, trans. Constance Garnett (New York: New York Review Books, 1999).

Related reading
Chekhov and Larry David : Chekhov and Joyce

Domestic comedy

“I realize that’s a shallow thing to say, but I think it’s a valid shallow thing to say.”

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)

Another Lassie–MTM connection

[Florence Lake as Martha Dudley. Click for a larger view.]

I somehow discovered that Florence Lake played Martha Dudley in the Mary Tyler Moore Show episode “Lou’s First Date” (November 3, 1973). A mix-up pairs her with Mr. Grant for a broadcasters’ dinner.

“Who is Florence Lake?” you may ask. None other than the actor who played Jenny, the Calverton telephone operator on the television series Lassie. Lake appeared in eighteen Lassie episodes between 1954 and 1962 and was the only cast member to serve for the duration of the show’s Calverton years. Her off-screen character was spoken to in many, many more episodes: “Hello, Jenny? This is Ruth. Would you ring Doc Weaver?” Jenny’s most prominent Lassie appearances: “Party Line” (December 23, 1956) and “The Phone Hog” (April 3, 1960).

[Florence Lake and, of course, Lassie, in “Party Line.” Click for a larger view.]

Florence Lake started in pictures in 1929. Her last appearance was in television’s Most Wanted in 1977. Here’s her IMDb page. Two fun facts via IMDb: Lake appeared with Ed Asner (who played Lou Grant) in The Girl Most Likely to ..., a 1973 made-for-TV movie, and

In a mid-70s interview, Mary Tyler Moore remembered the cast becoming exasperated with Florence Lake. It seems she didn’t see the character as elderly and feeble as written. Moore said Valerie Harper took special time with Ms. Lake to get the performance needed from her.

“Why another Lassie-MTM connection?” you may ask. Because Ted Knight (Ted Baxter) appeared as a traveling entertainer and World’s Greatest Ventriloquist in an episode of Lassie. And the dog-puppet from that episode showed up in a Mary Tyler Moore episode.

Related reading
All OCA Lassie posts (Pinboard)

[I loved Lassie in boyhood and love Lassie now. Straight outta Calverton.]

The Alitos and revenge

Timothy Snyder (On Tyranny) writes about “Modern revenge culture, explained by Mrs. and Mr. Alito.”

Here are the Alitos as caught on recordings: Mr. and Mrs.

An aside: the Sacred Heart flag that Mrs. Alito would like to fly is widely understood as a counter to the pride flag. A cursory search will confirm that. See, for instance, a comment left on a webpage selling a Sacred Heart flag.

One more kwoi

[From New Universal Self-Pronouncing Dictionary (Chicago: John C. Winston, 1943).]

Click on the image for a larger kwoi sound. As in macOS Sequoia. Thanks, Kevin, for entrusting me with this beautiful little dictionary.

A related post
macOS Something (How to pronounce sequoia )

Eugene Robinson asks a question

In The Washington Post (gift link): “Is Trump okay?” The answer, which Robinson doesn’t quite voice: No.

New directions in footwear

[Click for a larger size.]

Kids say the darndest things: my Merrell Moab Adventure 3 shoes have been renamed “jungle shoes.”

See also New directions in apparel for “Papa’s gentleman shirts.”

[Image from Zappos, from whom I’ve bought two (three?) pairs of jungle shoes.]

“AI and the Death of Student Writing”

In The Chronicle of Higher Education, Lisa Lieberman, a community-college instructor, writes about “AI and the Death of Student Writing”:

I called the student in and asked him to write a sentence with the word “depiction.” He admitted he didn’t know what “depiction” meant, much less how to spell it, much less how to use it in a sentence. He confessed he hadn’t written a single word of the essay.

Another student complained when I gave her a zero for using AI. She said, “I don’t know why you’re picking on me. I turned in all my assignments on time. And I never used AI.”

It was true she hadn’t used AI, but when I pressed her, she admitted to using Grammarly.

And it turns out for a small monthly fee, Grammarly can do much more than identify errors in grammar and spelling.

Recently updated

Harvard, Meta, and veritas The story of a misinformation expert and misinformation.

macOS Something

The new version of the Mac operating system is called macOS Sequoia.

Apple says /sə 'koiə/. You can hear it in the WWDC24 presentation.

The American Heritage Dictionary (online) gives the pronunciation as /sĭ-kwoi′ə/.

Merriam-Webster (online) gives /si-'kwoi-ə/.

Both British English pronunciations in the Oxford English Dictionary have the kw sound: /sɪˈkwəʊɪə/ and /sɪˈkwɔɪə/. (I’m reproducing each dictionary’s phonetic spellings as given.)

The New Oxford American Dictionary (on the Mac) has /sə'koiə/ for the tree and /sə'kwoiə/ for the Cherokee scholar.

I’ve rarely said sequoia, but when I have, I’ve said it with the kw.

Apple can choose whatever pronunciation it likes, just as Toyota can choose Prii (lol) as the plural of Prius. For anyone who balks at /sə 'koiə/, the simple choice would be to say macOS 15.

[I found myself willing to watch only a few scattered minutes of the WWDC24 event. When I saw an image of an iPhone with the prominent message CONNECT YOUR HAIR DRYER, I drew a line in the mental sand.]

How to improve writing (no. 122)

Elaine received yet another political text, and she noticed a pronoun:

Hi Elaine, it’s George Clooney. I’m proud to support President Biden and Vice President Harris, and I’m asking you to join me. Pitch in today for a chance to meet myself, Julia Roberts, President Biden, and President Obama.

There’s nothing wrong with me. George Clooney can meet himself only in a mirror, or in, say, a doppelganger-themed screenplay.

But that sentence is tricky: it’s customary to place me at the end of a series. Here though a terminal me might suggest a terminal case of egotism: Julia Roberts, President Biden, President Obama, and me. Me! So what might be a fix?

Hi Elaine, it’s George Clooney and Julia Roberts. As proud supporters of President Biden and Vice President Harris, we’re asking you to pitch in today for a chance to meet President Biden, President Obama, and the two of us.

Related reading
All OCA How to improve writing posts (Pinboard)

[This post is no. 122 in a series dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]

A Moleskine confession

After receiving a defective 2024 Moleskine pocket daily planner (sixteen days missing), I wrote three posts recounting my effort to receive a refund — 1, 2, 3 — and vowed that this year’s Moleskine would be my last. I wrote in that third post that I planned to switch to Letts or Leuchtturm for 2025.

But I caved. I now have a 2025 Moleskine sitting in a drawer. What can I say? The company’s response to customers (at least to this customer) is shoddy — I never received a reply to the letter I sent. But I like the product. Cream-colored paper is far more appealing to me than Letts’s bright white. Smaller size and darker print make Moleskine far more appealing to me than Leuchtturm. I also like the way the Moleskine looks like an ice-cream sandwich. And I can pronounce moleskine. Leuchtturm remains a tough one.

If it doesn’t go without saying: I opened the 2025 planner right away to check for problems. All days are accounted for.

Related reading
All OCA Moleskine posts (Pinboard)

Bodega

[54 E. 105th Street, Manhattan, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view and many details.]

I often wish that tax photographs came with a smart-looking border all around. No soap. But you might find some for sale in that bodega, at the corner of 105th and Madison.

Here comes some history, paraphrased from the Oxford English Dictionary:

The Spanish bodega first meant a wine cellar, wine shop, or bar. Later, a warehouse. Finally, a grocery store. The word derives from the classical Latin apothēca, a storehouse.

The word’s first meaning in English (1702): a warehouse. By 1825, “a building for storing or ageing wine, sherry, etc.” or “an establishment producing wine, sherry, etc.; a wine producer; a winery.” By 1849,

esp. in Spanish-speaking countries: a bar; a tavern. In the late 19th century sometimes (with reference to establishments in Britain): a bar, shop, etc., specializing in the serving of wine.

The specific British sense may derive from the Bodega Spanish Wine Cellars, opened in 1868 in Manchester, which was soon followed by other similarly named establishments in other cities.

In Philippine English (1851), the word came to mean “a storeroom or storehouse forming part of a house or other building.

And here’s the kind of bodega I was looking for:

U.S. regional (originally New York City ). A small local shop, usually with long opening hours, where customers can buy a limited range of household goods and groceries; a convenience store.

The term was first used with reference to Puerto Rican-owned businesses in New York in the 1950s and 1960s, but is now used there more widely to refer to any local shop of this type.

It’s fair to say that the bodega has supplanted the candy store of yore, offering a wider variety of goods and groceries along with chopped cheese and other food items to go. And “ATM Inside.”

La Nacional Boedga y Carniceria is long gone, and the corner is now home to an enormous parking structure. But there’s a bodega right across the street, open from 6:00 or 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m.

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

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Matthew Sewell, is a doozy. It took me forty-two minutes to complete, and I then had to look up the meanings of two (correct) answers that baffled me: 47-A, four letters, “Balance checkers” and 50-A, three letters, “USO honorary chairman.” Aside from a handful of easily gettable long answers — e.g., 26-D, “Reluctant acknowledgment” — this puzzle showed little mercy.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

4-D, eight letters, “Nigerian music.” One variety.

8-D, ten letters, “‘We’re gliding along with a song’ song.” A fambly favorite.

9-D, five letters, “Sequoia claim to fame.” Lordy.

14-A, four letters, “Caught in the air?” Clever.

15-A, nine letters, “Mysterious atom-smasher detection.” A novel answer.

15-D, three letters, “Shortened ‘I shall return.’” Sometimes I’m too clever for my own good: I was sure it had to be IOU, but that answer would include the I of the clue.

19-A, fourteen letters, “Attraction at Indonesia’s Trans Snow World.” Speaking of novel answers — and clues.

22-A, three letters, “Base level, briefly.” Considerable thought went into this clue.

34-A, five letters, “Ellie’s relative.” Name-premised clues often mess me up. My first thought was of The Beverly Hillbillies, but that was Elly May.

41-A, five letters, “Put on the line, perhaps.” Perhaps indeed.

53-A, fourteen letters, “Don’t be devious.” I didn’t think the answer fit the clue until I realized that the clue itself is devious.

55-D, four letters, “PR, e.g.” Another short answer with much thought going into the clue.

59-D, three letters, “What Lionel first meant.” Oh, now I get it.

My favorite in this puzzle: 39-D, eight letters, “Flops.” Crazy, man, crazy.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Mystery actors

[Click for a much larger view.]

Elaine identified one of these fellows right away. I recognized another. One remained a mystery until we checked the credits. Can you identify one or all? Leave your answers in the comments. I’ll drop hints if they’re needed.

*

The name of the fellow on the right is now in the comments. Here’s a clue for the fellow on the left: he became a leading man. Yes, really. But don’t overlook the fellow in the middle. In later life he managed a hotel.

If nothing’s happening, I’ll add the answers in a comment later today.

*

The names of all three actors are now in the comments.

More mystery actors (Collect them all)
? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ?

“Films noir”

[“Double Trouble.” Zippy, June 7, 2014. Click for a larger view.]

Double as in Double Indemnity (1944), with Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck. Today’s Zippy is all noir. A strip search for noir at the Zippy website will reveal many more noirish strips.

Merriam-Webster gives film noirs as the preferred plural, with films noir and films noirs as alternatives. To my surprise, the Google Ngram Viewer shows shows films noirs on a rapid rise since 1987.

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)

“Jacksonville”

From The Late Show: the company of Illinoise perform Sufjan Stevens’s “Jacksonville.” Sufjan‘s 2005 album Illinois (so spelled) is one my favorite things, and “Jacksonville” in particular is dear to my fambly and me. This performance moved me in a way I didn’t imagine.

Get well, Sufjan.

Two more Sufjan Stevens posts
“Casimir Pulaski Day” : To: Miley Cyrus From: Sufjan Stevens

[I’m adding some words from “Jacksonville” to the sidebar.]

June 6

[Peanuts, June 6, 1996.]

Yesterday’s Peanuts and today’s Peanuts.

Here’s a brief history of D-Day in the strip.

A dongling peripheral

[Caution: Los Angeles Times/Washington Post spoiler below.]

A clue-and-answer pair in today’s Los Angeles Times (or Washington Post ) crossword has me baffled: 49-A, thirteen letters, “Peripheral with a dongle.” The answer: WIRELESSMOUSE. A wireless mouse needs no dongle. Or am I missing something?

*

I was missing something. It may be that my Mac use led me to think that a wireless mouse needs no dongle.

[Post title with apologies to dangling participles.]

A Ticonderoga sighting

[From Targets (dir. Peter Bogdanovich, 1968). Byron Orlok (Boris Karloff), Jenny (Nancy Hsueh), and a Dixon Ticonderoga. Click for a larger view.]

The ferrule is the giveaway.

Dudel Draw

[By me. Click for a larger, perhaps angrier view.]

A 2024 Apple Design Award finalist: Dudel Draw, free for the iPad (and it may work on a Mac). Every day a random shape to turn into something. Plus many more random shapes. So far I just see cartoons. But I just discovered that it’s possible to draw in both landscape and portrait modes.

Siebold

I had written a sentence from W.G. Sebald on the blackboard, and a student in the front row said that she had begun trying to figure out how the parts of her life fit together. ”Oh,“ I said, ”then you have to read Proust.“ I held up my hands to show the approximate length (width?) of all seven volumes of In Search of Lost Time. ”Three thousand pages!“ I said. Was that accurate? And then I saw that I had misspelled Sebald as Siebold.

This is the twenty-ninth teaching dream I’ve had since retiring in 2015. In all but one, something has gone wrong.

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts : Sebald posts : teaching dream posts (Pinboard)

Recently updated

New directions in apparel Now I think I understand what “gentleman shirts” are.

Twelve movies

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

Somewhere in the Night (dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1946). I’ve seen it once before, but I’d forgotten how good it is. The plot is confusing (how, for instance, does amnesiac George Taylor (John Hodiak) know to go to a train station locker?), but as in, say, The Big Sleep, it doesn’t matter. There’s a strong Hitchcock element (The 39 Steps, Saboteur), with a man (Hodiak) and a woman, nightclub singer Christy Smith (Nancy Guild), thrown together by circumstance to solve a mystery that takes them into one odd setting after another. And there’s just a dash of The Maltese Falcon — wait for it. ★★★★ (YT)

*

The Stranger (dir. Orson Welles, 1946). A New England town, a professor, a past making itself present: The Stranger is for me the most Nabokovian of movies (I’m thinking of Pale Fire). Edward G. Robinson is Mr. Wilson, a hunter of war criminals; Orson Welles is Charles Rankin, a history professor (that’s what the boys call him) at a private school; Loretta Young is Mary Longstreet, the professor’s desperately loyal fiancée. Smaller parts: Billy House as a self-satisfied druggist; Konstantin Shayne as Konrad Meinike, a figure from the past, announcing, in a brilliant bit of misdirection, that he brings a message from “the most high.” My movie eyes must be strengthening: for the first time I noticed Erskine Sanford (from Citizen Kane) in a brief appearance as a party guest. ★★★★ (YT)

*

The Mystery of Marie Roget (dir. Phil Rosen, 1942). Sisters (Maria Montez and Nell O’Day), a grandmother (Maria Ouspenkaya), a swain (Edward Norris), the detective Dupin (Patric Knowles), and a prefect of police (Lloyd Corrigan). An adaptation of the Poe story, set in 1889, with characters who say things like “And get this.” But like potato chips and pretzels, this movie makes for a pleasant snack. Corrigan and Ouspenskaya are the only memorable members of the cast. ★★ (YT)

*

The Silent Partner (dir. Daryl Duke, 1978). Watching (mostly) movies from the 1940s and ’50s, one forgets about the possibilities of graphic violence and frontal nudity. They’re both here, in the story of a meek bank teller (Elliott Gould), a bank robber (Christopher Plummer), and schemes galore. Céline Lomez and Susannah York are on hand to add complications, both scheme-related and and non-. And handwriting plays a crucial role: who could ask for anything more? ★★★★ (CC)

*

From the Criterion Channel feature Hollywood Crack-Up: The Decade American Cinema Lost Its Mind

Lilith (dir. Robert Rosen, 1964). Vincent (Warren Beatty), a young veteran adrift, takes a job in occupational therapy at a private mental institution, where his main occupation becomes an affair with Lilith (Jean Seberg), who might be called a schizoid pixie dream girl: beautiful, artistic, elusive, sexually voracious. Says Lilith of herself: “She wants to leave the mark of her desire on every living creature in the world.” The nature of desire — both Vincent’s and Lilith’s — emerges in all its darkness as the story develops. The most disturbing scene: Lilith whispering. ★★★★

Pressure Point (dir. Hubert Cornfield, 1962). One long flashback, as a Black prison psychiatrist, unnamed (Sidney Poitier), tells a story to a white prison psychiatrist (Peter Falk) who’s hitting a wall with a Black patient. It’s 1942 in the flashback, and Poitier’s character is assigned a young leader from the German American Bund, unnamed (Bobby Darin), serving a two-year sentence for sedition. As the two men speak, we learn the details of the patient’s early life, the sources of his hatred, the reasons for his terrifying dreams. The story is eerily of our time, a stark commentary on psychopathy and political success. It’s stunning to see that Bobby Darin was a hugely gifted actor. ★★★★

Brainstorm (dir. William Conrad, 1965). Yes, that William Conrad, the heavy of The Killers, the detective of Cannon. Here he directs a story of erotic obsession, deception, and madness, with a straight-arrow scientist (Jeffrey Hunter) who saves the life of and falls in love with the young wife (Anne Francis) of his boss (Dana Andrews). What follows is indeed a crack-up. I had to sign an NDA to watch this movie and cannot reveal anything more. ★★★★

Pretty Poison (dir. Noel Black, 1968). Dennis (Anthony Perkins) is a young arsonist, just released from psychiatric hospital where he spent most of his adolescence; Sue Ann (Tuesday Weld) is an honor-roll student and drum majorette who falls under his spell — and vice versa. Dennis claims to be a CIA agent, a fiction that makes his life of factory labor more exciting; Sue Ann buys into the fiction, and together they plot — oops, there’s another NDA. All I can say is that she is madder than he is. Filmed in the Berkshires, with immediately recognizable locations for anyone who knows the area. ★★★★

Targets (dir. Peter Bogdanovich, 1968). Bogdanovich’s first film, in which two storylines converge: a clean-cut young husband (Tim O’Kelly) modeled on Charles Whitman embarks on a killing spree in the San Fernando Valley, and a fading star of horror movies (Boris Karloff) prepares for an appearance at a drive-in theater. The movie is a darkly comic commentary on American gun culture and American entertainment. I sense a major debt to Hitchcock, in matters large and small, especially in the brilliant, bizarre ending. Karloff’s dapper Byron Orlok has the best line: “Is that what I was afraid of?” ★★★★

*

Busses Roar (dir. D. Ross Lederman, 1942). German and Japanese agents plan to place a bomb on a night bus to San Francisco with the aim of damaging oil wells, and the scheme — no surprise — is foiled. Most of this B-movie is devoted to the people of the bus terminal: drivers, travelers, servicemen passing through, a ticket seller, a cashier at a tobacco and magazine counter, a porter, a panhandler, a woman waiting for her husband, a woman who’s broke and trying to borrow $5.40 for a ticket. Ugly racial stereotypes abound. The movie has Eleanor Parker’s first screen appearance, as Norma, the cashier, a long way from the von Trapp villa. ★ (TCM)

*

Shadow of Fear (dir. Albert S. Rogell, 1955). Hamlet hangs over this story: upon her father’s death, April Haddon (Mona Freeman), a student studying in America, returns to her home in an English village. Her mother died the year before; Florence Haddon (Jean Kent), her mother’s nurse and her father’s second wife, now runs the house; and we’re meant to have no doubt that Florence did away with both Haddons, will do away with April, and thus will inherit an estate. A wonderful game of cat and mouse, with April figuring things out and matching wits with a wicked, wicked stepmother. My favorite line: “Nothing’s too awful for that woman!” ★★★★ (YT)

*

This Was a Woman (dir. Tim Whelan, 1948). The dark triad is alive and kicking in Sylvia Russell (the Agnes Moorehead-like Sonia Dresdel), a British wife and mother who seeks to destroy the happiness of her husband Arthur (Walter Fitzgerald) and daughter Fenella (Barbara White). (Her son Terry (Emrys Jones) is off the hook.) Malevolence abounding, with family members making allowance after allowance, but when Arthur’s successful friend Austin Penrose (Cyril Raymond) comes to visit, Sylvia’s schemes take a new direction. My favorite line: “You’re like someone drawing soothing fingers along an exposed nerve.” ★★★★ (YT)

Related reading
All OCA “twelve movies” posts (Pinboard)

New directions in apparel

One half of one of our closets will now forever be known as the home of “Papa’s gentleman shirts.”

In truth, there are no shirts there, only garment bags. Maybe that’s where gentlemen keep their shirts.

*

June 4: I was not on the scene for this coinage. Now I think I know what it was about: garment bags mean jackets and suits, which a very young person might dub “gentleman shirts,” just as, once upon a time, the ocean was known as “feet water.”

Zippy noir

[“Gumshoe.” Zippy, June 3, 2024.]

Beautiful noir art in today’s Zippy. Complete with the Venetian-blind effect.

Related reading
All OCA Zippy posts (Pinboard)

Slim’s Radio Service

[Madison Avenue between 118th and 119th Streets, Manhattan, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

Quite a variety of establishments in this stretch of Madison Avenue: a grocery store, Sun Shine Lunch, Slim’s Radio Service, a fish and vegetable market (“Fresh Fish Daily”), and Ebenezer Spiritual Church. I chose this photograph for Slim’s, which might be at 1820: there are few photographs and much ambiguity for this stretch. I like Slim’s signage.

The Municipal Archives’ online materials have been reorganized: tax photographs now seem to be searchable only by address, not with the block and lot codes preserved in the photographs themselves. And the photographs are now available sans watermarks. I’ve posted an especially large version of this one: if you click for the larger view, you‘ll see many details.

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

In the Proust aisle

[Click for bigger cookies.]

Elaine says that these madeleines bring back memories of Wal-Mart.

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard) : Madeleine (With the beginning of the key Proust passage)

[Photograph from May 31. Notice the expiration date.]

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by “Anna Stiga,” or Stan Again, Stan Newman, the puzzle’s editor, using the penname that signifies an easier Stumper. It was easier, but not that easy. I made three mistakes that I caught only when I read through the puzzle for choice clues and answers.

The choice items:

1-A, ten letters, “Buster Keaton silent sleuth spoof (an AFI ’Funniest’).” If it’s a giveaway, I’ll take it. This clue had me ready to like this puzzle.

5-D, five letters, “20-year Swedish coffee commercial character.” What? thought I. I’m supposed to know a character from Swedish advertising? Oh, wait.

11-A, four letters, “Bar tended at restaurants.” This one’s tricky.

14-A, eight letters, “They hold bread racks.” I was trying to think of a seven-letter word for a cash register.

18-A, four letters, “Name related to 2-Down.” And 2-D, six letters, is “Butte neighbor.” I’ve seen the answer to 18-A similarly clued in a recent Stumper. Experiential learning.

30-A, three letters, “Central casting.” I’m not sure I understand this one.

35-A, seven letters, “Fish out of water.” Clever and a bit misdirective.

35-D, eight letters, “What Ariel and Aladdin are at Disney World.” A slighty wacky anwer, and appropriately so.

36-D, eight letters, “It has the most primary interstates passing through it.” Heck yeah.

40-A, eight letters, “Lodging place?” Groan.

53-D, five letters, “Kitchen brand created from female names.” It feels strange to now know that.

60-A, ten letters, “Extreme avoidance.” One of the more difficult clues in the puzzle.

63-A, ten letters, “Don’t go straight.” Another of the more difficult clues in the puzzle. So many possibilities.

My favorite in this puzzle: 27-A, seven letters, “Mac not a PC.” So clever, and everyday life gave me the answer.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.