Levitt bankruptcy

Levitt, the company that built archetypal American suburbs, has filed for bankruptcy:

More than a half-century ago, Levitt helped to pioneer the whole notion of suburbia when it built Levittown, a post-war community of mass-produced housing in New York. Other Levittowns followed — in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Puerto Rico.

In recent years though, Levitt and Sons accumulated debt, and with the downturn in housing sales, its luck finally ran out. When the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November, Levitt halted construction on dozens of projects from South Carolina to Florida.

Levitt Bankruptcy Leaves Homeowners in the Cold (NPR)

Related reading
Levittown (Wikipedia)
Levittown: Documents of an Ideal American Suburb (Peter Bacon Hales)
Slideshow: Levittown Through the Years (New York Times)

Jason Dockter, who blogs at insert title here, pointed me to this news. Thanks, Jason!

Chicago Style Q&A

Q. How do I spell MIKE in Spanish? I want to put it with a tattoo I'm getting. Thanks.

A. Unfortunately, my Spanish is a little rusty, but I’m pretty sure it's "Mico." Let us know how your boyfriend likes it when it's done.

The Q&A section of The Chicago Manual of Style Online makes for good browsing.

[A more helpful answer followed the one above: "Note from our proofreaders, who won’t let us make a monkey out of anyone: If you’re serious, try Miguel."]

Everything but the kitchen sink

Hillary Clinton's campaign is said today to be throwing the kitchen sink at Barack Obama. The New York Times quotes a Clinton aide's description of "a 'kitchen sink' fusillade." The sink has now made it to headlines: "Struggling Clinton throwing 'kitchen sink' at Obama."

The idiom though involves everything but the kitchen sink, the point being that the kitchen sink cannot be removed and hurled through the air, even when one is intent upon throwing everything at hand.

Related post
The kitchen shink (sic)

World Saxophone Quartet on YouTube

A YouTube treasure, in four parts: the World Saxophone Quartet performing for schoolkids in Lovejoy, Illinois: James Carter (tenor), Greg Osby (alto), Oliver Lake (alto), Hamiet Bluiett (baritone). The first tune is "Hattie Wall" (Bluiett), the WSQ's theme; the third is "For the Love of Money" (The O'Jays): 1, 2, 3, 4.

And one more clip, with the original quartet: Julius Hemphill (alto), David Murray (tenor), Oliver Lake (sopranino and alto), Hamiet Bluiett (baritone). Yes, that's David Sanborn (who studied with Hemphill) introducing the WSQ on network television.

YouTube theme song

"It's a blessing for mankind, that's for sure."

Ninety-two-year-old Irving Fields, he of Bagels and Bongos, has written a YouTube theme song.

"YouTube Dot Com" (YouTube)
The making of "YouTube Dot Com" (YouTube)

(Thanks, Ben!)

National Eating Disorders Awareness Week

[Click to enlarge and read.]

National Eating Disorders Association

A New York Times correction

The Corrections page of the New York Times is semi-reliably entertaining:

An article last Sunday about Sandra Boynton, the children's book author and greeting card creator, quoted incorrectly the final part of a passage from her book “Barnyard Dance!” It is “Bow to the horse. Bow to the cow. Twirl with the pig if you know how,” not “Bow to the horse if you know how.”

Related posts
A correction
A correction (Yes, another)
Fit to print
"I'll take the soup"
Men and women?
Soy milk, New York Times, and Wikipedia
VINYL GAFFE, LEDDY CHARGES

En mi casa toman Bustelo

I learned about Café Bustelo from UHF television — from commercials on New York's WNJU, channel 47, which served New York and New Jersey's Spanish-speaking population.¹ As a college student, I watched 47 for the hilarity of professional wrestling (in English, with a very young Vince McMahon, and in Spanish, from Mexico) and the strangeness of Walter Mercado. I can still recite the station's mid-1970s slogan: "¡Siga adelante con su nuevo Canal cuarenta y siete, el canal de los grandes y espectáculos!"

I latched onto instant Bustelo back then as my coffee of choice — instant espresso! Back then, one could find Bustelo — "Cuban coffee" — in any bodega or supermarket in the NY-NJ area. Here in downstate Illinois, I buy instant Bustelo at an international grocery. Bustelo is especially good with Vanilla Silk (café con leche de soja, I guess), and it's much cheaper than instant Medaglia D'Oro.

The Bustelo commercials I saw featured a hearty men's chorus, singing "Bustelo, Bustelo, si sabe café," followed by the plaintive voice of one little girl: "En mi casa toman Bustelo; en mi casa toman Bustelo." En mi casa, they (I) still do.

Bustelo Blends (Rowland Coffee)

[Translations: Keep watching (or more literally, follow onward with) your new Channel 47, the channel of the great and spectacular! Coffee with soy milk. Bustelo, Bustelo, if you know coffee. In my house they drink Bustelo; in my house they drink Bustelo.]

¹ What? You don't remember UHF? Oh, okay.

Inclement weather

"Inclement weather": such a dowdy term. Does anyone outside American education use it?

The oddity of inclement just prompted me to look it up. From the Oxford English Dictionary:

Not clement.

1. Of climate or weather: Not mild or temperate; extreme; severe. (Usually applied to cold or stormy weather; rarely of severe heat or drought.)

2. Not merciful or kindly; pitiless, harsh, severe, cruel. Obs.

No. 2 is the older (1621) meaning of the word. The first sample sentence for no. 1 (1667) comes from Paradise Lost: "To shun / Th' inclement Seasons, Rain, Ice, Hail and Snow." So it appears that we may credit John Milton for the anthropomorphized weather that results in school closings unto this day. (Thanks, Milton.)

And to Winter, who has been showing us no clemency this month, I say "Mercy, Sir!"

Overheard

No doubt someone whose class was canceled:

"Dammit — I woke up for nothing!"

All "Overheard" posts (via Pinboard)