Sylvia Sweets Tea Room

[Sylvia Sweets Tea Room, corner of School and Main Streets, Brockton, Massachusetts, December 1940 or January 1941. Photograph by Jack Delano (1914–1997). Click for a larger view.]

Another beautiful photograph from the Library of Congress. It would be grand to cross the street (we have the light) and stand hatted and overcoated outside Sylvia Sweets.

What makes this photograph's 21st-century existence especially exciting is that Brocktonians have filled in some of the history of Sylvia Sweets and environs in their comments on the photo's Flickr page. (The Library of Congress information as to location was simply "industrial town in Massachusetts.") The Flickr contributors include William Wainwright, son of George L. Wainwright, whose law office was on the second floor of the building. (William practices law in Brockton in what is now a three-generation family firm, Wainwright and Wainwright.)

Don't miss the photograph in its original size, with the window signage at least partly readable. Fried clams, 40¢!

This photograph is one of the 4065 photographs that the Library of Congress has made available via Flickr. Wikipedia has an article on photographer Jack Delano.

Related posts
Library of Congress photographs
Orange crate art
Sylvia Sweets remembered

Note to self re: bookbuying

Many times in the past two years, I've bought just-out hardcover non-fiction and been hugely disappointed, sometimes by the ideas, sometimes by the writing, sometimes by both. So listen up, self:

When you learn of new non-fiction that addresses matters of culture, education, language, or technology, wait. Read a sample online or in a bookstore. Consider whether you're willing to take on several hundred pages of the writer's prose. Look at Amazon reviews (which are sometimes far more discerning than those found in traditional media). And ask yourself, self, the crucial question: do you need to buy this book, or can you be happy getting it from the library?

And remember, self, if you buy the book in hardcover, it might be out in paperback by the time you get around to reading it.

Returning from vacation with Hi and Lois

The Flagstons returned home today, with plans aplenty and little Trixie still riding in the front seat. What can be done to get some real seatbelts for these characters?




Related posts
Hi and Escher?
House?
House?
Sunday at the beach with Hi and Lois
Vacationing with Hi and Lois

Overheard

Elaine, replying to a television commentator on the Summer You-know-whats:

"It's not poetry; it's diving!"

All "Overheard" posts (via Pinboard)

Little Gap of horrors

What happened to the poor guy on the floor? Perhaps he fell over from the weight of all those layers. His headless peeps are unperturbed, as was a Gap employee who was working (and kept working) at a display of merchandise just ten feet away while my family marveled at this display.

Ukulele fever

The New York Times takes note of the ukulele's renewed popularity:

Suddenly there's something irresistible again about ukuleles.

Again? The ukulele has never been resistible.

The Times article suggests several reasons for renewed interest in the uke, including Jake Shimabukuro's virtuoso performance of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." Oddly though, the Times doesn't mention George Harrison's own possible influence. The scenes of George with uke in hand in the documentary The Beatles Anthology (1995) prompted me (and, I suspect, others) to pick up the instrument. (George's uke can be heard at the end of the Beatles' "Free as a Bird.")

And in case you're wondering: yes, it's possible to play "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on the ukulele.

Related post
While my ukulele gently weeps

Capital "I"

Caroline Winter wonders why we capitalize the first-person singular pronoun:

Consider other languages: some, like Hebrew, Arabic and Devanagari-Hindi, have no capitalized letters, and others, like Japanese, make it possible to drop pronouns altogether. The supposedly snobbish French leave all personal pronouns in the unassuming lowercase, and Germans respectfully capitalize the formal form of "you" and even, occasionally, the informal form of "you," but would never capitalize "I." Yet in English, the solitary "I" towers above "he," "she," "it" and the royal "we."

Read all about "I":

Me, Myself and I (New York Times)

Love and imperfections

One more observation from Gordon Livingston:

To know someone fully and love them in spite of, even because of, their imperfections is an act that requires us to recognize and forgive, two very important indicators of emotional maturity. More important is the fact that, if we can do this for other people, we may be able to do it for ourselves.

Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart (New York: Da Capo, 2004), 146

Related posts
"[H]appiness-producing processes"
People and the rest of us
"The primary goal of parenting"

Thrift-store telephone

This telephone announced its presence in our house with a bright, merry ring. "Dad, it's your phone," said Ben. Our cell has an old phone ringtone, but this ring wasn't the cell's. Surprise! Thanks, Rachel and Ben! [Photograph by Ben Leddy.]

If it's Wensday, this must be England

Genevieve, who writes wonderfully about agrarian life, WPA architecture, and other matters at Prairie Bluestem, sent this news from the world of spelling and misspelling (or mispelling):

Dr Ken Smith is urging colleagues to turn a blind eye to the 20 most common slips — such as 'Febuary', 'ignor' and 'speach' — and view them instead as variants of standard spellings.

Writing in the Times Higher Education magazine, the senior lecturer in criminology at Buckinghamshire New University said: 'Teaching a large first-year course at a British university, I am fed up with correcting my students' atrocious spelling. Aren't we all?

'But why must we suffer? Instead of complaining about the state of the education system as we correct the same mistakes year after year, I've got a better idea.

'University teachers should simply accept as variant spellings those words our students most commonly misspell.'

Among Smith's proposed variants: thier and there for their and Wensday for Wednesday.

Something tells me that Smith's modest proposal must be tongue-in-cheek. But in light of other recent news from England, I can't be sure.

[Post title with apologies to this movie.]