9 - 6 = 3

[Hi and Lois, September 6, 2008.]

Shouldn't that arithmetic problem be on the blackboard, where it belongs?

The levitating oval and triangle on the dresser must be a perfume bottle. But it took me several long looks to figure out the objects stuck in the door. Fishhooks? Safety pins? Darts? If you give up and would like to see my best guess, highlight the empty space following the colon: perspiration.

[Second-guessing: that could be an Ad Reinhardt, not a blackboard.]

Related posts
The cabinet of Hi and Lois
Hi and Escher?
House? (1)
House? (2)
Returning from vacation with Hi and Lois
Sunday at the beach with Hi and Lois
Vacationing with Hi and Lois

Corrections of the Times

I like the straight-facedness with which the New York Times makes corrections:

The Well column on Tuesday, about the potential dangers to children who focus early on one sport, misstated the coach-to-athlete ratio recommended by Dave Peterson, the owner of a sports center in California. Mr. Peterson suggested a coach-to-student ratio of 1 to 6 in preschool and about 1 to 8 for older athletes, not 6 to 1 and 8 to 1.

Related posts
A correction
Fit to print

Word Clock

[Click for a larger view.]

The most beautiful and functional screensaver I've ever seen: Word Clock by Simon Heys, a free download for iPhone, Mac, and Windows. [Via kottke.org.]

Five bloggers blogging

Five bloggers, posting pretty regularly, and always interesting to me:

Musical Assumptions Elaine Fine (yes, Mrs. Orange Crate Art) on music and culture.

Notes of an Anesthesioboist T. is an English major turned anesthesiologist turned oboist, writing about medicine with great compassion and insight.

Relative Esoterica Trombonology's astute, evocative commentary on film, jazz, and popular song.

Submitted For Your Perusal Matt Thomas' New York Times digests almost always point me to items I'd otherwise overlook.

(what is this?) Angela has a great eye for ephemera. From her Blogger Profile list of interests: "flea markets, memory, ruins."

And one more:

The Daily Dish Andrew Sullivan's day-by-day, hour-by-hour, and sometimes minute-by-minute commentary on culture and politics.

[On the Internets, five, like ten, is a magic number, right?]

[Update, September 9: Save for a reader-contributed photograph, there's been nothing posted to The Daily Dish since Sunday night. I hope all's well with Andrew Sullivan and that he's back soon.]

Community organizer

From campaign manager David Plouffe's e-mail to Barack Obama supporters:

Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin specifically mocked Barack's experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago more than two decades ago, where he worked with people who had lost jobs and been left behind when the local steel plants closed.

Indeed. Giuliani:

On the other hand, you have a resume from a gifted man with an Ivy League education. He worked as a community organizer. What?

And Palin:

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities.

Community organizer. Ha ha.

Has it occurred to these people that Jesus (among others) might be described as a community organizer — and one who worked among the poor?

[No, I'm not comparing Barack Obama to Jesus. I'm only pointing out the absurdity of last night's ridicule.]

Mac writing tools

The Unofficial Apple Weblog has posted a three-part series on writing tools for the Mac: word-processors, text-editors, utilities. Helpful to anyone who's recently switched to a Mac or is thinking about it:

"Back to School: Writing tools": Parts 1, 2, 3

Of the programs covered in this series, I'm partial to Bean (word-processor, free), Pages (word-processor, part of Apple's iWork), TextExpander (keystroke saver), and WriteRoom (full-screen text-editor). I also like TextWrangler, a free text-editor. There's life beyond Microsoft Word.

How to improve writing (no. 22 in a series)

Novice writers often want their writing to "flow," mistaking result for process. Sentences whose movement seems inevitable and right usually result not from easy spontaneity but from careful rethinking. Here for instance is a sentence that could be greatly improved with a little more thought. From a library's monthly newsletter:

For those people who live outside the city limits, even if it is only by one house, two feet, etc., they have to pay an annual fee of $45 for their library card.

What's wrong with this sentence? The "one house, two feet" details are unneeded, and seem to hint at a history of argument with cranky residents. There's also a problem with agreement: people need to pay for their library cards. The main problem with the sentence though is the clumsy syntax: "For those people," "they have to pay." Better:

Anyone who lives beyond the city limits must pay a $45 annual fee for a library card.

From 33 words to 17: almost 50% off!

[Update: There's a better way, and so obvious:

Anyone living beyond the city limits must pay a $45 annual fee for a library card.

From 33 to 16: over 50% off!]

[This post is no. 22 in a very occasional series, "How to improve writing," dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]

All "How to improve writing" posts (via Pinboard)

Domestic comedy

"Have we ever seen John Malkovich in a movie that was any good?"

"Being John Malkovich."

"Besides that one: he was just playing himself."

The cabinet of Hi and Lois

I don't want to keep going with Hi and Lois, but I must. (If nothing else, close-reading Hi and Lois offers a break from the looniness of the real.)

Today's strip reminds me of the children's game of spotting the differences between pictures. Did the same hand draw both panels?

[Hi and Lois, September 2, 2008.]

The curtains shorten.

The window panes widen.

The glazing bars shrink. (Thanks, Wikipedia.)

The painting (a Cy Twombly?) shrinks and moves up and away.

Lois's shirt is on backwards. (Kidding.)

Note too that the window sill does not follow the slant of the wall — more disturbingly so in the second panel. The Flagstons must be living in a German Expressionist suburb, next door to the Caligaris.

Related posts
Hi and Escher?
House? (1)
House? (2)
Returning from vacation with Hi and Lois
Sunday at the beach with Hi and Lois
Vacationing with Hi and Lois

Red Cross

The American Red Cross

[September 1, 2008 is the day Hurricane Gustav made landfall.]