"Size is the answer"

Thomas L. Friedman, from a column in Saturday's New York Times:

Imagine for a minute that attending the Republican convention in St. Paul, sitting in a skybox overlooking the convention floor, were observers from Russia, Iran and Venezuela. And imagine for a minute what these observers would have been doing when Rudy Giuliani led the delegates in a chant of "drill, baby, drill!"

I'll tell you what they would have been doing: the Russian, Iranian and Venezuelan observers would have been up out of their seats, exchanging high-fives and joining in the chant louder than anyone in the hall — "Yes! Yes! Drill, America, drill!" — because an America that is focused first and foremost on drilling for oil is an America more focused on feeding its oil habit than kicking it.

Why would Republicans, the party of business, want to focus our country on breathing life into a 19th-century technology — fossil fuels — rather than giving birth to a 21st-century technology — renewable energy? As I have argued before, it reminds me of someone who, on the eve of the I.T. revolution — on the eve of PCs and the Internet — is pounding the table for America to make more I.B.M. typewriters and carbon paper. "Typewriters, baby, typewriters."

Me, I'm reminded of the William S. Burroughs routine about the dinosaurs:

Fellow reptiles, at this dark hour, I do not hesitate to tell you that we face grave problems . . . And I do not hesitate to tell you that we have the answer . . . Size is the answer . . . increased size . . . It was good enough for me . . . (Applause) [. . .] We will increase both in size and in numbers and we will continue to dominate this planet as we have done for three hundred million years . . . (Wild applause).

"The Hundred Year Plan," in The Adding Machine: Selected Essays (New York: Seaver, 1986), 122–23

Happy birthday, dear Art

My blog turns four years old later today.

Orange Crate Art began as an extension of my teaching, a place to collect items relevant to coursework and college. It soon became an extension of "me," moving in whatever directions seemed appropriate. My impulse always has been to notice — whether by introspection or looking around or reading — and to gather what might be delightful or useful to a reader.

I'm grateful to everyone who's read any or all of it, and especially grateful for the kindred spirits I've met only through written words (in comments here and in their writing elsewhere). Perhaps we'll meet in non-pixel form, somehow, someday, somewhere.

And I'll say thanks (again) to Rachel, who suggested Orange Crate Art as a name, to Rachel and Ben for showing me that I could learn some HTML, and to Elaine, whose taste is ever discerning. And thanks (again) to Van Dyke Parks, who was generous and enthusiastic about my borrowing his title.

As a young professor-type, my idea of writing was to get on the shelves of libraries, where I would live forever. Writing here, now, brings me much better rewards.

And for Pete's sake, if you read this blog and have never listened to "Orange Crate Art" (the song) and Orange Crate Art (the album), please give them a try:

Van Dyke Parks, Moonlighting: Live at the Ash Grove
Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, Orange Crate Art

Onward!

Previous birthday posts
You say it's your birthday (2005)
Birthday (2006)
Orange Crate Art turns three (2007)

"[A] blank page"

[From the 1962 film.]

In a post today, Andrew Sullivan pointed his readers to a Tim Shipman article from the Telegraph on those who are shaping a certain vice-presidential candidate to be their future. Sullivan's conclusion: "The goal is war against Iran and Russia. And a further deepening of the occupation of Iraq."

From the Telegraph:

[M]any believe that the "neocons", whose standard bearer in government, Vice President Dick Cheney, lost out in Washington power struggles to the more moderate defence secretary Robert Gates and secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, last year are seeking to mould Mrs Palin to renew their influence.

A former Republican White House official, who now works at the American Enterprise Institute, a bastion of Washington neoconservatism, admitted: "She's bright and she's a blank page. She's going places and it's worth going there with her."

Asked if he sees her as a "project", the former official said: "Your word, not mine, but I wouldn't disagree with the sentiment."

The article offers some details of Sarah Palin's two-week education in Foreign Policy 101. It's scary stuff. Read it all:

Neoconservatives plan Project Sarah Palin to shape future American foreign policy (Telegraph)

And for longer reading, the New York Times has an investigation of Sarah Palin's way of governing. Its closing anecdote:

At a recent lunch gathering, an official with the Wasilla Chamber of Commerce asked its members to refer all calls from reporters to the governor's office. Dianne Woodruff, a city councilwoman, shook her head.

"I was thinking, I don't remember giving up my First Amendment rights," Ms. Woodruff said. "Just because you're not going gaga over Sarah doesn't mean you can't speak your mind."

Read it all:

Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes (New York Times)

John Ashbery's collages

From the New York Times:

A couple of them date from his college years in the 1940s. Most are from the 1970s and were recently rediscovered tucked away in a shoebox. "I lost those for a long time," he says. "Quite a few others got thrown out." Several more are hot off his apartment work table.

At eighty-one, John Ashbery is showing collages at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery in New York.

Above, Poisson d'Avril (1972). Wikipédia explains: poisson d'avril (April's fish) is an April 1 children's custom that involves attaching a paper fish to a person's back without being noticed. The paperhanger then shouts "Poisson d'avril!" Or «Poisson d'avril!»

A slideshow accompanies the Times article. No catalogue yet at Tibor de Nagy's site.

The Poetry of Scissors and Glue (New York Times)
Tibor de Nagy Gallery

Inara George and Van Dyke Parks on the air

Inara George and Van Dyke Parks visited Morning Becomes Eclectic at KCRW yesterday. Stop, look, and listen:

Inara George and Van Dyke Parks Visit MBE

Related post
Review: Inara George and Van Dyke Parks

Letters to the Times

Of London, that is:

Sir, The complexity of English spelling, grammar and punctuation has its advantages. The two phishing e-mails and the letter telling me I had won a Spanish lottery, all received in the past week, were readily identifiable as fakes because of their poor standards. Apparently, I would have had to pay the lottery agent 5 per cent of my wining fund.

Shaun Thorpe
London W12

*

Sir, Mr Francis suggests (letter, Sept 11) that if youngsters are not taught how to spell, they will not be able to enjoy the pleasure of a crossword.

I have often found it convenient to overlook spelling conventions when squeezing words into the inadequate spaces allowed.

Paul Adams
Westcott, Surrey

Related posts
If it's Wensday, this must be England
Phishing

Martin Tytell, typewriter man

From today's New York Times:

Martin Tytell, whose unmatched knowledge of typewriters was a boon to American spies during World War II, a tool for the defense lawyers for Alger Hiss, and a necessity for literary luminaries and perhaps tens of thousands of everyday scriveners who asked him to keep their Royals, Underwoods, Olivettis (and their computer-resistant pride) intact, died on Thursday in the Bronx. He was 94. . . .

Mr. Tytell was proud of the rarity of his expertise, and relished the eccentric nature of his business. "We don't get normal people here," he said of his shop. And he was aware that his connection to the typewriter bordered on love.

"I'm 83 years old and I just signed a 10-year lease on this office; I’m an optimist, obviously," Mr. Tytell told the writer Ian Frazier in a 1997 article in The Atlantic Monthly, commenting on the likelihood that typewriters weren’t going to last in the world much longer. "I hope they do survive — manual typewriters are where my heart is. They're what keep me alive."

Ian Frazier's 1997 article is online:

Typewriter Man (The Atlantic)

Hi and Lois' dictionary

[Hi and Lois, September 12, 2008.]

Thumb-notches at the top! Not drawn from life.

[Yes, they're thumb-notches. The alphabetical tabs are thumb-index tabs or index tabs. Thumb-indexing or thumb-notching goes back to at least the late 19th century. I wrote to Merriam-Webster years ago to ask what those thingamajigs are called, never guessing that the reply would be relevant to Hi and Lois.]

Related posts
The cabinet of Hi and Lois
Hi and Escher?
House? (1)
House? (2)
9 - 6 = 3
Returning from vacation with Hi and Lois
Sunday at the beach with Hi and Lois
Vacationing with Hi and Lois

George Orwell on historical truth

A thought for the day:

During the Spanish civil war I found myself feeling very strongly that a true history of this war never would or could be written. Accurate figures, objective accounts of what was happening, simply did not exist. And if I felt that even in 1937, when the Spanish Government was still in being, and the lies which the various Republican factions were telling about each other and about the enemy were relatively small ones, how does the case stand now? Even if Franco is overthrown, what kind of records will the future historian have to go upon? And if Franco or anyone at all resembling him remains in power, the history of the war will consist quite largely of "facts" which millions of people now living know to be lies. One of these "facts," for instance, is that there was a considerable Russian army in Spain. There exists the most abundant evidence that there was no such army. Yet if Franco remains in power, and if Fascism in general survives, that Russian army will go into the history books and future school children will believe in it. So for practical purposes the lie will have become truth.

This kind of thing is happening all the time.

George Orwell, "As I Please" (Tribune, February 4, 1944), in The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters: As I Please, 1943-1945 (David R. Godine, 2000)

Broken pencil sharpener nets suspension

A ten-year-old has been suspended from school for having the blade from a broken pencil sharpener in his possession:

The problem was his sharpener had broken, but he decided to use it anyway.

A teacher at Hilton Head Island International Baccalaureate Elementary School noticed the boy had what appeared to be a small razor blade during class on Tuesday, according to a Beaufort County sheriff's report.

It was obvious that the blade was the metal insert commonly found in a child's small, plastic pencil sharpener, the deputy noted.

The boy — a fourth-grader described as a well-behaved and good student — cried during the meeting with his mom, the deputy and the school's assistant principal.

He had no criminal intent in having the blade at school, the sheriff's report stated, but was suspended for at least two days and could face further disciplinary action.

District spokesman Randy Wall said school administrators are stuck in the precarious position between the district's zero tolerance policy against having weapons at school and common sense.

"We're always going to do something to make sure the child understands the seriousness of having something that could potentially harm another student, but we're going to be reasonable," he said.

The most reasonable thing to do: cancel the suspension and apologize.

Given recent incidents in which pencils and ballpoint pens have served as weapons, the war on broken sharpeners seems — sorry — pointless.

[And I'm thinking now of my grade-school friend Henry Rothstein, who once wrote with a broken-off point rather than sharpen.]

[Update, 10:15 p.m.: According to the police report, the boy is a "very good student and has not been in any previous trouble." He used the blade to sharpen "his pencil" (his only pencil?), a pencil one inch in length — too short of course to sharpen with a sharpener.

The key words for this story? They would seem to be humiliation and poverty.]