OTIS, SI⟘O

Anthropologists of the future will perhaps inquire into the austere chambers consecrated to OTIS and SI⟘O, twin gods of the upper and lower realms.

[Photographs by Michael Leddy. Thank you, Elaine, for holding the door.]

Buy peanut butter

A recent New York Times article notes that sales of peanut butter are down nearly 25%. Peanut-related articles from Google News show that pattern holding. The fragility of the American economy makes such obviously bad news even worse.

A simple suggestion that might do some good: buy a jar of peanut butter. The American Peanut Council (I never thought I'd type that name) has a list of brands not affected by the FDA recall. In our house, we like Smucker's Natural. We bought a new jar yesterday.

As for Stewart Parnell, owner of the Peanut Corportation of America, who took the Fifth Amendment when asked today if he'd eat his company's (bacteria-laden) products, Dante could devise a suitable punishment.

BRODAWAY

A tile sign in an IND Crosstown Line station in Brooklyn spells BROADWAY as BRODAWAY. According to Forgotten NY, the misspelling has stood since the line began in 1933.

This typo (or tile-o) seems to me to have earned its place on the wall (and in NYC lore). Wikipedia's entry on the IND Broadway station notes the venerable error. Please, city elders, stet.

MTA spellers way off-off Broadway in Brooklyn (The Daily News)

Five sentences from Bleak House

A very quiet night. When the moon shines very brilliantly, a solitude and stillness seem to proceed from her, that influence even crowded places full of life. Not only is it a still night on dusty high roads and on hill-summits, whence a wide expanse of country may be seen in repose, quieter and quieter as it spreads away into a fringe of trees against the sky, with the grey ghost of a bloom upon them; not only is it a still night in gardens and in woods, and on the river where the water-meadows are fresh and green, and the stream sparkles on among pleasant islands, murmuring weirs, and whispering rushes; not only does the stillness attend it as it flows where houses cluster thick, where many bridges are reflected in it, where wharves and shipping make it black and awful, where it winds from these disfigurements through marshes whose grim beacons stand like skeletons washed ashore, where it expands through the bolder region of rising grounds, rich in cornfield, wind-mill and steeple, and where it mingles with the ever-heaving sea; not only is it a still night on the deep, and on the shore where the watcher stands to see the ship with her spread wings cross the path of light that appears to be presented to only him; but even on this stranger's wilderness of London there is some rest. Its steeples and towers, and its one great dome, grow more ethereal; its smoky house-tops lose their grossness, in the pale effulgence; the noises that arise from the streets are fewer and are softened, and the footsteps on the pavements pass more tranquilly away. In these fields of Mr Tulkinghorn's inhabiting, where the shepherds play on Chancery pipes that have no stop, and keep their sheep in the fold by hook and by crook until they have shorn them exceeding close, every noise is merged, this moonlight night, into a distant ringing hum, as if the city were a vast glass, vibrating.

Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1853)

Just five sentences:

"A very quiet night." Stage-setting. No verb, à la the first sentences of Bleak House.

"When the moon shines very brilliantly, a solitude and stillness seem to proceed from her, that influence even crowded places full of life." Repetition joins the sentences: "very quiet," "very brilliantly." Parallelism: "solitude," "crowded places"; "stillness," "full of life." Personification with a single brushstroke: "her."

And now the third sentence, a grand display of parallelism. Part of what makes the "Not only" sentence remarkable is that despite its heavy reliance on prepositional phrases — twenty-eight of them — it moves so easily from start to finish. Note the six in a row early on: "into a fringe of trees against the sky, with the grey ghost of a bloom upon them." How does Dickens keep those sentence elements from turning into inert clutter? Partly by means of sound: the quick iambs of "a fringe of trees against the sky," the alliteration and partial rhyme of "grey ghost" and "bloom upon them." But also by means of magic.

Note too the way the elements of the third sentence — the "not onlys" and "wheres" — lengthen and diminish before coming to "rest." There's nothing absolutely predictable about that movement: the first four "where" clauses lengthen before the series ends with "the ever-heaving sea," but the first "not only" clause is longer than the second. This sort of loose progression organizes the paragraph too, with the fifth sentence a bit longer than the fourth.

In the fourth sentence, a smaller display of parallelism. Its final element — "the noises that arise from the streets are fewer and are softened, and the footsteps on the pavements pass more tranquilly away" — seems almost biblical in its balanced phrasing.

The language in these four sentences surprises again and again with its variety: "pleasant islands," "cluster thick," "black and awful," "like skeletons washed ashore," "rich in cornfield, wind-mill and steeple," "this stranger's wilderness of London," "smoky housetops," "pale effulgence."

And in the fifth sentence, an extended metaphor bringing us into the world of law, with the siren song of the Court of Chancery, and legal shepherds fleecing their sheep. Dickens though lifts the passage up at its end into a loftier music and a more exalted sort of metaphor, turning the sounds of the city into "a distant ringing hum" and the city itself into "a vast glass, vibrating" — beautiful abstractions worthy of Wallace Stevens or John Ashbery.

Okay, I'm done. Go back up and enjoy the sentences again.

[The "one great dome" is that of St Paul's Cathedral. The Court of Chancery, devoted to wills and trusts, is where such lawyers as Tulkinghorn shear their sheep "exceedingly close."]

Today's Hi and Lois

Scary eyeball? The mothership? Today's Hi and Lois seems to suggest a trend involving unrecognizable objects on walls. What's especially poignant here is that there's no need for a thermostat in the strip (yes, it's a thermostat) — Lois' brisk "BRR . . IT'S COLD IN HERE" sets the scene nicely. (Husband-tip to Hi Flagston: when your wife and kids shiver, do not stop to check the price of oil.)

The Honeywell thermostat, the work of Henry Dreyfuss and a masterpiece of industrial design, is the distant (very distant) ancestor of the Flagstons' thermostat. I saved a Honeywell thermostat when we had our furnace replaced several years ago. What was a Honeywell thermostat is now a Honeywell paperweight.

Related reading
All Hi and Lois posts

Hot water and the Great Depression

It was widely reported today that the Sun Journal newspaper in Lewiston, Maine, has begun publishing a daily money-saving tip on its front page. The paper promises a refund to any subscriber who doesn't save at least twice the cost of a subscription.

Reading this news item made me recall reading (somewhere) about the Depression-era practice of placing a bowl of water over a stove-top pilot light at night. In the morning: hot water for shaving.

Reader, do you know of other Depression-era practices that will still work in the 21st century?

Mmmm . . . starches

From a newspaper advertisement pitching a Valentine's Day menu:

So romantic! But I hope the diners don't get sand in their food.

Telephone exchange names on screen

[From The Public Enemy, dir. William Wellman, 1931.]

This exchange name is soon to vanish from the screen, as the doors are flung open and floral cargo tossed into the street to make room for cases of liquor. Why? Prohibition begins at midnight.

The Public Enemy is a great film, with far more than its famous grapefruit-in-face scene. The final moments, with Tom Powers (James Cagney) at the door as a record plays "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles," shock even with repeated viewings. I wonder how audiences reacted in 1931. (The New York Times archive has, alas, no review.)

More exchange names on screen
The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse
Baby Face
Born Yesterday
Deception
The Man Who Cheated Himself
Nightmare Alley

Casinos, museums, and parks

What do museums and parks have in common with casinos? They are among the items in a series in Senator Tom Coburn's (R-OK) proposed Amendment No. 175 to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan (aka the "stimulus package"):

None of the amounts appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, swimming pool, stadium, community park, museum, theater, arts center, or highway beautification project, including renovation, remodeling, construction, salaries, furniture, zero-gravity chairs, big screen televisions, beautification, rotating pastel lights, and dry heat saunas.

Senator Coburn may have had a traumatic experience or two involving zero-gravity chairs and saunas, but that's no reason to remove culture from the proposed legislation.

If you agree, here's a way to let your senators know:

Vote NO on the Coburn "Limitation on Funds Amendment No. 175" (American Arts Alliance)

(via Musical Assumptions)

Goodbye, Pages for All Ages

A bookstore's closing is reason for a special sort of sadness, as it's nearly certain that no other bookstore will be coming along to take its place. My family began buying books at Pages for All Ages in 1988, the year the store opened. Pages was for many years the bookstore in our corner of the world. My children spent hours in the children's section, which featured a nifty nook for reading and play. The kid-sized stools had legs that looked like giant pencils.

Along came Borders. Along came Barnes & Noble. (Or vice versa.) Pages moved to a new location and added CDs and coffee. And DVDs. The owner of a recently closed record store came on as the music manager, and the CD selections became a marvel of discernment. (Thank you, Morgan Usadel, for bringing so many good jazz recordings to central Illinois.)

In recent years (post-Amazon), the inventory — of all sorts — began to dwindle. Books that you'd think would be there weren't there. The CD shelves grew emptier, then empty. I'd go in and end up buying something, anything, to do my bit. I noticed last year that the store was not stocking 2009 planners — that seemed like a bad sign.

On my last visit to Pages, in late December, I was looking for a copy of Charles Dickens's Bleak House. No soap. When my daughter and I drove to Pages last week, the store was dark, and a sign on the front door announced a closing for inventory. That closing is now permanent, as the evening news just announced.

Goodbye, Pages.

Pages for All Ages a victim of recession (The News-Gazette)