Mark Trail channels Dante

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
ché la diritta via era smarrita.

I should read Mark Trail more often.

A related post
When comics collide

Blogger search broken

See the search box at the top left? It’s now broken, at least for many Blogger blogs. Results are often spotty and sometimes non-existent. The problem has become a known issue.

Until the problem’s fixed, you can search a Blogger blog by doing a Google site search, like so:

site:mleddy.blogspot.com keyword keyword

You can search for individual words or for phrases in quotation marks, as with any Google search.

Cooking and television

Michael Pollan:

Maybe the reason we like to watch cooking on TV is that there are things about cooking we miss. We might not feel we have the time or the energy to do it ourselves every day, yet we’re not prepared to see it disappear from our lives entirely. Why? Perhaps because cooking — unlike sewing or darning socks — is an activity that strikes a deep emotional chord in us, one that might even go to the heart of our identity as human beings.

Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch (New York Times)

I’m happy to be part of a family in which everybody cooks.

“An Accident of Time and Place”

Sergeant Crowley and I, through an accident of time and place, have been cast together, inextricably, as characters — as metaphors, really — in a thousand narratives about race over which he and I have absolutely no control. Narratives about race are as old as the founding of this great Republic itself, but these new ones have unfolded precisely when Americans signaled to the world our country’s great progress by overcoming centuries of habit and fear, and electing an African American as President. It is incumbent upon Sergeant Crowley and me to utilize the great opportunity that fate has given us to foster greater sympathy among the American public for the daily perils of policing on the one hand, and for the genuine fears of racial profiling on the other hand.

Well said. Read it all:

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., An Accident of Time and Place (The Root)

Nabokov’s index cards, coming in November

From a Publishers Weekly advance review of Vladimir Nabokov’s The Original of Laura, coming in November:

Nabokov’s handwritten index cards are reproduced with a transcription below of each card’s contents, generally less than a paragraph. The scanned index cards (perforated so they can be removed from the book) are what make this book an amazing document; they reveal Nabokov’s neat handwriting (a mix of cursive and print) and his own edits to the text: some lines are blacked out with scribbles, others simply crossed out. Words are inserted, typesetting notes (“no quotes”) and copyedit symbols pepper the writing, and the reverse of many cards bears a wobbly X. Depending on the reader’s eye, the final card in the book is either haunting or the great writer’s final sly wink: it’s a list of synonyms for “efface” — expunge, erase, delete, rub out, wipe out and, finally, obliterate.

Related posts
Nabokov’s unfinished (On The Original of Laura)
Vladimir Nabokov's index cards

Understocked

From xkcd: “Actually, it seems we’re out of beer.”

Nick DeMaio and the Eldorado

A Bronx tale, of Fordham University and environs:

[T]he one nostalgic oasis of civility in the neighborhood was the old Eldorado Bar on Third Avenue, right under the Third Avenue El. The El was scheduled for demolition by 1972. The bar, which had been a tavern since 1890, had a high, plank ceiling supported by a row of wooden posts, with the big rotating fans that later became fashionable in Manhattan watering holes. It had a pool table with a ripped felt cover, and it served Italian hero sandwiches and hamburgers thrown together in a dingy kitchen in the back. The proprietor was Nick DeMaio, five-foot-six and stocky, in his late seventies, wearing a tie and sometimes an apron. He muttered unintelligible wisdom in a gruff voice with a cigar butt stuck in the side of his mouth.

Nick had bought the place in 1922. Faking it as a flower shop in front, the place had been a speakeasy during Prohibition, but more than anything, with its long, solid mahogany bar and the mirror behind it, it resembled a saloon in the cowboy movies.

Raymond A. Schroth, Fordham: A History and Memoir (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2002), 326.

I’m happy to know something about the Eldorado, or the El D, as it was called, a bar I visited but once, with two friends, in the summer of 1981. The place was vast, like an empty stage, with a dull, smooth wood floor. The only people were my friends and I, some tough customers at the pool table, and the proprietor, a little old man wearing a white shirt, a black tie, a brown cigar, and a barkeeper’s apron. The guy was a throwback, as my daughter Rachel would say. He must have been Nick DeMaio.

The Social Security Death Index lists one Nicholas DeMaio whose dates (1898–1993) and last residence (in the Bronx, just a short ride from the bar) mark him as the proprietor of the El D. I’m amazed to think that I was likely ordering beers from a man who had been serving them during Prohibition. I now know from the photograph below that the man tending bar was Nick DeMaio.

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May 20, 2020: A Fordham alum left a link to a 1981 Ram article about Nick DeMaio and the El D. Thanks!

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May 21: Another alum found a 1978 Ram article with a photo of Nick DeMaio. Thanks!

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May 22: Here are photographs of the Eldorado and Nick DeMaio, from The Ram, April 20, 1978. The photographer’s name is Joe Spinosa. And now I can say with certainty that that was Nick DeMaio behind the bar.

[Click either image for a larger view.]

And one more from The Ram, September 24, 1981. The photographer’s name is Dean Donahue.

[Click for a larger view.]

These scans of newspaper pages replace less distinct images from the online Ram. Many thanks to Jeannie Hoag, Reference & Assessment Librarian, and Vivian Shen, Archives Librarian, both of Fordham University.

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January 29, 2022: And here is a photograph of the El D BAR sign, salvaged by students after the building was razed.

[Click for a larger view.]

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January 31: Three more photographs, with the El D making cameo appearances, to the right of the Third Avenue El, or what then remained of the El. Look for the building with the slanting roof and the two-tone wall: 1, 2, 3.

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And one more.

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February 1: And now, at long last, the Eldorado is ready for its close-up:

[4762 Third Avenue, Bronx, New York, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

I tried tracking down a tax photograph by checking the 1940 telephone directory, which had no listing for the Eldorado. Without a street address, the bar cannot be found via Street View of 1940s New York, as its address no longer exists (what was 4762 is now part of the massive Fordham Plaza). But if you have a street address to type in, you’ll find the Eldorado in Street View or in the Municipal Archives (albeit as 4764).

Credit for finding the 4762 address (in a 1974 telephone directory) and the tax photograph goes to Steven Payne, librarian and archivist at The Bronx County Historical Society.

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February 7: But wait — there’s more. Here’s the Eldorado in film footage of the Bronx portion of the Third Avenue El. There’s some Fordham scenery beginning at 1:50. Pick up again at 10:20 and you’ll see the two-tone wall of the El D at 10:36.

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November 21: Here’s the “Must Be Over 21” sign. Jim S. (FC ’85) and Joe M. (CBA, now Gabelli, ’86) bought it from and had it signed by Nick DeMaio. Jim looked for and found it in his attic:

[This sign is visible at the very top of the photograph of Nick DeMaio above. Click for a larger view.]

[One corner of the back, signed, “Eldorado Cafe Inc. N.D.”]

And here’s a 1983 article, also signed, published as the Eldorado neared the end of its life. Christopher Keating also wrote the 1981 Ram article above.

[Daily News, July 21, 1983. Click for a larger view.]

[A newspaper margin, signed “Eldorado Cafe Inc. N.D.”]

Thanks to Jim and Joe for bringing more of the Eldorado back into view.

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December 1: A wonderful addition to this post: photographs from a wedding party’s visit to the Eldorado. Claire and Howie (both Fordham College ’80) visited the Eldorado after their wedding on April 9, 1983. The 3rd Avenue El had ceased operating on April 28, 1973. According to the Daily News article above, the Eldorado was to be demolished in July 1983. It was demolished later that year. I am glad that Claire and Howie got to it in time. Click on any image for a larger view.

[Here’s a Fordham Road sign in its native habitat — an El platform.]

[Nick Demaio, of course, with the just-married couple.]

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Exiled in boston left a comment on another post that has attracted El D patrons:

I am disappointed that I see no reference to Max who tended bar there in the late 60s. The bar also had a great jukebox then. It had a great selection including Hank Williams. As far as I could ever tell, the only place that actually identified the bar as the El Dorado was on the jukebox.

That reader was generous enough to share a photograph of the El D from around the time when the Third Avenue El was being demolished. Wikipedia dates the demolition of the line to 1977.


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Just one more: A reader found this advertisement in the Fordham Libraries Digital Collections. From the program for a football game, Fordham vs. Widener University, September 27, 1974:


Thanks again to all who have contributed to the online afterlife of the Eldorado.

More Bronx tales
Elvis pretzels : The Bronx and Fordham in Naked City

“Take Back the Beep”

New York Times technology columnist David Pogue wants to Take Back the Beep by getting cellphone carriers to drop their lengthy (and revenue-enhancing) voicemail instructions. Until the carriers cave, one can at least skip the instructions by invoking the magical sequence 1 * #. Or even simpler, one can hang up (so to speak) after just a few rings and send a text, saving the person on the other end the work of retrieving voicemail.

I support Pogue’s effort, but I’m secretly hoping that the phone companies keep their instructions. The “1 * #” thing is pretty cool.

(Oops — my hoping’s no longer secret.)

Eric Gill: control, distraction, and tools

Eric Gill (1882–1940), engraver, printer, sculptor, typeface designer, recommended a hand-operated press as the best tool for letterpress printing:

This tool gives the maximum of control with the minimum of distraction. It is most important that the workman should not have to watch his instrument, that his whole attention should be given to his work. A sculptor does not see his hammer and chisel when he is carving, but only the stone in front of him. Similarly the hand press printer can give his whole attention to inking & printing, and hardly see his press.

From An Essay on Typography (1931)

I have no thoughts about printing, but this passage does make me think about tools for writing and searching.

Writing: for a maximum of control and a minimum of distraction — eraser crumbs, dull and broken points — the pencil is an obvious choice. As for pens, a plain Bic offers zero-degree distraction: fountain-pen expert Frank Dubiel used to call the Bic the most reliable pen of all. But Dubiel was willing to sacrifice some measure of reliability for the pleasure of writing with a fountain pen. And anyway, a good fountain pen is extremely reliable, needing little more than occasional refilling and infrequent cleaning. For writing at the computer, one may find a maximum of control and a minimum of distraction by using a text-editor, a much better choice than the typical word-processor, whose hammers, chisels, and dozens of other tools are always competing with words for the writer’s attention.

Searching: there’s no better example of an interface designed to maximize control and minimize distraction that Google’s nearly blank search page. Microsoft’s Bing, in contrast, offers a cluttered mess: the search box is placed (for now) against a panoramic photograph of hikers crossing a rope bridge, with links to first aid info, “Great deals on airfares,” and what’s “Popular now” — the Ferrari 458 Italia, Stephon Marbury, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Carlos Carrasco. Am I here to search, or to lose track of what it is I’m looking for? Self-parody, thy name is Microsoft!

Gill's observations also make me think in a general way of Mac OS X, an operating system that lets me give my whole attention to my work, so that I can “just work,” without the ever renewed effort to figure out what’s gone wrong with the computer now.

[When I requested Gill’s book via interlibrary loan, I didn’t know that the 1931 first edition was limited to 500 copies, each copy signed by Gill and René Hague, who together set the type. I read carefully — very carefully — and returned the book with the suggestion that it never be let out again. The 1936 edition of An Essay on Typography is available as a paperback reprint from David R. Godine (1988). “It just works” is an Apple slogan, a few years old now.]

The quick brown fox . . .

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. No, really: watch.

Wikipedia has an astute article on the fox, the dog, and their sentence.

(Thanks, Macon!)