“Love, Irving Sappho”

In childhood, the Glass children left soap-written messages for one another on the medicine-cabinet mirror. In adulthood, they still do. In 1942, sister Boo Boo (an ensign in the Waves) leaves a message for brother Seymour on the occasion of his wedding. Her handwriting is “almost indecipherably minute”:

Raise high the roof beam, carpenters. Like Ares comes the bridegroom, taller far than a tall man. Love, Irving Sappho, formerly under contract to Elysium Studios Ltd. Please be happy happy happy with your beautiful Muriel. This is an order. I outrank everybody on this block.

J.D. Salinger, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters (1963)

Google Books has a 1920 translation of Irving Sappho’s poem that matches the Glass version (save for a hyphenated roof-beam and the exclamatory Hymenaeus).

Bill Madison’s Proust Census

“If you were not yourself, how many people would you be on April 1, 2010?” Bill Madison presents the Proust Census.

Special theory of relativity

Forty is the new thirty. Sixty is the new forty. Eighty is the new sixty. Ninety is the new eighty.

Also, ninety-two is the new eighty-three. Ninety-six is the new ninety. Ninety-seven is the new ninety-two.

A hundred is still a hundred.

Easy-listening “Heroes and Villains”

An easy-listening instrumental version of “Heroes and Villains” (Brian Wilson–Van Dyke Parks). Dance, Margarita.

On the iPad and early adopters

Rob Walker:

I suppose it’s possible that the device will so improve the owner’s quality of life, productivity and social standing that he or she will enjoy a kind of competitive advantage over nonowners for a few months or a year. But there’s an inverse relationship between how long this advantage lasts and how good the thing is. If the iPad is so wonderful, I’ll just buy one, too; I’m pretty sure Apple will happily meet all demand. And if it stinks, then there was never any advantage to buying it early, now, was there?

Read more:

iPad Envy (New York Times)

(I have no plans to buy an iPad, now or in a few months or in a year. No need for one.)

Clever NYT crossword clue

A clever clue for an eight-letter answer in today’s New York Times puzzle, an example of what in crosswords is called misdirection:

64-Across: “Safari sights.” The answer: WEBPAGES.

[No spoilers here. Highlight the empty space to see the answer.]

Trying the iPad

I tried an iPad briefly last night (with just enough time to take a photograph). My impressions:

The display is beautiful.

Typing — with the iPad propped up at an angle on a low table — is easier than I had expected but still tedious. I was reminded of what it’s like when I catch and correct typos on a cellphone. Because I’m looking at the keys and not the screen, I don’t see typos until I’m well past them. Tedious.

The touchscreen is not as intuitive as I had imagined. In Pages, for instance, swiping a finger across a stretch of text seems not to highlight that stretch for copying or deleting. The iBooks application does allow for highlighting and bookmarking a passage with a swipe but does not allow for annotating (according to the Apple employee I asked).

Web pages display slowly. I wondered for a moment whether there was a wireless problem. The lack of speed and the absence of tabs — it’s one page at a time — might make the iPad well suited to limited, purposeful browsing — check e-mail, check news, check stats — but I can’t imagine using this device to go surfing down rabbit-holes.

Nor, as of now, can I imagine buying an iPad. Maybe later.

¹ What? You don’t correct typos when texting?

Roger Lathbury and Hapworth 16, 1924

Around this time, I unwittingly made the first move that would unravel the whole deal. I applied for Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data.

Roger Lathbury tells the sorrowful story of not publishing J.D. Salinger’s Hapworth 16, 1924:

Betraying Salinger (New York)

John Gruber on typing and the iPad

John Gruber has written a lengthy and overwhelmingly favorable review of the iPad. His observations about typing though make me think not for me:

You absolutely do not need a hardware keyboard for it. But if you’re hoping to do any amount of serious writing with it (and, for obvious vocational reasons, I plan to), you’re going to want one.

Then why not just use a MacBook?

Five sentences about clothes

Another Google search: write five sentences about clothes you like to wear. Okay:

I really like my Levi’s 550 jeans.

I really like my Levi’s 550 jeans.

I really like my Levi’s 550 jeans.

I really like my Levi’s 550 jeans.

I really like my Levi’s 550 jeans.

I really like my Carhartt B18 jeans.

I really like my Carhartt B18 jeans.

I really like my Carhartt B18 jeans.

Update, November 2, 2010: That’s one sentence for each pair of Levi’s I own, and one new sentence for a new pair of Carhartt jeans. Recent production Levi’s, I’m discovering, are alarmingly prone to fray at the back-pocket corners.

Update, November 18, 2010: Two more pairs of Carhartts.

Doers of homework: instead of searching for five sentences, just write five sentences, about clothes you like to wear.

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