Marcel Proust exhibit

In Paris, an exhibit of 160 documents:

Proust, du temps perdu au temps retrouvé (Musée des lettres et manuscrits)

The website is a Flash nightmare. Don’t overlook the PDF.

Henry Darger exhibit

“These are the images to which Darger woke up each morning, returned to every evening after church and work, and retired to at night.”

The Private Collection of Henry Darger (American Folk Art Museum)

Inverabretes, a creative story

A Google search that brought someone to my post “Extra credit?”: extra credit inverabretes creative story. So:

Once upon a time, there were three inverabretes. They were careless spellers, every one. And when they did not do well on their spelling test, they asked their teacher for extra credit. “Plese, plese, plese,” they cried. Their teacher, who had a backbone, suggested that they study harder for the next test. And they did. And they did better.

“The Trustworthiness of Beards”

Mine: “Very Trustworthy.” View them all:

The Trustworthiness of Beards (via Andrew Sullivan)

A related post
Aqua Velva

In praise of shyness

“At the very least, if you’re shy, you’re never bored.”

James Parker, Let Us Now Praise Shyness (Boston Globe)

Rachel Maddow makes cocktails

“It’s the cartoon liquor-pouring noise!” Look and learn:

Rachel Maddow makes cocktails, talks about Angostura Bitters (MSNBC)

Our household seems to have survived the Angostura shortage in happy oblivion. We’ve been working on the same bottle for years, making Old Fashioneds.

Greenwich Village and coffee house

The dog walker is carrying a pencil, I think.



As Tom Lehrer put it, “We are the Folk Song Army,” &c.

Untitled illustrations by Ruby Davidson, from Harold H. Hart’s Hart’s Guide to New York City (New York: Hart Publishing, 1964). Captions mine.

Also from Harold Hart’s Guide
Chock full o’Nuts
Mayflower Coffee Shop(pe)
Minetta Tavern, Monkey Bar
Record stores
Schrafft’s

Mayflower Coffee Shop(pe)

I found a wonderful book at a library sale yesterday: Harold H. Hart’s Hart’s Guide to New York City (New York: Hart Publishing, 1964): “Over 2,200 personally investigated reports. Restaurants, Hotels, Nightclubs, Museums, Cocktail Lounges, Sports, Shopping, Transportation, Art Galleries, Tours, etc.”

With Hart in hand, I thought of lines from Frank O’Hara’s poem “Music” (Lunch Poems, 1964):

If I rest for a moment near The Equestrian
pausing for a liver sausage sandwich in the
    Mayflower Shoppe,
that angel seems to be leading the horse into
    Bergdorf’s

This bit of urban surrealism comes into focus (still surreal) when one knows a little of Manhattan. “The Equestrian” is Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s statue of William Tecumseh Sherman, found in Manhattan’s Grand Army Plaza (at 59th Street and Fifth Avenue). The “angel” is the allegorical gal leading Sherman on his way. Bergdorf Goodman is to be found — in the words of the company website — at “the crossroads of fashion,” Fifth Avenue and 58th Street. All that, I know. As for the Mayflower Shoppe:



Thank you, Mr. Hart.

The Mayflower stood at 777 Fifth Avenue. The Apple Store now stands at 767, next to an empty corner. More from Hart’s Guide to come.

More on the Mayflower
The Mayflower motto (“The Optimist’s Creed”)
A menu page (Alas, no food)

Also from Harold Hart’s Guide
Chock full o’Nuts
Greenwich Village and coffee house
Minetta Tavern, Monkey Bar
Record stores
Schrafft’s

Ray LaHood and bicycles

Good news:

[Transportation Secretary Ray] LaHood says the government is going to give bicycling — and walking, too — the same importance as automobiles in transportation planning and the selection of projects for federal money. The former Republican congressman quietly announced the “sea change” in transportation policy last month. . . .

The new policy is an extension of the Obama administration’s livability initiative, which regards the creation of alternatives to driving — buses, streetcars, trolleys and trains, as well as biking and walking — as central to solving the nation’s transportation woes.

Imagine: policies that emphasize alternatives to the car. Good on the Obama administration and Ray LaHood. But I can hear it already: the government wants to take away your vehicles. Communism! Socialism! Bicycles!

News grammar

“Frequent with random shuffling or elimination conjunctions and prepositions of”: Rules Grammar Change.

*

Are different is grammar.

Gertrude Stein, How to Write (1931)