The Hatoyama shirt

As Cory Doctorow would say: just look at this awesome plaid shirt. Just look at it. It’s the Hatoyama shirt, honoring the Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.

And if you’re wondering whether plaid really is warmer than other fabrics: yes, it is.

Beginning with A

Dictionaries make slow progress. Planning for the Oxford English Dictionary began in 1857; the last volume appeared in 1928. Slower still:

The Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute began work on a Sanskrit-to-English dictionary in 1948. The Royal Irish Academy began work on a historical dictionary of the Irish language, Foclóir na Nua-Ghaeilge [Dictionary of Modern Irish], in 1976. Neither project has made it through A (or in Sanskrit, अ).

Read more:

60 years later, Sanskrit dictionary stuck (Indian Express)
34 years compiling an Irish dictionary (The Irish Times)

Contract riders

The Smoking Gun has collected contract riders for 258 musical performers past and present. The fascinating bits of course are the stipulations for dressing rooms and food and drink. Beyoncé: “Rose Scented candles.” Paul McCartney: “Please provide some weeping eucalyptus.” Luciano Pavarotti: “big salt box for cooking.” Snoop Dogg: “A Sony Playstation is very important.”

My favorite (so far) is Frank Sinatra’s rider, which includes Campbell’s Chicken and Rice Soup, Tootsie Rolls, and vodka: “Absolute [sic] or Stoli.”

Common threads? Nobody likes Styrofoam. Everybody likes ice.

Brava, Ms. Schechtman

The New York Times has a wonderful crossword today on the subject of GRADEINFLATION (aka “56-Across”). The constructor, Anna Shechtman, is a sophomore at Swarthmore College, majoring in English and minoring in art history and interpretation theory. From an interview at the Times’ Crossword Blog:

Constructors, especially young constructors, are mostly male. Any thoughts on why?

Considering my school and my minor, I suppose I should say something about the phallocentrism of language and the Symbolic Order. Either way, it’s a shame and a trend that I am proud to challenge.

The themed answers in this puzzle change Bs to As. For instance, 29-Across, “Monk’s karate blows?”: LAMACHOPS. Smart, funny stuff.

[No spoilers here. Highlight the empty spaces to read. If you do the Times puzzle in syndication, you’ll need to wait until July 7 for this one.]

A related post
Grade inflation in the NYT crossword

Lorem ipsum Idol

My daughter Rachel says, “I took this picture of our TV during the American Idol penultimate episode tonight (a commercial for their website). I paused the TV on the frame so I could snap a photo. You are welcome to blog it, if it is content you’d like!”

Thanks, Rachel!

Related reading
Lorem Ipsum

Duck-rabbit

In Philosophical Investigations (1953), Ludwig Wittgenstein takes up the figure of the duck-rabbit to discuss questions of perception and “seeing as.”

Sitting at my kitchen table yesterday afternoon, I saw this chip-clip as a duck-rabbit.

City for Conquest (and sardines)

[Peggy Nash (Ann Sheridan) and Danny Kelly (James Cagney). Peggy: “Boy, was it crowded tonight on the subway. Talk about sardines. They got it easy. At least they’re floatin’ in olive oil.”]

Watching City for Conquest (dir. Anatole Litvak, 1940), I wondered how its contents were ever packed into a 104-minute can. This movie has everything: a scene of the principals’ childhoods in old New York (à la Angels with Dirty Faces), boxing, ballroom dancing, composing, brotherly love, jitterbugs, a swank party, a gangland murder, a symphony at Carnegie Hall, an “Old Timer” (a shabby Everyman-observer), and sardines. And four montages — of New York, Coney Island, dancing, and boxing. Danny Kelly (aka Young Samson) is a reluctant fighter, a former Golden Gloves champ who returns to the ring to help pay his composer-brother Eddie’s tuition. Peggy Nash is a dancer whose rise to success with partner Murray Burns (Anthony Quinn) pulls her away from the city and Danny. Yes, that Anthony Quinn, who turns out to have been a good dancer. (Sheridan’s a good dancer too. That Cagney barely dances in the film must have amused moviegoers.) Another unexpected element: Elia Kazan as crime boss “Googi,” who at the swank party introduces Eddie as “a composer of real class.” Yes, that Elia Kazan.

“Menu”

A downstate-Illinois buffet menu. “Cat Fish”: tuna?

Cambridge Classics misspelling

The Telegraph reports that the Cambridge University Classics Department “is facing embarrassment after misspelling a quote from Aristotle on the doors of a new £1.3 million extension”:

Academics chose the line “all men by nature desiring to know” but spelt the word “phusei,” “by nature,” with an English S rather than the Greek letter sigma. . . .

Professor of Classics Mary Beard, 55, a member of the department, expressed her dissatisfaction in a blog posting about the 5,500sq ft extension which was completed in March.

“Even the gods have shown their disapproval in their own inimitable way,” she wrote.

A related post
“Collage” (Another Cambridge misspelling)

Gummies for grown-ups

Infantilization alert: One A Day VitaCraves Complete Adult Multivitamin Gummies. “Available in both fruit and sour fruit flavors!”

I’m reminded of the V8 commercial targeting people who “don’t always like the taste of vegetables.” Grown-ups, eat your spinach!