“Inside Amazon’s warehouse”

Life in an Amazon warehouse:

Over the past two months, The Morning Call interviewed 20 current and former warehouse workers who showed pay stubs, tax forms or other proof of employment. They offered a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what it’s like to work in the Amazon warehouse, where temperatures soar on hot summer days, production rates are difficult to achieve and the permanent jobs sought by many temporary workers hired by an outside agency are tough to get.

Only one of the employees interviewed described it as a good place to work.

Says an employee quoted in the article, “They just push, push, push.”

Where to go instead? Powell’s is the largest union bookstore in the United States.

Inside Amazon’s warehouse (The Morning Call)

(Thanks, Adair.)

Elsie’s Cook Book

[Elsie the Cow with Harry Botsford, Elsie’s Cook Book: Tested Recipes of Every Variety (New York: Bond Wheelwright, 1952). Click for a larger view.]

A library book-sale find. The illustration of Elsie and Elmer is by Keith Ward. Today’s Inspiration has a post with more of his work. Elsie’s helper Harry Botsford wrote cookbooks of his own. I hope that he’s responsible for this book’s chapter on “Meats.”

Related reading
Elsie the Cow (Wikipedia article)

NYC faux pas

Good reading: What are some cultural faux pas in New York? (Quora, via kottke.org). I especially like this warning: “Never ever ever EVER refer to the city as ‘the Big Apple.’”

For an autograph album

Things to write in an autograph album:

Birds on the mountain,
Fish in the sea.
How you ever graduated
Is a mystery to me.

*

FUNEX
VFX
FUNEM
VFM
OKMNX

*

I love you, I love you,
I love you so well,
If I had a peanut
I’d give you the shell.

*

If I were a head of lettuce
I’d cut myself in two.
I’d give the leaves to all my friends
And save the heart for you.

*

Mary had a little lamb.
Her father shot it dead.
Now Mary carries that lamb to school
Between two hunks of bread.

*

Never B♯
Never B♭
Always B♮

*

Roses are red,
Pickles are green.
My face is a holler
But yours is a scream.

*
                                                               
                                                               
Some blank verse from a blank mind.

*

When sitting on a sofa
With your boyfriend by your side,
Beware of false kisses,
His mustache may be dyed.

*

Yours till soda pops.

From Yours Till Niagra Falls, compiled by Lillian Morrison (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1950). A library book-sale find.

Overheard

From a ’sation, overheard while shopping:

“A hairdresser is high and mighty? [Then slowly, underlining every word.] A hairdresser or a barber is high and mighty?” [Laughs hysterically.]

The gist of it: Don’t let him treat you like that.

Related reading
All “overheard” posts (via Pinboard)

Netflix messes up

I was surprised to see an e-mail from Reed Hastings (“Co-Founder and CEO of Netflix”) in one of my inboxes today. For a split-second I thought that Mr. Hastings was about to apologize for calling DVDs-by-mail “Old Fogey discs.” But no. His e-mail announces that Netflix’s DVDs-by-mail service is now known as Qwikster. And he isn’t apologizing for that either.

I suspect that our household will eventually shift to streaming. But we like making lists of films to watch, and we like getting DVDs. (As Elaine points out, they add interest to the mail.) And not everything at Netflix is available on-demand. For now, we are sticking with Qwikster. [Insert grimace here.]

Hi and Escher

[Hi and Lois, September 19, 2011.]

Follow that wall! Yes, it appears to be one long wall that includes both the front door and the side of the house.

Today’s Hi and Lois isn’t the first to feature an Escher-like construction: a 2008 hot-dog cart is similarly confounding.

Bye-bye. (Grown-ups use hyphens.)

Related reading
All Hi and Lois posts (via Pinboard)

Pocket notebook sighting

[A star is born. Click for a larger view.]

The notebook above belongs to the Schemer (Wallace Ford), a member of a counterfeiting ring in T-Men (dir. Anthony Mann, 1947). The Schemer keeps his accounts in what might be called pseudo-Greek. That’ll fool ’em, eh? Well, some of ’em. The accounts above are for the Hotsy-Totsy, the Casa de las Nacions [sic], Ditero Polso, the Club Trindad, and Palasi. You can’t fool a junior T-Man.

The Schemer’s trick is enough though to befuddle Chief Carson: “Looks like Greek. I’ll send this to Washington right away,” says he. Much more efficient than looking at the inside back-cover of the dictionary for the Greek alphabet, just in case the Schemer is using a simple cipher, right? Even then, Chief Carson might’ve been befuddled, for the β [beta] of Κλόβ has been turned into an ω [omega].

In addition to this notebook, T-Men offers Reed Hadley’s documentary-style voiceover, John Alton’s stylish cinematography, and a brief appearance by June Lockhart (of later Lassie fame). I never tire of documentary-style crime films.

More notebook sightings
Angels with Dirty Faces : Cat People : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Extras : Journal d’un curé de campagne : The House on 92nd Street : The Lodger : The Mystery of the Wax Museum : The Palm Beach Story : Pickpocket : Pickup on South Street : Quai des Orfèvres : Red-Headed Woman : Rififi : The Sopranos : Spellbound : Union Station

Banned Books Week

It’s Banned Books Week:

Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read (America Library Association)

The ALA’s list of the ten most challenged titles in 2010 includes Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America (“drugs, inaccurate, offensive language, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint”), Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (“insensitivity, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit”), and Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson’s And Tango Makes Three (“homosexuality, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group”).

Learning, failure, and character

A somewhat misleadingly titled article on efforts to inculcate elements of good character in private- and charter-school students: What if the Secret to Success Is Failure? (New York Times). Those elements include what psychology professor Angela Duckworth calls “grit,” perseverance despite adversity. You can test your grit via her Grit Scale.

When I think of grit and its opposite, I think of students’ reactions to low grades on their first essays in freshman comp. Some students realize that they need to work much harder on their writing, and do so. Others simply drop the course.

A few related posts
Andrew Sullivan on self-esteem
Good advice from Rob Zseleczky
The inverse power of praise
John Holt on learning and difficulty

[Elaine and I each scored 4.4 of 5 on the Grit Scale. Scoring the test, as she points out, requires a bit of grit.]