Hi and Lois watch

[Hi and Lois, May 15, 2012.]

They’re learning — once again — how to write in a window.

Related reading
All Hi and Lois posts (via Pinboard)

Kurt Vonnegut on English studies

Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage (New York: Delacorte, 1981).

Ouch.

An Old-Fashioned retronym?

Elaine and I wondered the other night: is the name Old-Fashioned a retronym, created after other cocktails came along?

No. The Oxford English Dictionary explains: “The old-fashioned cocktail is said to have been invented in the late 19th cent. at the Pendennis Club in Louisville, Kentucky. It was probably so named because of its similarity to early whisky cocktails.”

I make an Old-Fashioned (just one, thanks) with Early Times, Angostura bitters, sugar, water, and ice. No lemon or orange peel, no cherry. If I want fruit cocktail, I open a can.

[I’m trying to remember who made the quip about fruit just taking up space that could be better used for whiskey. I think it was Rachel Maddow, though she adds a sliver of lemon peel.]

College Debt

A New York Times feature on the rising cost of college: Degrees of Debt.

[My two cents: the present state of things cannot be sustained. I can easily — and uneasily — anticipate a future in which the four-year residential college becomes once again an opportunity for a relatively small number of students, while many others receive a diminished education, earning vocationally-themed degrees or certificates in more affordable ways.]

Happy Mother's Day

[Photograph by James Leddy. Click for a larger, more sentimental view.]

My mom Louise, me, and some dumb bunny, photographed by my dad at my grandparents’ house in Brooklyn, New York, probably in 1958. This photograph captures a fairly formal version of the city activity known as sitting on the stoop.

One thing I never had to worry about in childhood: perishing from exposure to the elements. Freedom from such worry was, I believe, common among children of the time and place. Our parents were watching out for us. “Warmly dressed” doesn’t begin to capture it.

Happy Mother’s Day to all.

Bicycle safety, 1954

[“Children participating in a bicycle safety program run by the police.” Photograph by Yale Joel. New York, New York, June 1954. From the Life Photo Archive. Click for a larger view.]

Shoe repairmen in the news

Shoe repairmen are the new typewriter repairmen: in other words, shoe repairmen too have become the subjects of human-interest stories tinged with vague nostalgia. Here is an example. And another. And one — no, two — make that three more.

I can remember as a boy sitting in a stall-like structure with a swinging door, waiting while new heels were put on my shoes. Was that common?

At last

“At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

It’s a sentence full of uneasiness — lots of padding (“At a certain point,” “I’ve just concluded,” “it is important,” “to go ahead and affirm”) and unnecessary qualifications (“for me personally,” “for me”). But look at the last ten words: “I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” I am happy to see President Obama on the right side of history, at last.

Three great strip-mall restaurants

One of Tyler Cowen’s six rules for dining out: “Get out of the city and into the strip mall.” In that spirit, I want to recommend three strip-mall restaurants that offer great food for vegans, vegetarians, and ominvores alike. If ever you’re in the appropriate strip mall:

Cedars Mediterranean Kitchen, 1206 E. 53rd Street, Chicago. I can recommend the hummus, stuffed grape leaves, red-lentil soup, eggplant stew, and seafood kebab.

Golden Harbor Chinese Restaurant, 505 S. Neil Street, Champaign, Illinois. Two menus: one American and one Chinese, the latter also available in English translation. The Chinese-menu dishes are drier and tend to showcase one ingredient. The Chinese-menu shrimp with garlic, for instance, has bamboo, water chestnuts, and red pepper but no broccoli, carrots, pea pods, or brown sauce. One revelation: the Chinese-menu hot and sour soup, which is lighter and hotter than the American version, and teeming with egg, pork, scallions, and tofu. It might be a meal in itself. The Chinese-menu dishes and round tables with Lazy Susans make the Golden Harbor ideal for large groups.

Istanbul Café, 1450 W. 86th Street, Indianapolis. I can recommend the appetizer sampler (babaganoush, dolma, fried eggplant in tomato sauce, ezme, hummus, tabouli), stuffed cabbage rolls, shish kebab, and Turkish coffee. The Turkish coffee is especially nice if you have a long drive home from Indianapolis.

If you know a great strip-mall restaurant, please, share it in the comments.

[I played Tyler Cowen at a chess tournament in Passaic, New Jersey, almost forty years ago. He should have won, but I managed to eke out a draw. You’ll have to take my word for it.]

A Blogger reprieve

Yesterday the Blogger dashboard still warned of a “new look” arriving in April. Today the announcement has changed:

An optimistic reading of this new message: Google knows that the new interface has many problems and is working to fix them. Yet the company still encourages users to Upgrade Now.

No Thanks. A half-baked cake is no upgrade over a fully baked cake. I will be sticking with fully baked until the new cake is done.

Related posts
Blogger, a mess
Blogger interface on the iPad
The new Blogger interface, unliked

[My choice for the biggest problem with the new Blogger interface: it is impossible to edit existing posts with an iPad. A blank screen is all that results.]