Labor Day

[“Tightening a nut on a guide vane operating ser[v]omotor in TVA’s hydroelectric plant, Watts Bar Dam, Tennessee. Located 530 miles above the mouth of the Tennessee River, the dam has an authorized power installation of 90,000 kw., which can be increased to a possible ultimate of 150,000 kw. The reservoir at the dam adds 370,000 acre-feet of water to controlled storage on the Tennessee River system.” Photograph by Alfred T. Palmer. June 1942.]

The Library of Congress has made this photograph available via Flickr.

Related reading
Labor Day 2010 (another Library of Congress photograph)
Servomechanism (Wikipedia)
Tennessee Valley Authority (Wikipedia)

New York in fifty objects

From the New York Times, a history of New York in fifty objects. No I♥NY logo, no subway token, but many welcome choices, including the Anthora and the Automat.

September 25, 2012: The Times has added fifteen more, including the subway token.

Beloit Mindset List, 2034 edition

Clint Eastwood has always been a vulgar old man.

[Context here, here, here, and here.]

Bam!

“It’s all learning-is-fun and invented spelling, and then — bam! — second grade.”

[Caption to a New Yorker cartoon by Barbara Smaller, on my desk calendar.]

A vowel shift in the wild

Out and about, I heard someone on a phone, spelling to make herself understood: “No, no, p-a-c-k r-a-t-s.” And then she spoke the words: “Pehk rehts! ” That’s one small instance of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift. The person on the other end of the conversation must have been in a different gear.

Thanks, Rosemary, for confirming that this pronunciation is a matter of the shift.

Related posts
The ’sation
William Labov

Twin rockers

“Daddy’s gonna play them a little song while they’re eating their peas”: eleven-month-old twins rock out. Just lovely, and so much more enjoyable than the Republican whatchamacallit.

Thanks, Rachel.

Cheating at Harvard

Shocking.

Related reading
Other cheating posts (via Pinboard)

Blackwings for sale

I thought that Western Civ had come to an end when the Vermont Country Store started selling vibrators.¹ But now the VCS is selling replica Blackwing pencils, only (or “only”) $3.90 each. This little bit of copywriting adds another layer to the Blackwing story:



That can only be Howlin’ Wolf, composer of “Smokestack Lightning” and the latest member of the Blackwing pantheon. Welcome!

¹ They do. Really.

Related reading
All Blackwing posts (via Pinboard)
Blackwing Pages (a website devoted to the Blackwing pencil)

Elderly Instruments documentary

Online for a limited time: All Things Strings: Inside Elderly Instruments, a documentary about what may be the greatest guitar (and banjo and mandolin and ukulele) store in the world. Elaine and Ben and I made a visit last year, and when we weren’t trying instruments (and bows), we admired the tone balls.

Letter box and lock

We were taking a walk before buying tickets to see Monsieur Lazhar. For some reason or no reason, we decided to look into a former department store that’s been turned into office space. The back entrance was unlocked on a Sunday afternoon: an invitation to adventure.

We followed the obtuse angles of a long hallway, which brought us to the front of the building. Along the way, we saw no sign of activity. But we did see this mail chute and letter box in the lobby.


[O dowdy world, that had such boxes in it.]

The box’s lock seems to have grown soft and luminous with age. I wonder how long it’s been working.

Related reading
Diane Schirf on mail chutes
Molly Dodd, Molly Dodd, Molly Dodd (with a mail chute)
Monsieur Lazhar