Words from M. Lazhar

One of the best moments in the film Monsieur Lazhar (dir. Philippe Falardeau, 2011) is M. Lazhar’s statement about the classroom:

“A classroom is a home for . . . It’s a place of friendship, of work, and courtesy. Yes, courtesy. A place full of life. Where you devote your life. A place where you give of your life.”

Now that I have the DVD, I can share the exact words, transcribed from the subtitles. The ellipsis is in the original.

I loved this film and wrote about it in this post.

[A secret message to my fambly: Go fambly!]

Another streetside machine

[Henry, September 4, 2012.]

I think that GUM is more plausible than CANDY, but it’s not my comic strip. I’ve seen two other such machines since falling into the Henry vortex.

Are 2012 installments of Henry many decades old? Are they modeled on old strips? Do the makers remember these machines? And back-date magazine stores? And Shoe Repair While U Wait?

Harry and Bud’s European Cuisine

I have a suggestion for which someone, I hope, will thank me: if you live within driving distance of the Queen City of the Wabash, aka Terre Haute, Indiana, make a reservation and visit Harry and Bud’s European Cuisine. Elaine and I visited two days ago and had a great meal and, better yet, a great adventure in hospitality.

Harry and Bud’s is a one-man operation: Jeffrey Marks is owner, chef, and server. The restaurant is located in a little unmarked building distinguished by two large glass-brick windows. From the outside the place looks dark and closed, but the windows fill the interior with natural light. (Surprise.) On the inside walls, a Denoyer-Geppert schoolroom map and a much older and larger map of Europe. The tables are the kitchen tables of my childhood: Formica tops and aluminum trim. I hadn’t sat at one in years.

There is no menu at Harry and Bud’s. Jeff knew from our telephone conversation that Elaine wanted something vegan. “Do you like lamb?” he asked me. Yes. We chose our water, sparkling and still, set up the house chessboard, and had time for one game before Jeff brought us onion soup, polenta, squash, tomatoes, greens, and, for me, a hefty serving of a chicken-and-eggplant hash. (I think it could be called a hash.) Along with these dishes, a loaf of great French bread. That was to start. What followed: kale and lentil salads, cabbage-leaf crepes (stuffed with corn, mushrooms, onions, and sun-dried tomatoes, and covered in a garlic-and-tomato sauce), asparagus, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, gnocchi, mushroom caps, and, for non-vegan me, a cheddar and Gorgonzola torta, a wedge of Gouda, and the largest lamb chops I have ever seen, three of them, beautifully rare, seasoned in a Provençal manner (with, among many other flavors, the great and impossible-to-place flavor of lavender). For dessert, custard with a ganache and blackberries for me, blackberries and dark chocolate for Elaine.

I am no foodie: I feel awkward even recounting what we ate. I do so only to suggest what Harry and Bud’s offers in abundance and variety. The dishes we had were rustic, satisfying, and perfectly prepared. We are making three meals from our leftovers (which came with extra bread).

If you go to Harry and Bud’s, prepare for an intimate restaurant experience. (We were the only guests in the time we were there.) And trust that whatever comes from the kitchen will be great. Your trust will be rewarded. Study the website. Read Elaine’s account (with photographs of leftovers). Read the Yelp reviews if you want third and fourth and fifth opinions. Call. And go.

Other Terre Haute posts
The Clabber Girl Museum
John Gardner’s photographs
Saratoga Bar and Cafe

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)