How to fix a Mighty Mouse trackball

For anyone still using Apple’s Mighty Mouse:

When your trackball no longer scrolls, dab it lightly with a disposable lens-cloth. Then turn the mouse upside-down and roll the trackball on a clean index card. Roll in every direction. Be vigorous. Be very vigorous.

I have tried other fixes for the trackball problem without success. The lens-cloth fix — which I just made up and tried out — works. It really works. I was mildly astonished by the amount of gunk set free.

Details: I used a Zeiss “pre-moistened” lens-cloth. It’s available from Amazon and other sources.

For use in “seemingly intolerable situations”

David Rakoff, from an essay on working as an assistant in publishing:

Sheila taught me a survival technique for getting through seemingly intolerable situations — boring lunches, stern lectures on attitude or time management, those necessary breakup conversations, and the like: maintaining eye contact, keep your face inscrutable and masklike, with the faintest hint at a Gioconda smile. Keep this up as long as you possibly can, and just as you feel you are about to crack and take a letter opener and plunge it into someone’s neck, fold your hands in your lap, one nestled inside the other, like those of a supplicant in a priory. Now, with the index finger of your inner hand, write on the palm of the other, very discreetly and undetectably, “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you . . .” over and over again as you pretend to listen. You will find that this brings a spontaneous look of interest and pleased engagement to your countenance. Continue and repeat as necessary.

“Lush Life,” in Fraud (New York: Doubleday, 2001).

I believe that hatred is a waste of emotional energy, but I think that this technique is more about endurance than hatred. And I’m sure it will prove useful to someone.

David Rakoff was a funny guy.

Related listening and viewing
David Rakoff on This American Life

Domestic comedy

“I haven’t been living under ‘some rocks.’”

Related reading
All domestic comedy posts

[Used with permission. Context here.]

New directions in nuisance calls

I am happy still to have a telephone — a landline. Without it, how would UNKNOWN CALLER get in touch?

We’ve had two calls in the last two days from UNKNOWN CALLER purporting to represent a “research and development firm” in Pennsylvania. The first came in the form of a message, asking to speak to Elaine about a proposal she supposedly submitted. The second call came today. I recognized the number and couldn’t resist picking up. I asked the guy what the proposal was about. “That’s what we want to find out!” said he. Research and development indeed.

“The Writing Revolution”

In the October 2012 Atlantic, Peg Tyre reports on an effort to reimagine the teaching of writing at one Staten Island high school: The Writing Revolution. One brief sample:

“We spent a lot of time wondering how our students had been taught,” said English teacher Stevie D‘Arbanville. “How could they get passed along and end up in high school without understanding how to use the word although?”

This article should be required reading for anyone who cares about public education.

[Students also end up in college without understanding how to use although, which is a subordinating conjunction, not a conjunctive adverb.]

Recently updated

New York in fifty objects And now fifteen more, including the subway token.

“Bushmiller Country”

[Zippy, September 24, 2012.]

The fact of a doorframe. The fact of a flight of stairs. The shading. And those paintings, one of which is a painting of three rocks (i.e., “some rocks”). It’s Bushmiller Country. You can see the strip at the Zippy website.

Other Nancy and Zippy intersections
Hommage à Ernie Bushmiller
Nancy + Sluggo = Perfection

Van Dyke Parks in Chicago

Van Dyke Parks at the Riverfront Theater
September 22, 2012

Van Dyke Parks, piano and vocal : Janelle Lake, harp : Donna Miller, cello : Jason Roebke, bass : Don Heffington, drums

“I don’t need Clint Eastwood sitting here for what I’ve got to say tonight!”

Van Dyke Parks, from the stage

Elaine and I had the wonderful opportunity to hear Van Dyke Parks in Chicago this weekend. The setting was Brilliant Corners of Popular Amusements, a three-day arts event at the Riverfront Theater, a modified circus tent. Parks was opening for Conor Oberst. Yes, the audience was young. Elaine and I seemed to be the oldest members, doing our bit to make the occasion a genuine all-ages show. I’m not sure that many of the attendees were familiar with Van Dyke’s music. And I doubt that more than a handful might have known that “Brilliant Corners” is the title of a Thelonious Monk tune. But the audience was respectful and often enthusiastic.

And with good reason. Van Dyke and company were inspired. They tore the roof off the sucker, with grace and precision and heart. The set (all Parks compositions except as noted):

Jump! : Opportunity for Two : Come Along : Orange Crate Art : Wings of a Dove : Delta Queen Waltz (John Hartford) : FDR in Trinidad (Fitz MacLean) : Danza (Louis Moreau Gottschalk) : Cowboy : The All Golden : Sail Away

Van Dyke’s between-song commentary touched on everything from Lawrence Welk to Pussy Riot to rivers (the Chicago, the Cumberland, the Mississippi) to the five-day work week. My favorite line: “As Lawrence Welk once said, ‘I want a close-up of the whole band.’”

Even when Van Dyke is on our turf, it seems that Elaine and I end up being the recipients of his hospitality. Thank you, Van Dyke. Someday we will make it go, like the Chicago River, the other way around.

Related reading
All Van Dyke Parks posts (Pinboard)

Autumn Rhythm

[“James Rorimer, head of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, closely examines a painting by Jackson Pollock entitled Autumn Rhythm.” Photograph by Walter Sanders. 1959. From the Life Photo Archive. Click for a larger view.]

The best of seasons. Hello fall.

A related post
Odes to autumn

Telegram (Easy Living)

A telegram, as seen in Easy Living (dir. Mitchell Leisen, 1937). You either find this sort of thing inspired and funny or you don’t. I do. Easy Living has a great Automat scene with Jean Arthur and Ray Milland. The screenplay is by Preston Sturges.

Thanks to Paul Harrington for recommending this film.

Related posts
Automat beverage section
How to send telegrams
“Lunch Hour NYC”
New York, 1964: Automat
One more Automat

[725 West 112th Street? Somewhere in the Hudson River.]