Hi and Lois watch

[Hi and Lois, January 19, 2013.]

Sigh. Today’s Hi and Lois just doesn’t make good sense. In the first panel, we see Hi and his dissolute neighbor Thirsty Thurston talking. Says Hi, “The election is over. Aren’t you going to take the bumper sticker off your car?” “No,” says Thirsty. And behold the punchline, such as it is. But Hi lives next to Thirsty. He has seen Thirsty’s car. He knows that it bears a Romney sticker. Hi must also know that the car bears stickers from forty years of presidential elections. Why then would he wonder about the newest one? And why doesn’t it occur to him to wonder why his neighbor is driving a forty-year-old car?

Thirsty’s chronic intoxication might explain his crazily veering political allegiances. Two states still restrict alcohol sales on Election Day, but there appear to be no restrictions on voting while drunk.

Related reading
All Hi and Lois posts (Pinboard)

Robert Frost mug

[Only $15.95. Good grief.]

Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” has the distinction of being celebrated by large numbers of people who have no idea what it’s saying. Why does an elementary school have its students sign and sing the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” at a spring concert? Cluelessness. Why do people want Frost’s poem on a mug or poster or plaque? See answer to previous question.

Reading “The Road Not Taken” with even modest attention reveals the poem to be more complicated and compelling than any platitude about going one’s own way and never looking back:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Beginning with its title, the poem is about nothing but looking back: its speaker even begins to rehearse his story once again in the final stanza before breaking off to offer the evidence-defying declaration that he “took the one less traveled by.” Look back at what he’s told us: the two roads looked equally appealing; one looked grassier than the other; they looked equally worn; that morning they were both covered in leaves than no one had walked on. Where there is no difference, there is no basis for a meaningful choice. And the difference a choice makes cannot be gauged when one has no idea of where an alternative may have led. If “way leads on to way,” the two roads might even meet again in the future: and who would know?

What the poem shows us is a traveler who would have preferred not to have to choose, who retells his story (like the Ancient Mariner), who travels to an unknown end (“somewhere ages and ages hence”), and who is determined to impose meaning on one moment of experience. If the speaker will be retelling his story with a “sigh,” it’s far from clear that the difference he claims for his choice — if there was a choice, if there is a difference — is for the better. But in Frost’s universe, any meaning is better than none. Or as another Frost poem puts it:

Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all. Provide, provide!

And speaking of things boughten, you can also buy the poem’s first stanza as a poster ending with a semicolon. Good grief.

[Elaine and I heard “Y.M.C.A.” sung by elementary-school kids some years ago. Not wanting to embarrass anyone, we kept our mouths shut.]

Shine on, nvALT and Simplenote

I read what Brett Terpstra wrote:

The combination of Simplenote and nvALT has become deadly and my interest in continuing to support it is waning.

Please use Dropbox sync.

And then I read what Michael Schecter wrote:

Now that Brett Terpstra, one of the developers of nvALT, has made it clear that there are issues between Simplenote and nvALT that are unlikely to get resolved (in addition to the issues I was having with the Simplenote iOS app), I wanted to give those who need it a walkthrough for making the move from Simplenote Sync to Dropbox Sync.

Yipes, and yipes again. But then I read what Shawn Blanc wrote:

In the end, I’ve come back full circle and am sticking with Simplenote and nvALT. Though the syncing can hiccup at times, I still consider it to be the best. And, of course, now that I know more about the cause behind the syncing hiccups I no longer fear losing my data.

That sounds like sufficient reason to save myself some tedium and time. I’m sticking with nvALT and Simplenote for now.

[nvALT (OS X) and Simplenote (iOS and online) are free apps for note-taking and (better still) note-keeping. Using them together lets you sync your notes across several machines. Dropbox (iOS, OS X, Windows, and others) gives you access to your files from any computer. I recommend all three with enthusiasm. If you’d like to try Dropbox, use this referral code: it means 500 MB extra storage for each of us.]

Good advice for married people

Jane Brody writes about marriage and happiness: That Loving Feeling Takes a Lot of Work. It’s true.

[Work: not drudgery but giving.]

Aaron Draplin’s memo books

“Some guy actually lived out of this thing”: Aaron Draplin talks about old memo books.

Cigarette card of no mystery

  

The mystery dispelled:

HOW TO TIGHTEN A FOUNTAIN PEN CAP.

The annoyance of a loose cap to your fountain pen can very easily be remedied. Hold it over a flame for a few seconds, thus softening the vulcanite, and then squeeze the cap to a slightly oval shape as shown in a somewhat exaggerated form in Section 2. The cap will now fit the pen and remain in position.

Vulcanite: “hard black vulcanized rubber.” Vulcanize: “harden (rubber or rubberlike material) by treating it with sulfur at a high temperature.” I found this cigarette card (c. 1908–1919) while browsing in the New York Public Library Digital Gallery.

A related post
Invisible-ink cigarette card

[Definitions from the New Oxford American Dictionary.]

“Calamari”

Elaine and I listened last night to This American Life’s inquiry into the possible existence of imitation calamari. I’d like to say that I might never eat calamari again, but I’m not sure about the again.

Cigarette card of mystery

I came across this card by chance. The image baffled me; I don’t think I’d have figured it out without the explanation on the back. How about you? Click for a larger view if you think it might help. Leave a guess as a comment if you’d like. All shall be revealed tomorrow morning.

A related post
Invisible-ink cigarette card

Separated at birth?

Mississippi John Hurt and Ray Collins (Boss Jim Gettys in Citizen Kane, Lieutenant Arthur Tragg in Perry Mason).

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Nicholson Baker and Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Ted Berrigan and C. Everett Koop
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Elaine Hansen (of Davey and Goliath) and Blanche Lincoln
Ton Koopman and Oliver Sacks

John Hurt and Skip James, 1964

Here’s a rare thing: a 1964 radio broadcast with Mississippi John Hurt and Skip James. The radio station, WTBS (now WMBR), belonged to MIT. The show’s host, Phil Spiro, was one of the record collectors who located Son House in Rochester. Hurt’s grandnephew Fred Bolden describes the events surrounding the broadcast in this discussion thread on his John Hurt website.

The contrasts in personality between Hurt and James come through loud and clear in the interview segments of this broadcast: the one affable and at ease, the other prickly and defensive (“I don’t play copycat after nobody. I just plays my own Skip”). Musically the two men are far apart as well: the one bright and buoyant, the other sounding like a ghost. No disrespect to James: that’s the best simile I can muster to suggest the ethereal, mournful quality of his music.

The most surprising moments in this broadcast are Hurt’s two duets with Alan Wilson (later of Canned Heat), who plays harmonica. As in his later recordings with John Lee Hooker, Wilson energizes and inspires a much older musician. These are two of the most exciting Hurt performances I’ve heard. James, as you might imagine, works alone.

The program: “Louis Collins,” “Cow Hookin’ Blues,” “Trouble, I’ve Had It All My Days,” “Cherry Ball Blues,” “Illinois Blues,” “I’m So Glad.” And a bonus: three minutes of conversation from an interview with Muddy Waters, tacked on at the end.

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Hooker ’n Heat
Mississippi John Hurt
MJH, Discovery
MJH for Chevy
MJH: Sing Out!
Alan Wilson

[Imagine a world in which one could turn on the radio and hear Hurt and James playing live.]