“Make My Jotter Quit!”

If I didn’t already have several Jotters around, this advertisement would inspire me to buy one, no joke. Charles Newman was right, and remains right: a Jotter refill lasts a long time. How long? As yet I do not know: my black and blue Jotters still have their original cartridges. But given this circumstance, this as-yet-unknowing, it is appropriate to ask: are these “original” cartridges themselves refills? And if so, of what? Which is to ask: what is the nature of the now-lost plenitude that they attempt to re-fill? And the Jotter in my hand: was it itself a pen as such before it came to possess a point? These questions take us to the boundary, beyond which we cannot proceed. Yet if we remain on this side of that line, it is nonetheless permissible to ask: how does one tell the difference between the so-called refill and the cartridge whose place the refill takes, the “original” cartridge, the pen’s “point,” as it were, imperial, serene, solitary, or so it would seem, yet always to be displaced by a New-man, an identical impostor, one in a series of impostors, each claiming the work of inscription as its own? We “miss the point,” we say, but the point at the same time misses us, eluding our grasp, leaving us to scrape and scratch like an inferior writing instrument — some not-Jotter — against metaphysics’ corrasable bond. [Translated from the imaginary French.]

Other T-Ball Jotter posts
Five pens
Last-minute shopping (A 1964 ad)
Parker T-Ball Jotter (A 1963 ad)

Related reading
Eaton’s Corrasable Bond

[Advertisement from Life, August 27, 1971.]

Primates and screwdrivers

From Christine Kenneally’s The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language (New York: Viking, 2007):

There is a saying among primate keepers . . . that if you give a screwdriver to a chimp, it will throw it at someone. If you give a screwdriver to a gorilla, it will scratch itself. But if you give a screwdriver to an orangutan, it will let itself out of its cage.

The First Word is a disappointing book: oddly organized, with much textbookese and many cumbersome sentences. (How many times can you begin with For example before catching yourself and breaking the habit?) I had to correct an error in the text (“give a give a screwdriver”) to share this passage, which is well worth sharing.

A related post
Note to self re: bookbuying (I need to follow my advice)

Another Route 66 mystery guest

Television viewers of a certain age have most likely seen this actor many times. In his Route 66 guest turn, he plays a West Coast trumpeter who bears a strong resemblance to Chet Baker. This trumpeter plays (as did Baker) in a pianoless quartet. In low light he even looks something like Baker in his later years, especially in the first of these images. Do you recognize the actor?

The episode in which this actor appears is full of music and talk about music. Dig the dialogue between Buz (George Maharis) and Not Buz (Martin Milner) as the two discuss a nightclub singer. Not Buz (aka Tod) has foolishly averred that the singer is his type. Buz, self-proclaimed “music buff,” begs to differ, and he explains how he plans to approach the woman:

“With a chick like this, you gotta play it glissando.”

Tod, ever the square, asks, “Translation?”

And Buz:

“Cool. Like I say to her, ‘Baby, I don’t dig the fuzzy stuff, but the hard bop really knocks me out.’ Now she tags for me the progressive type. How are you gonna gas her if you don't know the difference between the flatted fifth and raised seventh? That’s the style, fellow. You’ll find something else, I’m sure.”

Real glissando. Like crazy.

*

8:08 a.m.: As Elaine just learned, today marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of Chet Baker’s death.

*

12:43 p.m.: The answer is now in the comments.

Related reading
Other Route 66 posts (Pinboard)

The waiting game

The New York Times reports on college applicants who have been waitlisted and what they’re doing about it:

When Amanda Wolfbauer, a high school senior, received the admissions verdict from Hamilton College, in Clinton, N.Y., she posted on Twitter, “What does one do once they’re on a college waitlist? #frustrated #worsethanrejection.”

A few minutes later she had gone from dejected to dogged: “Well, @HamiltonAdmssn prepare to be dazzled, because I’m determined to get off that waitlist.”

Don’t miss the accompanying sampler of applicants’ videos. I am happy to know that barring some exceedingly strange turn of events, I will never teach any of these students.

Happy Mother’s Day

[Photograph by James Leddy, July 21, 1957.]

My mom Louise and me, in a photograph by — who else? — my dad. When I looked at this photograph in boyood, I thought that the object in motion was a bird.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. (Hi, Mom.) And Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers.

Texas teacher’s writing

If you haven’t seen the short clip of a Texas high-school student asking/telling his teacher to teach instead of handing out “packets”: watch.

Here, verbatim, is text from that teacher’s school webpage:

A man's reach should always exceed his grasp...Robt. Browning

Welcome to World History and Asian American Studies!  
As we go thru the year; you will discover alot of new things you never knew about not only about the world but the mysterious continent of Asia.  As you can see - I got to visit Great Wall of China  during the summer of 2011 as well as many other sights in China and Japan!

As I said ...a man's reach (or a woman's ;), should always exceed their grasp!  I meant it...and I want you to also!

Basic writing skills should never exceed a teacher’s grasp. How did this teacher ever make it into the classroom? Would you be happy knowing that she was teaching your child?

[The lines from Robert Browning’s “Andrea del Sarto”: “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, / Or what's a heaven for?” I used non-breaking spaces to reproduce the two spaces after the exclamation point, the periods, and the first China.]

Route 66 mystery guest

The character is sobering up, or refusing to. If you are a television viewer of a certain age, you have most likely seen this actress, many times. But do you recognize her here? I didn’t.

If you know, or think you do, leave your answer in the comments. (Why not?)

*

3:34 p.m.: The answer’s now in the comments.

Related reading
Other Route 66 posts (Pinboard)

Cheating at Barnard

Now in the news: a cheating scandal at Barnard College. As one commenter writes, “Cheating on a weekly reading quiz?? Are you kidding me?!”

Here is the difficulty in defending a traditional understanding of “college”: if all a course amounts to is a single two- to three-page paper and weekly quizzes on “basic poem identifications,” quizzes that the students themselves grade, what’s to defend?

[For those who do not recognize the name, Barnard College, affiliated with Columbia University, is one of the Seven Sisters.]

Recently updated

Farewell, 45 West 53rd A possible reprieve for New York’s American Folk Art Museum.

The Thompson twins

 
[Mark Trail, May 8 and 9, 2013.]

It’s common knowledge that Mark Trail reuses plots and artwork from old strips. It’s the American way: Use it up — wear it out — make it do! With today’s strip, “old” means “day-old.” Yesterday’s Wes Thompson is today’s Wes Thompson, reversed and tilted and combed. (May 8: stray lock of hair on forehead.)

Related reading
Other Mark Trail posts (Pinboard)

[Addicted? I can quit anytime.]