A historian’s take on current events

Geoffrey Parker, Professor of History at The Ohio State University, interviewed today on PRI’s The World :

Looking at the outside world, it is just incredulity that the greatest power in the world cannot get its act together. I mean, to link the default on sovereign debt, something which really does tarnish a country, to a particular piece of legislation which was already passed: I don’t think anyone outside the United States can understand that, how we could be holding the economy of the world to ransom, in return for some concessions on a piece of legislation which has already passed. What is there still to discuss? That’s what I think the rest of the world can’t understand. And I think one year, ten years, a hundred years from now, that will still be something which is very hard to understand.

*

October 17: Here’s a link to the interview, which was not yet online when I made this post.

“Quicksaaaand!”

Another item in Roz Chast’s book: quicksand, the subject of the recent Radiolab episode “Quicksaaaand!” The discussion of quicksand in the movies makes me realize that, yes, people were always falling into quicksand when I was a boy, in movies and in the schoolyard. You don’t see that so much anymore.

This podcast, a mere sixteen minutes, is one of the best Radiolab episodes I’ve heard.

The many hates of Roz Chast

No need for a poll: it’s safe to say that Roz Chast is our fambly’s favorite New Yorker cartoonist. What I Hate: From A to Z (New York: Bloomsbury, 2011) includes alien abduction, balloons, carnivals, doctors, elevators, and many, many more. You’ll want to collect them all.

Here’s an Orange Crate Art post from 2007 with the glasses-wearing bearded guy who appears again and again in Chast’s cartoons. I look less like him than I once did.

Best wishes to Jack Cella

Jack Cella has retired after forty-three years as the general manager of Chicago’s Seminary Co-op Bookstore. I know him only as many a Seminary Co-op customer would, as the man in the little alcove near the front of the store. He had the answer to every question.

Jack Cella, in a 2008 Chicago Tribune article on the Co-op: “If you’re in a decent bookstore, you can look at any shelf and realize how little you know. I can’t imagine life without reading.”

Here is a salute from Kristi McGuire, a former manager of 57th Street Books: End of an era: Farewell to Jack Cella.

To: Miley Cyrus From: Sufjan Stevens

From a (hilarious) open letter from Sufjan Stevens to Miley Cyrus:

Dear Miley. I can’t stop listening to #GetItRight (great song, great message, great body), but maybe you need a quick grammar lesson. One particular line causes concern: “I been laying in this bed all night long.” Miley, technically speaking, you’ve been LYING, not LAYING, an irregular verb form that should only be used when there’s an object, i.e. “I been laying my tired booty on this bed all night long.” Whatever. I’m not the best lyricist, but you know what I mean. #Get It Right The Next Time.

And there’s more.

The Honeywell Round

Henry Dreyfuss designed the Honeywell thermostat known as the Round, a Cooper-Hewitt Object of the Day :

Dreyfuss modernized the appearance of Honeywell’s thermostats in the 1930s; among the first was the Chronotherm, which incorporated a “digital” clock into its display. Dreyfuss was frustrated, however, that rectangular thermostats never seemed to hang squarely on the wall. Work began on a round thermostat in 1940.

I have a Honeywell Round (c. 1959) on my desk for occasional use as a paperweight. It’s not the most effective paperweight (porcelain faucet-handles and flat rocks work much better), but gosh, is it beautiful. And while we’re on the subject of repurposing: my desk is really a kitchen table that I use as a desk.

A related post
Five desks

[From the Cooper-Hewitt website: “Due to the federal government shutdown, Cooper-Hewitt’s administrative offices and the National Design Library are closed; but all off-site events, including programs at the Cooper-Hewitt Design Center in Harlem, National Design Week, and Design in the Classroom, will continue as scheduled.”]

Bad hyphens, unhelpful abbreviations

In two recent posts, Daughter Number Three looks at laughably bad hyphens (or hyp- hens) and unhelpful postal abbreviations.

Reading the first post reminds me of manual-typewriter days, when one had to decide whether or how to hyphenate at the end of a line. Secretaries and typists often used a little dictionary for that purpose: no definitions, just spelling and syllabification. Reading the second post makes me think that the old postal abbreviations (Calif., Mass., N. Y.) weren’t bad at all.

As I just discovered, USPS has a handy PDF with the history of postal abbreviations. It surprises me to see that the two-letter versions have been around since 1963.

Man-child’s best friend

[Beetle Bailey, October 13, 2013.]

Today’s Beetle Bailey is so troubling that I put it out of my mind early this morning and remembered it only now. It might be less troubling if the pillow were speaking.

A few other troubling Beetle Bailey posts
Bathrooms : Ketchup : Razors : Toilet bowls

Local weather

From the local newscast: “Nothing but sunshine . . . for the next few minutes. The sun is setting.” Nice save, meteorologist.

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