[Life, February 12, 1940.]
I think that the fellow in this advertisement must have been a dolt even by 1940 standards. He is making the kind of goofy adolescent utterance that I associate with, say, Leave It to Beaver.
I had hoped that something in this issue of Life would show up the athlete/girl dichotomy as unfounded. No soap. The closest this issue comes to showing a female athlete: a feature about roller-skating socialites, which is not very close.
In last night’s 60 Minutes segment on Jeff Bezos and Amazon, Charlie Rose described the way Amazon workers pick and pack items:
Those bins eventually wind up in front of a packer, who knows exactly how big of a box to use based on the weight and amount of items . . . .Elaine and I said it simultaneously: number.
Amount is used with mass nouns [a decrease in the amount of pollution], number with count nouns [a growing number of dissidents].And there’s another problem: “big of a box.” Sheesh. That’s an instance of what Garner’s Modern American Usage calls “intrusive of,” as in “not that big of a deal.” Corrected:
Those bins eventually wind up in front of a packer, who knows exactly how big a box to use based on the weight and number of items . . . .But the more I look at this sentence, the more ungainly it becomes. The phrasing — “exactly how big a box to use based on” — is just awkward. And there is a weird asymmetry in what follows, with weight applying to the items collectively; number, individually. And is number the issue anyway? Isn’t the size of an item the crucial element in choosing a box? One more time:
Those bins eventually wind up in front of a packer, who knows which box suits the size and weight of an order . . . .That’s better, with size and weight referring perhaps to a single item, perhaps to items in the aggregrate. But simpler still:
Those bins eventually wind up in front of a packer, who knows the right box to use for each order . . . .Because what basis is there for choosing a box other than the size and weight of the order? The word right takes care of everything.
I just got the news that my dad is being released from the hospital this afternoon. He’s gettin’ out! See ya later, warden!
Thanks to everyone for their good wishes.
Alex Katz on food: “American cheese on white is the ultimate. To me as a kid it represented the straight world.”
Here’s a fellow who, as they say, has made it, who could have anything he wants for a meal. And what does he want? Oatmeal for breakfast. Sardines for lunch. Day in, day out. I love it. Read more: Artist’s Cookbook: Alex Katz (Design Observer).
From the website:
Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring all your photos, docs, and videos anywhere. This means that any file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to all your computers, phones and even the Dropbox website.Dropbox works with Linux, Mac, Windows, and mobile devices. It’s changed my ways of working: I no longer need to send myself attachments or carry a flash drive to have access to my stuff from a classroom or office computer. The stuff is just there.
Mac users: if you’d like to purchase the great app TextExpander, it’s on sale for $17.47 (list $34.95), through Monday. Follow this link, which SmileOnMyMac has made available to TextExpander users for the sharing.
TextExpander is a tremendously useful app, well worth its price. The app turns snippets — little bits of text — into longer items of the user’s choice. I use TextExpander for URLs, HTML, and frequently typed words and phrases. The snippet ,syic, for instance, turns into
See you in class,This page and this one offer more detailed explanations. And by the way, all I had to do to create those links was to type ,paste, and TextExpander wrote out the HTML and pasted in the URLs from the figurative clipboard.
Prof. Leddy
The actress and singer Jane Kean has died at the age of ninety. She played Trixie Norton in The Jackie Gleason Show revival of The Honeymooners. The New York Times has an obituary.
One detail that the Times omits: Jane Kean was the voice of Belle in Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol. Which might not sound like much, but it means that Kean sang the Bob Merrill and Jule Styne song “Winter Was Warm.”
In 2007, Joyce Randolph, the original Trixie Norton, was the subject of a lovely Times article.
[“No Hungry Ones on Thanksgiving Day: Turkey Served in Prisons, Missions, Hospitals, and Lowly Tenements. Zelaya Dined in Tombs. Alimony Club Feasted in Jail, but the Down-and-Outs Fared as Well.” The New York Times, November 28, 1913.]
My 2012 Thanksgiving post also dropped in at the Ludlow Street Jail. Ephemeral New York has the dope on the Alimony Club.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Previous Thanksgiving posts
A found letter : A 1917 greeting card : Competitive eating, 1911 : Sing Sing, 1908 : Sing Sing, 1907
[Zelaya? See this article.]
“The worst Thanksgiving I had came two days after they sliced me open, belly to pubic line, and the surgeon, coming to see me in recovery said, ‘We got most of it’”: Joyce Wadler, writing in The New York Times about a holiday, an illness, and mortality. No expiration date, but this essay is best read today: Bad Thanksgiving.
