A seasonal joke in the traditional manner

Why was Santa Claus wandering the East Side of Manhattan?

[The answer is in the comments. The traditional manner: à la my dad.]

Santa on break

“A Santa during a coffee break during the NYC Christmas season.” Photograph by Leonard McCombe. New York City, December 1962. From the Life Photo Archive. Click for a larger view.]

[The counter layout and the sugar dispenser suggest that Santa might be a Chock full o’Nuts customer. The tray though doesn’t. Maybe it came from the North Pole with Santa.

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A VLC replacement icon

[Left: icon by VLC. Right: icon by Primofenax.]

I know that the VLC icon has a story behind it. But I don’t like that traffic cone. I like it even less when it wears a Santa hat — to me, it looks tacky. I do like this alternative icon by Primofenax. And I like VLC, a lot, though 2.1.2 has problems playing DVDs on my Mac. I’ve gone back to 2.1.1.

From the app’s website: “VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVD, Audio CD, VCD, and various streaming protocols.” One great advantage of VLC, for me: unlike OS X’s DVD Player, VLC allows screenshots.

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[The free app img2icns turns an image file into an icon. There’s a nice replacement icon for that app too.]

Public radio map

I like exploring the weirdness of “the dial,” all of it, but I still think I would find this page invaluable on a long car trip: a public radio map, by Andrew Filer.

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[Did car radios ever have dials?]

The Pennsylvania Turnpike, then and now

[That was then.]


[This is now.]

Elaine and I are old hands at making our own fun. Yes, we are makers. Driving to New Jersey last month, we attempted to recreate the scene on this 1949 postcard, the Blue Mountain Tunnel as seen from the Kittatinny Tunnel. I got into the left lane and Elaine filmed with an iPhone.

When we told our son Ben about our accomplishment, he mentioned that the Turnpike’s tunnels were designed for a never-completed late-nineteenth-century railroad, the South Pennsylvania Railroad. The guy knows his American history.

Subject-verb disagreement in the New York Times

In Garrison Keillor’s review of Deborah Solomon’s Norman Rockwell biography:

It took him seven months to paint his “Four Freedoms” pictures — a Lincolnesque workingman standing up and speaking at a town meeting, a cluster of profiles of persons in prayer, a mother and father watching over two sleeping children, a family gathered around the Thanksgiving table — which appeared in The Post and drew sacks of fan mail and was used by the Treasury to sell war bonds.

Anyone can slip up in this way, yes. But such a slip shouldn’t get by the Times.

*

10:10 p.m.: The more I look at this sentence, the more I think about (1) the great distance between pictures and which, and (2) the awkward series appeared, drew, and was were used. (And I’m not sure that paintings should be drawing anything.) How about two sentences, with minor adjustments?

It took him seven months to paint his “Four Freedoms” for The Post — a Lincolnesque workingman standing up and speaking at a town meeting, a cluster of profiles of persons in prayer, a mother and father watching over two sleeping children, a family gathered around the Thanksgiving table. The paintings became wildly popular, and the Treasury used them to sell war bonds.

Or:

It took him seven months to paint his “Four Freedoms” for The Post — a Lincolnesque workingman standing up and speaking at a town meeting, a cluster of profiles of persons in prayer, a mother and father watching over two sleeping children, a family gathered around the Thanksgiving table. The paintings became so popular that the Treasury used them to sell war bonds.

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[This post is no. 48 in a series, “How to improve writing,” dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose. I’ve added italics to the magazine title.]

Domestic comedy

“We have all the superfoods: avocados . . . pistachios . . . grilled cheese . . . .”

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Bureaucratese

The recorded voice on the other end of the line sounded genuinely human. Until I heard these words: “. . . and a product specialist will assist you momentarily.”

What would be a better way to say that?

Sixteen stars and counting

It’s the Flag of Equal Marriage, now with Hawaii and Mexico. Illinois and Utah soon to follow.

On “native advertising”

From Counternotions, a commentary on “the race to the bottom of the advertising barrel”: You Might Also Like.

As an update to this piece points out, The New York Times has announced that will soon plunge into so-called “native advertising.” “Native advertising” is advertising designed to look like editorial content. Plunge is right.

[Found via Marco.org.]