Party?

The January/February Atlantic asks a question: “What party would you most like to have attended?”

I am not a party person. But I would like to have attended the party given by Timofey Pnin in Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Pnin (1957). Partly to see Pnin (a mensch among men), partly to sample Pnin’s Punch (“a heady mixture of chilled Chateau Yquem, grapefruit juice, and maraschino”), partly to hear the dowdy conversation (“This beverage is certainly delicious”), partly to take in Nabokov’s satiric picture of life in a New England college town. I would volunteer to stay late and help Pnin with the dishes.

At the risk of repeating The Atlantic and myself: What party would you most like to have attended?

[Sad: The Atlantic asked this question of its readers on December 22 and has had one response. So I think it’s fine to ask the question here.]

Word of the day: chinoiserie

Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day is chinoiserie:

chinoiserie \sheen-wah-zuh-REE\ noun
: a style in art (as in decoration) reflecting Chinese qualities or motifs; also : an object or decoration in this style

This word always makes me think of Duke Ellington: the Ellington-Strayhorn adaptation of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker turns the “Chinese Dance” into “Chinoiserie.” And The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse (1971) begins with Ellington’s own “Chinoiserie,” a feature for the tenor saxophonist Harold Ashby. Here is the studio recording and, even better, a performance from a 1973 concert. That concert, released as Rugged Jungle (Lost Secret, 2003) is ample evidence that even in its last days, the Ellington band could be a force of nature.

Domestic comedy

“Let’s get Kleenex. It’s a name I’ve grown to trust.”

Cf. Einbinder Flypaper.

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PIPING HOT COFFEE

[“Coin operating coffee machine with 4 possible mixtures, each selling for five cents.” Photograph by Wallace Kirkland. February 1947. From the Life Photo Archive. Click for a larger view.]

Why piping hot? “Because of the whistling sound made by very hot liquid or food,” says the Oxford English Dictionary. Its first citation is Chaucer’s “Miller’s Tale” (c. 1390):

He sente hir pyment meeth and spiced ale
And wafres pipyng hoot out of the glede.

In other words:

He sent her honeyed wine, mead, and spiced ale,
And cakes, piping hot out of the fire.

Also some coffee with cream and sugar, piping hot out of the machine.

[The OED gives pipinge and pipeinge as v.rr., variant readings, for pipyng. The ersatz Chaucer is mine.]

“[I]t made me to weep with delight”

From a spam comment left for my post on how to e-mail a professor:

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No, because I never click on the skeevy URLs that end such comments.

A Google search for “a frightful dilemma for me personally” returns 28,600 results, with many variations:

It had been a frightful dilemma for me personally, however, being able to see this specialized mode you handled it forced me to weep for gladness.

It previously was a frightful dilemma for me personally, but noticing the very skilled avenue you resolved it made me to leap for gladness.

It previously was a frightful dilemma for me personally, however, taking note of a new expert mode you managed the issue made me to leap over contentment.

It was a frightful dilemma for me personally, however, understanding the specialised manner you solved the issue made me to jump for joy.

I cannot claim to jump for joy (or leap over contentment), but I do I take perverse pleasure in reading such stuff before deleting. O brave new world, that has such spammers in it.

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Pocket notebook sighting (Naked City)

[Detective Adam Flint (Paul Burke) and notebook. From the Naked City episode “Vengeance Is a Wheel” (March 15, 1961). Click for a larger view.]

Pocket notebooks are everywhere in Naked City. In a scene that now looks slightly comic, one police officer reads out license-plate numbers and a dozen others dutifully copy into their notebooks. But this notebook is ready for its close-up. The short word must be and, but I’m at a loss about the rest. Any guesses?

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And more notebook sightings
Angels with Dirty Faces : Cat People : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Extras : Journal d’un curé de campagne : The House on 92nd Street : The Lodger : Murder, Inc. : The Mystery of the Wax Museum : The Palm Beach Story : Pickpocket : Pickup on South Street : Quai des Orfèvres : Railroaded! : Red-Headed Woman : Rififi : Route 66 : The Sopranos : Spellbound : State Fair : T-Men : Union Station : The Woman in the Window

Outside Llewyn Davis

Elaine and I saw the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis yesterday. I thought more of it than she did (and still do), but the more we talked about the film, the less I liked it.

The film’s title is unmistakably ironic: Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) remains a cipher. How someone utterly insensate in his relationships can sing and play with such feeling is a question that the film leaves unexplored. Even in his devotion to music, Davis is unfathomable. What he hears in (so-called) folk music, how he found his way to it: we never know. There’s not one conversation about music, not one mention of the rural sources of the songs Davis and fellow urbanites are now making their own. The only character I can recall who speaks of music as music (and not as a business) is Roland Turner (John Goodman), a jazz musician whose monologue touches on the difference between music that uses the chromatic scale and music that uses three chords. He’s a more interesting cipher than Davis.

What Inside Llewyn Davis offers is stuff to look at: well-kempt beards, browline eyeglasses, Gibson guitars, corduroy jackets, and crepe-soled shoes. I had hoped to do more than look at. But being kept on the outside looking at the outside seems a given with the Coens.

[Are we meant to hear Llewyn Davis’s music as something extraordinary? I think so.]

A Henry drawer

[Henry, January 11, 2014.]

The world of Henry is the world without drawer slides. I like the cartooned version of a dovetail joint (no trapezoids), and I like the orderliness of this room: a spotless carpet, a plant on the dresser, blinds and curtains on the window. Don’t all windows have both?

Henry is looking for a pair of binoculars to take to the movie theater. The picture is The Big Race, with horses.

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[There are also no books on the floor in the Henry world. It is a world without 積ん読 [tsundoku].]

Kurt Vonnegut on hometown jerks

Our friend Seymour Barab sent along a book of Kurt Vonnegut’s letters. How about that? Thank you (again), Seymour!

Here is a passage I especially like, from a Vonnegut letter to two old Indianapolis friends, Mary Jane “Majie” and William “Skip” Failey (June 21, 1982):

No — I will not be there for Vonnegut Week. Any American with common sense knows that if he was a jerk in high school he will be a jerk in his own hometown forever.

Letters, ed. Dan Wakefield (New York: Delacorte, 2012).

Other Vonnegut posts
Advice for high-school students
“[B]eautiful and surprising and deep”
E-mail from Stefan Hagemann
Kurt Vonnegut, Manager
Kurt Vonnegut on English studies

[Seymour Barab and Kurt Vonnegut collaborated on Cosmos Cantata (1995).]

Libby Kingston’s advice

From the Naked City episode “Bullets Cost Too Much” (January 4, 1961), a lovely exchange between Libby Kingston (Nancy Malone) and Adam Flint (Paul Burke):

“Whenever you want to know who you are, don’t ask anybody else. Just ask yourself.”

“Except you.”

“Well, of course, except me.”

This episode stands out for sheer density: numerous plot lines and a cast that includes James (credited as Jimmy) Caan, Frank Campanella, Bruce Dern, Betty Field, Paul Hartman, Al Henderson, Barbara Lord, Johnny Seven, Jean Stapleton, and Dick York. The context for this exchange: Adam has been in the papers, slammed as a “bad cop,” then hailed as a hero.

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