The procrastinator’s NDU

The National Day of Unplugging began at sundown yesterday. The NDU website is filled with photographs of people who have filled in the blank to explain why they are unplugging: to bike, to knit, to read, to talk. But here, courtesy of me, is the National Day of Unplugging for procrastinators:



I cast no aspersions on the NDU. But I think that Evgeny Morozov offers a useful general caution:

The embrace of the mindfulness agenda by the technology crowd is especially peculiar. . . . Never before has connectivity offered us so many ways to disconnect.

In essence, we are being urged to unplug — for an hour, a day, a week — so that we can resume our usual activities with even more vigor upon returning to the land of distraction.

That’s not the point of the NDU. But skipping candy one day a week is useful only if it leads to changes on the other six days.

To my mind, the great irony of the NDU is that it asks participants to post photographs to the NDU website: Hey, friends and family, look at me! Which means that your friends and family have to go online. Which helps drive traffic to the website, right?

Ghostwriter

Ghostwriter was our fambly’s obsession during our children’s kidhood years. Every Sunday night: Word! Do you remember Ghostwriter, reader? No? Okay, forget it.

I just found this item about the show, which confirms what I always suspected. Ghostwriter was an escaped slave:

“Ghostwriter was a runaway slave during the Civil War,” [the show’s producer and writer Kermit Frazier] said. “He was killed by slave catchers and their dogs as he was teaching other runaway slaves how to read in the woods.”

Thanks, RL.

[What led me to think escaped slave: on one occasion, Ghostwriter writes to the team about protecting the children; on another, about hearing the dogs. The link went to the New York Times feature “The Local,” now gone.]

Roz Chast on her parents

Not behind The New Yorker paywall: Roz Chast’s “Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?” These pages are an excerpt from a graphic memoir of the same name, to be published in May. Good reading for children of all ages.

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Me? (The guy in Chast’s cartoons who looks like me, sort of)

Coffee in the classroom

The student was sitting at the back of the classroom. On the floor, a water boiler, plugged into the wall outlet. On a desk, a Chemex coffee maker. He was making coffee, and I realized that I would have to revise my syllabus.

And then I woke up. Yes, it was only a dream.

In the waking world, my syllabi have a statement about decorum that reads like so:

The atmosphere in our class should be serious — not somber or pretentious, but collegiate and genuinely intellectual. No eating, sleeping, talking, texting, or doing work for other classes. No headphones, iPods, or phones. Electronic devices should be off and out of sight before class begins. Please show respect for our community of learning.

At one point my syllabi prohibited knitting: it had become a thing. Times change, and syllabi change with them.

Related reading
All OCA dream posts (Pinboard)

Naked City Rolodex

[“The Multiplicity of Herbert Konish,” Naked City, May 23, 1962.]

There are eight million addresses in the Naked City. Use this device to manage them.

Is it really a Rolodex? I don’t know. I’ve never seen a sideways Rolodex. This device might have to be called a rotational address-retrieval management system.

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All OCA Naked City posts (Pinboard)

Naked poetry City

If I had to choose one Naked City episode as my favorite, I would choose “The Multiplicity of Herbert Konish” (May 23, 1962). It’s strange and funny and crime-free. To offer more explanation would take away the fun.

Like other Naked City episodes — say, this one, and this one, and this one too — “The Multiplicity of Herbert Konish” has significant poetry content. Early on, Detective Adam Flint responds to a loft resident’s skepticism about his ability to fathom poetry:

“Mrs. Lindall, I think you’re being a little prejudiced. Just because I’m a police officer doesn’t mean I don’t read poetry. [Laughs.] I guess I’m a little old-fashioned. Actually, I lean toward Emily Dickinson. However, I made an exception for early T. S. Eliot.”

Adam is indeed, as Lieutenant Mike Parker says (in another episode), a “college cop.”

Later in this episode, walking with his girlfriend Libby Kingston in Washington Square Park, Adam mentions that he wrote his thesis on Dickinson and that he once aspired to be a professor of English literature at Harvard. When Libby shows him the script of an avant-garde theater piece she’s working on, Adam reads aloud in bewilderment: “transvestite tearsheets from flannel funnels.” What? Why can’t she be in something by Inge or Miller? Libby explains that the line refers to Madison Avenue. Adam points to a boy in the park and begins to recite:

“I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you — Nobody — too?”

[Nancy Malone as Libby Kingston, Paul Burke as Adam Flint. “The Multiplicity of Herbert Konish,” Naked City, May 23, 1962. Teleplay by Herbert Kinoy.]

And Libby’s embarrassed, at least a little.


[Click either image for a larger view.]

The chemistry between Burke and Malone is a wonderful thing. At some point in the series, Libby changes from girlfriend to fiancée. She and Adam no doubt married after the series ended in 1963.

Related reading
All OCA Naked City posts (Pinboard)

Naked City mystery guest

[“The Multiplicity of Herbert Konish,” Naked City, May 23, 1962.]

Do you know her? Please leave your best guess, or more than guess, in the comments.

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National Grammar Day

It’s National Grammar Day. Who knew? Not me, not until about five minutes ago, although it appears that I took note of the day last year.

With history and poetry, all months are “the” month for those who care. So too with grammar and days. It’s National Grammar Day: just what should I do? Oh: make this post.

Kory Stamper’s remarks on NGD 2013 are worth reading.

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Overheard

In a nearby city: “Evenings and weekends, I’m mostly with other species.”

Related reading
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[A veterinarian speaking, or a vet in the making.]

Word of the day: gallivant

From A.Word.A.Day, a word my mom likes, the intransitive verb gallivant, “to roam about in search of pleasure.”

A.Word.A.Day’s example of usage: “Lady Gaga, Kyle Richards, and Carlton Gebbia gallivant around the streets of Amsterdam in thigh-high boots and trench coats just past midnight” (Bradley Stern, “Jewels n’ Wives,” Time, February 12, 2014).

I am startled to discover that this post marks Lady Gaga’s fourth appearance in these pages. Kyle Richards and Carlton Gebbia? I have no idea who they are, and I’m keeping it that way.