C. O. Bigelow

[Photograph by Michael Leddy.]

C. O. Bigelow Apothecaries, 414 Sixth Avenue, New York, established 1838, the oldest apothecary in the United States.

Neon in daylight is indeed “a great pleasure.”

More neon
Minetta Tavern
Saratoga Bar and Cafe

On “trigger warnings”

A recent New York Times article describes a new trend in academic life:

Colleges across the country this spring have been wrestling with student requests for what are known as “trigger warnings,” explicit alerts that the material they are about to read or see in a classroom might upset them or, as some students assert, cause symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in victims of rape or in war veterans.

Among these schools: the University of California, Santa Barbara, where student government has called for trigger warnings. The dateline for the Times article — Santa Barbara itself — now serves as a cruel reminder that reality itself most often comes without warnings.

For several semesters I’ve put this statement on my syllabi when appropriate: “The works we’re reading contain material that some readers may find offensive or disturbing (language, sex, violence). In such cases, please consider taking another course.” No one has ever asked what was coming. I think a general warning like this one is appropriate, with further conversation as needed. But I’m against labeling individual works of the imagination in a way that reduces their content to a set of potentially dangerous elements. Imagine Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man accompanied by a “Contains racism” warning. Or “Contains racism, a corrupt college administrator, rural and urban poverty, a tall tale of incest, uninvited touching, an uninvited sexual proposition, a rape fantasy, an eviction, a police shooting, rioting, looting, and arson.” There is no end to what might upset a reader.

I wonder: what do students who favor trigger warnings expect to find in literature? As Gwendolyn Brooks wrote, “Art hurts.” Pity and terror are sometimes what we’re meant to feel. And we can feel these things not only because of what has happened to us: we can feel them because of our shared humanity.

Things I learned on my summer vacation

Q. Why did the arsonist refuse to answer any questions?

A. He didn’t want to incinerate himself.

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“Are you rolling your eyes?”

“I’m rolling everything.”

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In some ways, I am no longer part of NPR’s target audience.

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Phil Schaap is still Phil Schaap, or even more so. “An immeasurable increase that’s vast.” Sigh. “This plethora, if you will, meaning ‘large.’” No, I will not. From Garner’s Modern American Usage :

According to the OED and most other dictionaries, this word refers (and has always referred) to an overabundance, an overfullness, or an excess. The phrase a plethora of is essentially a highfalutin equivalent of too many.

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Arnold Stang was the voice of Chunky.

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My parents’ first car was a Plymouth Savoy, blue, with fins. I remember the car but never knew its name.

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Working in construction, my dad once saw a fellow tileman ridiculed by his peers for using the word threshold to refer to, yes, a threshold.

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My mom’s mother referred to Special K cereral as Ks. She had her Ks for breakfast.

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Ilities: bizspeak for the section of a document that covers liability and related matters. Used without irony.

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There is a Theda Bara Way in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

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Bibby’s Mediterranean Café in Fort Lee is gone. The owner may be acquiring a food truck.

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The white clam pizza from Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana in New Haven is a glorious thing. Clams, grated cheese, olive oil, garlic, oregano. Period. Every houseguest should be so fortunate as to have their hosts travel back from Boston with some Frank Pepe pizza. (Thank you, Luanne and Jim.)

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Strip-mall restaurants really do rule. Three in New Jersey: Citrus serves Indian and Thai dishes. Koi serves Chinese dishes and sushi. Tony’s Touch of Italy needs no more than its name as explanation. Especially good: lamb vindaloo, moo shu pork, mussels marinara.

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The difference between chicken tikka masala and buttered chicken: the one is made with cream; the other, with butter.

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In Hoboken, New Jersey, Cucharamama (“mother spoon”) rules. (Our friends Jim and Luanne are friends of the restaurant’s chef, Maricel Presilla.) Such flavors. And such hospitality. My suggestion: order everything to share, just a couple of main dishes and as many appetizers as you dare. Variety is all.

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Our friend Jim’s work lies behind — or in — the gyroscopes that direct the REMUS 6000 (used in the search for Air France Flight AF447) and the Bluefin-21 (used in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370). Jim is a modest guy: this information came up entirely in passing.

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In East Harlem, New York, El Paso Restaurante rules. We were there during the championship football match between Atlético Madrid and Real Madrid. The crowd watching at the bar seemed of one mind, though I couldn’t tell you which side they were cheering. Knowing how the match went, I would now say that they must have been cheering Real Madrid.

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My mom reminded me that when I was a college student, waiting one morning for the Frick Museum to open, a guard told me not to sit on the steps. Now people sit on the steps with impunity. I did remember being chastened in the museum because I was bending to better see the details in a painting. This time I not only bent: I squatted, to better see the titles on the spines of the books in the library.

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At the Frick: Joseph Chinard’s Portrait of Louis-Étienne Vincent-Marniola is incontrovertible proof that Elvis Aron Presley was a time-traveler.

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At the Frick: figures in Rembrandt’s Nicolaes Ruts and Vermeer’s Mistress and Maid look like they’re holding PocketMods. But we know that PocketMods cannot time-travel.

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My feeling about the Frick hasn’t changed in thirty-odd years: gratitude for the chance to see the art, and a sick feeling about the exploitation and injustice that underwrote its acquisition. Seeing a painting of Saint Francis in this setting makes my irony meter go haywire. I doubt I’ll go back.

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There was more to the photographer Vivian Maier than didn’t meet the eye. In other words, there are some dark elements in this invisible woman’s story. Finding Vivian Maier (dir. John Maloof and Charlie Siskel, 2014) does a fine job of presenting Maier’s life and work. We liked this film so much that we ended up seeing it twice.

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Stevdan Pen & Stationers has a great selection of supplies and great service. When I asked about 2015 Moleskine datebooks, the proprietor called his other location and had someone walk over a Moleskine for me. But only after checking every detail: Large, pocket, or mini? (Pocket.) Hardcover, or softcover? (Hardcover.) Color? (Black.)

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C. O. Bigelow is the oldest apothecary in the United States.

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Duane Reade is a subsidiary of the Walgreen Company. Duane Reade is like Walgreens for New York City, though there are also Walgreens stores in the city.

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Colin Huggins is a pianist who plays a baby grand in Washington Square Park. On the night we saw him, he was set up not far from the location of an earlier performance: Detective Adam Flint’s recitation of an Emily Dickinson poem.

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Century: 100 Years of Type in Design is a wonderful exhibit at AIGA. I didn’t learn about the exhibit on vacation: it was already on our to-do list. Nor did I learn about this short film on vacation: I found out about it back here on the prairie. What I did learn on vacation: Monotype’s Dan Rhatigan is a terrific tour guide.

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W. A. Dwiggins coined the term “graphic designer.”

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The Museum of the City of New York is a gem of a museum. (How had we never been there?) It has five exhibits right now: Activist New York (social activism through the decades), City as Canvas (graffiti art), Gilded New York ($$), In a World of Their Own: Coney Island Photographs by Aaron Rose, and Palaces for the People: Guastavino and the Art of Structural Tile. This last exhibit is spectacular. Also: Timescapes, a short film tracking the city’s growth. Also: stairwells covered in pithy observations about New York. I’ve never paused so often when ascending or descending a staircase. Bad staircase habits!

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It is especially easy to miss my friend Rob Zseleczky when in New Jersey.

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“There are no shortcuts”: Crete Carrier.

More things I learned on my summer vacation
2013 : 2012 : 2011 : 2010 : 2009 : 2008 : 2007 : 2006

CBS homophone mishap

On the CBS Evening News tonight, a topic box next to anchor Norah O’Donnell referred to “AMERICA’S ROLL” in world affairs. Please, not a Kaiser roll.

The mistake has been fixed for the online version of the news. But there it was, on the TV. And here it is, still, as preserved via Twitter.

A related post
Family Circus homophone catastrophe

[Topic box: “A visual inserted in a window — a box — on the screen, generally to the right of a newscaster, to identify the subject of a news report; also called a box , frame squeeze , or theme identifier .” I knew there had to be a name for it. Definition found hear, or here.]

Spellings of the future

[As seen in print.]

When I am asked to rate the self-confidence of prospective teachers, I leave all boxes unchecked. Having a very high degree of self-confidence, I explain, is not necessarily a good thing. Sometimes using a dictionary is better. See above.

Other spellings of the future
Aww : Bard-wired fence : Now : Where

[Spellings of the future: misspellings traveling backward in time to give us a foretaste of our language’s evolution.]

Bresson on resources

The director Robert Bresson:

The faculty of using my resources well diminishes when their number grows.

Notes on Cinematography, trans. Jonathan Griffin (New York: Urizen Books, 1977).

Related reading
All OCA Bresson posts (Pinboard)

Herb Jeffries (1913–2014)

The actor and singer Herb Jeffries has died. From the New York Time obituary: “I just knew that my life would be more interesting as a black guy. If I’d chosen to live my life passing as white, I’d have never been able to sing with Duke Ellington.”

I believe that Herb Jeffries was the last link to the 1940s Ellington band.

Jeffries’s recordings with Ellington, via YouTube and Grooveshark
“The Brown-Skin Gal in the Calico Gown” : “Flamingo” : “The Girl in My Dreams Tries to Look like You” : “I Never Felt This Way Before” : “Jump for Joy” : “My Little Brown Book” : “There Shall Be No Night” : “What Good Would It Do?” : “You, You Darlin’”

[If you’re picking three: “Flamingo,” “I Never Felt This Way Before,” and “Jump for Joy.” But I also have inordinate affection for “There Shall Be No Night.”]

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May 27: I’ve corrected the link for “Jump for Joy”: I had the Ivie Anderson version.

Memorial Day

[“Arlington Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia. A girl watching Colonel Hammond lay the President’s wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Memorial Day.” Photograph by Esther Bubley. May 1943. From the Library of Congress. Click for a larger view.]

Gilbert Sorrentino, Irish and Italian

Gilbert Sorrentino, in an essay about his Irish and Italian inheritance:

I end with two stories . . . . The first concerns the man who goes into an Italian cobbler’s shop with a pair of shoes to be heeled. He makes it clear that he must have the shoes that same evening, and that if the cobbler can’t do the job, he won’t leave the shoes. The cobbler swears that the shoes will be ready. That evening, the man returns to find that the shoes are not ready, and, exasperated, he asks the cobbler why he swore to him that they would be. The cobbler replies: “Telling you that they’d be ready, even when I knew they wouldn’t, made you happy all day.”

The second is the joke about the Irishman who comes home to his wife drunk every night. A priest tells her that she should throw a good scare into her husband to cure him, and that night, when he arrives at the door, his wife appears in a sheet, and screams at him: “I am the Devil, come to take you to hell!” The drunk looks at this figure, and after a moment, says, “I’m pleased to meet you. . . . I married your sister!” That this latter touches on the strange Irish affinity for the heresy of Manichaeism is another story.

“Genetic Coding,” in Something Said: Essays (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1984).

Other Sorrentino posts
Bandbox
From Gilbert Sorrentino’s final work
Gilbert Sorrentino (1929-2006)

I can’t get no satisfaction

To be able to be satisfied with little is not a failing, it is a blessing — if, at any rate, what you seek is satisfaction. And if you seek something other than satisfaction, I would inquire (with astonishment) into what it is that you find more desirable than satisfaction. What, I would ask, could possibly be worth sacrificing satisfaction in order to obtain?

William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

Related reading
Stoic-colored glasses (Another excerpt)
William B. Irvine’s website