Domestic comedy

[Not long after dinner.]

“This is the dawning of the Age of Asparagus.”

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)

Lands’ End: The White Album

[Now with extra whitening.]

The Lands’ End catalogue may never have been a great document of the variousness of Americans, but its recent incarnations appear to have taken a sharp turn to the white. Above, the cover of the Fall Resource Guide 2015, a hefty catalogue with a fold-out cover, an insert printed on thicker paper, two blow-in cards, and 171 pages. And a whole bunch of white people.

I went through this catalogue page by page — three times, for accuracy — checking off every human form. I counted 155. Many, of course, are the same people, appearing again and again. One woman, standing atop a rock, arms outstretched, faces away from the camera, gloved and hatted beyond identification. Of the other 154 men, women, children in this catalogue, thirteen are plainly or possibly not white. That leaves 141 white men, women, and children, making for a catalogue that’s 91.5% white.

It’s a measure of the way our sense of American culture has changed that this catalogue (which fifty years ago might have seemed, at least to a white reader, “normal”) should now look so strangely, aggressively retrograde. Lands’ End, please rethink it.

One thing about these white people: they sure read some interesting books.


[Click for a larger view. Otnajhna Nranfez and Nojatnah Arenzef: friends of the late Vidad Ostref Clewala. Another photograph shows some oversized books with the work of the painter Hen Mati.]

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September 24: Here’s an article that helps to account for the change in direction at Lands’ End: How Lands’ End Is Angling for Millennials, and Injecting Luxury into the Midwest (Refinery29). Angling for so-called millennials with a nearly all-white catalogue seems like an especially strange choice.

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June 20, 2020: Five years later, the plainest thing to say about this catalogue is that it reflects and bespeaks white privilege. It’s like a gated community for clothes.

A related post
Colgate Optic White

[If you look for this catalogue online, you won’t find it, at least not yet. The cover is there, on Lands’ End’s catalogue page, but the link goes to the Fall Preview catalogue, not the Fall Resource Guide.]

Jack Larson (1928–2015)

“Although he swore off fan events after a 1988 incident in Cincinnati in which Sharpie-wielding autograph seekers permanently stained a white linen suit he had had made in Italy, he came to terms with and embraced the Jimmy Olsen legacy in other ways”: “Jack Larson, Playwright Better Known as Jimmy Olsen on Superman TV Show, Dies at 87” (The New York Times).

Spelling in the news

In Fresno, California, three men posing as police officers misspelled the word sheriff on their costumes. The error, though, does not appear to be what led to their arrest.

The scheme — posing as law enforcement and raiding the residences of marijuana growers — makes me wonder if these fellows took their cue from The Wire’s trickster-god Omar Little. Just a thought.

Related reading
All OCA spelling posts (Pinboard)

Speed-cops on patrol

Another Mencken footnote:

In July, 1932 (News of the World , July 24), the Assistant Bishop of Guildford, Dr. Cyril Golding-Bird, appeared before the Farnham (Surrey) magistrates on a charge of dangerous driving. The policeman who arrested him testified that, on being overhauled, he demanded “Are you a speed-cop ?” His Lordship, evidently in fear that the use of an Americanism would prejudice the bench against him, stoutly declared that he ”was not sufficiently colloquial” to have used it. But the magistrates, taking a serious view of the matter, fined him £10 and costs and suspended his driving license for three months.

H. L. Mencken, The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States, 4th ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1936).

Also from The American Language
The American v. the Englishman : B.V.D. : English American English : “[N]o faculty so weak as the English faculty” : Playing policy : “There are words enough already” : The -thon , dancing and walking : The verb to contact

Craft vogue

On Weekend Edition Sunday this morning: “now the city is working on crafting a pot-club ordinance.”

When everything from poems to pot to munchies is crafted, it’s time to say vogue word and move on. The verb to craft here accomplishes nothing that to create or to develop or to draft or to work on would accomplish. The work of writing an ordinance implies a degree of care and skill.

Words I can live without
Artisan , artisanal : Bluesy , craft , &c. : Delve , -flecked , &c. : Expressed that : Pedagogy : That said : Three words never to use in a poem

[Google returns 500,000 results for craft and ordinance minus beer. With beer : 939,000 results. Crafted munchies? Yes, really.]

Domestic comedy

[Coffee. ]

“It’s really good.”

“I know it’s good. It has [reading ] ‘smooth, sweet caramel notes’ and a ‘refreshing citrus-like finish.’”

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)

A clever c(l)ue

The Newsday Saturday Stumper is a wonderful crossword, harder on average, I think, than the Saturday New York Times puzzle. Here from today’s Stumper is a beautifully tricky clue. 61-Across, eight letters: “Cue for the tenor, perhaps.” No spoilers: the answer is in the comments.

Today’s Stumper is by Brad Wilber, the co-constructor of a puzzle whose TORME left me more than slightly exasperated a while back. (I still suspect though that the inapt clue for that answer was Will Shortz’s work.)

A related post
Newsday ’s Saturday Stumper

“Floss, Floss, Floss!”

It is August in Biarritz. Vladimir is ten. Colette is nine.


Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory (1966).

Very Proustian, this interlude at the beach.

Related reading
All OCA Nabokov posts (Pinboard)

Force of Evil

Force of Evil (dir. Abraham Polonsky, 1948) stars John Garfield as an attorney involved in a scheme to take over the numbers (policy) rackets in New York City. Martin Scorsese, who introduces the film on DVD, thinks of it as a neglected noir masterpiece. I’m not sure I agree: the scheme and the romantic subplot are not exactly convincing. But George Barnes’s cinematography is aces. And the film has something for everyone, or at least for me. Click any image for a larger view.


[A Phi Beta Kappa key.]


[A locked drawer. Holding what?]


[A private line.]


[A Dixon Ticonderoga.]


[A Chemex coffeemaker. That’s Beatrice Pearson with Garfield. She worked mainly in the theater and appeared in just two films.]


[A pocket notebook. A “bank” is a numbers operation. Check.]


[A telephone booth, as seen from a lunch counter.]


[The same telephone booth and Beatrice Pearson. That’s her white glove above.]


[A notebook in a key case. (Huh?) Left , right , left , right : the combination for a safe.]


[A bakery, open late.]


[Mr. Hooper, moonlighting. This is the second time I’ve seen Will Lee as a bit player.]


[More Ticonderogas!]

Related reading
More Ticonderogas: Bells Are Ringing : Harry Truman : Lassie : The Dick Van Dyke Show : The House on 92nd Street

More notebook sightings: Angels with Dirty Faces : Cat People : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Dragnet : Extras : Foreign Correspondent : Home Town Story : The House on 92nd Street : Journal d’un curé de campagne : The Lodger : Murder at the Vanities : Murder, Inc. : The Mystery of the Wax Museum : Naked City : 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