A pink ashtray

Children tend to derive comfort and support from the totally familiar — an umbrella stand, a glass ashtray backed with brightly colored cigar bands, the fire tongs, anything.

William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow (1980).

One of the pleasures of visiting my grandparents as a child was seeing the objects of their households, “the totally familiar,” always the same: a tiny porcelain boot with a penny in it, a dinner bell (for show not use), Hummel figurines, little bamboo cups for drinking a liqueur before Thanksgiving dinner. The only thing that seemed to change from one visit to another: the TV Guide .

This ashtray, which at some point came into my possession, was one of at least three in my paternal grandparents’ Camel-soaked living room. I remember three ashtrays. There may have been more.


[Click for a larger view.]

I had always thought this ashtray must be a piece of Depression glass. Looking online now for something like it, I think it may be Murano glass. The mystery of other people’s lives deepens.

Related posts
In a memory kitchen
Stanley carpenter’s rule
William Maxwell on Melville and Cather
William Maxwell on sentences

StatCounter × 10

The Internet service StatCounter has just given its paid users a tenfold increase in log size. Meaning: an account that recorded a website’s last 5000 visits now records the last 50,000.

Are stats important? Not really. Are they endlessly, oddly fascinating? Yes. It’s thanks to stats that I know, for instance, that people from the House and Senate (staffers, no doubt) have visited these pages looking for advice on if I was and if I were . And it’s always interesting (if a bit dispiriting) to see journalists poking around (more often than one might expect). I guess they have to get their information somewhere .

I started using StatCounter with a free account in 2005 and switched to a paid account a few years later. My only relation to StatCounter is that of a happy customer.

The rest is noise

For more than a month, Mark Trail has been pursued by bad guys. For nearly a month, they have been firing at him and his pal Mississippi Ken. The bad guys should be running out of ammo any week now.


[Mark Trail, October 14, 2015. Click on any image for a larger view.]


[October 16, 2015.]


[October 22, 2015.]


[November 3, 2015.]


[November 4, 2015.]


[November 7, 2015.]

Whatr’s happened: Mark has discovered missing radioactive material in the Gulf of Mexico. Does he call the EPA? Or the Department of Homeland Security? No. He decides to “investigate”: after all, there’s a great magazine story in it. Now pursued by those with their own claim to the material, does he think to radio for help or use a cellphone? No, he and Ken have chosen to take their stand on a little island.

James Allen’s storyline requires not just the suspension of disbelief: it requires that disbelief then be dropped into a burning cauldron to meet a fiery end. Brattattatat. Kerplunk. Aiieee.

*

But wait. There’s more:


[November 9, 2015.]

Is James Allen channeling another James — Joyce? Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronn-
konnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhoun-
awnskawntoohoohoordenenthur — nuk!

Related reading
All OCA Mark Trail posts (Pinboard)

Mystery actor

[Who?]

He’s a fancy man here. But anyone of a certain age who spent childhood in front of a warm television should find him instantly recognizable. Make your guess in the form of a comment. No using the Google!

*

4:33 p.m.: What I find difficult other people often find easy. And the other way around. (See the question marks below.) I thought that this mystery actor would be an easy call, but apparently not. He is Robert Shayne, who would go on to play Inspector William “Bill” Henderson in the television series Adventures of Superman (known to mortal children as Superman ). In Nobody Lives Forever (dir. Jean Negulesco, 1946), Shayne plays nightclub owner Chet King.

Eight more mystery actors
? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ?

Mongol pencil sighting

[Walter Brennan demonstrates for Faye Emerson the smooth-writing quality of the Mongol pencil. Click either image for a larger view.]

It’s a Mongol all right. (See ferrule below.) Earlier in this movie, Brennan’s character Pop Gruber worries that he’ll end up selling pencils. I’ve made it happen here.

Nobody Lives Forever (dir. Jean Negulesco, 1946) is a pleasant enough movie. Faye Emerson and Geraldine Fitzgerald make an interesting bad-woman/good-woman pair. John Garfield seems something of a cipher — all surface.


[“Your best buy’s Mongol,” says Brennan.]

Related reading
All OCA Mongol posts
All OCA pencil posts (Pinboard)

Recently updated

The U of Iowa has a new president Now with satire.

Henry moves, at least for a day

[Henry , November 5, 2015.]

Henry has always lived in a house. (The strip shows a front door, grass, a garage.) But today he appears to be living in that darkest and most ancient of apartment-dwelling situations — “The bathroom’s at the end of the hall.” Sad.

Related reading
All OCA Henry posts (Pinboard)

Horehound on my trail

I am at the tail end of a cold that began with seasonal allergies and now lingers as a tickle in the throat and occasional fits of coughing. (Dang leaf mold!) Thus I come to sing (between coughs) the praises of Claeys Horehound Candies. They soothe the throat in a way that no cough drop can. And they have an odd but delightful dowdy flavor — austere, grown-up, not overly sweet, not candyesque.

Warning: If you don’t live within reach of a farm-and-home store, Claeys might be difficult to come by. And given this variety’s name, awkward to ask about.

[Post title with apologies to Robert Johnson.]

Stoner and adjunct life

Like Stoner, I am an instructor at the same university where I did my doctorate. Like him, I teach freshman composition. Like him, I’ve come to love teaching and to consider it my vocation. But this is where our similarities end.

Maggie Doherty, an adjunct instructor, writes about John Williams’s novel Stoner .

Other Stoner posts
On teaching as a job
On “the true nature of the University”

“No worries”

Did you know that “no worries” began as an Australianism? From Bryan Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day:

The actor and writer Paul Hogan popularized the phrase outside Australia in his Crocodile Dundee movies (the memorable one of 1986, the less memorable sequel of 1988, and the wholly forgettable second sequel of 2001). Hogan's catchphrase was “No worries, mate.” The wide appeal of those movies made the phrase something of a vogue expression, sometimes with and sometimes without “mate” tacked on the end. . . .

But beginning about 2000, the expression had spread into mainstream American English without any hint of its foreignness.

I will confess to a sparing use of “no worries” in conversation. (I’ve used the expression twice in these pages, each time in a comment.) But I always thought that “no worries” was a Britishism. And I was unaware of mate . And as must be apparent by now, I’ve never watched a Crocodile Dundee movie.

But I do subscribe to the Usage Tip of the Day. You can too.

Related reading
All OCA Garner-centric posts (Pinboard)
Britishisms

[I’d like to link to the full explanation, but the Usage Tip of the Day is not published online.]