Welcome to Illinois

“The rich families remaking Illinois are among a small group around the country who have channeled their extraordinary wealth into political power, taking advantage of regulatory, legal and cultural shifts that have carved new paths for infusing money into campaigns”: “A Wealthy Governor and His Friends Are Remaking Illinois” (The New York Times ).

Governor Bruce Rauner is Illinois’s version of Scott Walker. Woe is us.

[See Citizen Koch (dir. Carl Deal, Tia Lessin, 2013) for the playbook.]

Sold!

“Salmon is an easy sell. But sardines? Not easy”: Barton Seaver sells Lynne Rossetto Kasper on canned sardines. But also: don’t miss the salmon-cake recipe. Thanks for the link, Diane.

Lynne Rossetto Kasper is the reason our household now has a half sheet pan. It’s changed our cooking for the better, greatly so.

Related reading
All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard)

A joke in the traditional manner

Why does Marie Kondo never win at poker?

No spoilers. The punchline is in the comments.

More jokes in the traditional manner
The Autobahn : Did you hear about the cow coloratura? : Elementary school : A Golden Retriever : How did Bela Lugosi know what to expect? : How did Samuel Clemens do all his long-distance traveling? : What did the doctor tell his forgetful patient to do? : What did the plumber do when embarrassed? : What happens when a senior citizen visits a podiatrist? : What is the favorite toy of philosophers’ children? : Which member of the orchestra was best at handling money? : Why did the doctor spend his time helping injured squirrels? : Why did Oliver Hardy attempt a solo career in movies? : Why did the ophthalmologist and his wife split up? : Why was Santa Claus wandering the East Side of Manhattan?

And: Tidy?

[“In the traditional manner”: by or à la my dad. He gets credit for all but the cow coloratura, the toy, the squirrel-doctor, Santa Claus, and this one. Is punchline-in-the-comments meant to encourage feed-readers to visit Orange Crate Art? Well, yes.]

Thoureauvian Zippy rocks

 
[Zippy  November 29, 2015. First and third panels.]

I like it that the third panel prompts you (or me) to look again for “some rocks.” There they are, back in panel the first. Yow!

Related reading (via Pinboard)
All OCA Nancy posts
All OCA Nancy and Zippy posts (with more rocks)
All OCA Zippy posts

Billy Strayhorn centenary

[“Portrait of Billy Strayhorn, New York, N.Y., between 1946 and 1948.” Photograph by William Gottlieb (1917–2006). From the William P. Gottlieb Collection, Library of Congress. Click for a larger view, or visit the Collection for a much larger view.]

William Thomas Strayhorn was born on November 29, 1915. He died on May 31, 1967. Duke Ellington, in his (anti-)autobiography Music Is My Mistress (1973):

He was not, as he was often referred to by many, my alter ego. Billy Strayhorn was my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brainwaves in his head, and his in mine.

Also from that book, an excerpt from what Ellington wrote after Strayhorn’s death:

He demanded freedom of expression and lived in what we consider the most important and moral of freedoms: freedom from hate, unconditionally; freedom from self-pity (even throughout all the pain and bad news); freedom from fear of possibly doing something that might help another more than it might himself; and freedom from the kind of pride that could make a man feel he was better than his brother or neighbor.

His patience was incomparable and unlimited. He had no aspirations to enter into any kind of competition, yet the legacy he leaves, his oeuvre , will never be less than the ultimate on the highest plateau of culture (whether by comparison or not).

God bless Billy Strayhorn.

I am baffled by the apparent absence of Strayhorn programming from Columbia University’s WKCR. Here is a YouTube sampler, with performances by Strayhorn himself, the Ellington band, or assorted Ellingtonians.

“Blood Count” : “Chelsea Bridge” : “The Intimacy of the Blues” : “Johnny Come Lately” : “Lotus Blossom” : “Lush Life” : “My Little Brown Book” : “Rain Check” : “Take the ‘A’ Train” : “U. M. M. G.”

And a website: billystrayhorn.com. And a related post: Strayhorn on humility and individuality.

Familiar phrasing

Elaine and I are back home after ten days visiting family and friends. “Family and friends”: what a bland phrase, so easily trivialized by the abbreviation ’n’ , so easily commodified into a “plan.” And yet the only words we have for our most important human relationships.

Nabokov: Van Veen, eraser

Dr. Van Veen, psychologist, in lecture mode:


Vladimir Nabokov, Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1969).

Nabokov himself famously said that his pencils outlasted their erasers. Not (contra The Atlantic ) in Speak, Memory but in a 1962 interview with unidentified journalists, published in Strong Opinions (1973): “I have rewritten — often several times — every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.”

Related reading
All OCA Nabokov posts (Pinboard)

Waitin’ with Nancy

[Nancy , November 22, 1945. Via Random Acts of Nancy .]

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts (Pinboard)

Thanksgiving 1915

[“Thanksgiving Revel in Waldorf Barn: Guests Enjoy a New England Farm Dinner and See Country Dances and Corn Husking.” The New York Times, November 24, 1915.]

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Previous Thanksgiving posts
In jail, 1914 : In jail, 1913 : Thanksgiving and mortality : In jail, 1912 : Competitive eating, 1911 : A 1917 greeting card : A found letter : Sing Sing, 1908 : Sing Sing, 1907

Escalators, not over the hill

“The first thing they’d say was, ‘Please tell me you’re keeping the wooden escalators’”: “Macy’s Historic Wooden Escalators Survive Renovation” (The New York Times ).

[Bonus points if you recognize the source of the post title.]