Bukowski, Gavitsky

[“Slouching Toward Gavitsky,” Zippy, December 21, 2015.]

Dingburg’s Slouch Gavitsky channels Charles Bukowski. The poem in play is “The Shoelace.”

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Zippy and Bukowski

A 2016 calendar

[Nancy , December 10, 1955.]

There’s a new calendar from me, too, offered free of charge as a PDF (via Dropbox). It’s three months per page, in black and red Gill Sans Bold. I started making this kind of calendar in 2009, just to see if I could do it. (My inspiration was the Field Notes Calendar: I could not bring myself to spring for three or four of them.) Year by year, getting things right became easier. Now it’s a breeze.

The 2016 calendar contains the elusive “February 29.” Even with an extra day, the calendar comes in at only 34 KB. Stapler, hole punch, thumbtack, hammer, string, nail, wall not included.


[“End of the line, February! You’re through!”]

And while I’m thinking about the means by which I’m making this calendar available: if anyone can use a Dropbox referral code, this one’s mine. It brings extra free storage for any new user and for me.

Clutter, clutter, everywhere

From The New York Times, Paco Underhill on clutter, retail and domestic:

In supermarkets and big-box stores, the strategic placement of goods is essential in building incremental sales. The origins of the “stack it high and watch it fly” mentality come from the way goods were originally brought into big-box stores: via forklift. As a result, the aspirational spaces we all long for in our homes — clean, uncluttered, perhaps with a few white phalaenopsis orchids sprinkled around — are completely at odds with the stores we shop in.

He goes on to offer some good advice for “consumers” — which would be all of us.

[I have only a slight acquaintance with Underhill’s work. But I can recommend his 1999 book Why We Buy .]

Today’s sponsor

I’d like to thank today’s sponsor, redd . Redd, for all your tidying needs. Sort, arrange, neaten, and reclaim valuable space with redd. Use the special promo code KLUTTA and receive a pair of white gloves with your first order, absolutely free.

[After one too many podcasts. It was Diane Schirf who mentioned redd .]

The Vinegar Flies

Old-timey. Our son Ben is on banjo.

But wait, there's more: “Snake River Reel.”

*

December 23: And still more: “The Bees” and “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning.”

[To think that these two tykes grew up into the terrific adults they are.]

Saturday night dysfunction

“We’re playing the hand we were dealt. I guess Christmas Eve was booked”: Michael Briggs, a spokesman for the Bernie Sanders campaign, on the scheduling of Democratic presidential debates. There’s a debate tomorrow night, the last Saturday before Christmas and the night of a Jets–Cowboys game.

As a veteran of academic life, I am all too familiar with efforts to suppress genuine debate in the interest of pushing through what’s supposed to be a done deal. It saddens me to see the Democratic National Committee so transparently rig the game. I called the DNC contributions number this morning to say so: 877-336-7200.

[Post title with apologies to Duke Ellington.]

Got winter?

Out for a walk. And someone said, “Good morning! It got winter, didn’t it?”

It was 28 °F, so yes, it did. But I’d never heard that idiom before. Have you?

A quick search turned up a handful of examples. From northern California oral history: “it got winter and they built this lean-to or cache or whatever you might call it.” From a novel set in Kentucky: “It was like it got winter all at once.” From a Flickr photograph: “It got winter . . . a little.” Does winter here function as an adjective? Or does the idiom omit to be, as in the common-in-these-parts idiom “need + past participle”? As in The car needs washed. Or maybe, soon, The snow needs shoveled.

Robert Walser: small towns

Simon Tanner tells Rosa that he would find employment in a small town “the most beautiful thing imaginable”:


Robert Walser, The Tanners , trans. Susan Bernofsky (New York: New Directions, 2009).

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Mayberry mash-ups

A mash-up: “Webern in Mayberry,” by Michael Monroe. Which reminds me of another: “Single Ladies (In Mayberry),” by Party Ben.

Thanks, Elaine.

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Barton Keyes’s office

[Double Indemnity (dir. Billy Wilder, 1944. Click any image for a larger view.]

Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) is the claims manager for the Pacific All Risk Insurance Company. Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) is an agent. Keyes is Information Central. His vest pockets are crammed with pens and papers (and cigars). His office has three telephones, a Dictaphone, extra cylinders, books, papers, a desk calendar, wall charts, and file cabinets. Oh, those file cabinets.

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