Another Henry gum machine

[Henry, December 29, 2015.]

At the risk of stating the obvious: one can never have too many streetside gum machines.

Related reading
All OCA Henry posts (Pinboard)

And more gum machines
Henry : Henry : Henry : Perry Mason : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry

Cooper Hewitt Tupperware

Cooper Hewitt’s Object of the Day: a Tupperware Jel-N-Serve Food Mold.

A related post
Tupperware pencil

Honeymooners notebook sightings

[“You owe me a hundred and seventy-six dollars and thirty cents.”]


[“BEnsonhurst 0-7741.”]


[“Her husband’s busy on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays, you know. Just make sure you call before six. The phone number is BEnsonhurst 0-7741. Got it? And her name is Alice Kramden.” Click on any image for a larger view.]

The world of The Honeymooners is not rich in stationery supplies. I imagine the Kramden apartment as holding just a pencil or two (sharpened no doubt with a knife) and a “writing tablet” for grocery lists and messages. “The Babysitter” (January 21, 1956) must be the most stationery-rich episode of the (endlessly syndicated) 1955–1956 season, with four — or is it just two? — pocket notebooks playing parts.

They are notebooks, not address books. Norton has been using his to track the cost of Ralph’s phone calls over the last fifteen years. Mrs. Simpson, a neighbor (uncredited), jots down Alice’s number to give to the Bartfelds, a couple in need of a babysitter. Mr. Bartfeld (Sid Raymond) recommends Alice to Harvey Wohlstetter (Frank Marth), who needs a babysitter. Wohlstetter writes down the number first. Granted, he could be making an entry under B (for babysitter ), but I’d rather imagine that he’s using a pocket notebook.

Related reading
All OCA Honeymooners posts (Pinboard)

And more notebook sightings
Angels with Dirty Faces : Cat People : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Dragnet : Extras : Foreign Correspondent : Journal d’un curé de campagne : The House on 92nd Street : 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

Aisle 16

As seen in a Staples store earlier this evening. Should I have told someone? I deferred to Elaine and Rachel and kept my mouth shut. Maybe the store managers already know. Maybe the sign came back wrong and they’re waiting to replace it. Maybe for now they’re hoping no one says anything. The other signs for Aisle 16 were spelled correctly: stationery .

Have you seen this misspelling at your Staples?

Related reading
All OCA misspelling and signage posts (Pinboard)

Domestic comedy

“What a riot!”

“What a hoot!”

“Man, I’m bushed!”

[Our daughter Rachel is back for a few days and has spent some time reading through her childhood diaries and notebooks. Rachel was at times a dedicated diarist, one whose writerly voice, we have now learned, was heavily influenced by 1950s chapter books. These exclamations are from Rachel’s twelve-year-old diaristic self, used here with her grown-up self’s permission. That self is still given to saying “Holy Toledo!”]

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)

NPR watch

Heard on NPR this morning: “But years of hot, humid Caribbean weather has taken a toll on the author’s thousands of papers and books.”

And on subject-verb agreement. The years have taken a toll.

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All OCA NPR posts (Pinboard)

Robert Walser: “Is it Sunday today?”

Hedwig Tanner is speaking to her brother Simon:


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

Related reading
All OCA Robert Walser posts (Pinboard)
Another Walser Sunday

Christmas 1915

[“Salesgirls’ Holiday Real Christmas Gift: Trying Season in Stores on Nerves and Muscles Ends with a Big Rush. A Big Year for Buying. ‘Shop Early’ Campaign Not Ineffective and Last Day’s Crush at Counters Has Been Worse.” The New York Times, December 25, 1915.]

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it.

Toy talk

From The New York Times :

Baby laptops, baby cellphones, talking farms — these are the whirring, whiz-bang toys of the moment, many of them marketed as tools to encourage babies’ language skills.

But in the midst of the holiday season, a new study raises questions about whether such electronic playthings make it less likely that babies will engage in the verbal give-and-take with their parents that is so crucial to cognitive development.

Years ago, when Elaine was on the radio and I did the weekly grocery shopping, a produce clerk complimented me for talking all the time with my children — pointing things out, asking them questions, answering their questions. The clerk explained that he had noticed us over many visits. No doubt he saw all kinds of parents in that store.

The educational future that some envision — every child communing with a device — is not one I favor. Nothing beats talking with people. (Though I am curious about that farm.)

Typewriter repairers

Sean noticed my use of repairmen in a post about typewriters and handwriting. I chose the word repairmen eyes open (that is, aware of -men ), since “the last typewriter repairman” is a recurring bit of journalism. (Try it.)

But I just discovered Nellie Myra Thatcher (d. 1958), who repaired typewriters in New York and was described in 1919 as “the first woman typewriter ‘repairman.’” And I also just discovered that in 2010, Mariana Keller of The Wall Street Journal made a short film about Donna Brady, whom Keller calls a typewriter repairwoman. The workspace we see in that film does not suggest a repair shop (with tools, spare parts, and machines dropped off for fixing): Brady’s business seems to have been a matter of cleaning up and reselling typewriters at flea markets. (I can imagine a courtroom battle over the meaning of repair : does applying machine oil to a moving part count?) At any rate, the business, Type B, now appears to be on hiatus or closed.

And at any rate, I’ve added repairers to repairmen in my post, acknowledging the journalists’ phrasing but acknowledging too that not all those who repair are men. Thanks, Sean, for getting me to rethink it.

Related reading
All OCA typewriter posts (Pinboard)