Everyday carries

Pez, candy cigarettes, pocket flashlight, pocket magnifying glass, pocket microscope, “ID wallet,” ChapStick, Coin Caddy, bike-lock key, wallet, house key, license, car key, college ID, pen, cigarettes, lighter, grad-school ID, tobacco, rolling papers, Kryptonite-lock key, faculty ID, office keys, Wrigley’s Extra, El Pico key ring, Burt’s Bees Lip Balm, discount cards, keychain flashlight, miniature California license plate, multi-tool, iPod, iPhone, emeritus ID, Jack Black Lip Balm.

Related posts
El Pico key ring : No smoking

[“ID wallet”: made of black plastic, with plastic windows to hold a maximum of two cards. Used by grade-school secret agents to carry, uh, ID. Sequence often approximate. Thank you, Rachel, for the Jack Black. No connection to the actor. I went back and added a pen: what was I thinking?]

Gevalia coffee, unbalanced?

We bought the wrong Gevalia coffee, Traditional Roast, not House Blend. As with toothpaste, there are just too many varieties. It is easy to err. Traditional Roast, as it turns out, tastes just fine. However:

Gevalia describes its Traditional Roast as “medium-bodied, smooth, and perfectly balanced.”

And House Blend, as “medium-bodied, smooth.”

Does Gevalia believe its House Blend to be less than perfectly balanced? Slightly askew? Off its foundation?

Related reading
All OCA coffee posts (Pinboard)
[Image found here and altered.]

Scam diction

We received our first “Internal Revenue Service” phone call this morning. Is that because we’re reading The Pale King ?

I listened to the recording a bit before hanging up:

“The reason of this call is to inform you that IRS is bringing a lawsuit against you,” &c.

The IRS doesn’t make such calls. But if you didn’t already know that, would you catch the details that mark this call as phony?

Related posts
Ballad of the spam mail : Fake speeding ticket : Phishing : Tech scamming

The Pale King : note-taking

Chris Fogle, a self-described “wastoid,” has walked into the wrong classroom and found himself in Advanced Tax, surrounded by note-takers:


David Foster Wallace, The Pale King (Boston: Little, Brown, 2011).

This post is meant to divert Manfred, who writes about note-taking practices at Taking Note Now.

Related reading
All OCA DFW posts (Pinboard)

[T&A: Training and Assessment. Fogle joins the IRS.]

Domestic comedy

[While starting up the iPad.]

“Let me ask Picture Picture.”

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)

[For anyone who’s puzzled.]

The life of Vivian Maier

In The New York Times , new details from the life of the photographer Vivian Maier: “Digging Deeper Into
Vivian Maier’s Past,” “A Peek Into Vivian Maier’s Family Album.”

The source for these articles: Vivian Maier Developed, an investigation by Ann Marks (“a retired business executive”) and Francoise Perron (“a retired judge from Maier’s French hometown”).

A related post
Henry Darger and Vivian Maier

[For clarity: Maier’s mother Marie Jaussaud was born in St. Julien, France. Maier was born in New York City. Mother and daughter lived in France for some of Maier’s childhood.]

Word of the day: banausic

It appears in David Foster Wallace’s The Pale KIng (2011), in the extraordinary last-class hortation spoken by a Jesuit substitute instructor of accountancy. He is speaking of the work of the accountant, which he describes as an surprising form of heroism:

‘Exacting? Prosaic? Banausic to the point of drudgery? Sometimes. Often tedious? Perhaps.’

The American Heritage Dictionary (Wallace’s dictionary, in a way, as he was a member of its Usage Panel, from 1999 to his death) defines banausic thusly:

1. Merely mechanical; routine: “a sensitive, self-conscious creature . . . in sad revolt against uncongenially banausic employment” (London Magazine) .
2. Of or relating to a mechanic.

Webster’s Third gives a greater array of meanings:

1a. governed by or suggestive of utilitarian purposes : practical
b. common in taste, thought, or intention : dull and menial
2. moneymaking, breadwinning : vocational : commercially minded : materialistic.

The Oxford English Dictionary is terse: “merely mechanical, proper to a mechanic.” Webster’s Second is terser still and tart: “smacking of the workshop.” Sounds a bit like the Dowager Countess of Grantham.

Whence banausic ? The AHD is helpful:

Greek banausikos, of or for craftsmen, from banausos, craftsman who works with fire, smith, potter, probably dissimilated from earlier *baunausos : baunos, furnace, forge (probably of pre-Greek substrate origin) + auein, to light a fire, get a light from; akin to Latin haurīre, to draw water.

Learning about banausic made me wonder: could banal be related? No, it had a different beginning. From the AHD:

Drearily commonplace and often predictable; trite: “Blunt language cannot hide a banal conception” (James Wolcott).

French, from Old French, shared by tenants in a feudal jurisdiction, from ban, summons to military service, of Germanic origin.

So whatever is common to all (or, at least, to all tenants) is banal. Webster’s Second has a definition which heightens the element of contempt in the word: “showing no individual taste.” The Dowager Countess strikes again!

It is reassuring to those of us who can never decide how to pronounce banal that at least some members of the AHD Usage Panel share the problem: “A number of Panelists admitted to being so vexed by the word that they tended to avoid it in conversation.” Thank goodness this post is written, not spoken.

Did Wallace discover banausic by way of this William Safire column? I wonder.

Related reading
All OCA DFW posts (Pinboard)

Overheard

[Flipping channels.]

“As first impressions are the most important asset, that’s where we’re going to start first.”

Related reading
All OCA “overheard” posts (Pinboard)

Younger, sepia

I’ve posted snapshots of a younger me with my mom and dad for Mother’s and Father’s Days. But here is a solo studio outing. I was ready for my close-up, as ready as I ever would be. Why are you seeing this photograph? Because Fresca has suggested to her readers that they post baby pictures.

A question I cannot answer: was sepia still common in the 1950s?

*

3:45 p.m.: I still can’t answer that question, but my mom confirms that this photo was tinted. (It’s not a faded black-and-white photo.)

David Bowie (1947–2016)

From David Bowie’s reply to his first piece of fan mail from the United States:

In answer to your questions, my real name is David Jones and I don’t have to tell you why I changed it. “Nobody’s going to make a monkey out of you” said my manager. My birthday is January 8th and I guess I’m 5'10". There is a Fan Club here in England, but if things go well in the States then we’ll have one there I suppose. It’s a little early to even think about it.

The New York Times has an obituary.