Hi and Lois watch

[Hi and Lois , April 30, 2016.]

It’s not the first time that Hi and Lois has given us a facade that opens onto an interior room. I almost expect to see more of the kitchen out in the front yard. And those angles. Granted, the glimpse of the kitchen (salad, pepper mill, and — is it wine?) is a way to signal party . But some tastefully festooned decorations could have made the point as well, or better. Shoes always help, too.


[Hi and Lois , April 30, 2016.]

Does the ostensible host even live in this house? If she does, she should know that the kitchen is — or was? — in the other direction. Perhaps she’s taking a shortcut. Notice the motion lines. Or is that a stray piece of baseboard?

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All OCA Hi and Lois posts (Pinboard)

Domestic comedy

“You’re not just saying it to placate me, are you?”

“Yes, I’m just saying it to placate you.”

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All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)

Recently updated

Crosswords, copied A plagiarism scandal, now with (minimal) consequences.

CSS

Before CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), there was CSS: the Comprehensive Storage System Wall Unit, designed by George Nelson, manufactured by Herman Miller. It’s a Cooper Hewitt Object of the Day, and it makes me think of The Bob Newhart Show .

On Duke Ellington’s birthday

[Duke Ellington and His Famous Orchestra, 1930. Freddie Jenkins, Cootie Williams, Arthur Whetsol, trumpets. Joe “Tricky Sam” Nanton, Juan Tizol, trombones. Harry Carney, Johnny Hodges, Barney Bigard, reeds. Fred Guy, banjo. Wellman Braud, bass. Sonny Greer, drums. Photograph from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. New York Public Library Digital Gallery. Click for a larger view.]

Duke Ellington was born on April 29, 1899.

Here is one of my favorite Ellington recordings from 1930: “Old Man Blues.” The soloists: Hodges (alto), Bigard, Williams, Bigard, Nanton, Carney, Nanton, Hodges (soprano), and Jenkins. So much music in three minutes.

And here is a clip of the same band playing “Old Man Blues” in the (otherwise execrable) Amos ’n’ Andy movie Check and Double Check (dir. Melville W. Brown, 1930). I think the band is playing in real time. (Watch the piano player.) The soloists are Nanton, Carney, Hodges, and Jenkins. Juan Tizol, you will notice, has been blacked up for the screen.

If you listen closely to the movie clip, you can hear someone — Ellington? — speak at 1:52 and 1:55: “C’mon, Harry” and “That’s it.” Yes, it is.

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All OCA Ellington posts (Pinboard)

[Do you recognize the source material for “Old Man Blues”? The title gives it away.]

Les Waas (1921–2016)

Les Waas, creator of the Mister Softee jingle, has died at the age of ninety-four. From the New York Times obituary:

In nearly a thousand jingles, he celebrated the virtues of clients including Holiday Inn, the Philadelphia Phillies and at least one local food manufacturer. (“Give me a little Kissling’s Sauerkraut, / It’s fresh and clean, without a doubt. / In transparent Pliofilm bags it’s sold, / Kissling’s Sauerkraut, hot or cold.”)

But none captured the public — and held it captive — like the Mister Softee song.

In an earlier post, I called the Mister Softee jingle “a permanent sound of summer in my head.” I should have called it the sound of summer. I think that our nation’s mobile ice-cream vendors should observe a moment of din in Mr. Waas’s honor.

Mark Trail , recycling

[Mark Trail, revised. May 10, 2014; April 28, 2016.]

James Allen continues the practice of recycling handed down by his predecessor Jack Elrod. I remember Mark’s sweaty 2014 face only because of my revised version, which dramatized the words of a Twitter user who took issue with my sentence-style capitalization in post titles. (Really.) I couldn’t resist revising today’s panel.

But where else had I seen this desperate look? Oh, of course — in Mark Trail , in 2015.


[Mark Trail, revised, May 10, 2014. Mark Trail, May 14, 2015; April 28, 2016. Click any image for a larger view.]

Keep moving! Back to yesterday’s art!

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All OCA Mark Trail posts (Pinboard)

Saag and vindaloo

Elaine and I had great chicken saag and lamb vindaloo last night. And it finally occurred me to wonder what the words saag and vindaloo are all about. The Oxford English Dictionary explains. Saag is easy to guess:

< Hindi sāg greens, vegetable, vernacular adaptation of Sanskrit śāka . Compare Bengali śāk , Marathi śāk .

But vindaloo is quite a surprise:

Probably < Portuguese vin d’alho wine and garlic sauce, < vinho + alho garlic.

Wikipedia has a brief account of the origins of vindaloo.

Thank you, Sitara Indian Restaurant and Lounge. We will be back.

[It’s especially great to find vindaloo without potatoes. Wikipedia: “Even though the word aloo (आलू) does mean ‘potato’ in Hindi, traditional vindaloo does not include potatoes.”]

My son the graduate student

Ben Leddy, studying at the Harvard Graduate School of Education:

“You don’t have to choose between rigor and joy in the classroom,” he says. “By creating engaging curriculum we could help so many kids and make the classroom experience much more meaningful.”

Right on, Ben.

[So proud!]

Happy, harmonious nation-state

“The nation-state remains the true foundation of happiness and harmony.”

Who said it? Kim Jong-il? Kim Jong-un? Mao? No: Donald Trump.