Barthes on Proust

“[A] kind of alchemical operation occurred within Proust during that month of September [1909] which transmuted the essay into a novel and a short, discontinuous thing into a long, sustained, and fully formed one”: Roland Barthes on how Proust became a great writer.

Related reading
All OCA Barthes posts
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)

A joke in the traditional manner

What kind of dogs do scientists like?

No spoilers. The punchline is in the comments.

More jokes in the traditional manner
The Autobahn : Did you hear about the cow coloratura? : Did you hear about the mustard-fetching dogs? : Did you hear about the thieving produce clerk? : Elementary school : A Golden Retriever : How did Bela Lugosi know what to expect? : How did Samuel Clemens do all his long-distance traveling? : How do amoebas communicate? : 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 does Marie Kondo never win at poker? : Why was Santa Claus wandering the East Side of Manhattan?

[“In the traditional manner”: by or à la my dad. He gets credit for all but the cow coloratura, the produce clerk, the mustard-fetching dogs, the amoebas, the toy, the squirrel-doctor, Marie Kondo, Santa Claus, and this one. He was making such jokes long before anyone called them “dad jokes.”]

Saxophone logic

If this logic holds, I am a tenor Saxophone.

Thanks, Ian!

DFW at Kenyon

“The list dwindled. Soon, just a few names — including Wallace — remained. A political science major on the committee asked who he was”: from an account of how David Foster Wallace came to give a commencement address at Kenyon College.

Related reading
All OCA DFW posts (Pinboard)

Sappho is not pleased

Kinda remarkable that The New York Times can publish a review of a novel entitled Sweetbitter that fails to gloss the title. Sweetbitter is Sappho’s γλυκύπικρον , glukúpikron , a word that (famously) describes eros . The novel has lines from Sappho (trans. Anne Carson) as one of two epigraphs.

Related reading
All OCA Sappho posts (Pinboard)

“Digital Data”

From xkcd: “Digital Data.” Every picture tells a story.

Movie trouble

“You were looking for trouble, but it was a good kind of trouble”: Antonia “Toni” Marachek (Lizabeth Scott) to Sam Masterson (Van Heflin), in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (dir. Lewis Milestone, 1946).

Years ago, this movie, out-of-copyright, ran on a local station, again and again. And now, again. It’s good to be reacquainted with this bit of dialogue.

Aware for Mac

Aware is a nifty (and free) Mac app that sits in the menu bar and shows how long you’ve been using your computer. Aware might serve as a useful check against the experience of drift. See? I’ve been sitting at the computer for forty-seven minutes already. Enough!

A new Vinegar Flies song

“Carroll County Blues,” a new (old) song by the Vinegar Flies. That’s our son Ben on the five-string banjo.

Narmour and Smith (William “Willie” T. Narmour and Shellie “Shell” W. Smith) recorded “Carroll County Blues” in 1929. Narmour and Smith have been filed away in my head for a long time: they’re the musicians who recommended Mississippi John Hurt to Okeh Records.

Buster Cooper (1929–2016)

Buster Cooper, trombonist, Ellingtonian, has died at the age of eighty-seven. Here is perhaps his finest moment with the Ellington band: “Trombonio-Bustoso-Issimo.”

A related post
Buster Cooper in Florida