Domestic comedy

“‘The devil’s spawn’: isn’t that a little extreme?”

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)

Into the frying pan

[Field and Stream , November 2004.]

Yes, it’s a good way to eat sardines. And a few red-pepper flakes wouldn’t hurt.

Related reading
All OCA sardines posts (Pinboard)

From an old notebook

“A man will always promenade whatever lady is with him at the time of the call to his home position.”

*

“How many poems do you write a week?”

“Only one a week, but I’ve had over three hundred and forty poems published.”

[Heard on a poetry program on public radio.]

*

“I had something Tibetan going.”

[Heard on a poetry program on public radio.]

*

A terrific blank settled in,
its name was Introduction to Literary Criticism.

*

This, gentlemen, is the icing on the cake of confidence.

[From a student essay on “To His Coy Mistress.”]

*

“One more slang expression and you’re grounded!”

Also from an old notebook
Alfalfa, Ted Berrigan, Jack Kerouac, metaphors : Alfred Appel Jr. on twentieth-century art and literature : Barney : Beauty and the Beast and kid talk : Eleanor Roosevelt : John Ashbery and Kenneth Koch : Plato, Shirley Temple, vulgarity, wisdom, Stan Laurel

Stale candy

[“Penny Candy.” Photograph by Eliot Elisofon. No date. From the Life Photo Archive. Click for the jumbo assortment.]

Trick-or-treating seems to be a fading tradition in our neighborhood. Last year we went all out for Halloween, and the leftover candy lasted through mid-April. The candy in the photograph above is older still, and it’s the only candy on hand for this year’s Halloween.

“Seriously”

Featured on This American Life . Composed by Sara Bareilles, sung by Leslie Odom Jr., “Seriously”:

Interagriculturaltextuality

[Zippy , October 30, 2016.]

If you look at today’s strip, you’ll see an additional Nancy bonus feature.

Related reading
All OCA Nancy posts, Nancy and Zippy posts, Zippy posts (Pinboard)

Adventures in molded plywood

The Charles and Ray Eames leg splint, a Cooper Hewitt Object of the Day.

I saw such a splint at a 2011 Eames exhibition. So beautiful that it’s easy to forget the practical purpose.

Related reading
All OCA Eames posts (Pinboard)

An anecdote from Mark Shields

Mark Shields, in his most recent column, on what WikiLeaks e-mails suggest about the workings of the Clinton Foundation:

Unhappily, what comes to mind is an anecdote author Kurt Vonnegut told about fellow author Joseph Heller, a close friend of his. At a lavish party hosted by a billionaire on New York’s Shelter Island, Vonnegut asked Heller, “Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel Catch-22 has earned in its entire history?” Heller responded, “I’ve got something he can never have.” Vonnegut asked, “What on earth could that be, Joe?” And Heller answered, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.” Wading through WikiLeaks makes you doubt whether Bill Clinton ever knew Joseph Heller.

Usage tip of the day

From Leddy’s Imaginary Dictionary of Usage (2016).

Also from this non-existent volume: entries for get and nice .

[Getting my Fowler on.]

From an old notebook

“The things that you cannot do are the things that you should do”: Eleanor Roosevelt, as quoted by the tenor saxophonist David Murray, Downbeat , January 1993.

Also from an old notebook
Alfalfa, Ted Berrigan, Jack Kerouac, metaphors : Alfred Appel Jr. on twentieth-century art and literature : Barney : Beauty and the Beast and kid talk : John Ashbery and Kenneth Koch : Plato, Shirley Temple, vulgarity, wisdom, Stan Laurel

[What Roosevelt wrote: “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” From You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life (New York: Harper & Row, 1960).]