White House misspellings and typos

Seth Masket, a former writer for the White House Office of Correspondence, considers the abundance of misspellings and typos in official correspondence from today’s White House. His conclusion: “It’s actually difficult to produce errors like this under normal conditions.”

One that was new to me: “the possibility of lasting peach.”

Domestic comedy

“Is she even wearing a bra?”

“The Dharma Initiative push-up bra.”

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)

A joke in the traditional manner

What is the favorite snack of demolition crews?

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 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? : How do worms get to the supermarket? : 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? : What was the shepherd doing in the garden? : Where do amoebas golf? : 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 amoebas, the worms, the toy, the shepherd, the squirrel-doctor, Marie Kondo, Santa Claus, and this one. He was making such jokes long before anyone called them “dad jokes.”]

Music for Father’s Day

I’m still making my alphabetical way through my dad’s CDs: Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, Ivie Anderson, Louis Armstrong, Fred Astaire, Mildred Bailey, Count Basie, Tony Bennett, Art Blakey, Ruby Braff and Ellis Larkins, Clifford Brown, Dave Brubeck, Joe Bushkin, Hoagy Carmichael, Betty Carter, Ray Charles, Charlie Christian, Rosemary Clooney, Nat “King” Cole, John Coltrane, Bing Crosby, Miles Davis, Matt Dennis, Doris Day, Blossom Dearie, Paul Desmond, Tommy Dorsey, Billy Eckstine, Duke Ellington, Bill Evans, Gil Evans, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Erroll Garner, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Stéphane Grappelli, Bobby Hackett, and now, Coleman Hawkins. My dad had good taste, no? I owe my foundations in music to him.

Here are four beautiful recordings with which I’m marking this Father’s Day, all by Coleman Hawkins and His All-Star “Jam” Band: “Crazy Rhythm” (Irving Caesar-Joseph Meyer-Roger Wolfe Kahn), “Out of Nowhere” (Johnny Green-Edward Heyman), “Honeysuckle Rose” (Thomas “Fats” Waller-Andy Razaf) “Sweet Georgia Brown” (Ben Bernie-Maceo Pinkard-Kenneth Casey). The last side in particular is hotter than hot.

 
 
Coleman Hawkins, tenor sax; Benny Carter, alto sax and trumpet; André Ekyan, alto sax; Alix Combelle, tenor sax and clarinet; Stéphane Grappelli, piano; Django Reinhardt, guitar; Eugène d’Hellemmes, bass; Tommy Benford, drums. Recorded in Paris, April 28, 1937.

Solos on “Crazy Rhythm”: Ekyan, Combelle, Carter, Hawkins. “Out of Nowhere”: Carter, Hawkins. “Honeysuckle Rose”: Hawkins, Reinhardt, Carter. “Sweet Georgia Brown”: Hawkins, Carter, Hawkins.

My dad had these recordings on the now-out-of-print CD The Hawk in Europe: 1934–1937 (Living Era, 1988). They can still be found elsewhere on CD by searching for hawkins and 1937.

Happy Father’s Day to all.

A Henry insult

[Henry, June 17, 2017.]

“Stingy tightwad”: now there’s a childhood insult that stings. “Blimp” though is just the guy’s name.

Related reading
All OCA Henry posts (Pinboard)

Woodstock TV

[Peanuts, June 20, 1970, and repeated today.]

Woodstock has just exited the doghouse. He joins Henry, Linus van Pelt, and Nancy Ritz in having sat too close to the television.

Related reading
All OCA Peanuts posts (Pinboard)

Word of the night: owl-hoot

The Oxford English Dictionary word of the day is owl-hoot. The word means “the hooting sound made by an owl; a sound imitating or resembling this.”

A later meaning, “esp. in the language of Wild West fiction, etc.”: ”a fugitive, an outlaw. Hence: a worthless or contemptible person.” That’s an owlhoot, without the hyphen. Cowboys got no time for hyphens.

But the earliest meaning of owl-hoot, now archaic and rare: “dusk, nightfall.”

It is 8:55 p.m.: owl-hoot.

Lost Ulysses

[From the Lost episode “316,” February 18, 2009.]

Benjamin Linus reads Ulysses. “How can you read?” Jack asks. “My mother taught me,” Ben replies.

[No spoilers, please.]

Bloomsday 2017

It is Bloomsday. James Joyce’s novel Ulysses (1922) begins on June 16, 1904, and ends in the early hours of the following day. Here is a passage from “Ithaca,” the novel’s penultimate episode, and my favorite. (Episodes, not chapters: like the Odyssey .) Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus are walking.



Other Bloomsday posts
2007 (The first page)
2008 (“Love’s Old Sweet Song”)
2009 (Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses)
2010 (Leopold Bloom, “water lover”)
2011 (“[T]he creature cocoa”)
2012 (Plumtree’s Potted Meat)
2013, 2013 (Bloom and fatherhood)
2014 (Bloom, Stephen, their respective ages)
2015 (Stephen and company, very drunk)
2016 (“I dont like books with a Molly in them”)

WWRZS

Last night I tried to imagine what my friend Rob Zseleczky might have said about about the traces of CliffsNotes and SparkNotes in Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize lecture. “He’s an outlaw, Michael,” I imagined Rob saying. “He doesn’t care what you think of him.” And then I imagined Rob laughing helplessly: “CliffsNotes!”