Dad, i.m.

My dad, James Leddy, died two years ago today. I was thinking about what to say about that, and then wrote a note to myself with the names of Kafka works and their translators. And I realized that without even trying, I was printing — small, slight slant, all caps — just as my dad did.

Index-card recommendation

Found this afternoon at our friendly neighborhood multinational retailer: Pen + Gear Graph-Ruled Index Cards. They’re a bit on the thin side, but they take ink well, without feathering or bleeding through. And they’re printed with a very fine light-blue grid (five squares to the inch) that doesn’t get in the way of what one is writing or drawing or mapping. These cards are much better than Oxford or Staples grid cards, and a fraction of the cost of Exacompta: 48¢ for 100 cards. Highly recommended.

[The “friendly neighborhood multinational retailer” is Wal-Mart. Pen + Gear is a store brand. The cards are manufactured in India. For those who are more particular than I am: the grid is not always perfectly aligned to the card.]

“The local milk people”

At George Bodmer’s Oscar’s Day: a sit-down with the local milk people. Should such meetings take place at a Neutral Milk Hotel?

If you missed it, here’s more about “the local milk people.”

Coal to solar

“It’s like, ‘This might be coal country, but I cannot afford $600 a month.’ And that’s for a home." The claim sounds like something for Snopes to debunk, but it’s true: the Kentucky Coal Museum is powered by solar energy.

Kafka’s Liberty

Kafka’s version of the Statue of Liberty, on view as young Karl Rossmann arrives in New York Harbor, seems prescient:


Franz Kafka, Amerika (The Man Who Disappeared), trans. from the German by Michael Hoffman (New York: New Directions, 2002).

Unlike the bridge in Amerika that connects New York and Boston, the sword may not be mere error. When the first chapter of Amerika was published as a separate story in 1913, readers noticed the sword. Kafka let it stand in later printings. The Statue of Liberty, the real one, with the torch, became a subject of public debate this week.

Also from Amerika
An American writing desk : A highway : A bridge : Companions : Under-porters and errand-boys : In one door, out the other

“Whooa!”

[Mark Trail, August 4, 2017.]

The “Whooa!” has returned. All I can say is “Krakablam.”

Related reading
All OCA Mark Trail posts (Pinboard)

[The latest Mark Trail storyline, which includes a two-week-long interpolated tale of a pregnant walrus, sets a new mark for tedium in comic strips.]

/klōs-pin/

Feeling around in the mailbox in search of more mail, I found my way to the clothespin that we use to attach outgoing items to the box. And Elaine called attention to my pronunciation of clothespin, a pronunciation I’ve used, unconsciously, for, like, forever: /'klōs-pin/. (She thinks it’s sweet and says not to change it — not that I can.) I have learned that my mom, too, says /'klōs-pin/. I have also learned that most people say /'klōz-pin/ and that the pronunciation of the word is of little interest to the Internets.

My best explanation of the Leddy version of the word is that it replaces the slightly awkward /'ōz-pin/ with the easier-to-pronounce /'ōs-pin/. (Or even /'ō-spin/.) I think — think — that the replacement is an example of what’s called sandhi.

All that aside: does anyone out there say /'klōs-pin/?

*

August 5: I just remembered a handful of clothespin-centric posts:

From Nicholson Baker’s The Anthologist : About the clothespins in Baker’s book : From Peanuts: “What are clothespins?”

On Louis Armstrong’s birthday

[Louis Armstrong. Photograph by John Loengard. Undated. From the Life Photo Archive.]

Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901. My title for this photograph: Bodhisattva at Work.

Related reading
All OCA Louis Armstrong posts (Pinboard)

It’s Mueller Time

[I like this shirt, but I’d rather give to the ACLU.]

The Wall Street Journal, about an hour ago:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury in Washington to investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections, a sign that his inquiry is growing in intensity and entering a new phase.

[Why does the article’s URL include google.com? To get around the WSJ firewall.]

In one eyelet, in the other eyelet

You know the mysterious extra eyelets on sneakers? A YouTube clip explains that they’re for making a heel lock, or lace lock. Best watched with sneaker in hand or foot in sneaker. Gosh, does this way of lacing make a difference. Highly recommended.

[Posted after a long walk.]