A 1957 Mongol advertisement

[Life, April 1, 1957. Click for a larger view.]

One year earlier, an Eberhard Faber advertisement touted the Mongol as writing 2,162 words for one cent. In that ad Mongols were priced at fifteen cents for two. So one Mongol equalled 2,162 × 7.5, or 16,215 words. Now it’s 1957, and a Mongol writes fifteen more words, but the price per word is higher: only 1,623 words for one cent.

The number that really commands my attention in this ad: 88. As in: “88 per cent of America’s writing is done with a woodcased pencil.” The importance of being analog.

Related reading
All OCA Mongol posts (Pinboard)

Mark Blank

Fresca invites readers to add new words to the speech balloons in a Mark Trail panel. Fun.

Related reading
All OCA Mark Trail posts (Pinboard)

The first Paul Martin

I just learned that the actor Jon Shepodd has died at the age of eighty-nine. He played Paul Martin in the 1957–58 season of Lassie, with Cloris Leachman as his wife Ruth. When Leachman decided to leave the show, Hugh Reilly and June Lockhart were brought in to play Timmy’s parents.

A page from Jon Provost’s website has several photographs of Provost (Timmy Martin) and Shepodd in Lassie days and in recent years.

Related reading
All OCA Lassie posts (Pinboard)

[Cloris Leachman on a farm? No.]

A Larry Rivers Camel pack

At the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, Larry Rivers: (Re)Appropriations. The exhibition page includes a slideshow. To the left, a greatly reduced Cream Camel (1980). Any larger and I’d start thinking about smoking.

[See also the sidebar: “Don’t look for premiums or coupons,” &c.]

Mark Trail recycles

[Mark Trail, August 8, September 7, 2017.]

Yet another instance of this comic strip recycling materials. Yet another instance of this comic strip recycling materials.

Related reading
All OCA Mark Trail posts (Pinboard)

[The story of this shiny man and his crooked cohorts has been going since April, at least. That’s the same storm in each panel. Keeps rainin’ all the time. Keeps rainin’ all the time.]

One more Rick Veach story

One more story about Rick, which I just thought of:

Several years ago we ordered a new under-the-cabinet range hood to replace the one that came with our house. Rick was working in one of our bathrooms when two young men delivered the new hood. After removing the old hood, they discovered that the new hood was ⅛" longer than the space cut beneath our cabinet. The standard measurement for range hoods had apparently changed in fifty-something years. These guys did not, as they told Rick, do carpentry. Rick told them that he would install the hood for us.

Which he did. He also did the duct work to hook the hood up properly, something that had never been done. End of story.

Not famous

Thinking about Rick made me think of this opinion piece in The New York Times, by Emily Esfahani Smith, “You’ll Never Be Famous — And That’s O.K.”: “We all have a circle of people whose lives we can touch and improve — and we can find our meaning in that.”

[But a distinction between “extraordinary” and “ordinary” lives? I don’t buy in. There are no ordinary lives.]

Rick Veach (1959–2017)

Rick Veach was our plumber and our heating and cooling specialist through almost all the twenty-seven years we’ve lived in our house. And he was our friend. I’m not sure how or why we first called him — probably on someone’s recommendation. He never needed to advertise.

A visit from Rick was a visit, for real. Whatever work there was to do, there was also time for conversation, conversation that went in any and every direction: our children, his children, the school system, building codes, guitars, vacation destinations. Rick told us once that he knew he could make more money by just doing the work and going to the next job, but that visiting with people was part of what he liked about his work. He told us that he thought of us as friends. And that’s how we thought of him.

Rick solved problems that many a person would have walked away from. I often quoted him to my students: “A problem is just a challenge that hasn’t been overcome.” I loved that, and I still quote it to myself. And Rick solved problems with absolute integrity. When the mini-split system that he installed in our house failed to work properly, Rick tried fix after fix. He called the manufacturer, repeatedly, and finally figured out the problem: the manufacturer’s specs failed to mention a maximum distance between units. Our two units were just over the limit. So what did Rick do? He replaced the system with one from another manufacturer — at his own cost. We couldn’t even pay him for his labor. But we did get him to accept a large gift certificate to a favorite restaurant.

Here is a song that Rick told us was one of his favorites: “Once Upon a Time.” He had the Jay McShann recording on his phone and played it for us once, and the three of us stood listening in our hallway.

A related post
Rick solves a minor mystery : One more Rick Veach story

Another resignation

Javier Palomarez, president and CEO of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, has resigned from Donald Trump’s National Diversity Coalition:

Over the past month, many corporate leaders have fled the councils and coalitions President Trump assembled at the beginning of his administration. I am proud to join them. While I will never cease advocating for policies that benefit America’s Hispanic-owned businesses, the moral costs of associating with this White House are simply too high. There is no place for a National Diversity Coalition in an administration that by its word and deed does not value diversity at all.

Palomarez notes that the National Diversity Coalition “never formally met — a stark sign of the president’s lack of interest in our work.”

This passage from a Times article that appeared earlier today speaks volumes:

As late as one hour before the decision [to end DACA] was to be announced, administration officials privately expressed concern that Mr. Trump might not fully grasp the details of the steps he was about to take, and when he discovered their full impact, would change his mind.

Which would seem to mean that Trump lacks even the competence to make a bad decision. The anguish and uncertainty that his decision visits upon hundreds of thousands of young adults and their families and friends is beyond reckoning.

A related post
More resignations

A Painted Rock Owl

[Click for a larger owl.]

A Painted Rock Owl, spotted yesterday at the entrance to a park. The owl’s habitat: some rock.