“The Weight”

After the Boston Marathon bombing, and in other times of sorrow since, I have watched and listened again and again. It’s never made me feel better, but it’s made me feel. That’s the best explanation I can offer. Maybe you will find it helpful too. Mavis Staples, Nick Lowe, and Wilco rehearse Robbie Robertson’s “The Weight.” Filmed by Zoran Orlic at the Civic Opera House, Chicago, December 2011.

Too early?

Is it still too early to be discussing gun-ownership rights? As it has been for a long time now?

“A private queer feeling”

Alice Munro, “Trespasses,” in Runaway (New York: Vintage, 2005).

Details like these are wonderful stuff.

Also from this book
One Munro sentence : “That is what happens” : “Henry Ford?”

Nineteen hours

“The hallucinations began around 4 a.m.”: a New York Times critic attends a performance of Erik Satie’s Vexations.

George Blood, L.P. 78s

At the Internet Archive: 78rpm recordings digitized by George Blood, L.P. The sound is excellent, made possible by a turntable that records with four different needles. The preferred version of each recording is the one with the simple (“more friendly”) filename.

Try Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines’s 1928 recording of King Oliver’s “Weather Bird,” and listen past the surface noise. The music is all there, with surprising clarity.

Thanks, Linda, for pointing me to this resource.

[I grew up on the surface noise of 78s, courtesy of LPs from Yazoo Records. LP: long-playing. L.P.: limited partnership, I think.]

Another Henry

[Henry, September 29, 2017.

The Henry world seems to know only one modern sculptor: Henry. Moore, that is. See also this panel.

Related reading
All OCA Henry posts (Pinboard)

“Technocracy Debunked”

[Everyday Science and Mechanics, February 1933. Found here. Click for a larger view.]

I became curious about Everyday Science and Mechanics after looking into the Depression-era trick of sharpening a razor blade on a drinking glass. “Technocracy Debunked”: I’d like to see page 214 and find out what that article had to say.

“Henry Ford?”

Juliet is talking about belief with a minister. Millions of people believe in Buddha, Juliet says. The minister says that Christ is alive and Buddha isn’t. Juliet says that she sees no proof that either is alive.


Alice Munro, “Soon,” in Runaway (New York: Vintage, 2005).

Also from this book
One Munro sentence : “That is what happens”

The Lettermate

The Lettermate is the perfect tool for those who have difficulty addressing an envelope in straight lines. Yes, you could just put a piece of lined paper in the envelope to use as a guide, but why would you, when you can use a nifty tool instead?

My daughter Rachel gave me the Original Lettermate several years ago. I now have the 2nd Edition Lettermate as well. Highly recommended accessories for analog communication.

Related reading
All OCA letter posts (Pinboard)

“The ‘nailing’ of crates”

Marcel Proust to Madame Williams, July or August 1915:


From Letters to His Neighbor, trans. Lydia Davis (New York: New Directions, 2017).

Letters to His Neighbor collects twenty-six letters that Proust wrote to his upstairs neighbors at 102 Boulevard Haussmann, Charles D. and Marie Williams. Charles (“the Doctor”) was a dentist, whose third-floor office was directly above Proust’s apartment. The Williamses lived above the office on the fourth floor. All but three of the letters are written to Marie Williams (always addressed as “Madame”), and they suggest a light friendship between shut-ins. Proust offers compliments (celebrating Madame’s “Youth, Beauty and Talent”), sends gifts (books, flowers, pheasants), laments the war, and, again and again, draws attention to noise. Cork-lined walls were evidently no real defense. This beautifully produced book gives us something fairly unusual: a portrait of the artist as a neighbor.

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)