The Card Catalog

[A catalog card from The Card Catalog. Click for a larger view.]

From the Library of Congress: The Card Catalog: Books, Cards, and Literary Treasures (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2017) is an illustrated history of the card catalog, from cuneiform days onward. With full-size photographs of more than 200 cards from the Library of Congress catalog.

Even if you prefer e-books, it’d be a mistake to buy this book in digital form. You’d miss out on the book pocket and circulation card affixed to the front pastedown (also known as the inside front cover). Not to mention the pastedown itself.

For more about card catalogs, see Nicholson Baker’s 1994 New Yorker essay “Discards.” And more recently, Tim Carmody’s “Card catalogs and the secret history of modernity” (kottke.org). Thanks to Gunther for the Carmody link.

See also this library slip (1941, 1992) and this one (filled with musicians’ signatures). And see also the Catalog Card Generator.

On John F. Kelly

Josh Marshall, writing about John F. Kelly’s spoken comments on the Civil War, Robert E. Lee, and Representative Frederica Wilson:

Kelly is not an adult in the room. He’s an example of what we might call Total Quality Trumpism, Trumpist ideology in a more disciplined, duty-focused, professional package. The core ideology and beliefs about reclamation and rectitude are the same. It’s not an accident that he ended up in the tightest circle of Trump’s orbit. . . .

Kelly’s eyes appear wide open. His tie to Trump seems to be based on a deep commonality of belief and a desire to sand away the rough edges of Trump to ensure the core goals of Trumpism succeed.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, in a series of tweets:

But, like, when the “adult in the room” believes a war for slavery was honorable. . .

Believes that the torturer of humans, vendor of people, who led that war was honorable. . .

When that dude portrays a sitting member of Congress as some shucking and jiving hustler. . .

When he sticks by that portrayal of a black women, in the face of clear video evidence, when he has so descended into the dream. . .

You really do see the effect of white supremacy.

Halloween advice

From a PSA for trick-or-treaters: “Make sure you’re well lit.”

Yes, kids, stay lit. Happy Halloween.

Separated at birth

 
[The actors Andrew Tombes and Don Lake.]

Andrew Tombes was in many, many movies. I know Don Lake best from Christopher Guest’s faux documentaries.

Also separated at birth
Nicholson Baker and Lawrence Ferlinghetti : Bérénice Bejo and Paula Beer : Ted Berrigan and C. Everett Koop : David Bowie and Karl Held : Victor Buono and Dan Seymour : John Davis Chandler and Steve Buscemi : Ray Collins and Mississippi John Hurt : Broderick Crawford and Vladimir Nabokov : Ted Cruz and Joe McCarthy : Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Gough : Henry Daniell and Anthony Wiener : Jacques Derrida, Peter Falk, and William Hopper : Elaine Hansen (of Davey and Goliath) and Blanche Lincoln : Barbara Hale and Vivien Leigh : Harriet Sansom Harris and Phoebe Nicholls : Ton Koopman and Oliver Sacks : Steve Lacy and Myron McCormick : William H. Macy and Michael A. Monahan : Fredric March and Tobey Maguire : Molly Ringwald and Victoria Zinny

Proust’s letters online

“The first tranche of the letters, several hundred related to World War I, is expected to be published online by Nov. 11, 2018, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the end of the war”: M. Proust’s letters are going online.

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)

A pocket notebook sighting

[Ministry of Fear (dir. Fritz Lang, 1944).]

The men with hats, knife, and notebook are from Scotland Yard. Ray Milland wishes he could have a notebook like that.

More notebook sightings
Angels with Dirty Faces : Ball of Fire : Cat People : City Girl : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Dragnet : Extras : Foreign Correspondent : Homicide : The Honeymooners : The House on 92nd Street : Journal d’un curé de campagne : The Last Laugh : Le Million : The Lodger : Mr. Holmes : Murder at the Vanities : Murder by Contract : Murder, Inc. : The Mystery of the Wax Museum : Naked City : The Naked Edge : The Palm Beach Story : Perry Mason : Pickpocket : Pickup on South Street : Pushover : Quai des Orfèvres : Railroaded! : Red-Headed Woman : Rififi : Route 66 : The Sopranos : Spellbound : State Fair : T-Men : Union Station : Where the Sidewalk Ends : The Woman in the Window

[And yes, that is Ray Milland, not Paul Manafort.]

Scabs and banjos

Chris Matthews, speaking of Donald Trump on Meet the Press today: “He knows he can find the issues that rip the scab off this cultural divide, and he plays it like a banjo.”

Matthews has turned to rip the scab off before. He’s invoked the banjo before as well. But to compare scab-ripping facility to banjo chops — four-string? five-string? clawhammer? Scruggs-style? — that’s something new. I’d liken that move to straining after rhetorical greatness and pulling a groin muscle. Or something.

As you may have guessed, I’m not a Chris Matthews fan. I still recall with pleasure his 2007 appearance on The Daily Show: “This is a book interview from hell!”

Related posts
Chris Matthews disappoints : Chris Matthews explains it all for you : Chris Matthews on sex

[I’ve added a comma to the Meet the Press transcript. Why not?]

Domestic comedy

“It’s gotten to the point where he’s finally lost all of his lack of respect for me.”

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)

From the Saturday Stumper

A nice touch in today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Andy Kravis. The clue for 53-Across, seven letters: “They fill take-out orders.” No spoilers; the answer is in the comments.

Finishing the Saturday Stumper is always cause for minor self-congratulation.

Kafka, strange and stranger

From two manuscripts of a story, one strange, the other stranger:


Franz Kafka, “Wedding Preparations in the Country,” in The Complete Stories, ed. Nahum N. Glatzer, trans. Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins (New York: Schocken, 1971).

Related reading
All OCA Kafka posts (Pinboard)