Yielding in Massachusetts

In The New York Times Magazine, John Hodgman answers a question about driving in Massachusetts: what should a driver do when someone is standing on the sidewalk at a Yield to Pedestrians crosswalk, not yet crossing? Hodgman says the driver should yield: “Don’t be a masshole.”

What Hodgman doesn’t make explicit is that yielding for someone still on the sidewalk isn’t required by Massachusetts law. But says a Cambridge lawyer experienced in crosswalk cases: "If they have the intent of crossing within a reasonable distance of it, then yeah, you gotta stop."

[Drivers in Brookline (the town referenced in Hodgman’s piece) really do stop at Yield to Pedestrian signs, at least the ones in Coolidge Corner, at least most of the time, at least in my experience. I’ve added commas to the lawyer’s sentence.]

A representative walk

Air, mint, air : air : air : air : air, leaves : leaves, air : air : air : air : air : burning leaves : burning leaves : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air, turkey, air : air : air : air, fireplace, air : air : air : air, leaves, air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air : air, leaves, air : air, leaves, air : air.

[Inspired by something my friend Sara McWhorter wrote and sent. The colons separate the fifty minutes of walking. Mint? Lip balm.]

From the Saturday Stumper

A clever clue from the Newsday Saturday Stumper, 26-Across, four letters: “Hail in Oz.” No spoilers; the answer is in the comments.

Today’s puzzle is by Andrew Bell Lewis. Finishing a Saturday Stumper is always cause for minor self-congratulation.

Rations detail

[Kyle Surges, WWII Rations, detail. Oil on panel. 9" × 18". 2015.]

Kyle Surges’s paintings knock me out. Visit the artist’s website for more.

We three kings

Donald Trump reminds me of three kings, or one king and two tyrants, really: he combines Agamemnon’s contempt for truth (“Fake news!” Trump would have told the seer Calchas), Oedipus’s egomania (“I alone can fix it,” Trump would have said of the Sphinx’s curse), and Creon’s strutting authoritarianism (“I’m president, and you’re not,” Trump would have told Oedipus when ordering him back in the house).

But unlike Oedipus, Trump has no interest in the pursuit of truth: he would have fired Tiresias and ended the investigation of the murder of Laertes. Oedipus chose to pursue that investigation, wherever it might lead. But of course he had no idea where it would lead.

Also unlike Oedipus: Trump would never have solved the Sphinx’s riddle to begin with.

A related post
Word of the day: tyrant

[In Iliad 1, when Calchas tells Agamemnon why the Achaean forces have been hit by a plague and what to do to remove it, Agamemnon complains that Calchas never gives him any good omens. Agamemon’s the king; Oedipus and Creon, tyrants.]

Sardine art

[Maudie (dir. Aisling Walsh, 2016).]

The Canadian artist Maud Lewis used sardine cans to hold her paints. Here, look. Notice the Campbell’s Soup can too, put to un-Warholian use.

Today is National Sardines Day. Let us, each in our own way, honor the small oily fish.

Related reading
All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard)

Thanksgiving 1917

[“Thanksgiving Food Never So Expensive: Turkeys Get Up to 50 Cents a Pound and Cranberries Bring 25 Cents a Quart.” The New York Times, November 29, 1917.]

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Previous Thanksgiving posts
In jail, 1916 : At the Waldorf Astoria, 1915 : In jail, 1914 : In jail, 1913 : Thanksgiving and mortality : In jail, 1912 : Competitive eating, 1911 : A 1917 greeting card : A found letter : Sing Sing, 1908 : Sing Sing, 1907 : I remember Thanksgiving

[Nathan Straus, co-owner of R.H. Macy & Company and Abraham & Straus, had a long history as a philanthropist.]

Jon Hendricks (1921–2017)

The singer and lyricist Jon Hendricks has died at the age of ninety-six. The New York Times has an obituary. The Lambert, Hendricks & Ross album Sing a Song of Basie (1957) is one of my earliest musical memories. It begins: “Dig Count Basie blow Joe’s blues away.”

Peppermint Hallmark

[Peanuts, November 22, 1970.]

Peppermint Patty (last name Reichardt I once heard) is watching a beauty contest. But I prefer to believe that she’s watching the Hallmark Channel.

Related reading
All OCA Peanuts posts (Pinboard) : I am a prisoner of Hallmark Movies and Mysteries : Hallmark ex machina : The Bridge, continued : Shine on, Hallmark Channel : Sleigh Bells Ring

[Yesterday’s Peanuts is today’s Peanuts. This strip ran again this past Sunday. Extra credit if you recognize the source for “(last name Reichardt I once heard).”]

“Useful, poetic,” &c.

Rachel Peden writes of losing the battle against weeds but loving her garden “just the same”:

I Iove it on the day when the earth is prepared and I can take off my shoes and walk barefooted on the fresh, moist, sun-warmed soil. I love it when I put my shoes back on and begin to work, marking off rows and putting in seeds, and almost forgetting to stop in time to start supper. I love it when the first bean sprouts appear, the little bowed green heads first, then the two little green hands held up above the face. A garden makes me feel useful, poetic, comforted, overworked, justified for living, luxurious. I always promise to be faithful to this one, but every year the weeds are more faithful than I. After all, they have nothing else to do, of course.

Rachel Peden, The Land, the People (Bloomington, IN: Quarry Books, 2010).

As late as the first days of November, we still had tiny plum tomatoes growing. But the frost ended that. Our raised beds are now covered with cardboard and waiting for the spring. The first time it snows I want to sit with Elaine at the kitchen table and plan out next year’s crops.

Also from Rachel Peden
Against school consolidation : Dry goods, &c. : Inspiration for writing : “For pies and jelly and philosophy” : “On speaking terms with yourself”