All the books are green, almost

The Washington Post reports on “the odd assortment of books that make up the White House Christmas book tree.” The books were chosen for their green covers — or, in the words of Stephanie Grisham, director of communications for first lady Melania Trump, “their varieties of green color tones.” The green books set off Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s copy of A Christmas Carol, bound in red.

[See also Nicholson Baker’s “Books as Furniture.”]

Mystery actor

[Click for a larger, perhaps more recognizable view.]

He’s appearing in his first film role. Do you recognize him? Leave your best guess as a comment, and enter as often as you like. I’ll drop a hint if necessary.

More mystery actors (Collect them all!)
? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ?

Robin Wright on words and sentences

Ilan Stavans’s podcast In Contrast offers an excellent interview with the journalist and foreign correspondent Robin Wright. Wright offers, in passing, some provocative observations about the teaching of writing in the United States:

There is the illusion that the longer the sentence, and the more multisyllabic words are used, the longer the paragraph, the better the writing, when in fact, it’s exactly the opposite. I always say “Tight is right”: write short, write pithy, write to the point, write things people understand in one bite, rather than compound ideas in a single sentence. . . .

Unfortunately, in universities, people write quite dull prose.

Wright is right, of course. One idea, one sentence is a good maxim, as long as one acknowledges that ideas come in all sizes and may be made of many parts. (See, for instance, Proust.) If you look at any of Wright’s recent pieces for The New Yorker, I think you’ll agree that her sentences, whatever their length, are models of clarity.

A related post
Sentences, short and long

[Transcription mine.]

Stefan Zweig in Turkey

Stefan Zweig is reported to be the most-read writer in Turkey.

Related reading
All OCA Stefan Zweig posts (Pinboard)

Van Dyke Parks meets Merle Haggard

As told by Kinky Friedman:

“Van Dyke was worried he’d get lynched because, well, he’s a sort of Noel Coward type,” Friedman says. “So he asked everybody, ‘How long have you known Merle?’ And every one of them would answer, ‘Ever since.’ ‘Ever since,' 'Ever since,’ ‘Ever since.’ So he asked me, ‘What does that mean, ever since?’ I told him, ‘Ever since prison, stupid!’ Stupid is one thing Van Dyke is not. But ever since prison.

Related reading
All OCA Van Dyke Parks posts (Pinboard)

[“A sort of Noel Coward type”? What?!]

Charles Simic on the pencil

Charles Simic writes about “The Poet’s Pencil”:

I knew a poet who could only write his poems with a stub of a pencil. Nothing else worked for him as well. His family and friends bought him fountain pens, ballpoints, typewriters, and laptops, but he kept away from them. “It’s like giving a dog a wristwatch for Christmas,” his wife said.

The poet, of course, is Simic himself.

About Simic’s offhand characterization of “an age of computers and smartphones when pencils are becoming extinct”: with enough use, individual pencils have always become extinct. But the species? No. Not now. Not yet.

Word of the day: wrangler

At many a performance of The Nutcracker, the volunteering parents who manage the young dancers backstage are called wranglers. For obvious reasons.

Is this bit of language heard backstage more generally? I have no idea. Anyone?

For Safari users only

I’m not an IT guy, but I play one at home. That’s how I found a page about how to speed up page loads in Safari. Disabling DNS prefetch — who knew? — makes an enormous difference.

I’ve long used Google Code’s namebench to select DNS servers. That helps. And we just received a new modem/router from our cable company. That helps too. But disabling prefetch — well, as Timmy Martin would say, Gosh!

From the Saturday Stumper

A nice clue from the Newsday Saturday Stumper, 40-Across, eight letters: “Unwritten constitution.” No spoilers; the answer is in the comments.

Today’s puzzle is by Lester Ruff, whose name sounds like an anagram (Re: Truffles), but who knows? Finishing a Saturday Stumper is always cause for minor self-congratulation.

Pottery Barn Kids [sic]

My daughter Rachel has alerted me to the existence of Pottery Barn Kids merchandise: Le Creuset toy cookware and Williams Sonoma toy food, costing much more than many people can afford to spend on real cookware and real food. You can guess what we think about this stuff.

In our household the crucial culinary toy was a 1980s Little Tikes Kitchen, a topic of conversation in a piece of fambly videotape. “Vintage” Little Tikes Kitchens are now even more expensive than Pottery Barn toys.