What’d they do?

Writing in The Washington Post, Philip Kennicott asks, “What did the men with Donald Trump do when he spoke of ‘shithole countries’?”:

This is the dinner table test: When you are sitting and socializing with a bigot, what do you do when he reveals his bigotry? I’ve seen it happen, once, when I was a young man, and I learned an invaluable lesson. An older guest at a formal dinner said something blatantly anti-Semitic. I was shocked and laughed nervously. Another friend stared at his plate silently. Another excused himself and fled to the bathroom. And then there was the professor, an accomplished and erudite man, who paused for a moment, then slammed his fist on the table and said, “I will never listen to that kind of language, so either you will leave, or I will leave.” The offender looked around the table, found no allies and left the gathering. I don’t know if he felt any shame upon expulsion.

The next New Yorker cover

[Anthony Russo, “In the Hole.” The New Yorker, January 22, 2018.]

More here.

Barack Obama and David Letterman

Now streaming at Netflix, the first episode of David Letterman’s six-episode interview series, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction. It’s a disappointment, in several ways. There’s only the slightest glance at the White House’s new part-time tenant. There’s nothing said about how we got from the one president to the other or about democratic or Democratic futures.

But beyond any particular subject of discussion: David Letterman is not an especially good interviewer, not for this kind of interview, not at this length. He seems like a man attempting to play the role of a serious conversationalist. Imagine — just imagine — what Dick Cavett could do with this opportunity.

The best moments: Obama talking about his children, especially about taking Malia to college. Tear-smeary stuff, at least for me.

[The subject of the White House’s new part-time tenant does come up in an interpolated interview with Congressman John Lewis.]

From the Saturday Stumper

A fiendish clue, from today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, 11-Across, three letters: “One of a stack of checkers.” No spoilers; the answer is in the comments.

Today’s puzzle, by Frank Longo, is hard, hard. Finishing a Saturday Stumper is always cause for minor self-congratulation.

Inside General Pencil

The New York Times Magazine has a terrific feature on Jersey City’s General Pencil Company. With photographs by Christopher Payne, text by Sam Anderson:

In an era of infinite screens, the humble pencil feels revolutionarily direct: It does exactly what it does, when it does it, right in front of you. Pencils eschew digital jujitsu. They are pure analog, absolute presence.

They are also nice to write with. I so wanted to make this post with a pencil, a General Kimberly (2B).

Related reading
All OCA pencil posts (Pinboard)

Margie King Barab (1932–2018)

Our dear friend Margie King Barab has died at the age of eighty-five. For years, Elaine and I visited Margie and her husband Seymour Barab every summer in New York. And after Seymour died, we visited Margie. Margie was a singer, a teacher, and a writer. She appeared on television in the early days of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood as Miss Margie Nebraska and later taught music to children in a Montessori school. One of my last memories of visiting Margie: it was around Thanksgiving, and we were walking with her to her ATM before we had to head off to the subway. It was cold and wet and windy. And somehow the three of us were singing “Tea for Two.”

After Alexander King, Margie’s first husband, died, Margie received a letter from Marianne Moore (November 16, 1966) that included this line: “What was, never ceases in the soul, does it?” I used to share that line (with Margie’s permission) when I taught Moore’s poetry. And I’m sharing it now.


[Our friends Seymour Barab and Margie King Barab, New York, May 2012. Photograph by Michael Leddy.]

GrandPerspective icon

For Mac users: it’s a replacement icon for GrandPerspective, an app that creates a visual display of disk contents. (Useful for finding and zapping humongous files.) The icon is the work of BlackVariant (Patrick). Stylish and orange — I’m in.

“In other news”

This headline sums it up: “In Other News, Your President Is Still Racist.”

“Pink protest hat”

[Hi and Lois, January 11, 2018.]

“Pink protest hat”: well, I wouldn’t expect Dot to say “pussyhat” either. The surprising thing is that Lois Flagston owns a pussyhat, which would strongly suggest that she participated in last January’s Women’s March. But you’d never know it from the strip itself: on January 21, 2017, the day of the march, Hi was taking Dot and Ditto out for pancakes. On January 22, a branch was scratching against a window. If Lois was marching, she was keeping quiet about it. Or relatively quiet: Dot knows about that hat.

And soon everyone else will know: the hat is for a snowwoman who holds a sign that reads equal rights. But Lois and Dot should know that the “pink protest hat” is no longer in favor.

Here is an explanation of what’s coming later this month, in life, not comics: “What You Need to Know About the 2018 Women’s March.”

Related reading
All OCA Hi and Lois posts (Pinboard)

[“Can I borrow your pink protest hat?” would have been a great start for a John Ashbery poem.]

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