No, chalk

I was listening to a colleague telling stories of his life. I left to go to a stationery store. Those black-and-white-and-yellow boxes: did they hold Eberhard Faber pencils? No, chalk, the owner said. And she began to tell me stories of my colleague’s life. I left to go to a meeting. A deposed provost stood before me: “We must keep our teeth clean.” He began to brush mine. “Eh or ann ow uh ai ow,” I said. And I left.

Related reading
All OCA dream posts (Pinboard)

[“Eh or ann ow uh ai ow”: Get your hand out of my mouth.]

One space, two spaces

Matthew Butterick of Practical Typography looks at a research study’s claim that the use of two spaces after a period makes text more readable: Are two spaces better than one? Butterick’s answer: no.

*

May 6: The Washington Post has noticed the study and pretty much endorses its claim: “One space between each sentence, they said. Science just proved them wrong.” No mention of Matthew Butterick’s analysis.

Domestic comedy

“There’s no getting away from branding. We’re all like race-car drivers.”

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard)

[Context: Carhartt pants, Columbia fleece, New Balance sneakers.]

Common misspellings

From Oxford Dictionaries, a list derived from the Oxford English Corpus: the hundred most commonly misspelled words.

One of these words always throws me: idiosyncrasy. And when I saw it on the list, I thought, Oh, they’re using British spellings. But no, that’s how the word is spelled: idiosyncrasy, not idiosyncracy. Also spelled quirk.

Review: To Fight Against This Age

Rob Riemen. To Fight Against This Age: On Fascism and Humanism. Translated from the Dutch by the author. New York: W.W. Norton, 2018. 171 pages. $19.95 hardcover.

I was prepared to learn from and take heart from this book, which contains the essay "The Eternal Return of Fascism" and the allegorical symposium "The Return of Europa: Her Tears, Deeds, and Dreams," both first published in 2010. But I came away unimpressed by Rob Riemen’s thinking about fascism and how to oppose it.

In the early 21st century, the enemy, as Riemen sees it, is indeed fascism: he regards "populism" as nothing more than a euphemism for an array of political movements that worship power, feed on fear and ignorance, and long for "the return of an unattainable past." For Riemen, fascism is “mass democracy,” “the bastard child of democracy.” Yet he never explains the differences between democracy and its illegitimate offspring.

To defend against fascism, Riemen invokes values underlying “the European ideal of civilization”: “absolute spiritual values,” “spiritual absolute values,” “universal timeless values,” “absolute values such as truth, justice, compassion, and beauty,” values he sees as now lost in a chaos of subjectivity. Riemen thinks that without some transcendent basis for values, nothing is true, everything permitted. But what does it mean to call, say, justice or beauty an absolute value? And what do we say to those who equate justice with, say, amputations or beheadings? Those who lay claim to absolute values may be the most intolerant among us.

But Riemen gets into a deeper muddle: while he sees culture as the preserver of “all that is timeless and of spiritual value,” he also says that “because truth is absolute we have to be prepared for the changing shapes of truth.” Thus culture requires “being open to the new, searching for new forms that can stand the test of time.” In other words, truth is absolute and timeless, but its shape changes. What then is it that stands “the test of time”? Riemen would do well to consider the possibilities of contingency: we need not believe our values to be absolute and timeless to argue for them as useful and right. Indeed, how could we ever know that our values are timeless?

As for “the European ideal of civilization,” Riemen’s idea of European culture is selective and at times preposterous. Riemen’s Europe, the true Europe, is devoid of colonial and imperial ambitions, and has always had humanism as its “defining characteristic.” This Europe is no place for people devoted to everyday distractions and gadgets, those who “know nothing of the life of the mind or spiritual values.” Here Riemen sounds a bit like Ignatius J. Reilly.

And Europe, on Riemen’s terms, is unique among the cultures of the world, “‘because it tries to understand the deeper significance of being human.’” This observation is imparted in what Riemen calls “the true story of Europe,” told by a character in “The Return of Europa,” an old man named Radim (ostensibly a fictional character, though he seems to be Radim Palouš, a Czech dissident and philosopher). Someone had better tell the Gilgamesh poet and the Buddha that Europe beat them to it.

An alternative to this book that might lead to a better fight: Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2017). Where Riemen dispenses platitudes (we must “live in truth,” “create beauty,” “do what is right”), Snyder offers pragmatic advice grounded in recent history: “do not obey in advance”; “defend institutions.” That kind of advice may prove more useful than platitudes.

Related posts
Rob Riemen’s Nobility of Spirit : “Demagogues and charlatans”

Before and after

Before: “The Wikipedia article says. . . .”

After: “After some research, I unearthed. . . .”

From my dad’s CDs

I’m still making my way through my dad’s CDs: Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, Ivie Anderson, Louis Armstrong, Fred Astaire, Mildred Bailey, Count Basie, Tony Bennett, Art Blakey, Ruby Braff and Ellis Larkins, Clifford Brown, Dave Brubeck, Joe Bushkin, Hoagy Carmichael, Betty Carter, Ray Charles, Charlie Christian, Rosemary Clooney, Nat “King” Cole, John Coltrane, Bing Crosby, Miles Davis, Matt Dennis, Doris Day, Blossom Dearie, Paul Desmond, Tommy Dorsey, Billy Eckstine, Duke Ellington, Bill Evans, Gil Evans, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Erroll Garner, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Stéphane Grappelli, Bobby Hackett, Coleman Hawkins, Woody Herman, Earl Hines, Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, Dick Hyman, Harry James, Hank Jones, Louis Jordan, Stan Kenton, Barney Kessel, Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross, Peggy Lee, Mary Ann McCall, Susannah McCorkle, Dave McKenna, Ray McKinley, Marian McPartland, Johnny Mercer, Helen Merrill, Glenn Miller, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Thelonious Monk, Wes Montgomery, Gerry Mulligan, Red Norvo, Anita O’Day, Charlie Parker, Joe Pass, Art Pepper, Oscar Peterson, Bud Powell, Boyd Raeburn, Django Reinhardt, Marcus Roberts, Sonny Rollins, Jimmy Rushing, Catherine Russell, the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, Artie Shaw, George Shearing, Horace Silver, Frank Sinatra, Paul Smith, Jeri Southern, Jo Stafford, Art Tatum, Claude Thornhill, Mel Tormé, McCoy Tyner, Sarah Vaughan, and now, Joe Venuti.

My dad had just one Venuti recording, Joe & Zoot & More (Chiaroscuro). I love the LP Joe & Zoot, so I bought him the CD reissue, which has the LP tracks (with one substitution) and a few extras. Here are two selections:

 

“Oh, Lady Be Good” (George Gershwin–Ira Gershwin). Joe Venuti, violin; Zoot Sims, soprano sax; Dick Wellstood, piano; George Duvivier, bass; Cliff Leeman, drums. Recorded in New York City, September 27, 1973.

“The Blue Room” (Richard Rodgers–Lorenz Hart). Venuti, violin; Spencer Clark, bass sax; Dill Jones, piano; Bucky Pizzarelli, guitar. Recorded in New York City, May 29, 1974. Yes, the sound is a little scratchy here.

Also from my dad’s CDs
Mildred Bailey : Tony Bennett : Charlie Christian : Blossom Dearie : Duke Ellington : Coleman Hawkins : Billie Holiday : Louis Jordan : Charlie Parker : Jimmy Rushing : Artie Shaw : Frank Sinatra : Art Tatum : Mel Tormé : Sarah Vaughan

On Duke Ellington’s birthday, a random possible discovery

It may be coincidence, but a phrase that Bubber Miley plays and repeats in “Blue Bubbles” (0:36–0:40) sure sounds like the germ of “Good Queen Bess”:

“Blue Bubbles” (Duke Ellington–Bubber Miley). Duke Ellington and His Orchestra: Louis Metcalf, Bubber Miley, trumpets; Joe “Tricky Sam” Nanton, trombone; Harry Carney, Otto Hardwicke, Rudy Jackson, reeds; Ellington, piano; Fred Guy, banjo; Wellman Braud, bass; Sonny Greer, drums. Recorded in New York City, December 19, 1927.

“Good Queen Bess” (Johnny Hodges). Johnny Hodges and His Orchestra: Hodges, alto sax; Harry Carney, baritone sax; Cootie Williams, trumpet; Lawrence Brown, trombone; Duke Ellington, piano; Jimmy Blanton, bass; Sonny Greer, drums. Recorded in Chicago, November 2, 1940.

Miley was still a member of the Ellington band when Hodges joined in 1928. Perhaps the band was still playing “Blue Bubbles” (hardly a crucial part of the Ellington repertoire). Or perhaps Hodges had the record. Or perhaps Miley played this little phrase in other contexts. I would like to imagine that for some reason it stayed with Hodges, to reappear years later.

Related reading
All OCA Ellington posts (Pinboard)

On Duke Ellington’s birthday

Duke Ellington was born on April 29, 1899. From “The Mirrored Self,” a question-and-answer interlude:

Q. Who are you?

A. I am a musician who is a member of the American Federation of Labor, and who hopes one day to amount to something artistically.

Q. Are you not being too modest?

A. Oh, no, you should see my dreams!

Music Is My Mistress (New York: Doubleday, 1973)

Related reading
All OCA Ellington posts (Pinboard)

From the Saturday Stumper

My favorite clues from today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper:

30-Across, six letters: “Travel channel.”

33-Across, thirteen letters: “Centers for drawing classes.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Today’s puzzle, by Matthew Sewell, is a difficult one. I think that the Saturday Stumper is getting stumpier.