ICYMI

The latest xkcd, “IMHO.” With the two-space, one-space debate.

“God Only Knows”

The BBC Radio 4 show Soul Music now has an episode devoted to Brian Wilson and Tony Asher’s “God Only Knows.” There will be tears.

What I miss though: some discussion of the song’s musical features. And lyricist Tony Asher should be mentioned by name.

The Jazz Ambassadors

On PBS tonight, a new documentary about a U.S. State Department experiment in Cold War cultural diplomacy: The Jazz Ambassadors.

Donald Trump is not a jazz musician

From an Axios item:

Sources close to Trump repeat the cliché that he wants to run the White House like the Trump Organization — an unstructured family business where he woke most days unsure of what lay ahead, and ran his business like a series of jazz improv sets.

Such comparisons are an insult to improvising musicians, who know what they’re doing. They may be working from a set list (of “tunes”). Or they may be engaged in collective free improvisation. Either way, they’re always working with a high degree of sympathetic understanding, attentive to and responsive to fellow players.

I’ll quote something I wrote last year:

There is a marked difference between a resourceful, quick-thinking, practiced improviser and a would-be tough guy who flies by the seat of his pants. We should be careful not to equate improvisation with our president’s reckless bluster.

And by the way, in jazz it’s improvisation, not improv. Jazz is not a comedy club.

Current TV

As Elaine observed at lunch, “This is the sixth season of The Wire.”

[Context: NBC reported that federal investigators had a wiretap on Michael Cohen. The story was corrected to say that investigators were monitoring Cohen’s phone calls.]

Handwriting on display

Coming in June to the Morgan Library and Museum, The Magic of Handwriting: The Pedro Corrêa do Lago Collection:

For nearly half a century, Brazilian author and publisher Pedro Corrêa do Lago has been assembling one of the most comprehensive autograph collections of our age. . . . This exhibition — the first to be drawn from his extraordinary collection — features some 140 items, including letters by Lucrezia Borgia, Vincent Van Gogh, and Emily Dickinson, annotated sketches by Michelangelo, Jean Cocteau, and Charlie Chaplin, and manuscripts by Giacomo Puccini, Jorge Luis Borges, and Marcel Proust.

Related reading
All OCA handwriting posts (Pinboard)

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.