We were trying to find canning supplies at our friendly neighborhood multinational retailer. I said to Elaine, “Someday we’re going to ask a younger person where the canning supplies are and they’ll have no idea what we’re talking about.”
We gave up looking and asked a store clerk. He gave us a blank look. “You know,” I said, “for fruits and vegetables.”
A pause. “Groceries,” he said, and walked off. He must have thought we were asking where to find canned food. He must have thought we were idiots.
An older store clerk saw us looking puzzled and asked if he could help us. He directed us to the canning section, a couple of aisles away. I told him what I had told Elaine. “I grew up on a farm,” he explained. I told him that we were putting up peaches and pickles. “There’s nothing better,” I said. He agreed.
But there are no farms in our past. We have come to canning on our own. Or on Elaine’s own. I’m a designated helper.
A related post
A mystery of the deep
Monday, August 13, 2018
Who cans?
From the BBC: Word of Mouth
An excellent podcast: Word of Mouth (BBC Radio 4). It’s the best podcast on language I’ve heard — smart, witty, respectful of its listener’s intelligence and time. A new series starts in September.
[Has the BBC ever made a bad podcast? I’m also a fan of Soul Music.]
Saturday, August 11, 2018
From the Saturday Stumper
Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Frank Longo, is difficult. A solver who knows something about earthworms, Kentucky history, and defunct television networks may have an advantage, though crosses can make up for the missing knowledge.
A clue I especially liked, in the most difficult (for me) section of the puzzle : 17-Across, five letters: “Big name in little cubes.” RUBIK? No. But so simple once you see it. No spoilers: the answer is in the comments.
Friday, August 10, 2018
Speaking for yourself
“While identity affects your experiences, there’s no guarantee that what you’ve learned from them is going to be the same as what other people of the same identity have learned.” As a person wary of reducing individual identities to group labels, I think that Kwame Anthony Appiah’s essay “Go Ahead, Speak for Yourself” is worth your time.
MSNBC, sheesh
“Stone is of tantamount interest to Mueller.”
Not tantamount : paramount.
Related reading
All OCA sheesh posts (Pinboard)
“This hectic modern life”
From Abel Gance’s 1923 film La roue (The Wheel ). Elie (Gabriel de Gravone) speaks, or rather, an intertitle card speaks for him:
“Rails, wheels, smoke — how gloomy it all is! This hectic modern life is so exasperating!”The Wheel is about four and a half hours long. We have about two hours to go. It’s an amazing film. Neither Filmstruck nor Netflix can help, but a library might have it.
*
August 11: Elaine found the film on YouTube, truly silent, without a musical score: part 1, part 2.
Norsk Hermetikkmuseum
“The exhibitions focus on the production of Norwegian sardines from their first appearance in 1879 until the mid-1950s.” Say hello, or hallo, to the Norsk Hermetikkmuseum, the Norwegian Canning Museum. With a café, a gift shop, a recreated cannery, and 40,000 sardine labels.
Related reading
All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard)
Thursday, August 9, 2018
John Ashbery’s last poem
“John Ashbery’s last poem, handwritten at his home in Hudson, New York, on August 25, 2017. Ashbery died on September 3”: “Climate Correction” (Harper’s).
Related reading
All OCA Ashbery posts (Pinboard)
“What time was all that?”
From a memoir by Luisa Ferber (née Lanzberg), written between 1939 and 1941, as it became clear that obtaining a visa to leave Germany was impossible. Before being “deported” with her husband Fritz in November 1941, Luisa Ferber sent the memoir to her son Max in England:
W.G. Sebald, The Emigrants, trans. Michael Hulse (New York: New Directions, 1996).
Related reading
All OCA Sebald posts (Pinboard)
[The line between fiction and historical reality is blurry here. Max Ferber is modeled on the painter Frank Auerbach. Sebald said in an interview that he used a manuscript by Auerbach’s aunt as the basis for Luisa Ferber’s memoir.]
