Pocket notebook sighting

A pocket notebook is handy when it’s not safe to speak.


[“I have a message from Gabriel — Trust me.” Click any image for a larger view.]


[“Someone is listening — where can we talk.”]

This notebook plays a small, vital role in Eyes in the Night (dir. Fred Zinnemann, 1942). Duncan “Mac” Maclain (Edward Arnold), a detective, writes these messages while someone listens on the other side of the door. How does Mac know someone’s there? His faithful dog Friday has given him a telling nudge. Mac is blind. And yes, he does jigsaw puzzles.

A pocket notebook is also handy when writing a message for Friday to deliver. And gosh, does Friday deliver. He out-Lassies Lassie. Sorry, girl.


[“Help Urgent Lawry House.”]

Eyes in the Night is a thoroughly satisfying movie, available at the Internet Archive.

More notebook sightings
Angels with Dirty Faces : Ball of Fire : Cat People : City Girl : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Dragnet : Extras : Foreign Correspondent : Fury : Homicide : The Honeymooners : The House on 92nd Street : Journal d’un curé de campagne : The Last Laugh : Le Million : The Lodger : Ministry of Fear : Mr. Holmes : Murder at the Vanities : Murder by Contract : Murder, Inc. : The Mystery of the Wax Museum : Naked City : The Naked Edge : The Palm Beach Story : Perry Mason : Pickpocket : Pickup on South Street : Pushover : Quai des Orfèvres : Railroaded! : Red-Headed Woman : Rififi : Route 66 : The Sopranos : Spellbound : State Fair : A Stranger in Town : Time Table : T-Men : 20th Century Women : Union Station : Where the Sidewalk Ends : The Woman in the Window

MSNBC, sheesh

Concerning advice to Donald McGahn from his lawyers: “to tell everything that he knows fulsomely and honestly.”

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As Orwellian as it gets

Rudolph William Louis Giuliani talking to Meet the Press: “Truth isn’t truth.”

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Domestic comedy

“I have to re-remember where the notes are.”

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Recently updated

The Avital Ronell story Now with a lawsuit, a press release, more reportage, and a comment on the term educator.

From the Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, by Greg Johnson, is difficult. For me, forty-eight minutes of difficulty. Getting the answer, finally, to the ultra-vague 1-Down, “Development facilitator,” let everything else begin to fall into place.

Two clues that I especially liked: 49-Across, ten letters: “Flat-bottomed vessels.” And 58-Down, three letters: “The tennis US Open is played on it.” Talk about your misdirection! No spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

“What are they doing to us?”

“What is happening to us? What are they doing to us? We’re being kicked around by crazy people”: Martha Dobie (Miriam Hopkins) in These Three (dir. William Wyler, 1936).

[When I heard this line last night, I thought: current events.]

Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?

[Zippy, August 17, 2018.]

The conversation at the diner has turned to graphic novels. “You like graphic novels, Louise?” “I never read one, Mr. Nesbitt.” Above, Mr. Nesbitt’s reply.

Mr. Nesbitt needs to know that unlike the snows of yesteryear, Nancy and Sluggo will be with us always. On a daily basis, in original and more recent incarnations. And in great big books, though Nancy Loves Sluggo: Complete Dailies 1949-1951 appears to be out of stock at the publisher.

Venn reading
All OCA Nancy posts : Nancy and Zippy posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard)

Words from Nineteen Eighty-Four

This week at A.Word.A.Day, words from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four that have entered the English language. Today’s entry: oldspeak. (In the novel, it’s capitalized.)

I think I would have chosen memory hole. As the Oxford English Dictionary defines it: “a slot through which documents recording past events, etc., can be disposed of, as part of the manipulation of memories of the past; also fig.”

Previously: newspeak, doublethink, Big Brother, unperson.

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Aretha Franklin (1942–2018)

From the New York Times obituary:

In her indelible late-1960s hits, Ms. Franklin brought the righteous fervor of gospel music to secular songs that were about much more than romance. Hits like “Do Right Woman — Do Right Man,” “Think,” “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” and “Chain of Fools” defined a modern female archetype: sensual and strong, long-suffering but ultimately indomitable, loving but not to be taken for granted.

Did you see her Kennedy Center Honors performance?