“Unraveling”

Bandy Lee, the psychiatrist who edited The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President, has revealed that White House officials have been in touch with her about Donald Trump’s mental health:

“Two White House officials actually contacted me in late October, stating that Trump was ‘scaring’ them, that he was ‘unraveling.’ Not wishing to confuse the role I chose, as an educator of the public, and a potential treatment role, I referred them to the local emergency room without inquiring much further.”

Pocket notebook sighting

[Kid Glove Killer (dir. Fred Zinnemann, 1942). Click for a larger view.]

Forensic investigator Gordon McKay (Van Heflin) explains: “It’s my gunpowder bible — it’s got everything from firecrackers to 2,000-pound aerial bombs for the B-17s and who makes them.” The six rings are a mark of true dowdiness.

More notebook sightings
Angels with Dirty Faces : Ball of Fire : Cat People : City Girl : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Dragnet : Extras : Eyes in the Night : 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 : La roue : 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

A timely notepad

[Kid Glove Killer (dir. Fred Zinnemann, 1942). Click either image for a larger view.]

That’s Samuel S. Hinds as Mayor Daniels, using his notepad. A police forensics investigator later applies iodine spray to reveal a crucial to-do: “Investigate source of Jerry’s income. Illegal?”

I’ve never seen a notepad of this sort in real life. But there’s one just like it at Etsy. It’s called a Time Secretary, with pages divided into the hours of the day.

[If you’re wondering, as I was, why Samuel S. Hinds looks familiar: he played Peter Bailey, Pa Bailey, in It’s a Wonderful Life.]

Timely lines from a Lowell

[Kid Glove Killer (dir. Fred Zinnemann, 1942).]

Lines from James Russell Lowell’s “The Present Crisis”: “Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, / In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side.” Or as Florence Reece asked, “Which side are you on?”

The writer of the anonymous op-ed in The New York Times needs to choose. To stay is not to “resist” but to enable.

Ego sum, ergo sunt

Our president, speaking a few minutes ago in response to an anonymous New York Times opinion piece by a senior official in his administration. My transcription:

“If I weren’t here, I believe The New York Times probably wouldn’t even exist. And someday, and someday, when I’m not president, which hopefully will be in about six-and-a-half years from now, The New York Times and CNN and all of these phony media outlets will be out of business, folks, they’ll be out of business, because there’ll be nothing to write and there’ll be nothing of interest.”

There’ll be nothing of interest, except: what happened to the missing strawberries?

Donald Trump is not a well man. In late July I thought that we were seeing the beginning of the beginning of the beginning of the end. I think we’re now seeing the beginning of the beginning of the end.

[“I am; therefore, they are.” I hope the Latin’s fine.]

Killing craft

Brett Kavanaugh said this morning that he was not involved in “crafting” a program of enhanced interrogation techniques or its legal justifications. “Crafting” a program of torture: how polished, how urbane. If Kavanaugh’s use of craft doesn’t make someone, somewhere, reconsider using this vogue verb, I don’t know what will.

Related posts
Craft vogue : Words I can live without

[Maybe this post will.]

Antecedent trouble

[The Washington Post, September 5, 2018.]

Arial? Or Helvetica?

A quiz: So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica? (via Michael Tsai).

[I scored 17 of 20. When I had to guess (all caps), I chose what looked better to my eye. And that turned out to be Helvetica.]

Separated at birth

 
[Charles Grassley and Abraham Jebediah Simpson II, aka Grampa Simpson.]

After watching the Brett Kavanaugh hearing for an hour or so today, I began to see a resemblance. Neither of these images is from today’s hearing.

Also separated at birth
Nicholson Baker and Lawrence Ferlinghetti : Bérénice Bejo and Paula Beer : Ted Berrigan and C. Everett Koop : David Bowie and Karl Held : Victor Buono and Dan Seymour : Ernie Bushmiller and Red Rodney : John Davis Chandler and Steve Buscemi : Ray Collins and Mississippi John Hurt : Broderick Crawford and Vladimir Nabokov : Ted Cruz and Joe McCarthy : Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Gough : Henry Daniell and Anthony Wiener : Jacques Derrida, Peter Falk, and William Hopper : Elaine Hansen (of Davey and Goliath) and Blanche Lincoln : Barbara Hale and Vivien Leigh : Harriet Sansom Harris and Phoebe Nicholls : Steven Isserlis and Pat Metheny : Colonel Wilhelm Klink and Rudy Giuliani : Ton Koopman and Oliver Sacks : Steve Lacy and Myron McCormick : Don Lake and Andrew Tombes : William H. Macy and Michael A. Monahan : Fredric March and Tobey Maguire : Jean Renoir and Steve Wozniak : Molly Ringwald and Victoria Zinny

[Grassley is older.]

Facebook fakes

An instructive New York Times feature: “Can You Spot the Deceptive Facebook Post?”

I went four for four. Gee, maybe I should sign up for Facebook!